When Was the Last Time...

... that you were proud of yourself? Properly 'wow, I'm actually pretty awesome aren't I?' proud.

I'd typed out a message to my friend Vicky (whom I visited in Berlin not too long ago), bemoaning all the stuff I've gotten myself into and how relentlessly busy I've become- partially to block out my fear of the future, partially because of the 'just say yes' policy I've come to loosely adopt in order to stop myself from being the social recluse I once was. I was just internally reflecting upon how I must be some kind of idiot to take on so much, when Vicky's reply popped up.

'I know you don't mean it but .... stop making me feel bad! I feel so lazy...'

I blinked. Lazy? Vicky? 'Mate', I thought to myself, 'You up and went to Germany for two years just like that to teach English, having known no-one in the country beforehand, became really proficient at German as a language itself, you're teaching yourself Russian now- successfully for such a difficult language, too- and you're also about to go to Peru to learn Spanish and travel!'

It's funny isn't it, the way we perceive ourselves? It made me realise how I'm just as guilty of ignoring my good points as anyone else (except for maybe two of my friends, who are unusually exceptional- especially for a couple of fellow Brits- at recognising their own amazingness; I say this with no guile).

I, like anyone else, suffer from that horrible, mean little thing called Envy. I envy Vicky, for doing what I've always wanted to do and travelling by herself to discover the world, carving out her own path by her own terms, whereas I'm too cowardly. I envy Lucia, who goes on trips away with their friendship groups in Birmingham that are too awkward for me to join in on, being in a different city. I envy Toria, who makes friends so easily, and keeps them. I envy all my friends who have their own houses while I'm a City Statistic still living with my parents, trying to save for an elusive place in London. And let's not even go into the envy I feel for people I don't even know.

If, up until just now, you'd have asked me when the last time I felt proud of myself was, I'd probably have replied '2006.' Now I know how ridiculous this is.

This isn't a brag post; I won't list the things I've found to be proud of for myself. But I have found some, all the same. The thing to remember is not to be the best of everything- that's impossible, and few even get to be the best at anything- but to be the best at being yourself. Cliché, but no less true now than when you were told this in nursery.

It's pretty much impossible to see ourselves the way other people do. The best guide we can have is to try and understand the way our friends see us: after all, surely they wouldn't be our friends if we were as ineffective and silly as we thought we were, right? I know I'm proud of my friends, and know that they're all amazing people with their own amazing qualities. Logically, it stands to reason that the feeling is mutual.

So if ever any of you have a 'God, why am I so useless?' moment (as we all have, sometimes), remember how your friends see you, and know that even if you can't understand it yourself, your friends admire and respect you for a reason.

In Which I Conduct a Social Experiment

Or more to the point, in which I go speed dating.

You heard me.

A couple of weeks ago two colleagues and I were talking about the merits of being single, and somehow we got onto the topic of how to flirt. None of us could decide on how to define flirting exactly, so as a joke we Googled 'flirting workshop'. We actually found one! Only they cost over £200 for a day course.

Two hundred smackeroos of my hard-earned cash to learn how to flirt? Seriously?

Anyway, one thing led to another and we ended up agreeing it would be jolly good fun if we signed up for speed dating, which happened a couple of nights ago, on Saturday night. In the end neither of my colleagues made it, one having never actually gotten around to booking and the other having to go to a friend's wedding. Thankfully (really, really thankfully) I found a couple of other people to go with instead.

Off we trotted to the bar, making sure we were intentionally ten minutes late to avoid being the first ones there. Of course, we were the first ones there. I was rather amused and more than slightly worried that the doormen (or rather doorladies) began to ask for our IDs, but then told us not to worry and go straight in and downstairs to the event bar when they realised we were there for the speed dating event.

So if we're just here to down booze we need to be ID-ed, but if we're here to meet a bunch of random strangers whilst downing booze at the same time it's a-okay? Huh.

Even though we were the first to the scene, we were very quickly followed by more ladies ("What did I tell you? The girls always arrive first," I heard one say to her friend). Soon enough the place was full: twenty girls, eighteen guys (because two guys had chickened out failed to turn up). It was a relatively small room, and to my slight discomfort I realised that dates would be sitting side-by-side on sofas rather than face-to-face like an interview. Scratch that, I'm not sure which is worse. Anyway, the rules were that girls stayed where they were and guys rotated, often having to squeeze onto the sofas by sliding past the fixed tables (I was particularly glad I didn't have to move as I'm not known for my natural poise and grace).

