Some good news, bad news, and an epiphany at work

Today was my final work appraisal before confirmation. At first I was going to drag that out a bit, build some suspense, but I figured to best write it the way it happened.

“Clarissa, do you have 30 minutes?” Ian asked.

I was emailing Jane from Le Cordon Bleu some of our Food Fight photos. “Uh…hang on.”

“Okay. I was thinking we could get your last work appraisal done by today.” That was how he announced it. How he did most things, really. Level three. Now.

Then Ian left to book a meeting room while I finished up.

The first thing he said once I got there and which kind of set the tone of the appraisal was this:

“So this is how I’m going to grade you,” he said. In his hand was the appraisal form with a line chart at the bottom that followed my progression from the two previous appraisals. The line rose steadily but not steepy from 27 to 28. “I’m going to mark you 29, which is saying a lot because it’s the highest I’ve ever given anyone. So,” he paused,” your work from now should reflect that.”

It was kind of like that moment you read about or see in films when the gruff and aloof father puts his hand on his son’s shoulder and says ‘Good job son’. Even though Ian is neither gruff nor aloof, I keep getting this feeling like I’m letting him down, or like I’m not doing enough. So I told him as much.

“That’s good,” he said. “But you handled the Food Fight project quite well, considering you’re still so new.”

Oh.

“But that just means it’s so speculative.”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “That just means the high scores are, like, just based on my inexperience and not actual merit. ‘Considering you’re so young’, ‘considering you’re so new’, you know?”

What I did not say was, what if I didn’t live up to the hype? What if those numbers and his impression born from my “potential” never materialized?

I was happy, sure, but it felt a lot like celebrating on the edge of a cliff/ You didn’t want to get too excited.

Ian said something about how in reality, you had to take these things into consideration, and, and something else. I wasn’t listening. Like I said, I was happy.

Then came the patty of my compliment – constructive criticism – compliment burger. He went over the breakdown of my marks, writing down the justification for why he gave the marks as high, or low, as he did, in the remarks section.

“The one thing you’re struggling with right now is your writing skill,” he said.

Did I see this coming? I saw this coming. Of course I did. Most of what I’ve been churning out for Food Fight was complacent, lazy copy. Still, it stung to hear him say it, of course it did.

He went on, “You’ve gotten a lot wore than when you were writing as an intern. Back then, the one thing I could be sure of was your writing. The other stuff…” he paused, “you were kind of flighty.”

He continued with how he knew it was probably because all my recent articles were about Food Fight. How he knew it wasn’t easy, that I was lacking in context and though.

It was all true. Every painful word of it. They say you don’t remember everything a person has done for you but you will always remember how they made you feel. I knew right then that I had made him feel disappointed, even if he didn’t remember what exactly it was I had written to make him feel that way.

I tried. I really did. I wrote down almost all of the comments he gave so I could improve my prose. I made it a point not to repeat any of the mistakes he mentioned – there were so many. It got to the point where I was just writing for the sake of submitting my text.

The goo moments – those times when I’d pen down a line and go “Hey, that sounds pretty good” and have no idea where it came from – got less and less. They would feel like a puzzle piece clicking into place.  They weren’t there anymore. I knew what Ian meant, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

I realize that his thing – the fishing in your word well until you come up with an amazing spot of clarity – that’s something you can’t learn.

Jerrie once told me that as a photographer, he has to take a hundred “meh” photos to get a perfect one. But his taking 90% unusable pictures doesn’t mean that he’s bad. It just means he put in as much effort as his talent deserved.

So if you’re still reading, take this away with you, if nothing else: Write down a thousand words, then remove 800 of them. The remaining 200 should be your final copy. If you submit all of what you wrote in your first draft, it just means you could have done better but you didn’t. I didn’t.

That was my problem. I could have done better. Don’t be like me.

Food Fight is R.AGE's search for the next Malaysian food celebrity.
You can check it out here: rage.com.my/foodfight

Continue Reading...

Back to R.AGE rant

I am frustrated with myself. I know this fact before I've even consciously acknowledged it, because my face is covered in angry red welts – a sign of the compulsive picking that takes over whenever I get stressed.

You know that feeling when you know you can do more, but end up not. Not doing better, not living up to expectations, not performing, just not.

The worst thing is when I see it in Ian’s face, or hear it in Ian’s tone, and I know he doesn’t mean to make me feel like the biggest failure ever whenever I forget to email the contestants about something important, or when I end up drafting some really bad copy, but he does. And I do. Feel like the world’s biggest failure.

 It was my second month at The Star when he passed me my first project: R.AGE Food Fight – the search for Malaysia’s next food celebrity. I don’t know why he passed the project to me – whether it was because I was new and had less on my plate than anyone else, or if it was because he honestly thought that I’d be up for the task – and maybe I’ll never know. But I know that I’m not.

I am, at best, a decent secretary, who occasionally forgets to do things like update our social media accounts, or keep everyone in the loop about a new update. So okay, I’m a shit secretary.

I am, I thought, an okay writer. All along I’d been hard pressed to live up to Ian’s standards, and all along I thought that I’d been doing okay. He tells me when I write up to par, and even when I impress him. Ever since I rejoined R.AGE, I haven’t heard a peep.

I feel like a girl who’s been told all her life that she’s pretty, so much that it becomes an addiction. My writing is my only source of validation; my only indicator of value. And just typing this down makes me feel sick. I always told myself that I’d never become that girl. But here we are: different shades, same color.

 The project is drawing to a close, and to that I feel equal parts relieved and mortified. I tell myself that everything that’s been done has been done, and that all I can do is do my best not to make the same mistakes again.

