▼ △ B R I ▼ △: February 2017

In Brimos,

I feel bad for constantly neglecting this space and only updating on my Dayre, so hello there! I really doubt anyone even checks this space so. . . but I think it still isn't a safe place for me to express my thoughts freely. My Dayre already isn't a safe place for me. Sigh. . . guess I'll have to keep everything in and suppress them.

Anyway, as expected, I had school on Valentine's Day. . . which ended at 5pm. Ugh.

And a 5hr break in between. Ugh x2.

Amos came to school to wait for me to end class and. . . this cutie was sitting outside my classroom with a bouquet. Hehehe.

Actually I already knew he was getting a bouquet because he didn't have school or work that day and when I asked him to come to my school earlier, he started acting rather suspiciously and gave me weird replies -.-

We didn't have concrete dinner plans but we did have tickets for Fifty Shades Darker @ The Grand Cathay at 8-ish so we had a couple of hours to kill. Since we were taking the DTL, we decided to just eat at Little India.

I didn't really see the need to spend a ton of money on Vday, especially for dinner, since everything is crazily overpriced on that day.

Settled on a little restaurant behind the Verge. Never eaten there before. Normally I eat at Komalas and Ananda Bhavan. Initially I was a bit pissed at Amos for choosing to eat here because there were no customers AT ALL when we entered and their menu/food was a bit of Chinese-Indian fusion and. . . I just wasn't feeling it? But in the end, the food wasn't too bad and cost ~ $35 altogether.

Bouquet that Amos got for me. I think he bought it from his classmate's brother? And it cost around $50. Really love the colours. Actually before Vday, I kept telling him I only liked daisies and I think he was a bit stressed because he had already ordered the flowers and he said, "Huh but it's valentine's day. They only sell roses. I didn't see any daisies."

Sorry bby, I was just playing around with you. HAHAHAHA. I've already known for quite some time that you ordered flowers.

(Sorry, I had to take quite a lot of pictures of the flowers because they weren't cheap and would probably die soon so I had to immortalise them via photos.)

Btw, the movie was uber meh. The storyline seemed a bit messy and lacklustre and it seemed like the only saving grace were the sex scenes, but there were just too many. After awhile Amos and I had our own running commentary.

"Ugh. . . sex again? What are they? Fucking animals?"

"Weren't they cooking earlier? Then how the food??"

and so on ~

Thanks for everything bby. I really love you so much. I've probably celebrated Valentine's Day a handful of times but spending it with you was the best. Here's to many more to come. I really can't wait to see what life and the future has in store for us, but I know it'll be perfect with you by my side.

A bit annoyed (at myself), that when I reached home, the presents I had ordered for Amos for Vday had arrived that afternoon. I got for him a Muji Navy Blue stand collar shirt (that he really wanted because it was the only colour he had to collect to complete his collection) and a Reminder Bracelet from The Mindful Company.

I got a matching one for myself as well and they both have the word "Why" engraved; to remind us of the why in all that we do.

Thoughtful right??? HAHAHAH I know *pats back*

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day as well!

xxx

(Ugh missing Amos as I'm posting the pictures. He's working rn.)

0Comments

, by Brigid

In school work, writing

Struggles of Being Mixed Race

Hello erhhbody (lol, doubt anyone comes here, honestly). Anyway, here's a personal narrative essay I did for my COM 300 Written Communications module. It's slightly personal, and about an issue that's constantly been bugging me ever since I was young.

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“Are you angmoh? Where are you from? No, I mean where are you really from? Which country? And your parents? Huh...then your grandparents? Really? You don’t look Singaporean at all. What's Eurasian? So can you eat pork?”

I can't even put to words the amount of frustration I feel everytime I hear these words. Especially the amount of energy I have to exert to hold back my eye rolls. If I could receive a dollar for every time I heard these questions and remarks; I would probably be a millionaire by now. And every time I answered these questions, they would be received with blank, puzzled stares and further questions.

When I was younger, back in primary and secondary school, I never received such interrogations. It was probably due to the fact that as kids, we were blind to skin-colour and ethnicities. We were oblivious of the social stigmas and discriminations surrounding the different races, hence, we treated everyone the same way. Majority of Eurasians were Catholics or Christians hence, studying in a convent school for 10 years of my life meant that I was lucky enough to not be the sole Eurasian and I did not get questioned too much about my race and ethnic background.