The bell rang. Off we went: four minutes per person and *DINGDINGDING*, time to move on to the next.

Speed dating is surprisingly exhausting, even if you're a talkative person. As a writer, I'm quite contented to sit for hours on end and type or scrawl, and as for the quality of my writing- I've been told I could convince anyone to do anything, on paper. Talking... not so much. Some people are blessed with a silver tongue- mine's more like one of those roll-up party horns. As a result, when I talk- especially about the things I'm interested about- I think I sound rather manic.

Combine manic speed-talking with a whole load of wild hand gestures and an increasingly shrill voice as I struggled to compete with the growing din of a large crowd with booming club music in a small room, and you'll get a general feel for how I was coming off.

Combine this with my unbridled geekiness, then, well...

I joked with some other friends that I wasn't worried about meeting weirdos: I'D be the weirdo. I joked that there would be guys going home later that night, going back to their mates and saying "Yeah... there was this one really crazy girl there..." By the time I left, I really felt like I'd completed my own prophecy. The confident guys either humoured me or, in one case, acted physically repelled by me (although the latter wasn't much liked by my friends either because of his slightly arrogant air), and the shy guys were overwhelmed by me.

Without further ado, here were some of the most memorable moments of the evening on my end.

The Good:

One guy asked me what the most exciting thing I'd done in the last couple of years was (I replied I went to Go Ape). This was a nice change from the 'so what do you do?' or 'is this your first time speed dating?' questions I'd been asked. As the minutes went by the subject of me once doing a lot of battle reenactment came up, and I was impressed that he actually asked what century reenactment my group did and what kind of sword I had. I asked him what TV and books he liked, and just as he replied 'Game of Thrones' the bell went *DINGDINGDING* before I had a chance to enthuse. Ah well- such is the nature of speed dating. I scribbled 'Paddy- Game if Thrones' hurriedly as a prompt on my 'score sheet'.

As soon as this other guy sat down, I decided to ask him what the most geeky thing about him was. To my puzzlement and amusement, he stared at me, blinked and suddenly replied "You know what, screw this. I'm liking your blue dress and black cardi thingy combo." I laughed and said thanks, but I still expected him to answer the question. When I asked him what he did, he only replied "All in good time." As our conversation progressed it became very apparent that there were very few geeky bones in this guy's body, and he even asked me "So would you force any unsuspecting boyfriend into wearing a costume to Comicon with you?" (My answer was of course not- one man's cosplay is another man's form of cruel and unusual punishment). The bell went *DINGDINGDING*, and just as he got up he shot back in my direction, "And to answer your earlier question I work in finance." "Oh! I'm sorry" I said, and thankfully he laughed. I scribbled 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' down.

The Bad:

The arrogant guy- as he slid across the sofa, I joked at how they could have picked better seating arrangements for a bunch of strangers meeting each other for the first time, wanting to make the best impression. I wasn't expecting the single raised eyebrow I got, paired with a very chilly, "Actually, I thought I did that rather well." I laughed as if he were joking, but he just continued to stare ever so slightly down his nose at me and repeated, " Wouldn't you say I did that well?" I rolled my eyes and said something like 'fine then'. We ended up talking about food for the rest of the few minutes left (at least food is something I can talk about), with him mentioning one of these fancy places that has no menu and me struggling to remember the name of one of my favourite Malaysian restaurants as he boredly stared at me as I struggled. It was a rather long four minutes. At least my friends all had a similar experience. To be honest, he was acting like actually being there made him sick. You know what the craziest thing is? The friend he came with happened to be Game Of Thrones Paddy.

When one guy asked me if I'd been speed dating before and I said no, he countered with, "You have such a lovely, innocent face for someone who lies so well!" I covered my discomfort by a show of obvious mock-offence.

The Mad:

That'd be me, then. Aside from mentioning I owned my own chain mail, lost two years of my life to World of Warcraft and have been to London Comicon dressed in Stark Trek uniform, I also occasionally asked "What would you rather be: a pineapple or a papaya?" Curiously everyone I asked answered pineapple, and everyone said it was because of their hair. I also asked "Star Wars or Star Trek?" on one occasion.

