Earthquakes, news reports, and human nature

Ever since news of the Haiti earthquake broke out, I've heard quite a few people - friends, acquaintances, reblogs - grumble about how their local media seems to only care about the people of their country that were affected. Australian press talks about the 2 Brisbane-based aid workers who were injured and rescued; the American press talks about the Americans; and so on.

There are THOUSANDS of Haitians dead! they cry. But no one cares about them! Not the media! They often say it so smugly, as though the supposedly-amorphous "media" is beneath them and they're so much better for thinking about the Haitians.

They seem to forget, though, that this isn't a conspiracy on the part of the media - it's basic human nature.

One of the things that makes something news is relevancy. And something is relevant to us if it has something to do with our lives, our characters, our demographic. Since newspapers aren't often niche enough to cater to very specific needs, they choose items that are relevant based on broader categories - locations of their readership being one such factor.

Remember Dunbar's Number? The theory that our brain can only manage about 150 strong relationships at any one time? Same thing is happening here. Unless you're personally connected with Haiti in some way - Haitian friends, you've been there, you live very close to Haiti - Haiti is just an abstract concept. You could care about them as fellow human beings, have concern and empathy over their situation, but your brain can't really comprehend then as anything more than that.

The people that you care about, that are within your Dunbar circle of 150, are relevant to you in some way. Family, lovers, close friends, regular social circles, education, work; you interact with them enough that you know something about their life and they know something about yours. They're familiar. And one of the traits that makes someone more likely to be familiar is their location. You're more likely to be familiar with someone if they live close to you than if they live far away. (The Internet does make it very easy to make more friends online but foreign than with your neighbours, but they're "close" in spirit and contact, easy to reach.)

The mainstream media publishes all sorts of major disasters every day. Airplane crashes, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, what have you. People die in the hundreds and thousands. Infrastructure collapses. Bangladesh gets flooded so often that my parents aren't so fazed when they hear the news of another "disastrous" flood - compared to foreign friends who freak out on our behalf.

So much of this happens so often that it can be hard to process. If we deeply evaluated every disaster we wouldn't get out of the house out of gloom or fear. We can only deal with so much. So we take the things that are relevant, and put aside the rest. Aware that it exists, but unable or unwilling to do much more than that. Even donating money is an effort.

News reporters know this. They know that the only way to have people care is to put a face on the issue. Make it less about statistics and details, and more about the heart and spirit of the story. And one effective way to do this is to report on anyone local that may have been involved - whether as victim, lucky survivor, expert, assistance.

The local people they pick, like the Brisbane aid workers in Haiti, they could be your friends. Your siblings. Your colleagues. Your teachers. Your lovers. You could have met them on the bus, you could have sold them a cup of coffee, you could have asked them for directions. Heck, that person trapped in the earthquake could have been you.

When the Twin Towers first fell on September 11th, the only thing that got me to really realise the severity of the situation was a report on CNN on a bomb threat to the Petronas Twin Towers in KL. (It was a hoax, thankfully.) I was most concerned about my Channel [V] friends, especially Asha who was travelling on a plane that day; my family tracked down some family friends living in New York. Later on we learnt from the Savage Garden fanboards that Darren Hayes had narrowly missed being on one of the crashed planes; most of us freaked out.
When the tsunami hit on Boxing Day 2004 I spent the day trying to get in touch with my friends in Penang and Indonesia (they were all fine, though I didn't hear from one last person till the end of the night and got scared).
My sister and her now-husband called us from London on July 7th 2005 to tell us they were OK - just before we checked out the news to find out that the Tube and some double decker buses were bombed. The rest of the day i looked out for Asha's London-based sister (she was found safe) and sighed with relief when a close relative mentioned he'd just barely missed one of the bombed trains.

It's not that we don't care about all the other disasters in the world. It's just that we can only care so much. Sometimes it takes the involvement of someone or something close to us to make us aware of the situation, of the mess and the pain and the importance of reaching out. That's what the mainstream media is tapping into - writing up stories of people like us, people we may have known, people who could have been us.

It's part "this could have been you", part "they were one of us". It's only natural to look out for your kind. It doesn't make you racist or prejudicial - just human.

The mainstream media - both as a collective and within individual presses - have quite a few areas that need improvement and deserve scrutiny. Working by human nature isn't one of them - especially not by people who themselves wouldn't have thought about Haiti or any other disaster-prone area until their name showed up as a Twitter hashtag.

How Not to Write about Africa...

…or any third-world country for that matter.

The text, plus a couple more sections:

Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African’s cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas. The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country.

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa’s situation. But do not be too specific.

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.

Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the ‘real Africa’, and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people.

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people’s property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).

After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa’s most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or ‘conservation area’, and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa’s rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.

Readers will be put off if you don’t mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps).

You’ll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out.

Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

Should I change my name for a job?

A week or so ago I was ranting to Mark and his family about my inability to get very far in jobhunting despite trying for over a year. Most of the time I’d get rave reviews about my resume (“we love the stuff that you do! you seem outstanding!”) only to be denied job offers or interviews because

• “You don’t have enough experience”
• “You don’t have enough specific experience”
• “You didn’t tick all the right boxes”

A few times the job I’ve wanted has gone to a friend of mine. Knowing their CV and experiences, it’s baffling how they could get the job and I couldn’t even score an interview – the same excuses lobbed at me could very well be used on them. I was denied a job interview as the website & social networking person for a council youth agency – something I already did on my own for free; also, I was friends with the original job holder (who had no say in HR). I was told that I didn’t have enough social work or youth work background, despite my many years of working with youth communities worldwide. The person who got the job, a friend of mine, doesn’t have “enough” social work background either – she’s a journalist by trade! She absolutely deserves the job, but it’s odd that she got considered when the council won’t even give me a chance to sell myself.

Yet when I ask how I can improve my chances, or what they mean by “enough”, I get vague answers. Often I get no reply. Sometimes I get people rejecting me because I didn’t include something in my resume that was clearly there. (Do they even read these things?) My university HR tried to give me the runaround about not hiring people with Bridging Visas – but at least one of the actual departments gave me an interview.

Today I found some blog chatter about Men with Pen’s James Chartrand revealing that she’s a woman writing under a masculine name . She says she did it because she was not getting anywhere as a freelancer under her female name, but things magically got a lot easier with a male name. Same skills, same resume, different name. The name made all the difference. (Figleaf and the Washington City Paper call possible shenanigans, and I’m starting to wonder if this is a publicity stunt, but that’s a digression from my main point.) It echoed cases of people like the Bronte sisters or J.K. Rowling who only got success and recognition under an ambiguously male name.

This reminded me of my rant with Mark’s family. One thing we thought may have been a big factor is my name. There’s been research (in Australia, even) that shows that people with ethnic names have a far harder time getting jobs than similarly-qualified people with Anglo names . A friend told me about a Middle Eastern colleague of hers that got nowhere with Salleh [Lastname], but when he sent out resumes as Sam Milton people jumped at the chance to hire him. Same resume, drastic difference.

“Tiara Shafiq”. It’s part of my real name (I have another first name that I hardly use which is even more ethnic sounding). It’s the name I’ve done a lot of work by – writing, community work, education. It’s the name on the resume, on the email address, on this website. There are some national and international guides & websites with that name associated with me. Googling that name gets a whole page of sites by or about me.

“Tiara” is unusual, but an English word. It doesn’t twig people’s Foreign-Meter. People tend to think it’s Kiara or Chiara or Kara – it takes a while for me to correct them. “Shafiq”, however, is highly Foreign – not just that, it’s Arabic, which means OMGTerrorist. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name pronounced right. It takes a while to spell. People are surprised to learn that I am a near-native speaker of English (the only reason I’m not ‘native’ is because I’m from Malaysia); foreign students are surprised to learn I’ve only been in Australia 3 years and I haven’t been raised in an English-majority country.

Should I change my name? Is my name really the deciding factor in whether or not I get jobs, the thing that doesn’t tick people’s boxes (despite my “great experience”), the thing that’s “not enough”? Do people not trust my experience and skills and assume I’m some dodgy foreigner who has no idea what’s going on?

I’ve been thinking of getting an Anglicised name for months, mainly out of frustration at still not getting a regular job. I’ve been pondering on “Tiara Gill” – Gill is the last name of my Eurasian best friend, it’s ambiguous, but it’s also the name of a character in an action fiction story so anyone Googling me will get confused. I’d lose out on all the work I’ve gained through being “Tiara Shafiq”. My references wouldn’t have a clue who “Tiara Gill” is if asked – but do they even know my last name? It could be “Tiara Stephanopolizkytek Chin” for all they care.