Will I get the project next year when we go to ASEAN? Probably not. And it’s probably for the best.  But for now I’m using this disappointment in myself as fuel for whatever I’m working on now. It’ll burn dirty, sure, but it’ll burn.

I’m not consciously trying to end this on a happy note here. It just happens to be one of those days where I’ve somehow found it in me to not collapse under the angst. I tell myself “I can do this” again and again, until I’ve done everything. And even then, everything’s not enough.

I’ve written down a list of the things that I should or shouldn’t do:

1. Don’t be complacent, Clarissa. That’s what got you to this slump remember? Complacency. Think you wrote a good story? Double check it. Get your friends to proofread it. I mean come on, it could be so much better, why are you getting lazy?

 2. CC everyone. You learned this the hard way. I can’t believe no one taught you how to do that in high school.

 3. Don’t blindly follow Ian’s suggestions just because you’ve put him on a pedestal and can’t get him down. That’s your problem. Always ask yourself if you can do better – do more. I mean seriously, do you want to end up rotting away your brain at 21?

 4. Make your work your life. I know you thought you could excel without doing it, but some people can and some people can’t. You can’t. And anyway, is it really that torturous to write, come up with ideas, and interview people for a living? It isn’t. Stop playing video games all the time.

 5. More like 4.1 but anyway, write even when it’s not for work. I shouldn’t have to tell you this. You’re better than that.

Continue Reading...

Is staring considered harassment (and where does the line lie?)

I like motorbikes.

I like the way I feel like I’m freefalling whenever I make a steep turn.

I like the brisk, chilly way the air feels at night after rain.

I like the soft, ticklish way sunlight feels on my skin, especially when it’s been filtered through trees.

I like riding past cars during rush hour, and flipping off the asshole drivers that try to cut lanes just before the turn in.

Know what I don’t like?

I don’t like how some men think that if you’re a female and on a bike, it means you’re open game.

But I digress.

I started riding since I was 11 – on a crusty, second-hand Honda Cup that my father had bought off a friend. He’d take my little brother and me on joy rides throughout the countryside. This was back in Sungai Petani, where little Malay boys would start riding around at the tender age of 10, causing havoc up and down kampung backstreets and generally having an amazing childhood.

Not to be outdone, I asked my father to teach me as soon as my feet could reach the ground from the bike’s leather seat. We practiced switching gears and making sharp turns in the park in front of my house. I fell once – I received a scrape deep enough to rip through my jeans – and never looked back.

Now I ride a cute, little SYM Mio 100. It’s been approved by my parents – too slow for racing but light enough not to crush my legs should I fall – and has a decent pick up speed. The only issue I’m having now is when I’m riding to work in my office wear (or shorts because let’s face it, Malaysia is a fucking hot and humid country and there is no way I’m going to sweat in my jeans all day if I can help it) and some guy thinks it’s perfectly fine to shout out from his motorbike – or lorry – at me.

What's it like to be harassed on the road?

To put street harassment into context for my male readers, I don’t think I’m going to do the old sex switcheroo and ask you to imagine a woman leering at you (because that is just not a realistic or effective example). 

Oh no. I want you to imagine sitting on a bus when you catch this dirty, fat man staring at your crotch. Or imagine walking the short distance from your house to 7-eleven when a man catches up and starts walking alongside you, asking personal questions (Where are you going? Who are you with? What’s your name? How old are you?).  

It’s uncomfortable (you’ll be hearing that word quite a bit), it’s unnerving, but unlike men, for most women it’s also dead terrifying. Because I’m a 5 foot Chinese girl at 53 kg, I don’t have that many defence options other than running, or pissing my pants (or both).

I’ve been groped at and shouted at in the past. I’ve had people try to strike up conversations at traffic lights more times than I can count, and have had way too many middle-aged men stare at me way longer than is necessary.

But is staring or striking up conversation even considered harassment?

“Why get so upset?” My ex had asked this one time, after two men on bikes called out to at me (Nak pergi mana, amoi? You comel lah!) as I was leaving my apartment “Maybe they were just complimenting you.” He said.

(You see why he’s an ex now.)

Maybe they were, but that is exactly what makes this example and situation in general so troubling. Because that. Is. Not. How. You. Hand. Out. Compliments.

I can’t believe that in this day and age, I still have to spell it out for some people (But not you, dear reader. Clearly, the mere fact that you are reading this is evidence enough how much more highly evolved you are than the common man) but:

1. A compliment is by definition designed to make the receiver feel good about themselves.
2. It is done in a safe setting where both parties feel secure.
3. It is made with genuine and/or earnest intent.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Really. It’s really that simple.

So last week when a stranger pulled up beside me and started asking probing questions (Where I lived, what I did for a living, where I was headed), that was neither a compliment, nor a welcomed advancement. Then when he followed me down two turn-ins, rode up beside me and asked me to pull up ahead for some coffee, that was also neither a compliment nor a welcomed advancement.

Frankly, I was shit scared.

“But Clarissa!” You might cry out “Well then how the frick frack do I talk to other women? Say I spot the girl of my dreams and she’s starting to leave and this might be my only chance and I just want to be friends after all and –”

Stop. Just stop right there.

I hear your cry, fictional but relevant reader.

In other words, how do you draw the line between friendliness and harassment?

I’ll share a little secret I’ve learnt. There is no line. Or rather, I don’t think that there are any set circumstances that can construed as either definitely friendly or harassing – a man’s stare could either be interpreted as a smouldering come-on, or a revolting gape. It all boils down to how comfortable the person on the receiving end is.

