What we think of others.

You'd know what I like? I'd like a lip ring. I won't get a lip ring, because the reasons to not get a lip ring are far greater than the reasons to get a lip ring. One of these reasons is the way that people will see me.
And yet, I have a tattoo on my breast. It is sexually suggestive, even though that's not why I got it. It sends a certain image, which certain people can see as being a negative image. And yet, I have a tattoo. On my chest.
This tattoo means a great deal to me. Which is why I got it even though it changes the way people see me.

See, the thing is, society sees a person the way that they present themselves. And while I really don't have a problem with that, many people do. Why? Why is it wrong to not be attracted to morbidly obese people or skeletically skinny people, which are both embodiments of bad health? Why is it wrong to find piercings or tattoos agressive? Skimpy clothes provocative? Why is it wrong to act upon this?
I'm not saying to lynch everyone that doesn't physically appeal to you, but is it wrong that I, at almost 5'10, appreciate boys who are at least two inches taller than me and will therefore be much more easily attracted by a boy who is 6'? And while I wouldn't appreciate a boy straight out asking me how much I weigh (Especially that I seem to have rather generous curves and dense bones, so weigh much more than I should), I don't mind them judging me on what they like or don't. Maybe they don't like my hair, or the fact that I have hips, or no butt. Maybe they can ask me my body fat percentage, and I'll say 23%, but I'm working towards 21%, and if they know what that means, they can decide whether or not that's something they appreciate.
I don't have a problem with that. As long as I don't get publicly ridiculed for it or for something else I can't change, or am unwilling to change (heads up, I like my roots: I'm not dying them. I don't like my nose, but I'm not willing to get surgery. I also don't like my thighs, but I'm working towards it. See where I'm going with this?), I don't judge you on your preferences.

We must stop judging others on their private, personal thoughts. It's rude, and really quite none of our business.

"Do your best. Chances are, your best is average. That's ok. Do your best, and then sit back and have a beer."

My whole life, I was told I was extraordinary. To my parents, I was the kid who hadn't screwed up. To my boss, I was part of a two-women dream team. To my colleagues, I was the efficient one. To my peers, I was intelligent. To my teachers, I was the straight-A student with multiple extra-curricular activities. I was the star student with an amazing fight reputation in Tae Kwon Do. My singing teacher assured me I could go far if I wanted to. My mother kept telling me that coming from a family with money and a heritage meant I was more priviledged than anyone else. My father kept telling me that I knew how to succeed and rise ahead of everyone else. I strolled through life, convinced I was going to make it. I don't think anyone was more surprised then I was when I turned out to be really quite average.

I guess I've always known I was borderline. I've always known that I was smart enough to write well, but not to be a math gizmo. Pretty enough to impress people, but not to model. Nice enough that people warmed to me after a while, but not charismatic. I suppose I'm lucky that I'm well rounded, but I knew that I wasn't the top in anything. I would never excel. And yet, through my childhood years, I always had a strong support system. My parents, although not exactly there emotionally, were certainly there to give me the tools I couldn't acquire myself yet: finances, life experience, drive. I had teachers who believed in me, coaches who told me I had potential. And whatever I didn't excel at, I would avoid. Dancing? Pass. Drawing? God forbid they asked me to draw anything in school, I would get a friend to do it for me. Of course, intrisect motivation pushes one to do what they are best at, but I suppose that always having everyone around me telling me how good I was, was enough. And then I found myself without all those little bars and strings and ropes and people holding me up. And that's when I found out just how fragile my own two legs were. The first six months in particular were hard. I wasn't sure who I was, I wasn't sure which part of myself I wanted to focus on. I'm afraid I made rather poor decisions and that my priorities weren't straight. Instead of focusing on success, I focused on appearance. With it came vanity and a sense of self-entitlement. And yet, I figure I needed to go through that. It's part of my experience, as a child, as a person. I just wish I'd done it a little sooner, when I had people to help me back up when I crumbled.

Picking myself up was hard. Going from indestructible to brittle was painful, especially when I did end up breaking in multiple small pieces. But I now understand that if I work very very hard, and give my very best, and always reach for the stars, I am sure to stay average. Because average people are what make the majority of the world. And probability says that I'm in that majority.  