Take this website. TiaraShafiq.com. Would I lose out on all the hard work if I start sending out resumes as Tiara Gill? Or something as banal as Tina Smith?
Then again, given that even my best appearances on the web and my wide body of work apparently isn’t enough to even convince people like the Brisbane City Council or QUT (who have people who are very familiar with me) to even give me an interview, does it matter? Are people even reading the resumes and selection criteria, or are they just scanning?

Mark was wondering if it could be considered as fraud since they’d be having preconceived notions based on the name. But isn’t the whole point that they’re building preconceived (yet inaccurate) notions based on my name anyway? How would I deal with paperwork and official material once they work out I’m not Tina Smith or Ms Gill?

Would I be buying into a system that demonizes people for being “ethnic”? That was a major criticism with Chartrands – that not only was she posing as male, she built a hypermasculine online identity that sometimes degraded women. I’ve written plenty about cultural issues and racism both on here and The Merch Girl , but if you read my more neutral posts would you have worked out that I am South Asian born & bred in Malaysia? Would that knowledge affect how seriously you take me, how capable you think I will be? Some people think I’m being too Westernised anyway, what with my taste in performance and my tendency to be more of a loudmouth individualist. Am I already playing within the system that oppresses me over something relatively insignificant?

Should I change my name?

An Insight into intelligence

I was on SBS Insight recently to be on a forum about intelligence. I had responded to a call for comments and they thought it was interesting that I qualified for Mensa but didn’t find any use in it.

I had just returned from Island Vibe at Stradbroke Island so I had circus on the brain. Myself and my friend Joel (who’s a physicist and a performer) were mainly asked about what we think intelligence is, if we faced any challenges – simple stuff. They had 6-year-old Albie who’s really bright but also really restless, and I ADORED her – she was so much like me as a kid and I just wanted to smuggle her squeeeee.

I was also on the webchat with a few of the other guests – psychologists, researchers, a Rhodes Scholar-cum-Olympian. I felt distinctly underqualified! There was a lot of discussion about school and learning so my alternative education background came in handy!

The entire show will be online on the SBS website so feel free to check me out some time. Some things that got cut out from the airing or that I didn’t get to say:

• A lot of IQ tests – and a lot of the definitions of success and intelligence – are constricted by privilege and culture. Another guest talked about opportunity – maybe high IQ people tend to live longer and be richer because they come from backgrounds that allowed them better healthcare and education to begin with! Tests don’t often control for that, and yet we tend to judge people on a factor that has too many variables for it to be useful.

• I qualified for Mensa in 2007 after taking the test on a lark (one of those Things I Must Do In My Lifetime things). I joined for a year but didn’t get much value out of the organisation – the meetings didn’t interest me (mostly puzzles) and the magazine was too full of “We’re so smart! Let’s talk about how smart we are and how people don’t appreciate us!”. I was hoping for more efforts to do something productive, like volunteer work or creative work…but nothing. Towards the end of my membership year there were some efforts to have a Young Mensans meetup in Brisbane, which would have been cool, but not enough to entice me to keep joining.

• I actually made a plug for my circus group Vulcana Women’s Circus but that got edited out :P It was in response to intelligence and communicating – I talked about how my ideas for performance work were more intellectual and that I found it very challenging to step out of my brain and express myself physically. It takes a different sort of intelligence to be able to convey abstract concepts into visuals, actions, music, costume, moves.

• They showed Morris dancing in the show and I smiled when they said that dancing was scientifically one of the best ways for older people to retain brain cognition. I was a little annoyed at someone who said that there was no hope for people to improve their skills beyond a certain age, that intelligence is stable – my circus director started at 40 and she rocks! If you put the effort in it and you’re open to learning then most things can happen for you. There are opportunities out there. And man, performance totally does magic for your intelligence – it challenges you in a big way.

• Some people in the forum were talking about taking supplements for intelligence so that they can get better jobs and pass university and such. I’m supposedly high-IQ (According to Mensa) and I’m finding it hard to find a job. The creative industries is a hard place to break into sustainably, but also there are more factors to job success than just your intelligence – heck I’d wager to say it’s one of the least considered factors. It’s not like I advertise my Mensa membership on my resume. That said: hey people coming here from SBS Insight – want to sponsor or hire me ? :D

Feel free to continue the chat here if you’d like!

30 questions about my invisible illness

A few of my friends have filled out these surveys in honour of National Invisible Chronic Awareness Week for chronic and invisible illnesses. I remember being at school and having almost everyone claim that my anxiety was “all in my head” and that I was making it up for attention. Urgh. At least here in Australia there’s some level of respect, but I think some people still don’t quite get how challenging it can be to keep a normal face outside.

1. The illness(es) I live with are:
Panic/anxiety disorder and depression

2. I was diagnosed with it/them in the year:
2002

3. But I had symptoms since:
Possibly 1995, since that was the worst year of my life – extreme racist bullying, suicide attempts, my whole view of friends and school changed that year. I only started having panic attacks n 2002 which led to my diagnosis.

4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is:
Dealing with people who assume I’m making it up. Having anxiety about anxiety linger in my brain. And the meds are a pain in the arse. I’m generally not fond of medication, but if I miss one I get really bad brain zaps and migraines. And I think it’s outlived its effectiveness.

5. Most people assume:
a) I’m making it up
b) There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m fine
c) “You’re depressed? But there’s nothing to be depressed about!!”

6. The hardest part about mornings is:
For a long time every morning I would wake up depressed and moody and wanting to end it all (usually my relationship). It took a while before we worked out that I needed food, and after food & meds I was generally OK.

7. My favorite medical TV show is:
I don’t like medical TV shows, they creep me out. Eurgh needles!

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:
A computer of some sort.

9. The hardest part about nights is:
Not feeling so useless. Also the past few weeks I’ve been having nightmares, which SUCK.

10. Each day I take [?] pills & vitamins.
1 pill of Effexor-XR, 150mg. If I miss it I get terrible migraines. (Right now I’m also on a medical trial for cold meds and I’m taking 2 each morning but that’s unrelated) I would like to get off it, but it takes time and money.

11. Regarding alternative treatments, I:
am all for them. Anything that helps! My psychologist tried hypnotherapy, which was very relaxing. I’ve tried naturopathy and reiki, might try acupunture, am open to suggestion really.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness and a visible one, I would choose:
Oh I don’t know. I would rather have a curable illness – even if it was visible you could cure it and be fine. With this one you seem OK but you’re a wreck inside.

13. Regarding working and career:
Job hunting SUCKS and the rejections just drive my depression further. Performing helps me feel tons better, but it does take quite a bit of effort to actually get off my bed and go perform or rehearse or see a show. Also the lack of money in that pursuit depresses me more.

14. People would be surprised to know:
am often feeling ennui, a big “meh”. A lot of people describe me as enthusiastic, cheerful, chirpy – I can’t be depressed! I don’t know where they’re getting that perception from, but there you go.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality is:
How paralysing it can be at odd moments. Feeling like there’s no end to this, just cycles upon cycles. Oh and the price of it all!

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness was:
Do scary stuff like flying foxes!

17. The commercials about my illness:
What commercials?

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed:
Being more gungho about things.

19. It was really hard to give up:
the notion that I’ll ever be cured, the idea of having a true passion.

20. A new hobby I’ve taken up since my diagnosis is:
Burlesque – cheers me up like nothing else.

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again, I would:
Celebrate with joy, because it’d probably be the first time in a while that i’ve felt that.

22. My illness has taught me:
It’s amazing who else comes out of the woodwork.

23. One thing people say (about my illness) that gets under my skin is:
That I’m making it up.

24. But I love it when people:
Support me anyway.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:
You’ll wake up in the morning.

26. When someone is diagnosed I like to tell them:
I’d like to give them a hug.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is:
How utterly unsympathetic and useless the Malaysian education system is when dealing with people with this sort of illness.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was:
Chat with me.

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because:
I wanted to share.

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel:
Hopeful, maybe.

How to Live a Burlesque Life

I originally wrote this for Chris Guillebeau’s Art of Non-Conformity contest about a month ago. I didn’t win, but Chris liked it, and since it’s about burlesque I’ll post it here for you! It’s also on The Merch Girl.

