Pass Me the Mic, I'm a Superstar!

Well, not quite. But I will be singing karaoke on an open air stage in Trafalgar Square in front of potentially thousands of people in a couple of weeks' time.

In Japanese.

About false eyelashes.

It's Japan Matsuri London on the 5th October- London's (recently) annual Japan festival. I missed last year's because I was doing something else with a friend and we ran out of time, but this year I signed up to the Facebook page so I could plan in advance.

Almost as soon as this year's festival date was announced, they announced the Nodojiman karaoke contest. The requirements: to sing a Japanese song- in Japanese, of course- on the main stage in Trafalgar Square on the day. The prize: a return ticket to Tokyo.

Hell, yes.

All I had to do was record a demo of myself and send it in with my application. So I picked a song I know and love- Tsukema Tsukeru by Kyary Pamyu Pamy- practised my arse off in secret in case I sucked (in my car, whilst my parents were away in Malaysia etc), recorded a demo and sent it off. Soon after I received a confirmation of my application, and was told I'd be notified in the last week of September after the closing date if I'd gotten through to the final round: the karaoke-in-front-of-lots-of-people round.

That was about two months ago.

Yesterday evening after work I checked my emails to find this:

Dear Natasha-san,

Thank you for applying for the Nodojiman J-Factor competition.

I am delighted to inform you that you have gone through to next round.

The Nodojiman team is looking forward to welcoming you at Trafalgar Square on Saturday 5th Oct 2013.

I will send you e-mail you again nearer the time with details of the day.

I felt wildly excited- and wildly terrified at the same time. Which is pretty much how I still feel! Luckily I've been practising almost every day since getting the confirmation email, knowing that I'd only know if I'd have to perform on stage just over a week before the actual event.

To celebrate quite possibly what will be the maddest thing I've done during 2013 (and there have been some contenders), I wore false eyelashes for the first time in my life to the office today. After all, I can't sing a song about false eyelashes and not wear them, and I've got to practise.

Of course, practising putting on falsies is the least of my worries- after all, the last time I sang solo was four years ago for my degree final. Wish me luck!

Oh Sweet Irony

Twelve hours ago I said to my colleague,'I hardly ever get ill any more. Actually, I can't remember the last time I was properly sick to my stomach.'

Twelve hours on, I have something to remember. Hello upset stomach and sleepless night.

First Time In an Ambulance, Twice within One Hour

Last night at about 10:30pm, my mum called me from upstairs to say she wasn't feeling well. I came upstairs to find her slumped on the bathroom floor, incoherent from extreme nausea and fighting to keep conscious- I've never seen her so ill, and I was without doubt that I needed emergency help. I made sure she was in a safe position, dashed to the phone and dialled 999 for an ambulance, brought up some water, tissues, a cushion and a blanket, and made mum as comfortable as I could on the floor in the recovery position once I'd checked her out as best as I could- then I phoned my dad to bring him home from his night shift, changed out of my pyjamas into proper clothes, and packed my mum's phone, glasses and a bottle of water into my bag for a possible trip to A&E.

Mum had a sore throat a couple of days ago, but we assumed it'd just turn into a cold like usual. She used to have issues with high blood pressure, and according to Dad she'd had episodes like this before when she got ill, and had been taken into hospital once before, years ago. They found nothing wrong at the time, but I wasn't taking any chances.

Dad came home long before the paramedics came- I waited an hour and a half. By the time they came, mum had recovered herself just enough for us to move her to an upright sitting position on her own bed. I went with Mum into the back of the ambulance while she was checked over, and there was nothing to report. I advised mum to get proper checks anyway, but she refused since she was feeling better. We all thanked the lovely paramedics, and they set off on another call.

Sure enough, an hour later and Mum was barely conscious again, almost on the verge of being sick and passing out. Despite her protests, I called an ambulance again and insisted she go to get proper checks. This time an ambulance came within about ten minutes, I think because the services knew about the situation. With a lot more effort this time, we got mum into the back of the ambulance, I accompanied her to the hospital and Dad followed in his car. By now it was 2am.

