Pink Tuesdays

I just heard this on the radio; never been a Robbie Williams fan. But… this song… suites my thoughts a whole great deal.

Send someone to love me
I need to rest in arms
Keep me safe from harm
In pouring rain

Give me endless summer
Lord I fear the cold
Feel I’m getting old
Before my time

As my soul heals the shame
I will grow through this pain
Lord I’m doing all I can
To be a better man

Go easy on my conscience
‘Cause it’s not my fault
I know I’ve been taught
To take the blame

Rest assured my angels
Will catch my tears
Walk me out of here
I’m in pain

As my soul heals the shame
I will grow through this pain
Lord I’m doing all I can
To be a better man

There was this conversation after I overheard the ending of a conversation my mom had with a couple of friends (not on purpose, I was more hovering around so I can grab a slice of lotus paste single egg-yoke mooncake). To summarize:

I: So who’s the one who’s going to be separated?
Mom: I can’t tell you that. Yadda yadda yadda. Besides, I doubt you would be able to bear the burden of this secret.
I: I can’t?
Mom: Well, I’m afraid you would blab it out…
I: I keep secrets good, and I have beared much bigger burdens than this…
Mom: Like?
I: I’M GAY, TRY THAT ON FOR SIZE!

So the last line was never said. I just really wanted to know because I’m always the last to know. “So Phil, I heard you changed course” “Yeah, 3 months ago…”. And then today, I had a fight with my mother. I was still asleep an hour before a class, she was calling me to walk to class because my incredibly lazy older brother decided busses are not for him, but for him. And it was about to rain. So I answered coarsely that I’m not going now. I’m not going to wait for an hour at A&W. Its not like my parents gives me so much allowances to that extent.

So when I came down

Mom: Why did you answer me like that? You know answering in a very rough manner hurts?
Rex: …
Mom: You must respect your parents, we’re good parents…
Rex: I’M GAY FOR A REASON, GOOD-PARENTS NOW EHH?

One day I’m gonna crack and actually say all those…

Update: My mom just ground me. “Rex, you know [insert cousin name] when she was doing her [insert course here]. She locked herself in her room and studied! I don’t think you should go out”

I couldn’t even go out for a friend’s birthday. I’m grounded.

I just saw my aunt and my cousin from Australia (my family’s far and wide… but I’ve never been out of this dreaded cesspool - part and parcel of being an refugee race). The cousin is hot. Goodness. I can’t help myself.

But over tea with some pisang goreng and keropok, my aunt had to go into the usual routine on asking about my life. And why I don’t want to go to a public, government university. And then suggesting getting a scholarship. Then getting repelled when I tell her my forecast grades. And then chastise me for being lazy. And then did something unique normally only parents worldwide have a perogative in - compare me with her daughter.

You know, the usual: judging me, questioning me, looking down on me.

The thing is what I’m doing now is because my parents placed greater value in renovating the house than in my education. Okay, fair enough. But now, all I want is for them to spend at least a tenth they had put in with my older brother’s education in my education. And that’s not counting what they need to pay once I get a job. At this point, I think I’ll be doing my degree part time. If my parents won’t pay for it, I would. I won’t go to university for the sake of going to university where I have to spend a year and a half more than UK twinning courses and then coming out to join the local unemployed scene.

From the second episode of Desperate Housewives:

In the hospital, Rex is in a hospital bed with Bree sitting by his bedside.

“Bree sobbed quietly in the restroom for five minutes. But her husband never knew. Because when Bree finally emerged, she was perfect.”

Of all the characters in Desperate Housewives (its a different addiction I’ll deal with later…), I connect most with Bree. I may not be obsessive compulsive, but I put out a facade, some sort of mask so that people think I’m perfect even though my life may be crumbling. I remember once I was passed over for a ministry in church because of my brother (long story), I walked to the bathroom. I sobbed the entire sermon. But when I finally emerged, I was perfect.

Anyway, yesterday on the bus, I met a old friend ex-classmate. My goodness, I never realize how brain-numbingly annoying he is - not kidding on the brain numbing, if I wasn’t late for class I would have detoured to a 7-11 and both some asprin. He’s the kind that is extremely enfeminate (take the most feminine girl you know, put her next to him, she’ll look butch) but takes any suggestion that he’s *gasp* gay extremely hostile. Yeah, I can relate with that, but goodness, he’s so annoying I don’t actually care.

At one point of the “conversation” (pretty much he talks loudly, me can’t wait for him to leave), he said, “No wonder you’re enemies with a lot of people.” I went “Huh?” “Most of the class hates you. Especially FH.” FH is one of my good friends, though he’s in Canberra now I communicate with him quite often. Heck, I even risked jail time for him (calling, and taking a Muslim to church around here… slightly more than frown upon). The other people he named, Oz, Jackson, Visa, Robert, etc. - are all good, close friends. To this day. Either that or they’re conniving two-face bastards. But I would go for the prior (BTW, all names have been falsified to protect my identity).