“Burlesque” originally came from the Italian word burla, to “send up” or mock – in this case, making fun of the high-brow entertainment of the time. Nowadays it’s become code for vintage glamour, corsets and red feathers, and sparkly pasties. You don’t have to be a star tassel-twirler to incorporate burlesque into your unconventional life. Here’s a few ideas on sending up with sass and shimmy:

Embrace horrible prettiness – style yourself how you want to, not just how you’re expected to.

The term “horrible prettiness” was used by Robert Clyde Allen in 1991 to describe the paradox of a burlesque dancer: ladylike and feminine in dress, but loud and raunchy and bawdy in behaviour. Burlesque performers didn’t worry about gender norms; they wore what they liked and acted how they liked. Drop the fashion magazines and the etiquette guides, and let your imagination take the lead! Shave your head, wear a pink frilly dress, and run a marathon in the woods. Deck out in combat boots and a Navy uniform – then invite everyone over for a nice cup of tea and a sit-down. I don’t really have a set style to speak of – I tend to mix up ethnic Asian, Goth, corporate, and saloon girl. Even if you are hardened and gritty and rough around the edges, you can still indulge in a little boylesque:

Do things on a whim.

Does that hat look interesting but not typically “your style”? Curious about an adventure class but you’ve never hiked in your life? Doesn’t matter! No one is keeping a tally on how consistently you live life. If you are curious about something that seems out-of-character, follow that curiosity and sees where it leads you. There’s no harm in trying on a dress you’d otherwise never wear, or signing on for a class that seems out of your depth. You’ll never know until you try! It could very well change your life – or at the very least give you some conversation material. I started going to burlesque classes partly to prepare for my first stage role (in The Vagina Monologues – I played the dominatrix) and also because I had just finished university in a foreign country and wanted to do something I wouldn’t be able to do back home. Six months later, I’ve hung around, and I end up being interviewed on radio for my debut public routine:

Tiara the Merch Girl – Cabaret Burlesque – Islamic Routine – PLEASE READ THE DESCRIPTION from Tiara The Merch Girl on Vimeo.

Embrace accidents boldly.

Every performer will face some mishap on stage at some point – a missing pastie, a broken prop, the music file skipping. What do you do? Smile, laugh, do a little shimmy, and move on! Sometimes the show becomes a lot better for it – the incident amuses the audience, who are generally rooting for the performer anyway. Similarly, not all accidents or oops-moments are terrible. If something goes wrong, have a little chuckle (or stomp about dramatically if you need to) then pick yourself up and keep going. The people who care for you will want to see you succeed, and will support you no matter what. Indeed, like a star burlesque performer, you can turn that accident around – a “wardrobe malfunction” turned Rose Chan from just another dancer to Malaysia’s ultimate burlesque/striptease queen.

Look at things from a different angle.

A cigar isn’t just a cigar, and that hair clip doesn’t just have to sit on your head. Look at the way you work, the things you use, the beliefs you have – and examine them from another angle. What would happen if you read your book outside instead of the study? How would chicken seasoned with chocolate taste? What if you didn’t have to get a car and a spouse by 30? At least for a moment, subvert something! Think of your object or subject from the perspective of someone else – your neighbour, your best friend, your enemy, someone the total opposite of you. Be synesthetic – smell its colours, see its sounds. Everything has its own hidden glamour, a secret story. You may stumble onto hidden genius – like Nasty Canasta’s highly inspired choice of music for a usually-traditional fan dance:

Find the funny in everything.

So you spilled wine on the carpet, your boss yelled at you, and you’ve run out of hot water. Before you delve into despair, find something humorous about your situation – even if it’s something absurd and surreal, like “At least I’ll be prepared for showers in the Antarctic”. At least it’ll cheer you up; at best, it’ll help you find alternative solutions and reduce stress. At least on the inside, laugh it up – even if you have to bite your lip to stop yourself from giggling inappropriately. Sometimes I get stuck in my own drama and feel like the sky is about to fall; however, a joke from a friend or a wry comment sometimes help to diffuse the tension and get me smiling. Musician Dave Carroll turned his own terrible incident of his guitar being wrecked by United Airlines into a song that became a worldwide meme:

If you must despair, do it with flair.

A lot of burlesque is about overblowing the minor and understating the major. Drama in your life – whether as a crazy-making acquaintance or a series of annoying events – isn’t much fun. However, dealing with your woes in a dramatic way can help lighten the mood and release tension. Allow yourself to be ridiculously melodramatic and operatic about your stress. “Oh my! I am surrounded by escapees of the mental institution! My money all goes towards parking fees! WOE BETIDE ME!” Sometimes I mope around in my room and wail to my boyfriend about how LIFE SUCKS I HATE IT ALL – he’s pretty used to it. Scream your anger out. Rest your hand on your forehead as though you’ve been hit by the vapours. List aloud every misery you’ve ever experienced and spend a few minutes hamming it up to friends or even just the bathroom mirror. The key here is to not take it too seriously – amp up the drama, but don’t stress yourself out over it. You’ll find that by the end of it you feel like laughing – you’ve worked through the ridiculousness, and can now see the situation in a whole new light.

Make up your own mind – and speak it.

You don’t have to like whatever’s in vogue, even if your immediate environment is charmed by it. While there’s a lot of contemporary burlesque that goes through the same tropes, there’s also a lot of innovative unusual work that ultimately stands out in people’s minds. Discover music, art, fashion, performances, politics, places, books of your own, and let your own heart and spirit decide how it feels about it. Have varied tastes in things, no matter how iconoclastic or unusual – like eating vanilla ice cream with salted peanuts or wearing capris in the cold. Then share them! Speak your truth about current affairs, art and beauty, or anything else that matters to you. You will likely encounter some strife, which does suck, but in the long run you’d be making space for people like you, who’d be grateful for your voice. After all, if it weren’t for pioneers like Lydia Thompson and Gypsy Rose Lee, who combined striptease with witty repartee, modern burlesque probably wouldn’t exist!

Dance, sing, make something, speak – give anything creative a go!

You don’t have to be any good at it. Just pick up that guitar or turn on that radio and do whatever moves you. “Dance like no one is watching”, as they say – once you get past the awkwardness of starting (something everyone goes through, pro or not), you’ll get into your own groove. Keri Smith released her book Wreck This Journal for this very purpose: to get you used to just starting something creative. If the end result isn’t to your liking, that’s OK – you’ve given it a go, which is more than important. In the past few years I’ve tried plate-spinning, juggling, trapeze, acrobatics, stilts, silks, singing, tapdance, and who knows what else, mostly for the heck of it. Some, like silks, were total disasters – but I also discovered a hidden aptitude for balancing and spinning plates on sticks! Here are some basic tricks to get you started, if you’re intrigued:

Choose something else to entertain you.

No need to chain yourself up to the TV and watch another episode of the Biggest Loser. Get yourself a copy of the local street press, or go online and look up the alternative listings. Facebook’s usually a good resource for ideas too. Go check out a burlesque show, a foreign film, a fetish party, a pub band in an obscure part of town, an experimental physical theatre piece – something that’s not usually your cup of tea. They’re usually cheap or free and are pretty welcoming to newcomers. Bring a friend if you’re a bit shy – you’ll likely make new friends there anyway. My friend and I checked out a fetish dance party for the first time a few months ago, and to my utter surprise I actually found it quite fun. I don’t normally go out at night, but we stayed there until 3 chatting with all sorts of people – some of whom I’ve met again at different places. Once you start, you end up finding out more about others – and your social life isn’t the same again. How about you? Will you choose a VooDoo Restaurant over McDonalds?

Whether you’d up for rockin’ your billies, or softly hip-swaying your way through life, there’s many ways to add a touch of burlesque to the daily (bump &) grind. It’s all about taking things lightly – so laugh loud, tickle your sensibilities, and make your friends gasp with surprise at your audacity to be unconventionally you.

If the art of burlesque itself interests you, check out the Ministry of Burlesque and Daily Burlesque for tons of resources, ideas, inspiration, and conversations with other enthusiasts and performers. It’s especially open to newcomers, so if you want to truly make burlesque part of your unconventional life, come on board!

Dear Malaysian mainstream media (and also, dear Jacqueline Ann Surin)

So I hear there is (or was) a boycott against Kosmo! and the people that run the paper for an obituary on Yasmin Ahmad that revealed her gender past.

