An Illusion of Class

I'm writing this sitting in the First Class carriage of a Virgin Train, on my way to celebrate a friend's birthday in Birmingham, wearing my favourite cat-Avengers T-shirt. I had a ridiculous moment this morning where I considered wearing something smarter for the journey.

I don't often travel by First Class and I wondered if my very geeky attire was too... plebeian. Thankfully I came to my senses and remembered that no-one cares about that sort of nonsense any more- and anyway, I was just going on the train,  not Buckingham bloody Palace.

In any case, here I am, and I was right not to worry. Yes there are handful of stuffy-looking businesspeople, but there's plenty of average Joes and Janes like myself, a token loudmouth couple with obnoxious ringtones, and a guy in the biggest, shabbiest straw hat I've ever seen wearing an overall-ed getup that has 'farmer' stamped all over it.

I think that between my T-shirt and his hat, people are more likely to notice the hat. Either way, no-one minds at all.

Will Take Kittens for Bribes

Recently, an old school friend of Dad's passed away from a combination of lung and bone cancer. From what I hear he was a great guy, and one of the last things he did before he died was to reunite his and my dad's old group of school friends. It's unknown whether or not he knew he was dying when he got everyone together- I suspect he did, but others say he wasn't officially diagnosed until only two weeks before his passing. In any case, when his condition rapidly deteriorated, he was in such a bad way that all his family could do was wish him a swift passing to end his suffering.

My dad has smoked since he was a teenager, and I've always been on at him to quit, terrified that this may one day be his fate, too. Alas, he's always been of the 'it won't happen to me' mindset. He refuses to believe that you don't have to be a chain smoker to be killed by cigarettes, choosing to believe that his couple a day is healthy enough. However, I can tell his friend's untimely passing has struck a note with him.

So I decided to strike while the iron was hot.

I asked Dad if he was ready to give up smoking now. He said no- whilst lighting one up. We stepped into the garden while he smoked (Dad hadn't smoked in the house since I was born). He added that he could right away if he wanted to- he just didn't want to. In fact, for the whole two weeks he and Mum were on holiday in Malaysia recently, he didn't take any tobacco with him and didn't smoke once! So what was the problem, I asked him? Dad half-joked that I was trying to take one of his few pleasures in life away. What would it take for me to get him to stop smoking? I asked him. He looked thoughtful, took a drag of his cigarette, puffed out and grinned.

"If you can convince your mother to get two new kittens, then I'll give up smoking."

I laughed. It's no secret that we're a family of cat people, neither that Dad has been thinking about adding to our feline family. But two kittens? Impossible. We already have to adult cats, and Dad knew as well as I did that Mum would hit the roof if I suggested we added two energetic balls of fur to the collection.

But then I got thinking. Dad didn't smoke in Malaysia at all- was it because he was enjoying himself out there too much to care? Back at home, with the stress of work and bills and daily life, of course it'd be harder to kick the habit. Dad has no regular hobbies, so maybe a distraction is the answer to this problem. And maybe a distraction in the form of an energetic ball of fur is just what he needs.

"One kitten."

"What?"

"One kitten." I looked at him seriously. "I'll convince Mum- but only and ONLY if you solemnly swear that, if I succeed, you'll give up for good."

Dad looked at me warily, cigarette hovering.

"I mean it: Dad's honour. One kitten, no smoking."

Dad took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette and exhaled very slowly. "... Alright."

We shook on it, me giving my poor Dad the meanest stare I could muster.

"Give me a month," I said, ominously.

I didn't feel as brave as I sounded, though- I knew it would be a real job convincing Mum. While I'd like another cat as much as Dad- I also have my Mum's practical brain in me. What about the extra money on vet bills and food? Dad's retiring soon, can we really afford another cat? Would it be fair on the other cats to cause them the stress of socialising them with a new cat? How would we juggle taking time off to litter train the kitten, introduce it to the garden, make sure it didn't escape through the cat flap before it had orientated itself in our home?

But if it meant Dad giving up cigarettes for good...

This was a week ago. Last night I caught mum in a good mood. I tentatively broached the subject with her, mentioning that there was a chance that we could get Dad to stop smoking... but only if we supplied him with a kitten.

To my surprise, Mum responded only by scrunching up her nose a little. This might seem bad to you, but to me- who has a couple of decades of reading my mum's body language- this was positive. It wasn't an outright and definite no.

Sorry Dad, your smoking days may be numbered after all.