Dating

In a couple months, I went from turning down every single guy that's asked me on a date, to grudgingly accepting after five or six attempts, to accepting a quick initial invitation, to actually asking a guy out (through text, but nevertheless). A full 180. Un volte-face.
So tonight, I'm going out to grab a drink with a boy who've I've exchanged a full 5 sentences with, whom I'll admit I can't remember his face, who I'll probably exchange school and family questions with while pondering a million other things and half-listening to what he's telling me. I mean, sure, I'm bad at dating and I could probably pay more attention to my dates, but let me just say something: I'm tired of dating.
I haven't even started, and this whole let's-cautiously-tell-each-other-safe-things-and-desperately-try-to-guess-what-could-turn-you-off-and-not-mention-it-ever game is exhausting. The whole, put makeup on, and a special outfit, and shoes that are cute yet don't make you taller than him, and ponder your look carefully so as to look like you made an effort but not look desperate thing gets on my nerves. This whole, does he want me to order a salad and will he judge me if I grab a burger? thing is ridiculous. This whole, let's do five dates before seeing if we're compatible enough to sleep together is anxiety-enducing. Laughable, absurd, ludicrous.

You know what I'd like? I'd like someone to throw caution to the wind. Say "fuck it", pick me up at 11 at night, no makeup and sneakers and hair in a ponytail or hastily brushed, and take me to a 24/7 diner and throw fries at me from across the table. Or take me on a drive to see lights from above the city. Or take me on a hike and go running and see each other with messy hair and twigs in our clothes, and sweaty brows, and real, hearty laughs. I want someone to pretend they've known me forever, and then they'll get to know me so much faster.

I don't want to "go grab a coffee". I don't want to "meet up for a drink". I don't want to go through the whole awkward phase where I'm not sure if what you're telling me is true, or if you have an ulterior motive. I'm tired of not being paranoid enough, because I really don't give a shit, and wore something that isn't your favorite colour, or didn't pop a mint in after dinner. I want to grab pizza if I want to, I don't want to have to worry if you'll pay, and I certainly don't want to go back home having not laughed or gotten to know you. I don't want to walk on eggshells until it's been four months and we're finally confortable... and then we realize neither of us want what we initially thought the other one wanted.

And I might be scared of commitment. I might be scared of looking weak if I get attached. I might even look like that one aunt that always shows up to the family party with a different boyfriend and whom everyone knows will never actually get settled down.  But seriously? Screw conventions. Just grab my hand, show me something I've never done, and your odds of finding a girl that will follow you on the next adventure just increased tenfolds.

Pretty people have it best

I'm a pretty girl.

It's not vanity, or pride, or self-content that makes me say it. It's the fact that I know this, because people tell me. And all my life, I've always fought it. Fought the fact that I could bat my eyelashes or smile or flip my blonde hair and I would succeed in getting what I wanted.
I fought it by being a down-to-earth, logical, hard bitch. And it hurt sometimes, to not be loved, and to not be popular in high school and to have my friends flat out call me out on it. But at least at that point, I could stay rooted in the fact that I was more than a pretty face: I was intelligent. Smart. Successful. I was going somewhere.
None of my awards, none of my grades were achieved by looking good. It was all in what I was capable of doing.

Lately, I got my wisdom teeth pulled, which resulted in my face swelling up. I joked about going out in bars in that state, to see if my personality was really what people liked about me. And yet, it was a facade. I know that when I walk in a store and I smile and ask for information, people are happy to give it to me. And I know that I don't have to be quite as nice as people who aren't as good looking as me, to be seen as being just as nice. Because people are happy (and... almost relieved?) that I'm not a complete bitch. I have had a couple people tell me "yeah, but you're nice... and pretty?" as though is wasn't required of me to treat people with extra care, because I could get away with being somewhat of a bitch.

This is not the point, though. The point is that lately, I've been slipping.
For a year and a half, I have been totally, utterly, completely lost. The truth is that financially, academically and personally, I've had a very loose, slippery grasp on my life. Like a boat, my life hit a storm the second I moved to Montreal. It immediately took in a large amount of water, and I've been trying to empty out with a spoon ever since. Sometimes my boat is almost afloat. Lately, the edge has been dangerously close to the water. I can just say that having wet feet constantly sucks.

All metaphors put aside, I feel like everything is going downwards. My memory and focus are shot, my grades are spiralling out of control, and I recently flirted (flirted!!) with a teacher, because I knew he would do whatever he could to make me pass a course.