It’s true that close friends and family had found the article insensitive, though there are also those (like myself) who felt the the reaction, moreso than the article, reflected Malaysia’s homophobia and transphobia by treating Yasmin’s gender as something to be ashamed of. Indeed, in the bigger scheme of things, there were a lot worse articles printed in the Malaysian papers that didn’t get such an outcry.

Like how, for many years in the 90s – and still now, every so often – Bangladeshis were always painted in the news as women-stealing dirty thieving criminals. No other race (aside from any other labourer race) was ever pointed out for their crimes; no other race had “XYZ, a Chinese/Malay/Indian criminal” attached to their heading. Even though they were often exploited and they made up a very small percentage of Malaysia’s official crime.

I had to deal with continuous questioning from my teachers and peers about my race. I was told multiple times to “go back to my country”. I was expected, at eleven years of age, to atone for the sins of my countrymen (however small they were) – and to be thick-skinned whenever I heard another slur, whenever I was blocked out of receiving what I deserved. I had politicians report year after year about how “those Banglas” were blue-eyed horny men out to get “our women”. I still hear those sentiments now.

Were there boycotts then? No. No one gave a damn. Instead, when I went to the BRATs workshop in 2003, I asked Tan Ju Eng of The Star about it, and she told me it was their responsibility as a public service. A “public service” that singled out an entire race and caused much personal strife and tension. No apologies.

And what about 2001, when there was plenty of demonization of young people and youth culture supposedly over Black Metal? Alleged groups of youth stomping holy books and sacrificing goats at rock concerts? Condemnation of anything remotely Pagan? And the hysteria about hip-hop and “sex parties” that soon followed? There were the odd articles supporting young people, and I remember one magazine taking Harian Metro to task for using photos of their gig and claiming it was a sex-fest. But were there boycotts against Harian Metro or any other press that sought to sensationalise youth? No.

Every so often in the Malaysian papers I will see anti-gay sentiments, anti-Semitic sentiments, anti-nonMalay-Muslim sentiments, all sorts of rubbish. And yet no one’s ever found it fit to call a boycott. Why? Because you won’t then have an opportunity to harp on Twitter (or wherever) about how you’re doing it right by publishing 4 pages?

If you’re going to proclaim big things like a boycott, be consistent. No need for hypocrisy.

And while we’re on that…

Dear Jacqueline Ann Surin,

If you’re going to fuss about Kosmo using personal details then may I ask why you saw it fit to eavesdrop on a private conversation between myself and Asha Gill in 2005, and then publish to the world in Off the Edge that Tiara Shafiq, university student and webmistress to Asha Gill, was holed up sick in her dormitory? You used it as an anecdote for Asha’s open heart, but neither Asha nor I had given you permission to publish that.

I had people in university asking me about it. Granted, it wasn’t the most humiliating thing ever, but it did make me sound like a young kid unable to take care of herself. The Malaysian reading public didn’t need to know that I was ill, that Asha was trying to coax me out of bed. I thought Asha had told you, and I let my annoyance known at her; she was very surprised and told me that she hadn’t told you directly, only that the phone conversation happened at the same time as the interview. The interview was with Asha not with me!

It’s funny that we were both at the 2006 AWAM Writers for Women’s Rights event; I think you might have worked out who I am. I understand you are well-respected within Malaysian journalists and creatives. I myself wouldn’t have kicked such a fuss – for what point really? – but your article about Kosmo being “sensationalistic” felt very ironic and somewhat hypocritical after that experience.

When True Fans become Worst Enemies

Cody McKibben has “been royally fucked over by a big-name blogger“. He doesn’t name names, but in his post, he explains what has happened:

I have been silenced and banned from a community that I helped to build and that I am extremely passionate about. I invested three months of my blood, sweat and tears into promoting someone else and I feel as though I was forced to walk away with nothing. This isn’t the first time getting involved in someone else’s community has turned out to be a complete waste of my time, and it won’t be the last.

His post contains a comprehensive list of ways that companies and high-profile people end up misusing the goodwill of their fans – from filtering out the competition, to not trusting their fans. The post is an emotional but also well-reasoned plea for people to treat their fans with respect, and the consequences of not doing so.

I can empathise with him – there have been at least a couple of times in my life where I’ve spent a lot of energy and effort promoting something I loved, only to be – as Cody put it – royally fucked over. It’s one thing if they don’t acknowledge you, that’s somewhat normal if you’re dealing with a MAJOR name (like, say, Angelina Jolie – she probably doesn’t even know), but it’s another thing when this group claims to be totally supportive of your work…only to drop you hard at the last minute and leave you in the dust.

It’s moments like these that make you realise that even the best concepts and movements have humans at the core, and humans are inherently flawed.

I hope Cody finds his peace. It’s taking a long time to find mine, and just when one thing’s sorted something else comes up. At least he’s learnt quite a bit from this unfortunate experience, and has passed it on to others – so it’s not a total waste.

5 Lives! or eight?

Another Havi post! . This comes from Barbara Sher’s Wishcraft (download it free). I love Barbara Sher’s stuff – I’m totally a Scanner, and she has practical ideas for people like us that have all sorts of interests and want to give them all a go.

The question is:

Think about it: if you had five lives, what would you do with each one? I don’t mean if you were five different people. I mean if you could be you five times over and explore a different talent, interest or lifestyle to the fullest each time … If you could manage nicely with three lives, take three. If you need ten, help yourself. I just picked five because it’s a nice round number.

Here’s my five (well, eight):

1. Full-time performer from childhood onwards – instead of computer classes I would have had the music/acting/whatevs classes I wanted. Or at least being all artsy in my younger years and then moving on to actual performance experience once I got old enough to do it without doing my head in.

2. More skilled web developer. This was mainly because I’ve been using computers since I was 2, been online since I was 9, and everyone nearly expected me to be some sort of computing genius. I did do a bit of it (aside from personal sites which I do still) around 03/04, but coding bores me. zzz.

3. Writer/journalist. This was actually going to be my current life – almost all my life I was passionate about writing. Then I went to uni to do creative writing and I had that passion sucked out of me. I instead rekindled a hidden desire to perform, so I’m starting to do that a bit now.

4. Social entrepreneur/businesswoman. I did try to charge for club newsletters as a kid! I got really involved with this the past couple of years but moved on after some incidences.

5. Teacher. I was surprised to see my past school records and notice that my one constant answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up” was “teach”, because I had a horrible time at school. I did become very involved in alternative education for many years mostly BECAUSE I had such a crap experience!

6. Some sort of NGO save-the-world type person. Like Hugh Evans (he won Young Australian of the Year for his constant work in international development).

7. A gymnast – it was my secret childhood dream (along with performing but that wasn’t so secret) but I never got the chance; I’m unsporty and got scared! I got to make up for it by doing circus lessons last year and now I’m a circus trainee! Yay!

8. World traveller. Well I am now to a great extent, but this would have been more full-time. Instead of government Malaysian school and 1.5 years in a crappy Malaysian uni (before moving to Australia) I would have been in international school, did tons of student exchanges, studied at United World College, and actually get that most-coveted UN passport.

I think though that no matter what life I chose I’d still be something of a multi-disciplinary Barbara Sher-type scanner. I run in cycles of 3-4 years and even within that I get involved in multiple things. It’s what keeps me going!

What about you?

On privilege

I’ve recently had some encounters with the concept of privilege, both deliberately – as part of writing my burlesque essay for Racialicious – and accidentally, when I’ve recently confronted some people on some questionable clothing choices only to have it yelled back at me.

Privilege in its dictionary definition is:

a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right); a special advantage or immunity or benefit not enjoyed by all

It’s a term that gets used a lot amongst any sort of activist-y discussion – feminism, race rights, gay rights, and so on. Yet it seems to be one of those terms that people recognise when they see it yet can’t really define tidily.

For me, I define privilege as being related to the extent that a certain trait or characteristic is considered the ‘default’. Many people consider straight white educated men to be the ultimate in privilege: society is built around them, and everyone else does not get the same sort of rights or benefits. This is adjusted somewhat elsewhere – in Malaysia, for instance, the ‘default’ is straight Malay Muslim male; you don’t get as much advantages being White.

I made a privilege chart as part of a university project some years ago, to explore privilege with regards to the arts. I have a rather complicated relationship to privilege, and I’m not sure the chart necessarily makes it clearer:

There’s probably quite a bit about my privilege that I haven’t covered in that chart, and it’s likely just as complex as the above.