Self-Marketing: A Case Study with a Surprise

Everyone has different facets of their personality. At least, people are rarely two-dimensional, and there are lots of things that make you, well, you. However, I believe everyone has a facet that they put out there as their main USP for the world to judge them with. It's hard for me to determine what my own main USP is, but my general geekiness is definitely one that I don't bother to suppress.

This weekend I managed to bust out two almost contrasting sides of myself, one day after another: the Geeky Dorky Girl (GDG), and the slightly rarer Sophisticated City Gal (SCG) . Where GDG has a shy, slightly bashful smile, is hesitant to meet your eyes and will suddenly become comically animated when you talk to her about sci-fi, Super Mario or fantasy, SCG is confident and collected with an easy laugh.

On Friday night I was SCG, and Saturday and Sunday I was GDG.

My friend Siu Yen came to visit me in London over the weekend, and we began by going to a cocktail bar on the Friday night. We both styled ourselves with nice-but-not-too-OTT dresses, tamed and styled our hair to enhance our natural looks (sleek and straight for Siu Yen, boho waves for me), and made our faces up with careful precision (again to suit our natural looks, because neither of us likes the heavy makeup look). Still, we were pretty polished, and looking at our best for the evening.

Siu Yen and I are both slightly dorky and cute but very intelligent, and we share a very similar sense of humour and way of thinking- but Siu Yen is a little more used to dressing up and partying in the more traditional sense than I am- don't get me wrong, I love doing girly stuff, but my time is more often taken up by nerdy things like conventions and visiting places. She seemed pleasantly surprised to see me all dolled up when we met for cocktails with another friend (that's how often I go the extra mile to look nice), and off we went to hit the bar.

The first person to try to strike up a conversation with me at the bar was a man old enough to be my father. I politely chatted with him without encouraging further questions until he moved on to rejoin his group of friends, and I turned to Siu Yen and lamented at how I only ever seem to attract much older guys (it certainly seems to be true, sometimes). However to my personal quiet relief, another guy started chatting to me, and he was more my age. Thank goodness it's not only older men that like the look of me, after all! I mean I know I'm awesome on the inside, but let's face it: in this unjust world, first impressions are everything. In any case, I wasn't interested, and after a few good-natured digs at each other's choices of drinks I re-grouped with my friends.

I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if I was interested in the second guy, and I thought of how he'd probably run a mile as soon as he found out that beneath my charming, elegant exterior was hiding a slightly awkward supernerd who only properly styles her hair once every few months. I certainly found that the young professional guys during my social experiment pretty much eliminated me as a serious option the more they discovered how dorky I really am. On the other scale of things, when I'm 'off-duty' and just my normal slightly dorky self, there's still a professional,strong-willed and sharp person under that, too.

In any case, it gave me a bit of an always much-needed confidence boost. I often think that older men chat me up because they think I might be easier because I'm not as stunning as other girls in the room (I'm alright-looking, but I'm no classic Ten). It's nice once in a while when I get noticed by someone more my age in any case, even if on a selfish level because I'm not interested back. Anyway, at the end of the evening I took my SCG face off, brushed my immaculate SCG curls back into my hair's usual slightly fluffy shock of waves, and by the next day I'd morphed into GDG- my fallback facet.

I own quite a few nerdy T-shirts. A Big Bang Theory-themed one with the word 'BAZINGA' emblazoned on the front in large writing, a crossover one with some minions from Despicable Me carrying off the TARDIS, more than one My Neighbour Totoro T-shirt, one with the Thundercats logo, a pretty cool 3D effect from from Cyberdog... but my current favourite one is a picture of all the main characters of Marvel's The Avengers as cartoon cats. It's freaking adorable. This is what I wore on Saturday, with some cropped linen trousers and sandals. Not exactly 'hot girl material', but it was very me.

Ironically, I told Siu Yen about my theory about me getting more attention when I'm dressed up, but whenever I'm more like myself, no-one so much as glances in my direction. I noted how although I hate being the centre of attention and quite like vanishing into the crowd, I do feel kind of sad that the exterior of the 'real me' doesn't seem worth a bother. Does that mean that the interior that goes with it isn't worth a bother, too? That is of course ridiculous- but the problem of course is that you have to get to know me over time to realise there's more to me than that. It's the same for everybody- but alas, some people get a visual head start in life.

The irony of that conversation happened when Siu Yen and I went shopping, and I was paying for my stuff at the checkout of a semi-stylish high street store. The guy serving me at the counter glanced at my Avenger Cats T-shirt and quirked an eyebrow at me. I felt a little self-conscious, but stared back politely but defiantly. I assessed him quickly: gelled spiky hair, effortless smart-casual style, a slightly haughty stance- he probably didn't have a nerdy bone in his body.