Once the various tests were done and ready and a doctor was able to see us (about 6am), there was just nothing to report. Blood pressure fine, blood sugar levels fine, everything medically fine. Nothing to explain how a highly intelligent, sharp woman like my mum could be transformed into a limp mass of incoherent discomfort. The best the doctor could guess was that mum's cough cold and other factors were signs that she had both a bacterial and a viral infection. Thankfully after four hours of quiet waiting (or as quiet as you can get in busy A&E), Mum was just about well enough for us to drive her home. We propped her up in Dad's comfy reclining chair, made her a honey and lemon tea, and tucked her in, where thankfully Mum fell asleep and got some proper rest. I went up and managed to snatch a couple of hours on my flat bed (I had forgotten that I'd use my pillows to prop Mum up earlier and couldn't remember where I'd put them).

This morning Mum's like a different person. She still has a sore throat and nasty cold, but she's not in the same way as she was yesterday. In any case she seems to be out of the danger zone, but I've taken the day off work to keep an eye on her, make chicken soup, provide tea and water etc. I'm not feeling great on two hours of sleep and several hours of quiet panic, either.

I've often wondered if I'd be any good in a situation like this- I always worried that I'd become a useless blob of panic. I didn't even know that I still remembered basic first aid, which I learned about ten years ago at school. When I dialled 999 and spoke to emergency services, I remember hearing my calm voice giving out meticulous details about the situation, and wondering where that steady voice was coming from when inside I was like jelly. I guess I'm just good a faking being calm.

Whilst we were waiting in the hopsital during stupid 'o clock this morning, I joked with Mum and Dad that I could have gone into medicine, if only I didn't dislike people so much.

Covered in Blood and Onions

I stared at the massive bowl of chopped onions and chillies; the onions and chillies stared back at me. I donned my onion goggles, held my puny hand blender aloft like a weapon, and jammed it into the bowl.

What followed was an complete vegetable carnage.

The hand blender made a terrible strained scream, and a geiser jet of vapourised onion forced its way into the air like water from a whale's blowhole, followed by a horror movie-like spray of chilli-reddened onion gore in every conceivable direction. It was too late to stop. I had to continue.

Sanguine vegetable matter continued to fly at me as I gritted my teeth and carried on blending, the cut on my thumb from an earlier mishap with a broken food processor burning from the chilli juice, despite the plaster covering it.

And then suddenly, it was all over. In front of me was a bowl of wonderfully fragrant curry paste; on me was about a third of it. I calmly wiped myself off, sprayed on a bit of perfume to mask the smell of debauchery, and stepped out of the house with bits of onion still on my T-shirt.

How did I get here?

Last week I was bought a food processor as an early birthday gift. I've never owned one before but always wanted one, knowing the amount of amazing things I could do in the kitchen with one. Finally, I could now create almost anything from scratch!

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. A week on- today, this is- I unboxed it, cleaned all the parts up, and plugged it in to give it a test run. I was very disappointed when absolutely nothing happened.

After checking that I hadn't done something silly like forget to turn an extra button on or something, I traipsed down to the supermarket along with my mum who still had the receipt (thank God she's so organised) to get it replaced.

There was only one of the same model left, and it looked like it had already been opened. I insisted on checking the contents of it before taking it home- and as my mum and I were going through it, we both cut ourselves on the processor blade, which had been shoved haphazardly back into box my whoever the last person to handle it was. The blade was also embedded in the processor itself, making it, again, totally useless.

We settled for a refund, I promised to write a disgruntled letter to the supermarket's CS department about the dodgy way returned stock is handled, and we headed home empty-handed. A slightly annoying shame, since I was halfway through making a fancy curry, and needed a food processor to make the curry paste. I had already prepared my ingredients, and there was no way I was making anything less than what I'd planned all week to make.