But it isn’t enough just not being an asshole. If you see someone else harassing a person, and making them visibly uncomfortable, then the best thing to do is step in. I don’t mean telling the person off – that usually brings more trouble than is warranted. But normally I get very relieved when someone else joins the conversation. The original asker usually butts off when they see that I’m not alone.

But what about staring?

First, staring isn’t illegal. Anyone can do it; I do it all the time, especially if it’s a very attractive person in question. But there are of course, boundaries. If the person looks clearly uncomfortable, stop. If you know the person can see you but is intentionally averting their gaze, stop. And if the person has to open their mouth to tell you to please, for the love of god, stop, then for the love of god, stop.

Secondly – and this is where it gets tricky – girls, If you are feeling uncomfortable, say so. I know we’re socially programmed to be polite (Or more accurately, not be bitchy), but when you stay silent, you’re letting people know that it’s okay to violate your personal boundaries.

What a person does in his own time, or thinks in his own mind is his business. But when their actions or words infringe upon you, they're making it your business too. So speak up.

It doesn’t have to be rude, or loud, but next time when someone is doing something that makes you uncomfortable, voice it out. Even if it’s a joke or a compliment, a simple “I don’t feel comfortable” or “please stop that.” lets everyone know where the line is.

A lot of people get away with being assholes by the “joke” excuse. Lately Sam Pepper is getting a lot of heat for posting a “prank” video where he groped visibly distressed women. Years ago, nobody would have cared (he has posted up another video in the past where he forcefully made out with strangers on camera), but now I’m pretty happy that the tide is turning. 

It is always a good thing when all parties are being held accountable for the shit they do.

This isn't a question of feminism, it's a question of not being an asshole.

Continue Reading...

My new job is depressing me (And I don't know what to do)

What do you do, when you can’t do what you love?

I’ll be honest. Not knowing what I wanted to do had never been a problem for me.

I was the asshole of a kid who sat at the back of the class in high school, reading Harry Potter and giving the teacher the my figurative bird whenever I passed a test.

Right, that was just me bragging.

But I was also the kid who scoffed at those who walked around our school’s annual education fair with a lost, glazed over look in their eyes. I smirked at – okay this is embarrassing – the kids who shrugged mirthlessly when asked what they were going to major in, or the kids who dropped out of A-levels because it “just wasn’t their thing”.

In my head, I was the one true straight arrow, headed exactly where I needed to be. In my last post I mentioned being a real little shit. See what I mean?

But now through the added lens of retrospect, I can see that all I was, was fucking lucky.

My parents brought me up reading Peter and Jane since I was 3. They sat me in front of a computer every night – my father an electrical engineer, and my mother a linguist – and made me write pages and pages of stuff (A story, a poem, a letter, 367 words of Hello Kitty, whatever).

Then there was the fact that it was writing I loved, and not anything else. Writing is an okay profession. It pays alright and no one will judge you because then they’d have to read your work first, and that takes more time than a lot of people are willing to give.  I know some children of doctors who would rather come out as gay or bisexual than as an aspiring artist or – EGAD – a musician. So yeah, that was another thing going for me.

A few months back, when I was still writing for The Star, I met up with a childhood friend of mine. He had a problem.

Said friend was studying accounting but his heart had left that field semesters ago. Now, he said, he felt like he was just passing time, trying not to kill himself fin the process, but that he couldn’t drop out because his parents were pinning too much on him becoming an accountant.

Already, that friend had ditched an exam and intentionally flunked another. My heart went out to him – hard not to, with 13 years of friendship under your belt – but there wasn’t much that I could do besides offering a hug (I’m a great hug giver. Sometimes, if I like you, I’ll even do it for free) and sending him off on his way by the end of the night.

Back then, I felt a cruel sense of relief. Thank god I wasn’t in that position. Except, fast forward 5 months give or take, and I am.

In a previous post I mentioned moving to real estate like it was no big deal. Only it wasn’t. Let’s be brutally honest: I’m in a field I previously had zero interest in, dealing with people who make money off the desperation and/or greed of others, earning money that I might – or might – not receive, with zero hands-on coaching and hardly anyone around my own age.

And here’s what I’ve learnt.

It’s taken a few bouts of chronic depression and a dash of suicidal tendencies, but I can say this at least:

If you’re not happy doing it, you’re probably not doing it well enough; and if you’re not doing it well enough, you’re probably not doing it often enough.  Life doesn’t care why you’re not getting any better, like that bitch of a boss you had, life just relies on results when doling out privilege or punishment.

People talk about “doing what you love”, like it’s some fucking easy thing to do – that’s what I thought, at least. But hardly anyone ever mentions loving what you do. So my first piece of advice is this: If there’s nothing you can do about it – and absolutely nothing – then just do it. Suck it up, strap it on (you’re not a whiny 14 year old anymore) and get the job done. In fact, get the job done so many times that you actually get good at it. In fact, be the best at whatever job you’re doing. Take pride at what you do. After all, you’re probably doing said thing more often than the average Joe. Average Joe knows nothing. Average Joe will flail and die without your advertise. Average Joe needs you.

My second bit of advice is this: If you already know what you’re good at, or if you find something you like doing quite a bit, don’t ever let go. And I’m writing this in the hopes that those who are still reading (you are? Really? Don’t you have a life or something?) will be just joining college and settling on a major.

So experiment. Do it as vast and as wide as you can until you latch onto something you find so enjoyable it’s practically self-indulgent.

Take writing for example: For a very, very long time, it never occurred to me that I could be good (or bad) at it, because being good was never a matter of import. I liked writing. It was for me. So for a lengthy period of time, I kept doing it because it made me happy. I also continued to make the same mistakes again and again until Ian took a look at one of my drafts and fainted, but the point is that I made it my calling. I’ve always believed that the best writers don’t just write. They bleed.