"Nice shirt," he said, scanning the surprisingly) fashionable top I'd just bought.

"Thanks," I said, thinking he was being slightly sarcastic but deciding to play along as if he were being sincere. "Cats- awesome, Avengers- epic, can't go wrong!"

The guy grinned, and I suddenly felt slightly defensive.

"Sorry," I said, instantly mad at myself for apologising like I always do, "Super-geek."

He looked a little surprised, and then he said something that blew me away.

"Me, too. Marvel, games, Warcraft, love it."

Now I was the one judging a book by its cover. Great. Wait, Warcraft?

"World of Warcraft? I lost like, a good two years of my life to that game! I quit just before the Cataclysm expansion because I got bored of how long it took to get from level 75 to 80."

"Well I've lost eight years and counting, but I really got into it during the Wrath of the Litch King."

"That's when I started playing, but I got sick of waiting for the right gear to drop from bosses."

"I guess I got lucky, now I have three level 90 guys."

"Geeze that's dedication."

I was aware of Siu Yen grinning off to the side, a little non-plussed at the WoW talk having never played it. In the end I paid for my stuff, all the while chatting away about the nerdiest stuff ever, and left grinning like a lunatic. Finally, for once someone noticing the real (well, more genuine) me from the start! It felt amazing. Maybe I don't have to be SCG all the time to be taken seriously as a person. I spent the rest of the day in a great mood.

The next day, I came to the station with Siu Yen to see her off, wearing my BAZINGA top. When we were in the coffee shop, the girl behind the counter pointed to my T-shirt and said to me "amazing top, I LOVE that show! Where did you get it from?"

I was in a great mood that day, too.

So even I am guilty of judging people by the way they present themselves, and there are people out there that will notice me when I'm not all dolled up too. In which case, I should learn to look at people in a different way, and remember that there's more to people than what they put out there on the surface for the world to see. I know this. Everyone knows this. It's just hard to remember sometimes when you're wrapped up in your own world of facets.

In Case of Emergency, Don't Break Bones

I took the afternoon off work today to get a head start on tidying the house for a friend who's coming to stay for a couple of days from tomorrow. Being home alone for a bit, I figured I'd need a little extra time to be able to tidy everything.

Operation: Cleanup wasn't going so well. I'd already completely obliterated a very old saucer that didn't so much shatter as explode in all directions like a shrapnel bomb, and I hadn't even started yet: I'd only just gotten home and started to unload the dishwasher.

Next, after wasting valuable time sweeping my previously nice clean floor, I attempted to water the garden as it had been dry and sunny for the last couple of days, with no sign of rain to come for a while. That went wrong, too: the garage door jammed, leaving me unable to access the hose pipe- resulting in me doggedly watering the entire garden with a medium-sized watering can.

I'd just finished watering the tomatoes in their plant pots when I remembered the hanging baskets out at front. Already exhausted, overheated from the sun, hair sticking out at odd angles from my ponytail and having not even started truly cleaning the house itself, I retrieved the smaller watering can. I filled it, trouped through the house, opened the front door and got to work.

The wind blew. *SLAM*.

I turned around to find the front door in my face.

And realised that, for the first time in my existence, I'd gone out without my keys.

It was one of those moments where your brain takes a few seconds to process the situation. I stood, dumbly, staring at the door in front of me with the watering can still tilted into one of the hanging baskets. A drop of water landed on my sandal-ed foot, and I snapped to attention. I was locked out! Stupid, stupid! Alright, focus! What were my options?

Remembering that I'd left the kitchen door unlocked from watering (but knowing I'd somehow have to get past the locked garden gate), I made my way to the side and back of the house. I set the watering can down, kicked my flimsy sandals off and attempted to scale the gate- with no luck. It was too high and devoid of footholds, and the angle at which I was coming at it was putting too much force on the thin top of the gate. Not feeling like breaking my neck today, I turned the recycling bin by the gate upside-down and tried to use it as a boost. Still too short!

I had an idea: if I could reach over far enough, I might be able to knock the bolt back with the watering can and let myself in. As I was thinking of asking any neighbours that were at home (it only being 4pm and most still at work), I remembered something: my aunt and uncle! Years and years ago I remember my mum mentioning them having spare keys. It was a long shot: this was way back when I was a child- but it was better than nothing- and at very least they'd have a step ladder and were likely to be in, since it's the school holidays at the moment and they have two girls at school.