Well, it is true, I don’t actually have the whole “good friend” deal with anyone. But that’s because people who befriend me is befriending the Perfect Rex, while exactly four people know who I really am. Friends come to me with their problems. But it doesn’t work the other way. Goodness, no, it doesn’t. To friends, I’m one who’s relatively problem-free. A few minor quirks. That’s about it. And they say, birds of a feather flock together. And when you are unique in your feathers, you tend to hang out with loneliness.

So enemies? No. Good friends? Nah.

This is my life, if you know me in real life. I study on occasion. My family is a tight, loving unit. I love teaching Sunday School. I enjoy my church’s Youth Church (well, its down to the size to call it Youth Gang or Youth Mini-Gathering or some sort). I have this long-running crush on a classmate that incidently have a long-running and subsisting boyfriendhood.

I read the Bible, I pray everyday. I’m walk with God on a daily basis, and when I comfort people by promising “I’ll pray for you”. I have an abstinence pledge in my wallet. I could go on, and on, but you could probably guess that all those aren’t true. I can’t remember the last time I truly studied. My family is a tearing apart as we type. I hate Sunday School. I go to Youth Church only because I’m an elder’s son and I can’t go to church on Sundays.

I never had a crush on any girl, I’ve never been consistent with reading the Bible - in fact, until recently, never been reading at all. I feel stupid praying and my record time so far is 30 seconds. But well, I have never f***ed a women before, but you could probably guessed what gender I did it with. My entire life is a charade, a facade.

A bloody lie. Why must I live like this? More than exhausting, it is, slowly by slowly, what’s left of the good in me.

I may not hate myself but I hate my life. I wish I could return it or at least trade it in for a new one.

And I feel trapped. I want to run away. But I can’t.

… Another day… oh well. Just three more days of exams and I would be through for just one month. They say lack of sleep exagerates depression. That explains it.

Ever since my father became the elder in the church, a quintessential AoG church, I have gotten a rare insight on how the church works. Or rather, doesn’t. You see, the Church Board, filled with prominent members of the church, makes stupid suggestions, the pastor filters as much of it as possible and the occasional stupid suggestion passes through and it would serve years to annoy a whole lot of people.

Like the most recent - a board meeting my father didn’t attend, the Church board decided to create and rearrange the ministries. So they decided 5-6 ministries isn’t enough, they suggest making it 40 ministries. An average of 7 registered church members per ministry. Brilliant! Of course, that wasn’t the funny part. It would seem like they picked out 40 names and decided to make it into a lottery session. I can almost imagine it..

“Okay, John, draw from the bowl, see who’s in charge of Tamborines, Flag and Dance Ministry”
“Oh, look, its Ramasamy Ragnathan a/l Inderasukumariam!”
“Well, he could loose the weight…”

Some of those brilliant ministry suggestions don’t make sense. Why is there, for example, a Audio Visual Ministry and a Sound Room Ministry? The latter is to keep the sound room clean? Or one for “Youth” and the other for “Students”. And the Board suggested that church members should only be involved in no more than three ministries. So what happen if you want to play the guitar (under “Music”), teach guitar (”Education Ministry”), manage the sound system when you are free (”Audio Visual” and “Sound room”)? Give up one!

And I thought I was involved too little in church, under the new system, I would be involved in no less than five ministries. Wow. Granted, the pastor rejected the proposal says he would only consider it next year.

Yesterday, walking in KL’s Chinatown district, just a road away from Petaling Street, saw this white tourist couple having just finish some mamak food, relaxing and talking in some language I don’t really recognize. The guy, facing the sidewalk, had his legs spread out. And from what I could tell, he isn’t Jewish. And from the giggling from student girls up ahead after passing him, I was not alone in noticing. There are times when you don’t appreciate free balling. Getting rid of same-sex attractions is one of them.

Then after class, walking down Petaling Street, relishing that class ended half an hour early, saw this three gweilo guys. Shirtless. Ironically (or perhaps, obviously?) buying fake perfume. What do these oh so hunky trio think they are? Venice Beach?

Well, I’m blogging cause I’m still horny. Dammit.

BTW, remember that meme that if you’re horny, take a cold shower? Doesn’t exactly work, does it?

My trials for, apparently, one of the hardest exams in the world starts tomorrow. And the next two months are 6-day weeks (we have a smart Ministry of Education, thank them) with no public holidays. And then a short Deepavali and Eid ul-Fitr holiday just before the inevitable happens - that hard, hard exam begins. Meanwhile, everything else in my life is going to pieces. My parents would be deciding in the next two weeks whether to live as expatriates in some God-forsaken country for two years, for example.

And somehow, I’ve created a very false aura that I’m intelligent to my friends, something that is cracking slowly but surely. Tomorrow’s exam, the one I’m absolutely certain I’m going to fail, needs to be passed so I could go to university for early placement. And they [my teachers, parents, and every bloody person that been through it] say that if you fail the trials, failure for the real thing is almost certain. For the past few weeks, I’ve been constantly under stress, and that’s unlikely to erode over the next three months. All shaping up to be the perfect storm. Oh, yes, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But not sure whether I can reach it.

I think I’ll put off the AIDS test to December. So many have cracked in this season in the past, after all.

Exams are of Satan, BTW.

I wished I had this “spirit of exellence” last year. Would have been so much more useful.

..so I could kill them in their sleep.