Some people indulge in making money. Hey, no judgement, that’s their thing. Some people like looking hot and using the patriarchy’s obsession with pretty things to fuel their career. Nothing wrong with that either. The world isn’t made out of solely doctors, or lawyers, or engineers, or architects. It’s made by a whole cacophony of people and passions. We need food to eat, and bricks to be laid, so by that line of logic, someone’s got to do it.

The problem is when we start glamorizing certain jobs and blacklisting others with Forbes top-earning listicles and reality tv shows. Like, just this week, during the BRATs Malacca camp, I met two 80-something women who were working in a tiny shop, cutting hair and sewing clothes and basically being awesome at life.

Whatever it is you decide to do, listen to me: If you find something that sends all your senses on overdrive, and find people that make you excited about life, then don’t ever let that go, even for a second. Because you never really know how valuable that is until you lose it. And to be honest, I’m really tired. I’m tired of feeling lost and I’m tired of feeling so tired. But most of all, I wish I could be as excited to be awake again.
           

Now I can't see the word SPA* the same way again.

*Hint: It stands for Sales and Purchase Agreement

Continue Reading...

BRATs Melacca 2014 Part 1

“Hey Clarissa” 

Ian’s message popped up on my phone, “You still interested in senior-ing for this trip’s BRAT’s camp?” He asked.

I had missed the last one because of a family trip to Thailand, so I was still getting a lot of flak for dropping out at the last minute.

Okay, no. That’s not the version we agreed on.

In all honesty-not-really-but-okay, I’d been harassing Ian for the past year for a chance to senior for the next BRATs camp. It’s was unbearable. I was relentless -

 So desperate.

- Until ultimately he gave in (in what I’d like to believe was a table flip and near-manic “What will it TAKE to get her off my back??”) and let me hop on board. Because really, ever since I moved back to Penang, things haven’t been the same for me.

I guess both accounts are true-ISH, depending on how you want to see it. But either way, I found myself getting on an 8 hour bus ride to Melaka that involved screaming babies. A pervy middle aged man, and one very, very slow bus driver.

BRATs is young journalist camp for teens from the age of 16 to 19. The acronym stands for Bright, Roving, Annoying Teens, which I suppose is a pretty apt name, given the sort of people we’ve managed to attract in the past (it takes a certain type of person to enjoy writing, and another sort to willingly put that writing up for critique and judgement)  VJs, international models, chart topping bloggers (ahem), you name it.

I was a little more than apprehensive about the thought of handling thirty-over – practically forty­ – angsty teenagers. Not because I think I’m cooler than them (which so does not need proving), but because I’ve been a BRAT before and BOY WAS I OBNOXIOUS. I feel bad for whichever poor soul who had to lead my team (I afterwards found out that not only did I forget said person, but no one seems to recall me either. Huh.) I thought I was the best writer on the planet, that my farts smelt like roses, and that my shit don’t stink (all of which were proven to be disastrously wrong).

So you can see why I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep up with 38 past-Clarissas; I cannot stress this point enough: I. Was. A. Little. Shit.

I arrived at the hotel some time around 4pm, having taken a taxi ride from Melaka Sentral to Quayside hotel and MAN, did the place look posh. What was previously some sort of warehouse had been converted into an artsy loft-styled hotel that looked super atas, in a Tumblr sort of way.

Ian and the rest of the R.age team – May Lee and Vivienne – arrived an hour later, considerate enough to bang on my door for a full minute before letting me know that I had the wrong room. Fuck.

The kids* were arriving the next morning, so that night would be the only responsibility-free one we’d have until the end of the workshop.

It's shoooooo pretty

The night before.

 

Our first stop was Pak Putera Nasi Kandar where I had multiple foodgasms in one sitting. It was a first for me. I could hardly stand up after we were done. I’ve never done it with three other people before.

Really, this is too easy, I can go on all night (Ayyyyyyy).

Then we walked down Jalan Heeren, Jalan Jonker, and  Jalan Tukang Besi to get an idea of where the BRATs would be doing their assignment the next day.

Nearly all of the shop houses were closed for the day and the roads were glowing with a dusty yellow streetlamp-glow. On Jalan Heeren there was the sound of live piano music dancing out from a tropical looking café, darkly lit and empty. At the back sat a man behind a huge, black grand piano.

Then we turned down to Jalan Jonker and walked past more closed buildings till we got to the main road where a few food stalls were closing.

On Jalan Tukang Besi, reggae music was blasting from a dingy, little store. When we got to the source of the Jamaican beats, we saw a couple of foreigners chilling outside on rattan lounge chairs. The interior was a narrow and plainly furnished with a couch, a counter for the cash register, three tables, and a fridge way at the back, filled with nothing but orange juice**.

We had a can each and sat at a table near the couch where three middle aged Chinese men were sitting and rolling joints. That was when I noticed that the walls were entirely plastered with magazine cut outs of random things. And cat heads. A lot of cat heads. All the images of people had their heads replaced with that of cats. It was bizarre.

We could have gone back to our hotel then, but hey, it was 1 in the morning and we had at least another hour to kill. So we drove around in this completely inconspicuous looking The Star van, through dark empty roads on night-chilled asphalt.

There was a stretch of real nasty looking pubs and nightclubs. Outside one, stood a crowd of about 20 people who were either cheering or standing idly in the middle of the street, directly in front of where we were heading.

“Oh my god I think they’re fighting.” May Lee said, from the high perch of her shotgun seat.

“Let’s get out of here”  Said Vivienne, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but.

The crowd made way for our van as we drove past slowly. From my window, I saw a man stumble across the street, blood flowing from his head down to his torso. This was getting a lot more exciting than I had anticipated.