The point is that I'm no longer a smart girl. I'm no longer a bitch, either. Oh no, I'm the dumb blonde. You know the one that tries so hard, and is really nice and smiles all the time, but God, do you wish she could shut up? Oh yeah, that's me now. And some part of me wishes she could just let go. Let go of the act and the smiles and go back to being the girl who succeeds alone. And the other part of me thinks that smiling and flipping hair is so much easier.

Black and White

Ok, here's another one of my oh-so-insightful, tearful, I'm-so-deep-it's-dark posts. As usual, I'll try to keep it short, but I'll probably end up rambling.

I'm just thinking that every time a friend gets hurt, all the other friends rush in and comfort her and we tell her that she's so much better than the guy that hurt her and that he was a loser anyway. (Side note here: I just want to say that I don't enjoy bashing people simply because I've dated them, because I've actually spent a lot of time appreciating that person and if they're really total idiots, well that means I'm either an idiot (which I don't like being) for wasting that much time on them, or that they had me fooled, which I also don't like. So, no. Someone that you chose to love or like or appreciate is not a total idiot the day you decide it hasn't worked out. It just hasn't worked out. And you're losing something precious. And that's why you're broken-hearted. Except my friend who dated Butt-plug. No, he was a complete idiot from the start and you wasted way too much time on him. End of side-note.) And eventually, she gets over him, moves on, starts over again, because she forgets the pain and the agony of a broken heart and moves on. She can do this, because she knows she is not in the wrong. He was an idiot, and a jerk, and evil, and she does one of two things:
1) accept it, resign to the fact that he was an idiot and a jerk and evil, and move on, because she no longer cares: He doesn't deserve the energy that it takes to care.
2) forgive him, be the bigger person, and feel good about it. And then move on.
They move on.

I can't do that. I can't, because in my story, I am the evil. I'm the one who acted wrong, and there is no one around me that will or can convince me that I am not in the wrong and that I'm the one who should be doing the forgiving. Not even I can tell myself that I apologized and fixed things and that I'm in the clear. Because no amount of "I'm sorry"s can save your sorry ass when everyone else is either too hurt to hear or too happy to bother listening.
And every time I see someone posting a tweet or reblogging a stupid picture of a text with an apology or some form of "take me back, I was an idiot" and longing to receive that text, part of me wants to scream that they will never get that text, that they will never be on the receiving end of it, because it's not the kind of text that you send. And I'm saying it from the perspective of someone who should be sending it. Every time I see one of those pictures, I want to scream that I yearn to send one of them out, to apologize, to try to fix things. And if I can't fix it, to get a reaction of some kind. To get a chance to explain my motivation, my reasons. Because no evil does something for no reason. Even the most evil of evils had a reason behind what they did.
And yet, nothing ever ends well for the evil ones. And even though all the movies and the stories in the world prepared me, I wasn't ready to be on this side of the fence. And I certainly wasn't ready for things to not end well for me.

Back to life

Well, I've been admitted to my program, the one that is adding 1.5 years to my bac (as if the fact that I haven't done my CEGEP and had to do an extra 2 years wasn't enough) and hopefully bringing my cote R up. Strangely, I was over the moon when I got the e-mail, as I wasn't sure I'd get in, even with the ridiculously low admission standards.
And then, I got the e-mail saying I needed to take yet another french test to prove my ability to study in french. Here's what I wanted to write back, but didn't, because I'm a mature adult.