So I shuffled back into my sandals and off I went, walking to their house. It's only a five-minute walk, but  it felt longer thanks to my footwear: these sandals were of the cheap, poorly-made sort that I only use to nip out into the garden with. The straps had already begun to cheese-wire into the tops of my feet, but I was able to ignore the pain and instead focus on how horribly hot the sun was overhead.

Luckily my aunt was in. As I feared, they no longer had the spare keys to my house- but they did have a stepladder. Assuring my aunt that I had everything under control, I hoisted the thing over my shoulder and set off back to my house, passing a few puzzled local pedestrians on the way.

Hoping in vain there weren't any police people about or suspicious passers-by, I set the ladder by the back gate, kicked the stupid sandals off again and climbed. I was still too short to get a leg up! But at least I could lean over a bit and see the bolt, now. I scooted back down, grabbed the watering can and scooted back. Holding the spout, I attempted to hook the bolt with the opening of the watering can to slide it back.

Unfortunately the watering can was that little big too short to reach, and I ended up knocking the catch of the bold upside-down and flat against the door. Now what?

I climbed down, and Macgyver-style started looking through the recycling bin, hoping to find something I could make some sort of rudimentary lasso with in order to hook the bolt back up. Alas, there was nothing but newspapers and a small empty tissue box.

Then I thought: a coat hanger! If I can find someone who has one of those wire coat hangers, I could bend that into shape quite well, and it'd be long enough too. Putting my sandals back on (by now my feet were pretty cut up), I started pushing doorbell buttons- but to no avail. No-one was back from work yet. How far was I going to have to walk to find someone?

Just as I resigned myself to more foot torture, I saw a white van pull up down the road: Mick and Paul! Two family friends, also a builder and plumber who'd sorted our kitchen extension out for us. They were looking at me curiously (I realised I was walking about with the watering can still in my hand), and with an almost absurd calm I strolled up to them.

"Hey, Tash! Paul said. "You alright?"

"Not really," I replied, grinning sheepishly. "I've gone and locked myself out of my house. I don't suppose either of you have a wire coat hanger lying around, do you?"

 "Coat hanger?"

I explained what had happened, and how I intended to infiltrate my own garden. Paul asked me if the kitchen door was unlocked, and grinned when I confirmed that it was.

"Let's see what I can do."

We walked back to the garden gate, where Paul climbed the ladder and vaulted the fence like it was nothing. *CLICK*, and I was in! Thanking Paul profusely for saving my skin (or at least a fair bit of money from having to call a locksmith), I darted in, put the watering can back in its rightful place, changed into less painful shoes, grabbed my keys and took the ladder back to my aunt in my car.

Like I said before, I've never, ever set foot out of the house without my keys before, even for watering the hanging baskets. I think I was just so flustered by the way the day was going I just got carried away. Anyway, I felt satisfied knowing that I'd made the plants happy, even though I had a tough time doing it.

But do you know what the real kicker was? About an hour later it started to rain.

~Fin~

Let Your Conscience be your Guide

I've had a pretty rough week. No, let me rephrase that: I've had a pretty productive week. It's just that it's been so productive, I'm shattered beyond belief, and there's still one more day of non-stopness to go. Every day after work I've been going out on errands and the like, and now it's the weekend I've been even busier running around for people (two consecutive birthdays = a lot of baking of Tashcakes). The only evening I had off in my diary to rest this week was Tuesday.

However, this changed on Monday evening. I was in town after work because I had to commute, my car being in the garage for its MOT. I decided to stop by my favourite bubble tea shop on the way home, because I was tired and fed up, and it was only Monday.

There are lots of bubble tea shops to choose from in Chinatown, but the small shop Cuppacha was the first to sell bubble teas in almost as many flavours as you can get in South West Asia- and even though since then a bigger, more internationally popular bubble tea brand with a bazillion flavours and options has set up shop right on the main street of Chinatown, I've remained loyal to Cuppacha. Why?

Because they smile.

They are always so friendly in Cuppacha, and an attitude like that is becoming tough to find in retail and catering. At the other places, you're not really a human being, just a talking, moving body. And even if all customers are just bodies moving in and out of the shop, a smile really makes a difference.

So I went in to get my tea, ordering a fancy one where the topping comes separately. The guy serving me double-checked that I knew the topping was 50p extra, and I confirmed I knew. I paid for my tea, put my change in the tip jar, picked up my bubble tea and left.