Just as we made a two-metre headway, people started running in all directions. A man actually ran so fast he made it past our van and went on sprinting. It was hilarious. Bless his soul.

At first we thought that there must have been a cop car coming from behind, but when I turned around, all I saw was a blank van. “Oh my god” I said, “I think they’re running from us.”

And our The Star charity van. Imagine that.

We managed to find our way back to the hotel where everyone collapsed on their bed . I fell asleep nearly as soon as my head sunk into the pillow. I didn’t even get around to hearing May Lee’s snores.

Continue Reading...

What it’s like working in Real Estate

In my last post, I mentioned leaving the bright and brilliant world of writing and journalism for the dark and dullness of property. 

 But then I deleted that paragraph to make my word count so do me a favour and completely strike that last sentence out. Let’s do this again.

Four months ago, I got a visit from my parents in KL whilst I was still stationed at The Star. This was a month before my term was supposed to end and a particularly momentous, uh… moment because

1. They stay like, 400 kilometres away, which is 300 kilometres too far and
2. If you knew my folks, you’d know that they don’t ever leave the comforts and quiet of SP for anything, unless it’s for

 a) Their child, (a1) on fire.
 b) Really, really good food. Like, insanely good. Like, HOLY SHIT I jizzed my pants seeing the Instagram good. And
c) Buddhism. Preferably camps, retreats, pilgrimages to India, etc.

 So I knew something was up. The only question was what.

Turns out, nothing; they just wanted to see their daughter. Can’t a parent want to visit their child? We never hear from you anymore, Ah Chen. Also, we think it’s best if you came back to Penang.

 Called it.

My father’s a negotiator himself, so the concept of coming back to work alongside him in Reapfield wasn’t completely repulsive. But I knew houses and land as much as a chicken rice seller knows the inner workings of a soft drink vending machine – Just because you occasionally come into contact with something and feel it’s effects now and again, it doesn’t mean it’s your job to understand the subtle mechanics of said thing.

 So in a move that, I think, stunned everyone including myself, I packed my bags and hauled ass back to the tiny, sunny island of Penang (no complains there) and signed myself up as a real estate agent. The first thing I learned was

 Not anyone can become an agent 

Much like lawyers, you don’t just stroll into a firm and ask them to hire you. No matter how cool your ukulele and table-top rendition of Kantoi is (Answer: hella cool), that just don’t cut it for the big wigs upstairs. No. If you’ve got the credentials that I had, you start from the bottom. Most of the people you might know in real estate aren’t really agents but negotiators. We’re the foot soldiers.

Like freelance brokers but less illegal, real estate negotiators do most of the heavy lifting. We don’t have a professional license so we’ve got to rent the license from those who do, and join their firm after spending hundreds on training and course fees. If that sounds like a pretty raw deal, it gets better.

Depending on the firm, you start off with a 40-60% cut. That means for every 1000 ringgit you make, you get to keep 400 ringgit and the agency gets the other 600 ringgit. Then, as you continue to bring in more cash for the company, you slowly get bumped up to 50% , then 60%, then – Nope - That’s it. Also! Non-performing members (aka people who don’t manage to sell as much) get booted out in favour of newer, more lucrative young-uns.

The good news is, everything changes as soon as you do get your license. You get to either open up your own agency, or rent out your license to 30 negotiators for a fee and a cut of whatever they make. The catch? The passing rate is something along the lines of twenty percent.

 Fuck Penang. No, really, just fuck it. 

First things first: I love Penang. I really, really, really love this stupid island. It’s beautiful on normal days and breathtaking on good ones. But much like its politics, hawker food, and road etiquette, Penang just doesn’t roll like the rest of Malaysia.

The normal commission rate for real estate agents in Malaysia is 2-3%. That’s already an insanely low amount compared to other countries (Japan prices its agents' rates at 7%) but in Penang you’d be lucky to even get 1. Most of the time, Penang owners insist on a maximum of 1%. We call it 1 + 1 here because the seller pays up 1% and the buyer absorbs the other 1%.

This is mega illegal because according to the national board, you can’t have two principals at the same time. You’re either serving the interests of the buyer (To get as a low a price for value as possible) or the seller (to shave off as much as you can from the buyer), but not both. Then again, have you ever seen a Penangite willing to part with 10 ringgit when someone else is willing to take 9? Doh-no.

Penagites are clever and friendly and so f***ing kiam siak when it comes to money. I think it’s a city-island thing.

 Everyone’s old enough to be my dad (or mum) 

 Most of those who enter real estate are in their late 30s to 40s.

These figures make sense because unlike me, those people didn’t have a father to pluck them out of their career and into the property market. I did. Most negotiators are either working mothers or fathers, disillusioned by their previous office job and eager to get away from the bureaucracy of it all.

Just to get an idea of how much older the people in my office are, here’s an example: last month we were talking about the youngest negotiator in Penang; he’s 24.

I turned 20 this June.

Writing this post is making me bummed out. I need a drink.

Authors note:

I got one.

Continue Reading...

My macam yes tapi bukan ex

Three months ago, I fell really, really hard for someone that I’d never even met before.

But before I go into that, I want to talk about a term that I’ve coined in reference to the said someone I fell for:

A Something Else, with a capital S and E.

My Something Else

The way I see it, almost everyone’s got a Something Else; something other, that helps keep them sane. Because let’s face it, life has this amazing tendency to get shit-boring when you’re not paying attention (and sad, and sucky, and a fuck-ton depressing). If you DON'T have a Something else, then you're either lying, or are an insanely content and well-adjusted person and seriously man, what is your secret?

