I come to terms with the fact that I can no longer walk around in my baggy Paddington Bear T-shirts with my shoulders hunched to hide my blossoming bosom. (Fun fact: between the ages 9 and 13, those shirts were like my second skin. I had them in red, blue and yellow, although in the later years the yellow met with an unfortunate laundry incident and turned an awful mustard yellow/dirty green. But that didn’t stop me from wearing it to the playground or to tuition class, or from considering it my ‘Second Outfit Change’ for my sister’s wedding. “What if I wore this to the tea ceremony, Mommy?”) I reluctantly put on my first training bra. Are you serious right now, chest? You’re going to start growing these bumps right now? SERIOUSLY? LIKE, RIGHT NOW? Can’t we just wait two or three more years? Can’t I be a tomboy for just a little longer? I mean, what the hell are boobs for, anyway?
In school (Catholic, all-girls), we’re forced to join a co-curricular activity (CCA). I’m introduced to a plethora of activities I didn’t even know existed at the CCA fair. Choir – I’m tone deaf. Debate team – apparently, you need like, a ton of brains for this. Netball club – Yeah, if you wanna be a lesbian. (Just kidding, Tat! But weren’t you and that girl with the dyke hair kinda-) Track & field team – the coach wanted me to run long distance so I went for a couple of trainings. Then I realized that running made me feel dizzy and that I was allergic to my own perspiration, so I quit. I have the physique of an athlete (the not toned/non-performing kind) but the soul of a couch potato. Does that make sense? Art club – I was super keen on joining them because it was my understanding that they met once a week, sat in an air-conditioned room, and drew stuff. It was my Plan B. Dance ensemble – I was completely terrified of dancing in front of the intimidating (read: bitchy) seniors, but by way of Terpsichore (the Greek Goddess of Dance), I signed up with my friends and we (all my awkward limbs included!) made it through the auditions. We were dancers, y’all!
After mastering the Pussycat Dolls dance routine (we practiced at least twice weekly after official class hours), classical ballet seemed super lame in comparison. I write an angsty letter to my mom informing her that I quit ballet after seven years and there was nothing she could do about it. I don’t know why I chose to end my ballerina life on such a dramatic note (pun intended) because it wasn’t as though she’d put a gun to my head as she fetched and ferried me between school and the ballet studio. (Confession: Despite seven years of practice and the belief that young people are super flexible, I was never able to do a full split. And pointe shoes scare me. These confessions have absolutely nothing to do with rocking my confidence as a ballerina or why I quit.)
I also quit piano. I mean, let’s get real. My parents just bought me a new radio to put on my bedside table, right? And I’d listen to the Top 40s – pop music is just the best! Britney, Atomic Kittens, S Club 7, Westlife, ‘N sync <3 Just like that, I lost interest in practicing my scales on the piano. It is sort of strange how I ‘quit’ piano, but basically what happened was I stopped practicing and my teacher (one of my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s sister) took this as her cue to stop coming over on Saturday afternoons. When she didn’t show up for the third consecutive week, I knew it was over between us. At least two months past before my mother began questioning me about it. I just smile and shrug my shoulders.
I develop my first real crush. His mom sells noodles (she’s known for her Bak Chor Mee) in our school canteen, and he has a sister enrolled in the year above mine, so he’s in our canteen on most afternoons after his classes are over. He is undeniably cute – all my friends will deny this, though. Just ignore them; their taste in boys – and girls, for some – is questionable. As I was saying, he is super O-M-G C-U-T-E, so everyone else also has a crush on him – if not on him, then on his older brother. Among my friends and I, he became affectionately known as ‘Bak Chor Mee Boy’ (BCMB). I don’t eat noodles very often (avoid wheat if you have blood type O), so I had no reason to talk to him. The last period in class always went something like “Do you think BCMB will be in the canteen today?” “It’s Wednesday today, and last two Wednesdays he was. So… Maybe?” “Ohmigosh, I’m gonna say I’m going to the toilet but go to the canteen to check.” Having a cute boy to admire from afar during my lunch hour after classes and before dance practice was super important to me. Evidently much more important than listening to my Math teacher go on about finding the highest common factor (HCF) and lowest common multiple (LCM). Uhhhh… What the hell (WTH) and this is boring (TIB) and barbecue (BBQ).
Even though my main objective of lunch was to devour him with my eyes, my friends and I would always sit at this far away corner in our huge canteen, near the dirty dish bins, away from the food stalls, away from BCMB (why???!?!) (oh, right. So we would have less distance to walk when returning our dirty dishes. Oh right!!!! So we could just stand up and throw our oily plates like Frisbees into those bins without walking any distance at all.) (We’re just super logical, practical, and efficient, ok?)
I make peace with the situation. I am a nobody in this vast sea of blue pinafores. He will never notice me. I am hardly the kind of girl who walks into a room (or a canteen) and is able to command the attention of everyone (or anyone, really). Unless I trip myself. (Which I do. Often. Unintentionally.)
My friends and I, we had an obsession with cake. Birthday cake in particular. Other people’s birthday cake, if you want specific details. Whenever we heard the first two notes of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song, our heads immediately cocked up. We’d scan the entire canteen, lock our eyes on the target, exchange knowing looks as we nodded our heads, and with our forks in hand, skip and dance our way across the canteen to where the cake was. Then we’d screech along to the birthday song now almost over, wish a happy birthday to whoever it was, and without even a flicker of shame or self-control stick our forks into their cake. I can’t figure out how we never got punched by anyone. (But we were probably hated, right?) I mean, we’ve eaten the cake of third-degree friends (girls we don’t even acknowledge in the hallways), and even the cake of girls we like to make fun of behind their backs (“isn’t she anorexic? I think we’re doing her a favor by eating half of her cake.”) The only cake we ever stayed away from was a coffee flavored cake. (Isn’t it only old people who get coffee flavored cake, anyway?)
At some point in that year, I learn that a friend of a friend (a schoolmate) is dating BCMB. Even though she’s just a friend of a friend (AKA someone I’m not close to), I have zero hesitation asking her to dump BCMB so that I can date him. I say it like a joke, but I’m dead serious.
We eat quite healthily at home, especially since my mother started us on the Blood Type Diet. We don’t use the microwave. We hardly eat anything that comes out of a box or can. We only eat at McDonald’s on the first day of Chinese New Year. Vegetables and I do not see eye to eye yet, though. One night, I throw my broiled carrots and broccoli into the trash behind my mother’s back. She’s suspicious that I’ve finished all my vegetables in such a short amount of time. I’m forced to pick them out of the bin, wash them, and then eat them. I drench them in ketchup and tears to mask the taste of trash. It’s a party in my mouth, indeed.