However, after graduating from secondary school and enrolling into a polytechnic, I started getting exposed to people who had never met a Eurasian and did not know what it meant or vaguely knew of our existence in Singapore but were confused about our heritage. This is because we are living in a country where the people are predominantly Chinese, at least three-quarters of the population, and the other races, Malays and Indians, even though they were minority races, they were more prominent and of a higher percentage than Eurasians, which are merely lumped together as “Others” at 3.3%. Eurasians were, and still are, a dying race in Singapore, which is why many people are unaware of our roots. Just the other day, an elderly aunty approached me to ask what country my parents and I had come from, and upon hearing that my whole family was born in Singapore, she remarked, “Oh, but you don’t look Singaporean. You look like other people.”, which I loosely translated to the fact that it meant I do not look Chinese, Malay or Indian. Even though she probably did not meant what she said, I was offended, took it to heart and was affected by it for the next few days, which is also what spurred me to write this essay. What exactly was I expected to look like then? I wondered if she knew Singapore was made up of other races, and not just of her race - Chinese. Even when you compare Asians from different countries at a macro level, or even at a micro level, everyone has different facial features and skin colour. So I wondered why I constantly received comments such as these, that I looked different. Even though people meant no harm, it honestly really hurt. It broke me and bothered me so much that I, and other Eurasians, were treated like foreigners in a land we were born in and call our home. We were born and raised here. And yet people still doubt it, just because we have European features. For example, in the case of Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s National Swimmer. He is a Eurasian, as is his dad. They are Singapore citizens and even though Joseph trained in the United States of America, he still represented us in the Olympics. When he won a Gold Medal for one of the events, there was so much controversy over his nationality and even Singaporeans called him a foreigner, just because he did not look and sound like a “typical Singaporean”. Thereafter, it led to a lot of articles springing up about what exactly Eurasians were; to educate people about us.

No matter how irked and tired I was from answering strangers’ curious questions about where I come from, I would always try to find patience within me, to explain that even though my heritage was that of Portuguese, Spanish, Peranakan and Indian descent, I was in fact Singaporean.. Being an introvert, there were also days whereby I would feel too drained for human interaction and I would simply tell them I was from Portugal, without bothering to explain the other ethnicities and how my family came to live in Singapore. Thank goodness no one has asked me to converse in Portuguese yet.

There are also people who tell me how lucky I am to be of a mixed race. However, there are times when I feel it is of a disadvantage, especially because I do not speak Mandarin. There is currently a high influx of foreigners working in Singapore, predominantly from China, and many come here without knowing a word of English. I find myself suffering on a weekly basis trying to communicate with them, especially when it comes to ordering food, and eventually, I just give up and bring my business elsewhere, where they speak the common tongue. I personally feel it is unfair that these people are allowed to work in Singapore, knowing only their own language, and yet we were all forced to take up a Mother Tongue in school, something which I struggled with as what should have been my Mother Tongue, Portuguese, was not offered in mainstream school, hence, my parents advised me to take Malay as it looked easier amongst the 3 options and looked the most similar to English. However, I failed it throughout my education life.

I long for the day where everyone finally understands that there are four races in Singapore, not just one. I hope one day I’ll stop feeling and treated like such an outsider in my own home. I can’t wait for the day that Singaporeans finally accept Eurasians as their fellow countrymen.

0Comments

, by Brigid

In writing,

Dear Friend,

Her lip quivered and I heard a crack in her voice as she poured out her feelings to me. One tear drop rolled out of her eye, followed by a steady unbroken stream.
"I have no one to blame except for myself. Who else can I blame? It's my fault. It's my fault."
It broke me to see her like this. She really is one of the strongest girls I've ever known.
I felt helpless.
I wish I could do more like fix her problems. But I can't.
All I could do was lend a listening ear and a comforting hug.
I could feel tears welling up in my own eyes but I held them back.
I didn't want her to see how affected I was by her state. I didn't want her to feel bad for making the ones around her cry as well.

~

Dear Friend,

I can't even begin to fantom how much pain you're feeling right now. I know it hurts seeing the one you love so much shun you and walk out of your life so suddenly. I know you thought he was the one and that you imagined a lifetime ahead with him. The two of you talked about marriage plans, having a life together and starting a family. But sadly, all that is now but a distant memory. All you're left with is confusion, hurt and heartbreak.

He left so suddenly, you were blindsided. It's ridiculous how someone you thought loved you so deeply suddenly declare his feelings for you have faded. It's ludicrous that he suddenly felt he wasn't good enough for you that he just decided to give up and leave.

I can't say that what I want through before is exactly what you're encountering right now. The emotions were similar, albeit they were under different circumstances.

I know how it feels like to be betrayed by someone you thought you knew. I, too, was promised a ring, a family, and a future. I know how it feels like to curl up in bed and having to cry yourself to sleep every night. To wake up and start crying again. To see him everywhere. Even when you're doing something as mindless as brushing your teeth, the waterworks will run.

I also constantly blamed myself for what had happened to me and constantly questioned myself, thinking I had brought it upon myself and tried to figure out if there was any way I could have prevented it from happening. But for me, eventually my anger preceded everything and I was able to move on quickly. I got the answer I needed.

I'm sorry you don't have that as well; the answer. The most important thing needed so you can find some kind of closure and move on. I know it's too soon to expect you to forget everything and move on so quickly.

You won't forget everything. But you WILL eventually move on. It'll take some time before you start trusting people again.

And you'll find someone more worth it than he ever was. Someone who will never give up on you. Someone who will promise you the world, and he won't break his trust.

It will take time. But you'll make it through, I promise.

Love, B

xoxo