For most people, their Something Else is a hobby, or music, or a television show, or getting high off weed – Anything to take you out from whatever mental jail you’ve gotten yourself into. 

Before I met Lyle*, my Something Else was writing, and then, Doctor Who. That overblown sci-fi about a mad alien man (with coincidentally sexy hair and an equally sexy Scottish accent okay, no, I know all of them aren’t David Tennant but let’s stick to the analogy) and his mad alien spaceship – slash – police phone box.

I don’t have to go into how unhealthy having another human being as your Something Else is.

(But I will anyway)

Because god knows how many TV writers and Michael Bay won’t.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Sidekick Ex-Machina, Blithe Spirit, call it whatever you want but the trope’s still the same. As is the idea that some magical OTHER individual can come into your life, chase away all your demons, rescue you from whatever depressive funk you’re in, and take you on life-changing journeys to the opening track for New Girls.

I guess that’s why I called it off.

And partially why I wish to hell I hadn’t.

Because now that even though I’ve found someone else who lives in the same country, has a decent, stable job, is inhumanely considerate and annoyingly caring, I kind of, sort of, wish he…wasn’t. Does that make sense?

If you could hear me right now, I’d be talking in a mortified whisper, because that’s just how disgusted I am at myself. Like CLARISSA, you’ve got someone who’s willing to drive – and has driven – you to SP and back again, willing to take you out on romantic dates, spend his time, energy and money on you even when you tell him -

Oh my god Alvin, not again. I’m not fucking broke. I can handle this.

- to stop.

Like, what is wrong with you? And what’s so special about this old-looking, posh sounding Brit guy?

This old-looking, posh-sounding Brit guy

I met Lyle on Tinder.

Okay, haha, laugh all you want. I could show you all the charts and statistics and graphs that point to the fact that online dating is not only for losers and lonely single balding men with slight paedophilic tendencies, but then I’d have to explain myself.

He had on this pair of glasses in his profile pic that I found kind of hot. His other pictures were okay, but it was his DP that really got me to swipe right. There was this intense sort of look in his eyes that I really liked and a scruffy almost-beard that bordered on Hipster, but didn’t really fit the bill either.

Lyle sent the first message.

There was no “Sit on my face and I’ll eat my way to your heart”, no ‘’Hey cutie, wanna drop by my place tonight”, no “I’m 8.3 inches”.

Just “Hey :)”

Things started getting real Hallmark Original Movies real fast.

I found out that he was a 29 year old English lad who hated England but couldn’t really leave because of – surprise, surprise – his job. I found out that he loved gaming, had a bit of a geeky WoW phase and was more than addicted to Skyrim. I found out that he brought his Xbox to work when he had night shifts because “There’s practically nothing to do anyway’’. I found out that he loved reading just as much as I did. I found out that he loved spicy food, and I found out that he had this weird thing going on for –

You don’t have, like, yellow fever do you?

Oh my god, you’re a fucking otaku.

No haha shh, I’m not an otaku

- Asian culture.

Then he asked me something–

What gets you excited?

- that no one else before had , and to give in to horrible clichés, it completely blew my mind. So I told him the truth – Nothing, for the time being, but that it was so weird because I was usually the kind of person that got excited over almost anything, and now I felt so empty without it.

Understanding Lyle

For the first month, it was like meeting my soul-mate. We talked about anything and everything. The two of us were lazy when it came to Skyping so instead we sent voice-notes back and forth over Whatsapp. He was in his office working past 2am; I was just waking up in bed. He was in the tube waiting to reach home; I was in the neighbourhood Starbucks calling up potential buyers. We sent each other pictures of the food we ate and the surrounding scenery we were in. When he showed me City and Colour, I swallowed up his entire album, listening to him as I fell asleep, imagining Lyle's body behind me, just inches away.

When he was out with his friends, I’d get an occasional text or voice note, telling me that he missed me, wished I were there, what they were doing. For the first month, he was perfectly imperfect – I thought he was kind, straightforward, understanding, chill as fuck and deep, like woah.

His friends knew about me, and mine knew about him. We made plans about flying over and visiting each other.

We had weird, awkward phone sex.

And then, like the water on a badly placed floor in a high-dense, low cost apartment, it started to trickle out.

He’d go missing mid-conversation because of work or friends or bad connection or sleep, and I’d find myself waiting hours – sometimes days – till he-

Sorry, got so hammered last night

Nothing’s changed about the way I feel about you.

You’re the one that’s changed

- Woke up or found connection. I got paranoid; he got irritated. And the more Luke pulled away, the more paranoid I got.

Pro tip no. 3: If someone you’re falling in love with starts to withdraw back into the normalcy of life, smother them. They’ll love it.

A lot more happened in between that I thought seemed important back then, but don’t really seem as much now. We argued, we made up, we argued again. Everything was my fault and I was the unreasonable one and I was the offensive one and it was my fault I got upset and it was my fault that he got upset and (this was his piece de resistance) it was my fault he stopped talking as much and then I met someone else.

No, that’s not exactly how it happened either.  I lied; I met Alvin way before I ended things with Luke. He was a good friend, a guy I found cute at first but then boring as hell after. Someone who was easily satisfied and raring to please. Someone who brought me strawberries when I was waiting for the next Luke-text or who listened to me freak out when I didn’t hear any Luke-word for two days straight (surprise, he was hungover). In short, Alvin was the perfect, stereotypical “Nice Guy” with a capital N and G.

I was exhausted trying to feel wanted again. I was tired of feeling discredited or being gaslighted. 

And then in the most logical move of my entire life, I told Alvin – transparent, loving, sensitive, understanding, considerate Alvin – that I couldn’t see him anymore, and that I had to focus on working towards making things work with Luke.