I’ve noticed that quite a few people – especially people with really high privileges in many areas – tend to react badly to the idea that they’re privileged. “I earn minimum wage! I’m not rich! I’m not high-class! What do you mean I’m privileged?!” Thing is, most people have privilege. If you’re reading this, you’re privileged – you’re literate and you have access to the Internet, which puts you in the top half of the privilege continuum. A lot of privilege is stuff you are both into and can’t affect; you can’t really help your skin colour or your sexuality.

The idea isn’t to freak out about whether you have privilege or not; it’s to recognize the privilege that you have, and how that intersects with other people’s privilege. So many of my White Australian friends don’t realise the immense privilege they have to be able to wear whatever and not be seen as a “fresh off the boat” or “country hick” – if they wear traditional ethnic clothing, they’re stylish, but when the original ethnic person wears it they’re seen as a country bumpkin. Privilege affects how people see you – the prejudices, favours, concessions. We are all interlinked, and our lives are often affected by subtle hidden machinations and politics that we’re often not aware of.

You have privilege? Great! Recognise it. Consider it. And consider the privilege of others, who would probably get into a lot more grief for not being “normal”.

Personal ads for the soul

So a while ago Havi mentioned how she found her dream house (amongst other things) by writing a personal ad. I took the idea and ran with it – and it worked! I did find the people I was after, and they keep showing up. woo! I followed it up by putting out my intentions for housing and income – those ones are still muddling along, so here’s a kickstart.

Then Havi brought them up again and everyone pitched in. It was awesome! I met a couple of interesting people through there and kinda fulfilled one person’s wish (to join their online community). Then Andrew made a site for it which is even more brilliant.

It seems to be a regular thing with Havi, because she’s now adding her mini personal ads to the bottom of every post (hmm, maybe a new trend?) and she posted about them again . In the spirit of things, I’ll repost the ads I made in Havi’s comments:

1. MERCH GIRL SEEKS FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Creative eccentric passionate dabbler seeks means of being able to pursue her heart’s desire while also being able to pay bills, pay rent, and feed belly. Said dabbler would rather be able to sleep on a comfortable bed with her matey and not worry about money, instead of being a homeless foreigner.

YOU ARE: any combination of the following:

• An ethical sustainable at-least part-time job paying at least AUD$30,000/year, which allows me to make a comfortable income while developing my skills and being connected to interesting motivated people, without being sucked into politics and hypocrisy. Level doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something I can do a good job in and has a great working atmosphere.
• Funding and/or support for The Merch Girl so I can make it into an awesome business without worrying about lack of funds
• Funding and/or support for me as an emerging creative artist and/or interesting person
• Projects that are interesting and good and compensate well
• Another fascinating good ethical interesting way of self-sustainability that I haven’t imagined yet

YOU ARE NOT:

• the result of someone’s untimely death (so no family inheritances please!)
• A product of crime and/or unethicalness
• Attached with strings that reveal undesirable conditions
• Attached with hate, discrimination, nastiness, ickiness, hypocrisy, soul-suckage, drama, and anything else that makes me cry

WHAT I WILL DO:

• Treat you with respect, honour, and care
• Work my best into any venture I involve myself with
• Use my sustained self to support other eccentric creative young artists who don’t quite fit in anywhere
• Work on spreading love with my work and creative interactions instead of getting caught up in drama
• Love you forever

Feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas!

I should also add “you are not more money from my parents which only comes with filial piety issues” because I’m trying to be financially independent from them. Doing that and being able to live is proving difficult tho.

2. SEEKING A FUNCTIONING COMPUTER
I would like to ask for a functioning computer. I have a laptop, but first the hard drive died, then the main partition is borked so I can’t even reinstall Windows or boot up from something else. The most I can do is load Ubuntu on CD and then look at stuff. I haven’t touched it for a while as I’m planning to get back to Brisbane, backup everything (that’s where my external harddrive is), and then reinstall stuff.

This could come in the following ways:

• A new external harddrive gifted to me before I return to Brisbane so I can backup everything earlier (or something else that accomplishes this)
• My computer will suddenly function again and stay functioning for a few more years at least (I got it late 2007)
• I get a new computer that is much MUCH better at staying alive

I commit to taking care of my computer, doing regular backups (my external is now not leaving my sight!!), and learning more about how to maintain my computer. You’d think I get this, since I’ve been using computers since I was 2 and I’m turning 24, but argh.

3. FANTASTIC FESTIVALS & AMAZING ARTS ACTION
There are a few arts and festivals opportunities that look interesting. The people I train with in circus have a street performance project and a physical theatre project thing, there are some bigger arts festivals popping up this year, and two main TV stations in Australia are auditioning for presenters.

My request: To obtain favourable and pleasant results from applying to these opportunities, preferably in a way that allows me to sustain my journey through them (e.g. paid employment, expenses covered, sponsorship, etc).

This would mainly come from my applications being accepted, but I am also open to alternative arrangements being made that would have been better than the thing I applied for in the first place.

I commit to placing my applications, putting my best effort in, and being open to new opportunities. Also if you know of any other options that myself and/or The Merch Girl can do, let me know!

What would you place a personal ad for?

Doing things for fun

When I was at school there were quite a few sports teams, as well as the once-famous Marching Band and Choir and a few different things. My school – a ‘premier’ school, which translates to ‘grade-crazy cattle station’ – was very competitive, and that attitude trickled down to the clubs & societies.

You see, you couldn’t really join the clubs unless you were good at that activity. Well, you could, but you’d be relegated to something like Secretary/Minute-Taker and not be able to join in much of the activities – which is usually training for a big game. The major ones like Marching Band spent the first few weeks of the term hazing all the newbies – making them do all their chores and serve their seniors’ whim. Only when they ‘proved their mettle’ were they allowed to have fun.

This attitude lingers on after school. Past-times and hobbies were no longer encouraged. Anything you did had to fit one of the following categories:

• You were making lots of money from it – or at least enough to support yourself and your extended family and anyone else that might need your money
• You were extremely talented; indeed you were the Best in the World, winning prestigious awards
• It got you into a Prestigious High-Class University like Harvard/Oxford/Cambridge or got you employed in a Prestigious High-Class Company
• You gave all your energy to Save The World and your efforts were totally altruistic; children can now eat 5 meals a day thanks to you

otherwise? Pointless! go do something useful.

Even in places where the above elements aren’t emphasized so much, there’s still that expectation of Doing Your One True Passion. That one thing that will Change Your Life and Make You Happy and so on. Find out what that One Thing is, and you will live happily ever after!

What happened to doing things just for fun? To doing things just for the heck of it?

Why do people need to have just one main interest? Why do their interests need to be moneymakers or fame-givers to be valid? Why is it only worth doing something well?

People are so scared of failing, or of succeeding and getting grief from jealous people, or of wasting their effort and time. Well no wonder! Nobody ever teaches us about intrinsic value. About doing things just for its own sake. Instead, everything gets assigned some sort of extrinsic value – money, meaning, love, whatever.

You can’t just make art because it’s fun. No, you have to create longwinded artistic statements and prove your mettle as a serious artist looking to make this your sole career.
You can’t just play sports because it’s fun. No, you have to train up to pro level, show up at the pool or court every day 5 hours a day at least, get the best equipment and the best gear and join all the competitions.
You can’t just volunteer with a charity because it’s fun. No, you have to be totally selfless and suffer as much as you can so that the people you’re saving will not have to suffer ever again.

Bugger that!

Quite a few world-changing major-impact things came about because the creator thought it was fun. The founder of Doctors without Borders (MSF – Medecines Sans Frontieres?) started MSF because he was bored of plastic surgery and wanted a challenge. Not necessarily because he had grand aims of Changing the World. But that happened anyway.

Did Leonardo da Vinci make his art and write his scientific journals because he wanted to Make an Impact that will Stand The Test of Time? Probably not. Probably he did what he did because he enjoyed it. (The paintings may be commissioned, I’m not sure.)

I used to be absolutely passionate about writing. Like crazy prolific. Mainly fanfiction and short fiction, and the fanfiction wasn’t all that great, but it was still writing and it was fun. I did have big dreams of being a famous writer and published author and all that – because I loved it so much that I couldn’t imagine anything else.

Then I took creative writing as a submajor in university. And my passion was murdered.