The Interesting:

One guy's English wasn't particularly polished, and it turned out that he came from a small village in Italy and had moved to London to seek his fortune as an artist (or rather seek a career- few ever make a fortune in art). Not quite believing him I asked him questions like what was his favourite medium, period of style and favourite artists, and to my astonishment he was totally genuine. I didn't put him down as a 'Yes' or a 'Friend', but all the same when I wished him well in the city at the end of the four minutes, I meant it wholeheartedly.

So would I do it again? Maybe. Not in a long while- it was more a novelty and a fun night out for me, and I certainly didn't expect to meet any knights in shining armour. They say speed dating is a numbers game, but I never was that great at probability in maths.

Anyway, there are several major flaws to speed dating, the major one in my opinion being the time limit. Sure it's handy if you get someone you don't get on with, but what about people like Game of Thrones guy? There were a few more like him, like a slightly shy-er guy who I found out when we had just seconds to go that he played jazz piano (interesting to me, being a qualified pianist), and another even shy-er guy who was just beginning to come out of his shell before he had to move on.

The second biggest flaw is more of a personal one: I'm a geek girl. I'm pretty niche. Even worse, by a lot of 'geek guy' standards I'm not 'geeky enough' (sod them, is what I say). Speed dating events in my age range are often for city professionals who are more into sports than sci-fi. So I can't really win. All I can do is do what I do best, and be myself as hard as I possibly can.

One question I really wanted to ask people but never got around to was, "What do you enjoy most about being single?" I could give a whole list of reasons why I love being single- which is probably why I only ticked the 'Friend' box on my score sheet for some of the guys, and no 'Yes'es for dating. Dating and boyfriends can wait- I'm too busy geeking out.

So. After the event you go home, and in the next couple of days enter in your ticks online to see if anyone has matched up with you. Did I get any friend matches afterwards? Well, I've just gotten around to checking and yes, I have two: one is the shy-er guy, and the other, most amusingly, is 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon'. 'Game If Thrones Paddy' has yet to input his scores.

I did find 'Daniel-Does-Not-Do-Comicon' quite fun though, and thought we'd probably actually get on rather well despite the culture difference (or else it would have been rather silly for me to tick 'Friend' if I didn't mean it, wouldn't it?). In fact, halfway through writing this I got a pop-up email alert telling me that he's sent me a message. I haven't read it yet- it's way past my bedtime and my brain has already made as much social interaction as it can take for a few days. I'll take a look and maybe reply tomorrow. This could be entertaining...

Mean Ice Cream Man

I went out for my first run since autumn last year today because the weather is finally catching on that it's spring. It was challenging- not because I'm out of practice (I found other ways to keep fit during the long winter)- but because there were so many other people out enjoying the sorely missed sun. My self confidence has fallen a bit, hiding under all the winter layers, so the real challenge was getting out there in all my Lycra glory. I needn't have worried though, because as soon as I took my first step, I felt awesome- I hadn't realised how much I'd missed running.

The biggest challenge was not chasing after the ice cream van like a rabid greyhound after a hare.

It was a reasonably hot and sunny day to be out running, and I was quite red in the face and obviously baking a little bit. Just as I came to the tough uphill part of my run, an ice cream van drove past- and started to drive really slowly just ahead of me. At first I thought he was looking for a place to pull up, and it dawned on me that he didn't even have the jaunty ice cream van music playing.

Then I realised he was trolling me.

I saw his stupid grinning face in his wing mirror and considered scowling back at him, but decided to act nonchalant. Even so, the horrible bastard continued to trail just ahead of me all the way up the hill, until we both came to the top and he sped off, laughing.

I hope he gets lemon sorbet in his eyes.

~Fin~

A Mixed Bag of Nothing

A direct quote from one of my other blogs, Where I Like To Eat:

'...I am in fact Jewish, as well as being half Chinese. An unusual mix, granted, and indeed when with either side of my family I feel neither Jewish enough nor Chinese enough- but at least that makes me exotic and interesting (at least I like to think so!)'

I've never had a problem with being a mixed bag of blood (specifically half Chinese with Russian and Polish blood from the Jewish side). In fact, I've always thought of my mixed background as pretty darn cool: I get the elegant mystique of the Far East along with the proud grittiness of East Europe. I can handle both my stinky fermented tofu and my drink my chopped liver like a pro. I've never felt a crisis of identity, or an insecurity in who I am, or a feeling of not belonging. I've always felt that I belonged everywhere, and that anywhere could be home.