He said okay.

He said Lyle sounds like a great guy and that he hopes I’ll be happy and that he was really happy being friends.

He said I’ll miss you.

It took a single day – of non-Lyle-ness – before I broke

My tipping point

Here’s the thing: you can change who you choose to be with, but you can’t choose who chooses to be with you.

So I took the safe route, and stopped seeing Lyle too.

For, like, two weeks. And then I got together with Alvin because bloody hell, I missed that guy.

Which brings me to why I’m writing all of this down in the first place – It’s my confession page (or pages, 5 to be exact) and my confession is this: Now and again, – mortified whisper, here we go, everyone together now  – I miss Lyle too.  

It’s not that I don’t love Alvin; I do – every second, every minute, with every bit of my soul.

But sometimes, when I get home to an empty apartment, with the floor grimy and dusty  – because that floor ain’t gonna sweep itself – and my clothes hanging off the arm of the couch like mementoes from a late night lover, and the room covered with an almost tangible sheen of darkness and gloom, and no work left to do but to lie down and stare at the ceiling, I find myself almost unconsciously reaching out for my Something Else. Another place, another life, another string of possibilities.

I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve spent all your new possibilities, and like whatever’s left is the change you’ve got to keep in the bottom of your jeans pockets, next to the dusty infolds and pocket lint. But I also know this: that you can always find another Something Else, but you can’t always find someone who will understand and stick by you unconditionally. Someone that’s so deeply ingrained in your life you don’t even want them to be a Something Else anymore, but a Something Familiar, Something Old.

Since then, I’m pretty glad to say that Lyle's found someone new. It’s a little disarming sometimes to see their pictures on Facebook. I occasionally recall our old texts

I want to take you out on a nice date. Let’s go to a fancy restaurant.

There’s a cave underneath my town, you’ll love it.

A new bar just opened

And thought –

That should be me

- about all the plans we’d made and how weird it was, seeing someone else acting them out. Maybe she’s his Something Else now, and maybe they’ll end up Something More, but none of that’s my business anymore. I can hardly remember Lyle now; all that’s left are the Lyle-tropes and the Lyle-isms. The memories I have are all overplayed and smoothened out by time, it’s like looking into the past with rose tinted glasses. I wasn’t infatuated with Lyle, I was infatuated with Something Else.

So if you're someone who's starting to get bored of their partner,

And no judgement, it happens to anyone,

Then, ask yourself if it's because what you're looking for is a lover, or Something Else. Because you can only be with a person for so long before the novelty fades, and Something Else becomes Something Old. Something Else exists for a reason, it's what gets us up in the morning with that sliver of possibility that something new might happen. It's why we push our boundaries and rock the boat and reach past what is familiar and safe.

But don't go looking for it in people. They're people, not teacups.**

I like this one. I think I'll keep him

*I actually DO know someone by the name of Lyle. (Hi Lyle!) Rest assured that this is not about him.

**Because you can pick those up and put them down whenever you like. Get it? GET IT??? I'm so fucking deep.

Continue Reading...

What is a "Karpal Singh Bandwagon Motherfucker"?

I’m scrolling through my Facebook wall feed and trying to pick my way through the countless Karpal Singh posts. I’ve already seen the pictures, been briefed of his demise, did my mourning and now want to know what other things are going on in the world around me. That’s okay. And so is handling the death of a publicly known and loved figure in your own way and time.

And so, I leapfrog my attention over the changed display pictures, lengthy memorial posts and side-line bickering, trying to get to the meat of the day when I see this post:

“Switched on fb to see many Karpal Singh bandwagon motherfuckers. Many of you probably didn't know much about him till only after he died, even me. But there's no need to suddenly post so much shit about him, acting as though you followed all his acts and fights. Stop having the need to want to impress other on fb by pretending to be something you're not or know something you don't. What do you achieve by proving to all these people through social media? It's the real world we live in, so impress those around you in real life. I guess maturity just takes longer for some people. All you bandwagon fuckers, you know who you are, and I couldn't give a flying two fucks about your butt hurt.”

And he isn’t the only one, judging by the 51* Likes the post received and some of the comments below.

"This had to be said though. Word!"

“This post made my day”

First things first: is this sort of hate new? Hell to the no. Remember when Michael Jackson passed away in 2009 and the internet blew up in everyone’s faces with posts, statuses, and pictures commemorating the King of Pop?

Radio stations started playing his songs non-stop. His albums skyrocketed through the roof and broke charts down into whimpering, weeping messes. 13 year old girls heard those songs and rushed to buy them off iTunes. Suddenly it seemed like everyone had been best friends with Michael Jackson their whole life.

Like, how dare they? How dare they realise that they liked his songs? How dare they feel a connection to his work or resonate with the things he said? How dare those assholes pass those messages along to their friends or people they knew would appreciate his work?

But back to Mr Angry Facebook Guy and the countless others out there who agree with him. I think that sort of reaction is less in response to people supporting Karpal Singh, and more to the fact that people are supporting him now.

This reaction to the extra support is very on-par with Geek Gatekeeping, where people (a majority of which are girls) are held under the most scrutinizing light, quizzed, and prodded and, if they fail the test, harassed, ridiculed, and insulted for being a “fake geek”.

Is this making your skin crawl? Mine is. And no one should feel that way about their culture.

People like Angry Facebook Man may have a ready audience, primed to mark those “fake Khairy supporters” with an F to maintain the sanctity of their congregation, but it is not an audience one should cultivate.

Sure, people will like things for a variety of reasons, some of those reasons being popularity, or to fit in, or to appear a certain way towards others, or to attract someone of the opposite sex. Whatever. It could be because they genuinely do not care, or because they have just discovered Karpal Singh and do not have someone to explain things to them.