Murdered by the expectation to make my work sale-able. The 4s (like a D) because my highly personal characters were “unrealistic”. The swing of grades depending on who marked my paper. My heart and soul poured into words hacked into pieces by people who thought my internal struggles didn’t make sense for the buying public.

I didn’t care whether my writing was sale-able or not! I wrote as therapy, to indulge and comfort myself, to express things I wasn’t able to say straight out. Screw grades! I just wanted to share myself.

I’ve had an interest in performing on and off my whole life, though strongly on now. It was hard for me to get more involved in the past since I was always blocked by people who would rather have their friends on stage and relegate me to “Scriptwriter” because I was the only person that could actually write a script. (That’s when we were even allowed to be on stage in the first place.) I remember my dad trying to placate me to go to uni by sending me brochures of major acting schools in Australia like NIDA (we have family friends in the country)…I almost laughed at him; they won’t accept me, I’ve never had an acting lesson in my life! How the heck was I supposed to audition! They weren’t going to take people doing this for fun, Dad.

And it seems the avenues for doing it for fun keep getting smaller and smaller.

As a teen I believed that the only way you were able to sing was to be signed on a major label and be famous. Now I see so many garage bands starting up. My current foray into stage performance has shown me quite a few amateur avenues – but I’m also brushing up against people who’re in it to get ahead or push their own way or something and make life difficult for those who just want to have fun. If you’re not continually working on it, you’re Not Serious Enough, and we Just Can’t Have That.

I just launched the website for The Merch Girl. It’s a commercial venture, but realistically I’d be surprised if I made more than $100 a year since I’m targeting my services at indie/emerging projects that don’t have a lot of cash. Yet it’s so hard to get support because they all want business plans that account for large cashflow and high profitability, or they want proof that you are a Dedicated Career Artist – I’ve hardly created enough to be a “Real Artist”! (Also, my interests tend to shift every 4 years or so anyway) But I don’t want to stress out over making The Merch Girl financially sustainable either. I don’t want to lose my interest in creative production work – something I find fun – because I can’t make ends meet.

Let’s lose the expectations. Let’s lose the need to prove ourselves. Let’s just do things for the heck of it.

Let’s have fun.

The In-Between State - or the Tipping Point of success

Gala Darling just released the second episode of her podcast, Love and Sequins – I was pretty intrigued in this one as she talks about running a creative business, and I had often wondered how people like her got to the point of being invited to speak at events and getting free stuff.

The conversation between her and Molly Crabapple, as well as her general guidelines, were interesting (disclaimer: I read the transcript but haven’t actually listened to the podcast yet). A lot of it are things one can pick up from other small business guides – figure out what you like to do, think of various ways to build that into a business, network, diversify, and so on. She does have some interesting advice, like “don’t take your passions so literally” – for instance, there are still ways to build a career out of writing Harry Potter fanfic without needing to literally write and sell Harry Potter fanfic.

However, the one part I was most interested in was left unanswered: What did she do, or what happened to her, that led to her current status and commanding power?

visually it’d look like this:

There are many other bloggers with equally effervescent personalities and not-so-dissimilar content that have come before Gala. Some of them do have their own small followings. But, unlike Gala, they haven’t been able to command product placements or speaking gigs or afford international flights. What was different?

Let’s take this similar issue in the point of view of performing, since that’s what I do at the moment:

There is a little while to go before you’re considered professional enough to be drafted for commercial shows, before you become a recognisable and credible brand name. But when does this happen? How many shows and how many years do you need before you reach that point? If you’ve worked in one area (say, improv) for a while, then moved on to something else in the same field (say, contemporary theatre) does anything from your previous work count within the timeline? Who proclaims you as ‘professional’ anyway?

The Circus Oz Twitter account had promoted this interview of Artistic Director Mike Finch as:

How do you go from Work Experience boy to Artistic Director at #circusoz?? Read Mike Finch’s interview to find out: http://TwitPWR.com/gG5/

The interview does go into quite a bit about the background of the show and of his work as AD, but it doesn’t actually answer @circusoz’s question: How do you go from Work Experience boy to Artistic Director at Circus Oz? Who discovered him? Did he have to make an application? Did he have to leave Circus Oz for a while?

This in-between state is something I’ve been interested in for quite a long time. However, it’s not one that’s often talked about. The only other person I found who actually looks into these things is Malcolm Gladwell, whose books The Tipping Point and Outliers talk about pivotal points that affect people’s success. There are certain factors that make the difference between success and failure: whether it’s the number of hours, someone believing in you, being born in the right place at the right time.

What sets them apart from others? What point, what event, made a difference?

I asked this about Internet-famous people on Ask Metafilter but didn’t really get the response I was expecting. However, I was directed to Wired’s article on ‘fameball’ Julia Allison, which is an example of what I really want to know. The article describes her thinly-disguised press releases (“Oh my, I’m going to do something really stupid! Please don’t publish this even tho you are media!”) and how Gawker lapped it up despite protesting about how useless she is.

Is that what it takes? Shameless self-promotion? On the one hand society tells people that they’re not worth anything if they’re not famous or well-known. Yet we also scorn people who actively seek out fame. Why? Is it a bad thing? Is it because they’re not passively waiting? Will just having talent make people come to you, or do you need to do more to get someone’s attention?

What do you do that sets you apart?

Of gratitude and fear

Earlier today I was going to write a post about how 2009 is shaping up to be one of my best years ever (since 2005, when I did Up with People; that was my best year since 2001…I seem to have a 4 year cycle).

I jumped into burlesque totally on a whim and it turned out to be the best thing I did. I found a loving family of people that are supportive of me, accept me as I am, encourage me to follow my paths of interest. People that actually miss me when I’m away and embrace me (often literally) when I’m back. I found a place that felt like

I just had one of the best weeks ever. I won an iPod from MySpace for recharging my phone through their website. How often does that happen? I had my own row on the plane to sleep on. I had all sorts of wonderful welcome-back messages. I got awesome stuff in the mail. I met up with a new friend (Sunny!!) and watched a pretty fun show.

I won 3rd Place in the New Talent category for Cabaret Burlesque. For a performance that was risky, personal, made me very vulnerable. My debut and what a way to start! I was so worried that I would lose the audience since it wasn’t a fun upbeat silly routine – instead it was slow and serious and sensual and soft. Instead just about everyone came up to me and told me it was memorable, brave, beautiful. 612 ABC has made me their story; I can’t wait to hear it. I found so many new friends and fans – including people whose talent I’m now in awe of.

I was in heaven for that week. Such a haze of happiness. I didn’t want to go back to Malaysia. I didn’t want to leave my burlesque family, my ever-loving boyfriend (whom I feel closer and closer to), the atmosphere that allows me to speak my truth and actually be welcomed (instead of being shut out as I was used to).

2009 was going so great. The Vagina Monologues, the play, the process, the people…that was life-changing. I got to explore my dream of being a gymnast and be accepted into a circus program for a year. I finally accomplished long-standing goals like doing a handstand and tumbling forwards. I’m getting tons of performance experience with improv and was even trusted to tackle long-form. I graduated university! I’ve got a business coming up. 2009 wasn’t all roses but it was thicker with them than most years.

And then today I come back and things seem to have gone to shit.

I may or may not have lost a close friend over a money issue. Neither of us have really been able to secure long-term employment but that’s affecting where we live, how we relate to each other. I’ve felt the friendship deteriorating, but sometimes it perks up and all’s good, but then it goes down again. And I don’t know how to deal with it.

My friend and I got too carried away with a big performance idea for a show we’re not qualified for yet. Well really it’s me that got carried away, trying to turn Phantom of the Opera into an epic set in an old cabaret. It’s a good reason to be turned down but I’m still somewhat sad, because at least that was something I could have looked forward to and worked towards while I was away from everyone. Now I’m not too sure. (This is what prompted the previous post.)

My computer died, and while I may get to recover my data (it needs verification) and I’ve got a new HD, things are still slow and now I need to shout to use the microphone. This makes it difficult when you really need to talk to your boyfriend and text IM isn’t cutting it for you. As it is most of my resources are sitting on that forensic’d hard drive.

I’m now really self-conscious about my Merch Girl business idea. I’m not sure I’m qualified enough to carry it off. It was meant to be two things: one, branding myself as an emerging work-in-progress in the fringe performing arts – burlesque, circus, improv, whatever else comes up that sounds interesting; two, promoting myself as a Jill-of-all-Trades that would be happy to help in any way possible so that I can get more experience in all manner of creative work. But it seems that I need more experience to gain experience? Or at least be credible? Would people be willing to listen to me on the basis of a couple of clips, some experience, and tons of enthusiasm?

