Exposed

My cyber-stalking tendencies, thrown open to public scrutiny.

moral of the story?
if you are following someone this closely, you either:
1) let them know
2) cover your tracks so they won't ever find out

obviously i did neither and she found me!!

edina, if you're reading this, i want you to know that i'm happy you did. i didnt really have that much fun in secondary school because a lot of people simply assume that you arent made of much just because your grades are pathetic, and some of my best memories from that time are of us in class laughing and talking.

i'd be more than happy to meet up. it's always much much better seeing a person in the flesh than from across a computer screen : )

What's Your Stalking Style?

There's something about watching as people go about their daily affairs.

this smells of voyeurism, but i actually enjoy reading the blogs or FB profiles of people i dont know very well. i mean, the information's all there for the taking, but what's so absorbing about the entire experience is the fact that those people have no idea that i've been catching up (very frequently, no less) on their personal going-ons.

today i stumbled upon the blog (and an extremely active one at that!) of an ex-classmate from secondary school. and she sounds like she hasnt changed the slightest bit since i last saw her some 14 years ago. of course, there are the usual things like work and marriage and the addition of a fat cat, but apart from that she seems to be just the way i remembered her.

the year is 1993 and my classmates are painting banners for the upcoming michael jackson concert at the national stadium. ace of base and pj and duncan rule the airwaves and everyone's favourite radio DJ has to be mark richmond.

the early 90s was the golden age of the pioneering ah lian/ah beng movement. textbooks wrapped in print ads for luxury brands shorn from magazines, valentino paper bags in place of regular school bags, canvas shoes with tucked-in laces, sonia rykiel bags for the girls and long hair combs with sharpened ends for the boys.

she was one of the loudest and most non-conforming girls in class. while that isnt really saying much since we were from a prim-and-proper all-girls' school, to this day i still wonder how her parents let her get away with pencil-thin eyebrows at age 13. she sat in front of me in class so the proximity allowed me access to details of her tea-dance revelling at fire disco and sparks.

not that she would have ever been real friends with me, since i was the one with the geeky gold-rimmed fishbowl glasses and hair with a fringe cut 2 centimetres too high up my forehead. plus the fact that she was the "cool and funky" minah while i was really your typical blend-into-the-wall "guai-guai" chinese girl.

while she has since graduated from her elle shoes and MCM jeans, i was somewhat relieved to find out that her inner minah is still very much alive. she is still loves her labels, although her tastes have become much more expensive with age. and she is still best friends with our class monitress from 1993!

back in secondary school, people like me have always secretly fantasized about being more like the cool girls in class, and i've wondered idly not on a few occasions of how my ex-classmates have progressed since graduation. for that, i'm glad to have found her blog, since it's always a relief to know how the people you used to spent time with are getting along in life.

because really, blessed are the things that dont ever change.

The Next Miss Popular

Hello, my name is Serinah and I am in the running to be the next Miss Popular.

i'm participating in a contest that doesnt require me to answer questions about alleviating poverty or promoting world peace. i dont even need to strut the catwalk in my national costume or parade around in a bikini.

but i do need to prove that i am interesting and loved enough to fill 120 seats in a ballroom. which doesnt really seem all that difficult, does it? i mean, other (lesser) mortals have managed, with a great degree of success i might add, to pack more people into even larger venues.

but you see, the theory of relativity presides over such situations. if you have 500 seats, you can invite every other third-tier friend or random hanako or taro you know, with very little need to think about the dynamics of your relationship with such people. the act of extending an invitation in such a situation is not loaded with meaning simply because there is no need to pass your entire social circle through a sift into its various ranks and levels so that you may filter out your inner circle from all of the rest.

when there are only 100 blanks to fill in the guest list however, things begin to take on a bigger meaning. it translates into the necessary selection of a choice few. which also hints at the shock that awaits you when the people you tagged as your "close friends" choose instead to sit on the invitation or reject coming altogether.

and so, here i am gripped with the fear of being treated as the second/third/fourth-tier/unranked friend as i send out save-the-date messages to my potential guests.

i'm really not in it to win. i'm just hoping that people will love me as much as i love them.

Dreams

Last night I dreamed of someone I havent met in the longest time.

we were almost best friends in secondary school. by "almost" i mean i wasnt meant to be her BFF because she was already promised to another. the realization that we were never going to be exclusive best friends upset me and made me jealous of the other girl, who was naturally, as do most stories go, bright, talented and popular.

but we were close. and she shared with me the details of her every crush, the one where she fell in love with the back view of a boy she happened to be on a tour bus with while she was holidaying in indonesia with her family being the most memorable of all.

i was always at her house, an apartment in geylang with its very own elevator landing that opened up into the living room. she had a poodle named alpha, and while i was never a big fan of poodles i cried along with her when alpha died.

she loved keanu reeves and boyzone, so we watched every movie that keanu reeves starred in and i listened while she raved about the latest boyzone single.

then when we left secondary school, she started a relationship with a boy she met every morning in the train on her way to junior college and i met my first boyfriend in school. we were young and didnt know anything about juggling priorities in love, school and friendship, so we drifted apart.

for the next six or seven years our contact was reduced to the random phone call, the rare text message. she quit JC and switched to polytechnic while i entered university. from there, our paths forked.

a year before i was to come to okinawa, she asked me out to dinner. it turned out that her relationship with her divorced boss crumbled when he fell for the new secretary, and she was looking to rebuild her friendships, which she said she had neglected over the past years. but for some reason, dinner didnt blossom into a resurrected friendship and until today, i still dont know why we never became more than almost-best friends.

ten years on and we've moved on to new friendships and new lives. last night's dream reminded me of how straightforward everything used to be. perhaps it's because i've forgotten what it's like to think simple. or maybe it's because some friendships dont last past a certain expiry date.

in any case, i do hope she is doing fine.