And instead of pointing them in the right direction, people like Angry Facebook Man feel more accomplished tearing them down for not knowing the right things, right quotes, at the right time. This is not a love for the man or respect for the things he has to say. This is a misguided, shock-and-anger-filled reaction to having someone you look up to taken away from you and having so many strangers coming in and claiming his memory as their own. I get that. In a twisted way, I get that. 

But I personally have no patience to people who respond with hate and judgement and venom. So, as Khairy so eloquently puts it - Shut up. Just, shut up.**

** Author’s note: Those last words may have been a little EXTREMELY harsh. As much as people try to make it, the internet should NEVER be about shutting others up. The internet (his Facebook post, this article, all of it) should be about having a nuanced and intellectual discussion, and I’m glad to see that that did happen. I was in an upset state of mind and thought the words made me sound edgy and cool, but this only serves to elucidate my point:

Angry Facebook Man isn’t someone you are; it’s someone you become. Sometimes, he is Angry Facebook Man, sometimes you’re Angry Facebook man, and sometimes I’m Angry Facebook man. The problem isn’t just with individuals, but with our attitude as a whole.

*51 Likes during the time of screen-shotting. Now it's 70. Hurrah for kind and gentle spirits.

Continue Reading...

A letter to all the over-opinionated people online: STOP HATING

 SOME time ago, I posted a Facebook status about how describing ex. girlfriends as “Crazy” is both lazy and detrimental.

A friend (by proxy) of mine then saw the status and commented 

"Yeah! Tell them like it is. Us women are DONE being oppressed by men."

At first, I had two thoughts. The first being “Oh wow I keep forgetting that actual people are actually seeing my posts” which got me a bit weirded out like, hey, I won’t talk to people if I’ve got a book in my hand, but I’m perfectly okay with sharing intimate thoughts online where hundreds of random people are privy to viewing them. Go, priorities!

My second thought was:

“Holy cow titties, this is one of those girls those anti-feminist 9gag memes are based off of.” Because whilst not being entirely informed about said girl's lifestyle, I do know enough about her to know that a part-time model from an affluent family with top-notch private education couldn’t in all seriousness call herself “oppressed”, using the generally accepted definition of the word.

Now, I’m a self-identified third wave feminist. And before you puke blood, I need to make one thing clear.

1. A feminist does not mean someone who fights for female supremacy - that’s misandry (Consider yourself educated, go you) - but instead someone who fights for equal rights.

Rights like the right to marry/and/or/not marry, the right to bear/and/or/abort children, the right to shave and/or/not shave.  Super simple stuff, also known as the right to be treated like another human being and not another NPC*, made to substantiate your backstory, character development and to make your gameplay feel a little less soul-crushingly alone. Yes, it’s a horribly ineffective name. Yes, there are some crazy people who believe that the male universe is out to get them. Every point has its exceptions but let’s try to keep with the program, people.

Anyway, I consider myself a feminist, along with a couple other things – reader, procrastinator, intern – and I don’t get all the hate. Why is it that some people believe that supporting one cause means you have to, by default, be against the other?

Feminist? You must hate men. Pro-choice? You must hate life.  Atheist? Enjoy everlasting damnation, infidel.

Like, dude, just because I like bacon doesn’t mean I can’t love my broccoli.

There was this other occasion where, if you recall, FMFA got cancelled because of some kids overdosing on a bad batch and dying. Khairy then came out and said that by banning future music festivals (pun unintended), authorities were basically just bandaging a bullet hole, or something along those lines, which I thought was a pretty stand-up thing to say, seeing as he was a party member and politician and all that.

A friend of mine disagreed. He was dead-set to disagree with anything Khairy said, and this is why: Khairy’s in Barisan Nasional.

This is what I’m afraid of. Not just that people would accuse others of opposing some things because they supported another, but that people would actually internalize that mind-set and think that the only way to support A was by opposing B.

My friend earnestly thought that by being against everything BN, he was supporting the Opposition. Mathematically, this makes sense – by refusing one party’s vote, you are in a way, contributing to the opposing side. But if you’ve made it this far down my post, then I know that you know (because you’re just that clever) that things aren’t that simple. To keep things short, a party is only as good as the people in it and the causes it stands for. By supporting a party through their dumbest decisions, we’re only telling them that they can get away with anything. Now, I’ve been awake long enough through my History classes to know that that can’t end well.

Gentle computer girl is getting real tired of your anger-filled shit

So here’s what’s happening: It has become fashionable to hate. Instead of promoting modesty and self-respect, our politicians want to wage a war against women in shorts and pink underwear on Valentine’s Day. Instead of launching racial equality and love throughout the country, they point fingers at the other side and accuse them of stirring up trouble. Instead of wanting women to be just as capable, resourceful and respected as their Y-chromosomed counterparts, some people prefer to accuse men for the issues present when really, it’s a whole lot more complicated than that.

Why? Because it’s just easier to.

Because politicians need a more direct way to say “We’re on your side”. Because hate generates a more passionate response than quiet tenacity. Because we ourselves get swept up in the heated hulabuloo that ensues. Take your pick.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to try to be a little more informed than I am opinionated. I’m going to apologize to every single person I’ve had a pointless tirade against. I’m going remember that enemies aren’t always people but ideas, thoughts and emotions.

Also, if you’re still with me at this point, try and keep in mind that your judgemental attitude against another person’s judgemental attitude doesn’t make you a better person; you’re just contributing to the problem. 

*Non-playable character. Like that guy who keeps telling you about the arrow in his knee.

Continue Reading...