I was just thinking of writing to some arts/cultural/urban press based in KL, to share my burlesque experiences and maybe introduce this artform to a new world. There has been some interest from Malaysian friends and I seem to be the only living person in the country that has labelled themselves as such. Of course I could find myself in trouble with the authorities, but that’s not even the most pressing worry – what if they laugh at me? “Oh, you placed in one competition, that’s not even prestigious, what are you a fameball?” Well yes, but I don’t want that to get in the way of what could be an interesting discussion. Or maybe I am just too much of a fameball.

It’s only been the first day back! I don’t want this to be the start of a downward spiral. (At the very least, I’d like to avoid a nervous breakdown that leads to the Annual Big Breakup with Boyfriend. Mark will know about this and sigh.) I’m hoping I’m just overreacting. that tomorrow I’ll get over this and all will be OK and I’ll hear some nice news that will help me smile.

But somehow I’m not confident of it. (Which makes we wonder why people find me confident in the first place; I’m really insecure and awkward as hell.) The last time I wrote a big public thing about the good things in my life and how I’m so grateful for it was September 10, 2001. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah. Guess why I’m so superstitious about public gratitude.

Wow. I don’t know. Life is hard and complicated and I have no idea how to even deal effectively with it.

On handling rejection

Handling rejection and disappointment is something I’ve had to deal with all my life, but never really managed to do at all well. Mainly because I’m never quite sure how one gets to that ideal state – of being able to brush it off, move on, not care about it so much.

Even if it’s something I didn’t really care for in the first place, even if it’s a total longshot so I was more likely to get rejected anyway, even if I wasn’t really seriously counting on getting in…just hearing “No” is enough to trigger pain and hurt within my heart and gut. (Now imagine how I’d feel if it was something I was deeply hoping for.)

I’m not sure where this came from. Being practically spoiled my whole life? Being frustrated at being left out of things due to irrelevant factors like race? Rejection upon rejection piling onto each other? A deep need to compete and prove myself? You’d think I’d get over it, since I’ve tried out for a zillion things my entire life and 90% of the time it’s a No. But I still have that deep pit of pain. It’s like a stomachache only deeper and lower.

I don’t know if my issue is that I don’t deal well with rejection, or that I think feeling hurt is a bad way of feeling when rejected. I’ve had people in my family, within my friends, and so on practically scoff at me for reacting emotionally to a rejection. “Why bother feeling so bad? Just move on.” If it was that easy I’d be right on the case. There’s also been people who were understanding of my need to feel sad, which is helpful but also doesn’t really ease the embarrassment that I sometimes feel for breaking down in public.

Is it ok to feel bad?
Is it ok to need time to recover and move on?
Is it ok to ever be disappointed?

My world now.

When I started this blog late last year – after sitting on the domain name for a while because my original plans were violently shaken up – it was meant to be a vehicle for me to find my way post-university. There was nothing else I was beholden to, nothing else guaranteed. I was in deep need of something to get involved with, something to explore, something to dedicate myself to at least for a few years.

Hence all the information above about hiring me, working with me, my skills and interests, my passions, my past work experience. Hence the wealth of information about me – but also the general vagueness of what I did exactly. I had no job description as such, no real destination; I wanted to see what came up.

A chance encounter two years ago led to a chance reunion which eventually led to The Vagina Monologues. This gave me the impetus to pursue burlesque, which led to me volunteering as The Merch Girl – and look where it got me to.

I’ve been blogging more at my Merch Girl Tumblr which is standing in for me as one of my main online hubs while I get a proper site built up. Tumblr’s been a great way to quickly showcase my inspirations – it’s easy to put up photos and videos on there, and pass on any others that I find along the way. It’s not the greatest method for text-heavy blog posts like these, nor is it necessarily great for big blog debates (for one thing, comments aren’t built in), but for the purposes of The Merch Girl it works fine.

I’ve been doing quite a bit to establish The Merch Girl as a functional enterprise – which surprises me, since I tend to be all ideas but little initiative (I get freaked out by all the work I have to do, then move on). I’ve already worked my first official gig with Zenobia Frost as her Merch Girl and Door Bitch (as we referred to lovingly), and I have been applying for grants to gain support and funding for it. I’ve also been educating myself – through self-study, research, consulting, and short courses – on the ins and outs of running a creative business, on arts accounting, on performance, on being sustainable. I’ve even applied for spots in festivals! It’s early days yet but I’m keen to see how far this will go.

The biggest accomplishment I’ve made as The Merch Girl so far (which is pretty remarkable considering I’m not even properly registered yet) is somehow pulling off sponsorship for airfare to the Cabaret Burlesque competition – in return for working as an assistant/manager/career guidance person for my Mysterious Mistress, a dear friend whom I’ve been asking to be an assistant for for many years now! So it’s win-win for everybody. I get to perform in my first solo amongst other Brisbane burlesque enthusiasts, I get to help my dear Mistress out, I actually get to be a proper apprentice to Lena for once, my Mistress gets much-needed career help, Cabaret Burlesque gets an international participant and an extra stagehand, my burlesque friends and I get to meet again (at least for a week)…so much fun. I can’t wait!

The other big ambitious thing I want to do in relation to this is apply for Realise Your Dream , an award by the British Council that gives young Australian emerging artists the chance to explore their creative careers in the UK. Thanks to the Ministry of Burlesque I have found that the British burlesque and cabaret community is super supportive, tight-knit, friendly, and fabulous – and I’d like to explore that further! Technically I’m slightly underqualified, but it never hurts to try…besides, who knows what will happen?

Will I do anything else other than burlesqueing around? Well, there is the circus training, though that’s on hiatus at the moment as I’m actually back in Malaysia for a break (hence the need for airfare for Cabaret Burlesque – so I can make it back in Brisbane for a short time). I’m also volunteering on the Pixel Project VAW project, though I’m a bit slack on that, and I’m also doing a part-time gig with YANQ updating their website and analysing a census of education reengagement initiatives they did last year.

I’m always open to anything that is interesting, that involves motivated and creative people, that offers a way to learn more about the world about me.

The Foundry/Gruen Transfer Anti-Discrimination Ad

ABC TV Show The Gruen Transfer, which comments on media advertising, recently did a feature on size discrimination. They asked a couple of agencies to come up with and The Foundry’s contribution was deemed too shocking for television.

The ad basically told 3 racist/homophobic jokes, then a fat joke, closing with “Discrimination is ugly and wrong”. ABC did not let The Gruen Transfer air the ad, but they have made up a special website to air the ad and the related discussion. Disclaimer: Content is rather offensive.

The idea behind the ad – and the related epiphany from the ad director that inspired the ad – was that if we consider racist, sexist, homophobic jokes bad and ugly and unfunny, why do we laugh at fat jokes? Why are they suddenly OK? It’s putting shape discrimination on the same level as the other forms of discrimination; it’s still regarding someone as lower than you because they’re different.

Sad to say, I still hear those kind of jokes from time to time in different situations. Even from people who I figured would know better. Even sadder to say, I sometimes find them funny. I see what they are poking at, I understand the reference, and sometimes I feel a laugh come from my belly. Then, like the aforementioned ad director, I choke and go “wait, this isn’t right.”. I hated it when people made jokes at the expense of Bengalis, or on whatever alternative group I happened to identify with or be close to; why do I find random jokes along similar lines funny? Why am I laughing? Because they poke at stereotypes? Because in some way I might agree with it? Because it’s just so bad that the only way to diffuse the awkwardness is to laugh? Because if you don’t react you explode?

In the related discussion one of the panellists comments that the people referred to in the earlier jokes – black women, gay men, Jewish people – may be too shocked by those jokes being aired to be able to process the rest of it. Given that they did not publicly identify themselves on that show as black, gay, or Jewish, I don’t think they’re quite the right people to comment about whether they’d be shocked or not. (“WHAT THEY LET THAT ON AIR?!”) I have heard the sentiment that it’s ok for stereotype jokes to be made only when it’s the group being stereotyped that makes the joke; they’d be able to provide the cultural context. (Which also explains why I was rather uneasy after hearing my burlesque teacher’s idea of a Buddhist strip show – as far as I know, having a Comparative Religions class in university does not make you able to relate to Buddhism.