A worried little buzzer went off in my brain as I sat on the train home sipping my bubble tea, and I fished the receipt out of my pocket: I hadn't been charged that extra 50p. I'd effectively stolen a topping! What was I going to do?

Normally, I'd feel a tiny bit guilty but forget about it, knowing a small undercharge wouldn't be missed. However in this case I felt terrible. This little tea shop was beginning to struggle to compete against the bigger company in its prime location, and I felt ridiculously loyal to it for a silly old bubble tea shop. However I always go to it- how on earth could I go back and look them in the eye again knowing I'd stolen toppings?

So the next day, I went two hours out of my way after work to go back and give them the extra 50p.

I know I know, I'm mad.

I felt really embarrassed, but the girl that was serving that day gave the cutest, most delighted laugh I have ever heard and like magic I felt better. Of course, I also bought another bubble tea while I was there (see? Being smiley works).

Don't tell me you've never been in a situation where you feel like you've conned someone, willingly or not, and felt bad afterwards. Was I completely pathetic going back? Probably. But at least my conscience is clear.

~Fin~

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.

Jim Beryl: A Salute to One Cool Dude

The orchestra triumphantly belted out the last few notes of the final movement of Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 10 in E minor, and the Royal Albert Hall exhaled and let rip an awed, enthusiastic round of applause. The themes in that particular symphony are rather dark and intense at times, and the oppressive tension is very noticeable in the music, even if the listener isn't aware of the political significance of it 71at the time of its composition. Nevertheless, the ending of the final movement seems to release all of that tension at once in a frantic controlled chaos, leaving all listeners breathless and ever so slightly relieved. It's a fantastic piece of music.

My friend Min Hwee leaned in to shout over the audience's applause to express how impressed she was with how strong the percussion section of the orchestra was. I shouted back in agreement.

"You know, it made me think of Mr Beryl," she shouted.

"Who?" I shouted back.

"Mr Beryl! You know, the percussion teacher?"

I did indeed remember. Mr Beryl: glasses, smiles, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, a wizard on the drum kit; in his late fifties when I left school, probably mid-sixties by now.

"Oh, Mr Beryl! How come?" I asked.

Min Hwee blinked. "Well, you know," she said slowly, "how he passed away..."

Min Hwee tailed off and looked mildly horrified: I hadn't known. I had frozen mid-clap, and I think my face openly showed my shock.

I learned that he'd been diagnosed with cancer, and had been battling it for just a few months after diagnosis before he died. Apparently he'd been teaching almost right up until the end.

Jim Beryl: not a big man, but larger than life even so. Always full of fun and enthusiasm.

School wasn't an easy experience for me to begin with. It took quite a few years for me to figure out who I was and where I fit in, by which time I was already doing my GCSEs. By Sixth Form and A-Levels, I practically lived in the music school, taking part in the vast majority of music groups in some shape or form. One of the things I found myself in during Sixth Form was Percussion Ensemble, which was headed by Mr Beryl, the percussion music teacher. I enjoyed myself immensely in all of the music groups I took part in, but Percussion Ensemble was 'pure fun' because it was the only group in which I played instruments that I wasn't formally studying.

I became one of a few unofficial members of Percussion Ensemble during the biennial music school tour, as the ensemble needed a few more people to play who were also going on tour. We unofficial members picked tuned percussion up quite quickly, having already had solid musical backgrounds, and my two favourite instruments in the ensemble became the marimba and the vibraphone, partially because of the similar layout to the piano (my main instrument), and partially because I loved the sounds they made. In any case, I've always associated Percussion Ensemble (along with the whole of the music department) with the time I stopped dreading school, and began to love being there.

Min Hwee and I reminisced about the time Mr Beryl got a little carried away during a school concert: during a section of music where there was supposed to be a pause, he kept on playing the drum kit with gusto before realising that it was time to stop. Mr Mitchell (the conductor/ head of the music department, and also another well-liked teacher) shot him a exasperated look, which was met with a not-quite-sheepish-enough grin- giving the rest of us the giggles as we tried to remain professional and continue with the concert.

That guy had an amazing sense of humour. He was an incredible musician in his own right, his enthusiasm for music was infectious, and he was a great inspiration to many a pupil. If there's any justice in the world, I'd like to think he's up there jamming with Sir Patrick Moore.

My heartfelt condolences to his family. I was deeply saddened by the news, even if it is old news for some. To the man himself: thank you for being such an awesome teacher, even though I wasn't directly a pupil of yours, and thank you for giving me one more much-need reason to love school.