So now you can see how my train of thoughts went, and how I ended up creating chaos in the kitchen with my too-small hand blender. In any case, I doggedly kept on, eventually got the meat happily marinading, and set off to my favourite shopping centre to invest in a more expensive but infinitely more reliable brand of food processor. A little absent-mindedly though: hence the bits of onion still stuck to me.

So. Now that I finally have my amazing machine, next time I hope to create magic in the kitchen instead of mayhem.

Oh, and the curry turned out absolutely amazing. I should bloody well think so too, after all of that.

~Fin~

Just Say Yes

A weird thing happened to me at work today.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"... So Tash, we were wondering if you'd be able to pick up where the last blogger left off. How do you feel about taking it on?"

"...Er..."

"It's okay if you don't feel comfortable writing about that topic, I just wanted to know what you think?"

"I really don't think I'd be able to write about that topic with much authority. Sorry, it's a no on this one."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Why is this weird? It's weird because I pretty much agree to do everything, all the time.

It's a combination of several things, the main one being the loose 'just say yes' policy I adopted a couple of years ago to open myself up to new experiences. Not wanting to disappoint others is a part of it I'll admit, but it's equally about me getting as much out of life as I possibly can during my brief time on this planet.

There are a few downsides to the 'just say yes' policy. The first obviously being that I barely have enough time to myself anymore because I'm always Doing Things, leaving little time to just 'be' and leaving me often quite tired- at work and just as much at home. The second main downside is that sometimes adopting this policy is a bit expensive when it comes to social activities. Just hopping on the train, driving around, taking a bus already costs money to get to the place before you've even paid for a ticket for anything: and of course this is London, so few things are cheap.

The upsides, however, greatly outweigh the downsides. I have had so much fun these past couple of years, and I have so much lined up for the future, still. I've visited some pretty cool places, experienced ridiculous things, made some new friends, re-connected with old friends, and spent time brushing up my creative skills in the kitchen and through blogging. One of the things I'm most proud of is doing some writing work for Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium (soon to be London's first cat cafe), helping with mailers, SEO, blogging and the like.

So I may be a little tired, at times even a little frantic to pack everything into a day- but I'm living rather than simply thinking about living, and that's the most important thing for me.

Still, even though today was a surprise break in my track record of willingness to do everything, it also reminded me that I can still stick to my guns if I need to, and say no occasionally.

Even if I only ever say 'no' once every few months.

The Tsundere Drawback

'Tsundere (ツンデレ^?, pronounced [tsɯndeɽe]) is a Japanese character development process that describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing his or her warm side over time. The word is derived from the terms tsun tsun (ツンツン^?), meaning to turn away in disgust, and dere dere (デレデレ^?) meaning to become 'lovey dovey'.' - Wikipedia

Not necessarily in a romantic way, and not necessarily gradually warming up over time- it can come out in dribs and drabs, almost like a very mild and very annoying but possibly endearing personality disorder that only manifests itself around specific people, or a specific person.

You probably know a tsundere character, even if you don't watch anime. Helga from the cartoon Hey Arnold!, who acts downright abusive and cantankerous towards her secret crush; Sherlock Homes from the TV series Sherlock who needles his long-suffering friend John with smug superior sarcasm; even Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, who's generally bad tempered about everything but has plenty of 'aww, so you do care!' moments.

My name is Tash, and I'm tsundere.

So is it as cute and funny in real life as it is in popular culture?

No.

Real life doesn't happen like that. Being tsundere is in fact very, very inconvenient, and in more than one way.

There's the first, obvious way: people (okay, guys in particular) that I take a liking to make my brain go weird. I go from being easy to talk to, fun, friendly and intelligent to not being able to make eye contact, aloof, even prickly. At best I'll be giving the silent treatment- not because I'm bored of someone, but because my brain inexplicably draws a complete blank- and at worst I'll come off as polite but frosty. Again, not because I want to be, but because my whole system goes into default defence mode.