That is, until relatively recently.

It all started about a month ago, on the week of Chinese New Year (just to clarify, I've always found myself identifying with my Chinese side a tiny bit more than my European side). A colleague of mine brought in some oranges to celebrate. Later on I caught her by the printer, an orange in my hand, to thank her. I laughed that I was glad to have some fruit, after having way too much nian gao (new year sticky rice cake). My colleague gave me a funny look.

"Nian gao..?" She asked.

"Er... yeah, you know- sticky rice cake. I bought one of those cute fish-shaped ones," I added helpfully. My colleague gave me an uncertain smile.

"Natasha, you're not Chinese are you?"

I suddenly felt uncomfortable- it's not the first time it's been noted that I look extremely un-Oriental, but it was definitely the first time I felt almost caught-out. I explained I was half, and conversation awkwardly petered out.

I made my way back to my desk and had a sudden flashback, back to when I was at school:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was walking down the hallway with a Chinese friend, and she was talking about setting up a club for the Chinese pupils of the school. I said I thought this was a great idea, and I'd love to help out and join. My friend laughed.

"You're not really Chinese though, are you?" she said.

I was unfazed. "'Course I am! I mean I may not be 100% Chinese, but I have enough Chinese DNA to count I think."

"Oh Tash you know what I mean- I mean you're not Chinese enough."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Not Chinese enough.

At the time I was too bogged down with all my musical extra-curricular activities to care much that I didn't have another to add to my list, but I find myself caring now, after about a decade.

On a similar vein, I was thinking of giving dancing a whirl, recently- for fitness, and because I believe in completing things on your bucket list well before you'd normally consider having a bucket list (I'm just that organised in life). I thought of how cool it would be to do some traditional Chinese dancing- with fans and ribbons and whatnot. So I did some Googling and found a group that do adult workshops in London.

My usual devil-may-care confidence went a bit wobbly when I saw the photos of the willowy, beautiful, extremely Chinese ladies practising in their qipaos. And here's me, with my European curves, unremarkable features and distinctly un-Chinese face, hoping to join them.

I'd be like a goose amongst cranes.

Another spanner in the works is my shoddy grasp of the language- despite having studied Mandarin as a side-module at university for two years. It doesn't help that my Chinese friends have all been Cantonese-speakers and the Chinese side of my family speaks Hakka rather than Mandarin, but it's a poor excuse, even so. In fact, I studied Japanese for one year and for some bizarre reason excelled at it, while two years studying my heritage language bore slightly weaker results.

So here I am, wanting to be more involved in my own culture- but finding out that it's not my culture, after all- not really. In fact, it's starting to occur to me that my Chinese friends and family- or at least the people in Chinatown, Wing Yip or other places I frequent with a Chinese community- might actually see me as a bit of a White Girl Wannabe.

Only even without the Chinese side, I'm not really a White Girl, either.

So where the bloody hell do I belong?

I'll never find a community I can fully fit into- it's in the nature of being mixed race, after all, and I think I've forgotten this somewhere along the way. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy eating lots of different types of food and learning about my different heritages: and every time someone finds out for the first time that I'm half-Chinese and that my middle name is Ching, and responds with stark disbelief, I'll just have to get over it.

Perhaps I will ask about that dance group- perhaps not. I definitely want to take up Mandarin again (and Japanese while I'm at it- no sense in letting my knack for it go to waste...) I just wish I were as blissfully unaware of my 'unwholeness' as I was before. I suppose I'll just have to find a new level of accepting myself, and not caring about what other people think.

And yes, my middle name really is Ching.

~Fin~

Short Stories: Dancing In Front of Strangers

'I don't dance.' A common phrase of mine, say, five odd years ago. Fast forward five years on and my friend Lucia shows me her wedding DVD, which at one point features me gleefully doing the robot on the dance floor.

I've posted about the zumba classes in this blog before, which should already say something about the class' blogworthyness. Tonight, after most of the years of my life spent telling people I don't dance, I volunteered to be a demonstrator for one of the dances. This involved a lot of solo-samba-ing, air-boxing and, more mortifyingly, wiggling my hips at the rest of the class.

Me, dancing around and shaking my tush in front of about twenty other people.

Haaaahahahahaha.

I feel like I have a great big '1' drawn on the invisible scoreboard of my life, somewhere.