Cher Comité de l'Admission et Bureau du Doyen de l'Université de Montreal,

C'est une honneur pour moi d'avoir été admise à la Mineure des Arts et Sciences, après avoir été admise à l'année préparatoire, que je complète ce semestre, avec exemption des deux (oui, des deux!) cours de français. Ayant déjà passé le test de français requis pour accéder à ce programme, je m'étais promis que plus jamais n'écrirais-je un examen de français. Il me peine donc de voir qu'il me sera obligé d'en écrire un autre, pour prouver que malgré le fait que je suis née au Quebec et que j'étudie strictement en français depuis le dernier examen que vous m'avez demandé d'écrire, je devrai en écrire un autre. Imaginez mon regret quand je me rappelle que si j'avais abandonné mon héritage francophone et que j'avais accepté mon admission a McGill, non seulement aurais-je accéder directement à la première année et que je serais en deuxième année de bac au moment où j'écris cette lettre (au lieu de faire un bac qui me prendra un minimum de cinq ans, sept dans mon regrettable cas), mais que je n'aurais pas eu à écrire non seulement pas un, mais deux tests de français, quand mon programme ne contient absolument aucune Lettres. Je m'insurge particulièrement au fait que certain étudiants étrangers dans ma classe ne comprennent effectivement presque aucun français, et je ne puis que me poser la question de comment ils ont fait pour réussir ce test, que j'ai moi-même trouvé difficile, malgré ma maîtrise du français...
Par contre, j'apprécie votre consécration à l'effort de garder le français une langue fière et propre à l'Université de Montréal. Je refuse de perdre trois heures de ma vie à vous prouver quelque chose que je vous ai non seulement déjà prouvé, mais qui est facilement déductible en regardant les faits: mon éducation complètement francophone, ma réussite du premier test, et le fait que j'ai été élevé de façon québecoise.

merci de votre temps, puisque vous perdez le mien,
une étudiante incroyablement frustrée.

Normal

Normal. Definition: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected. According to the definition, there is a normal. According to Blogger, I am typing in a normal size, in a normal font. When I walk down the streets, minding my own business, eyes straight ahead, I am normal. Eating, sleeping, breathing: normal.

     And yet, as they say, what is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly. And yet, isn't it normal for the fly to get eaten? Standard. Usual, typical, expected. The fly must know that there are predators out to get it, no? And yet,  it still struggles as it is entrapped in the web. Chaos. Normal, expected chaos.
     It is "normal" to be allergic to peanuts, or pollen. I always get surprised looks when I mention I'm allergic to carrots. As though my histamines weren't allowed to react to carotene-B. 

     As someone who always had trouble "fitting in", especially in high school, I've learned that "normal" does not exist. Some people are better are hiding it. They smile at the usual things, walk a typical way, do the expected things. And then they turn around and put butter on crackers. Or pick their noses in private. Or dance in the street, in public. Turns out they weren't so normal, but because they conformed to everything else, people generally let it slip by. If they were "popular" (I hate that word, because to whom are they popular? Themselves? Their group of highly influencable teenage peers?), it would be excused. A little like when you're really good at your job and you mess up, they'll give you a chance. If you slip, they'll help you back up, because you're otherwise "normal", good at what you do.
     I had a friend who use to smile at strangers. Whether she were at the mall or on the streets or in school, if she made eye contact with someone, she would smile. Now, there are two scenarios. If she were to seek eye contact, that would be bizarre. Needy. Definitely not normal, definitely weird. However, when she smiled at strangers who just happened to cross her eyes with theirs, they always seemed taken aback for a split second - definitely not a usual event, they were confused- and then they would frequently return it, because although it wasn't normal for someone to smile at them, it wasn't usual, it was pleasant, and didn't necessarily mean that she would stalk them and then kill them in their homes. It was just a nice, sociable, socially acceptable gestures.
A second friend, B, met said friend A, and made a comment on how bizarre it was for her to always be smiling at people she didn't know. By this time, A was a very close friend of mine that I'd spent quite a bit of time with. I shrugged at B's comment and said "Yeah, but that's just A." I've since then realized that people see normalcy as what is not a threat to them, and in society, there are standards or normalcy in order to get accepted. Excentric people can only be called excentric if they have something else to offer: great money, great talent, great opinions. Otherwise, they're not excentric. Only dangerous, or weird. 
Putting butter on crackers: eventually acceptable. Picking your nose: still gross, even after many years, but the more we see it, the less we make a big deal out of it. A simple shiver with a disgusted look suffices to communicate to our peers that this behavior is not one we condone. Dancing on the street? There are shared opinions, but people tend to protect themselves and mention that it is bizarre, even as they smile condescendingly at a stranger's happiness. 

I've learned that fighting society is exhausting. And while I still have my quirks (blatantly lacking tact when I talk to someone I don't like, for example (ain't no time for picking out words and sugar coating the truth if I don't appreciate you) ) I've learned to tone it down. I will sing into my phone, instead of out loud outside. I will keep my dancing confined to my room. ect. And it turns out life is so much easier like that.