It takes a long time for me to properly warm up to guys, even just as friends. I'm naturally guarded. Hell, it took me a whole year to fall for my now-ex (who was a close friend for a long time before we started a relationship, and who subsequently got bored of me after three years of  being in a relationship). But once I eventually warm up, I'm the most loyal and caring person ever. See? Tsundere. Of course, however, this doesn't go down very well as a first impression.

Which leads me to the second downside. Making an effort to be warm from the outset in social situations that make me uncomfortable actually makes me come across as unnatural or just plain weird. Here was my internal monologue today (I was in a queue in one of my favourite geeky shops, and there was a guy with a pretty awesome Nintendo bag in the queue next to me):

'Wow, that's a cool bag. Maybe I should compliment him on it? Uh-oh, he spotted me looking, abort, abort! No, I should make eye contact. Don't forget to smile! Yay, he smiled back! You should look away now. I said look away! TOO MUCH EYE CONTACT!! Great, now he looks weirded out and is looking in the other direction. Way to go, dumbass.'

So training myself to be warm to everyone equally isn't going so well. Which brings me to the third and final downside.

Being friendly to guys and male friends who I'm not romantically interested in and them getting the wrong idea.

Before you cry 'bitch!' let me explain: I don't flirt, I don't tease, I just smile, listen, chat- you know, all of the normal friendly things- because I don't feel like I'm in an awkward situation. Unfortunately, it seems like merely being kind is a sort of green light to guys. I can count four guys in the past singular year who have taken my natural non-tsundere nature as a 'green light'- three of which I only met once! One is a little more unfortunate because he has been a friend for a few years and it's horrible to have to hurt his feelings, but what all four have (or had) in common is that fact that they don't seem to take 'no' for an answer.

'I don't see you in that way' seems to morph in their minds into 'I don't see you in that way yet.'

'I'm not interested in a relationship' becomes 'I'm not interested unless you change yourself.'

'You're like my brother' becomes 'If you show me a different side of you maybe I'll feel differently.'

No, no and no. And yes, as ball-crushingly soulless as it might seem, I have tried the 'brother' line in sheer desperation.

Tell them to their faces in cold, callous terms (or in some cases again)? Well the problem is, none of them have actually told me in plain terms to my face what their agenda is, and have therefore not given me the opportunity of doing so without making a fool of myself and them denying everything (despite two mutual friends clue-ing me up on two separate situations, which reassures me that it's not all in my head). Instead they (well, three out of four now that one seems to have finally given up) text endlessly, or message endlessly on social media.

Of course this can only end with hurt feelings. I've been on the other end myself, so I truly empathise (although I was much better at the whole giving up thing...) My empathy and sympathy won't help me or these guys- who really don't deserve this- though.

What do you mean, 'stop being so picky?' Isn't it even worse to humour someone when your heart's just not in it? Life isn't about taking anything and everything you can get at the expense of others- at least, it isn't to me.

So what should I do? Set my tsundere side as a default and freeze out everyone without discrimination at first? Stop being nice to my male friends and become a total biatch towards them (except for the friends who are already spoken for- funnily enough and thankfully I don't have this problem with them)? Try to be equally warm and friendly to everyone?

Probably the latter, I suppose. Easier said then done though: you saw the awkward-salad that was my non-encounter in the shop today.

I'll try to be more open with everyone, then. But only because I want to!! Got it? [/tsundere]

Worst Attempted Pick-Up Ever

After Siu Yen's birthday meal and the live comedy show after, we all headed down to a bar for cocktails. As we descended the stairs into the bar, some random guy caught up with me and walks beside me on the stairs.

"They say walking down the stairs by someone's side is bad luck, did you know?" He shouted over the din of the music and crowd.

"Huh?" I turned around as I walked on, at first not entirely sure that this question was directed at me.

"Yeah," he said seriously, "But I reckon tonight it's pretty lucky for me!"

I blinked, and laughed while quirking a single eyebrow.

"Really?" I couldn't hide the ironic disbelief in my voice. The poor guy fell back as my group carried onwards.

B+ for effort.