But it also doesn’t exclude the idea that people who face discrimination aren’t also discriminatory. We all have our ugly prejudices; often they’re ingrained and we don’t notice them until we have to confront them. I was homophobic as a young teen because it wasn’t explained to me what being homosexual meant, aside from “bad and icky” – and who wants to be near someone “bad and icky”? I used to think models were all airheads. I sometimes reflexively have issues with Malay people (growing up, most of the discrimination I faced came from Malay people, mainly due to percentage of population) and have to catch myself and say “no, this is a person, not a representative of their race. Respect them as a person, as you would wish them to do to you.”.

My dad asked me the other day to stop my gay rights activism because it was freaking Mum out. Because she doesn’t understand. I don’t know what idea my parents have of gay people (“bad and ugly”?) but I would like them to know that I support gay rights because I know how much it sucks to be denied of your humanity and dignity because of who you are. Being gay doesn’t make you bad; it doesn’t make you good too. Bad people and good people come in all sorts of shapes and forms. How they express their sexuality doesn’t have a bearing on their morality.

If it’s bad to be discriminated against for your race, why is it OK to discriminate others against their sexual identity? If you frown at religious jokes, why laugh at shape jokes? And what do you do when you recognise the (often black and crude) humour and instinctively laugh, but really disagree with the underlying sentiment?

Interviewed by Jamie!

Man, this blog is overdue for a bunch of posts. So excuse the potential postspam.

Jamie over at Starshyne Productions is doing interviews. You comment on her blog and she’ll pass you 5 questions. Similarly, if you comment here I’ll give you 5 questions to answer.

Here’s her 5:

1. Who is someone you love deeply?

Oh goodness. I’m slightly hesitant to mention any one name here because others may think I’m excluding them!! But for now I shall mention my boyfriend Mark . He has patience beyond reckoning, especially since I’ve tested him sooooooooo much!! Even when I’m being stupid and down and weird he still shows me so much love and respect and care. I feel most comforted when I’m in his arms. He brings a sense of safety, comfort, companionship. I can talk about anything with him. Yay Mark :D <3

2. What talent or skill would you love to develop?

German wheel! It’s a giant gymnastic wheel that you can use to do tricks or spin around and such. I saw a group use it at Woodford and it looked fun and incredible. It’s probably very dizzyfying but whee, you get to spin and roll! Here’s a video:

The German Wheel – Roue Allemande – For more amazing video clips, click here

3. If you could go back in time, what moment would you revisit?

My Up with People tour . By far. It was the best time of my life. Other than that – any show I’ve done really. Vagina Monologues, RaGTaG, any other performance moments. SO MUCH FUN.

4. What would you love to be famous for?

For being awesome :D Mainly through being creative and unusual and supporting other creative unusual people. For living my own life. For my eccentricness. For some sort of really creative idea that makes people go “WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?!” But mainly for being an awesome interesting person.

5. What’s a lesson you think you’re here to learn?

Possibly how to deal with negative people since I seem to be surrounded by them all the time _;;

Again, if you’d like an interview, let me know! Just leave a comment with a working email address.

The Definition of Beautiful

Wow. I’m blown away, surprised, and heartened. My last post, The Definition of Ugly, received so much feedback and love and support from friends, acquaintances, and even readers that had not heard of me before. It got reposted on Lip Mag’s website, retweeted here and there, and reposted on Facebook by people I don’t know.

I didn’t write it for popularity, but I did hope for a little bit of validation. I had thought about it while waiting for a bus outside Mystique in the Valley, which is holding their Are You It? campaign to find the face of their club. I saw the people hanging around Mystique and realised that even if I showed up at their club religiously every night, I’ll never win their competition. I’ve participated in enough auditions to know that my look is not desired, my style is not desired, “I” as a physical concept am not what most people want representing a product or service or lifestyle.

I don’t tend to put much effort into my appearance out of laziness. My parents are often on my case for not caring – my dad (who has more skin products than I do) used to keep buying me acne cream, and my mum often comments on how I should exercise to get rid of my belly and how “you know, if you only took care of yourself you would look so pretty!!”. It also doesn’t help that I’ve seen audition forms where I’ve been classified as having “bad” skin, or that when I was at LUCT I was asked if I’d like someone else to front the Newage booth (a newspaper I founded) to give it “image”.

I don’t usually pay attention, but it gets rather annoying after a while. I was fed up of not being able to see people like me represented or heralded as “beautiful” anywhere. I wanted society to change, to see people like me as beautiful, to appreciate my features and colours. But as they say, if you keep having problems and the only common factor is you, it means it’s a problem with you.

Or maybe not.

So many people reached out to me and said I was beautiful. That I was alive, vivacious, positive, confident, had great teeth, great smiles, great attitude. One friend compared me to a mountain, strong and confident with a cloudy mysterious aura.

They related their body and image issues, their confessions of crotch foundation and being a minority in a minority and still dealing with issues even after giving up beauty magazines. I was told that there is a subsection of SuicideGirls dedicated to fanciers of the hirsute (yay hairy people!).

Evelyn Hartogh shared her script for The Tampon Lady. Miss Bertie Page thought my proposed act sounded like a modern art installation piece (which then got quite a few people asking for tickets!). I got amazing quotes and wisdom from everywhere:

From my burlesque teacher and hero Lena Marlene :

If it helps in any way I have friends who are conventionaly, classically gorgeous and they still don’t feel like they are ‘beautiful’ – who does? But there is much to be said for suceeding ‘in spite’ of what we look like as opposed to ‘because’ of what we look like and besides I think you are beautiful so there!

My dear drag queen boylesque friend Adam who quotes Tim Burton:

“You are taught from a very early age to conform to certain things.” He also said how the freaks and outcasts from high school turned out to be the most normal, well adjusted and beautiful people, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. And the people that society deems to be beautiful, normal and well adjusted, are the ones who fade away.
Just remember that those who do not have a path carved out for them, usually carve out their own, and are stronger people for it. While you may have to carve out your own path in life, you will be a more beautiful person for it.

My improv director Louise Callinan shares the words of Dawn French’s father:

“Never forget what a treasure you are, and if your faith in that ever wobbles, have a look in the mirror and have confidence in what you see. You are a rare thing, an uncommon beauty, a dazzling, exquisite, splendid young woman.” and he goes on further but later Dawn states that from then on that her fathers confidence in her gave her an inner strength and belief in herself that stayed in tact even through some significant attacks throughout her life.

and also recommends Ani DeFranco’s Not a Pretty Girl and Darren Hanlon’s I Wish I Was Beautiful For You (the video for this is a cover):

Ani DiFranco – Not A Pretty Girl

Another burlesque friend and co-organiser of the Decadence parties, Kat, shares a story that surprised me:

Tiara, at our first Fringe Bar rehearsal, the first time the MAD Dance group met the Scoundrells group, YOU stood out. Meeting YOU led me to the conclusion that Scoundrells would be more fun to train with than MAD (assuming I would meet more people like you at Scoundrells). I loved that you weren’t one of those Barbie types, with simple minds, simple interests and the need to conform. I love that you are who you are. You’re a bright shining star! (Not to mention that you have THE ULTIMATE name!!) ;)

(I would have thought Adam was the stand-out star personally ;D)

Miss Bertie knocks some sense into me:

Take a look around at Brisbane’s top burlesque performers, does Lena look like Dita Von teese? How about Red or triple treat? They’re successful because they’ve done it their own way. Work hard and cast fear aside,maybe the burlesque you’ve seen isn’t your style , find the way to make it work for you. Your proposed act sounds like a modern art installation.

and then suggests I look up Doris La Trine (warning: may make you want to pee:)

My goodness. so much beauty everywhere, it overflows and runs like a waterfall. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I was asked to write a followup note, but this time instead of listing out my flaws I list out the things that make me beautiful. Well all right then:

I have awesome eyes. Yes. There, I’ve claimed it. Tons of people point it out to me and it’s about time I relish them (instead of trying to cut away my eyelashes like I did once as a fed-up teen). Also, I like all the different streaks and colours my hair goes through from time to time.

I have a BELLY! Which is great for BELLYDANCE! and all related activities. I am snuggable and my bosom makes for great Cornershop-style pillows.

My legs are actually pretty long. And pretty hot. So are my arms, especially when unsleeved. The fuzz on them keeps me warm and, well, fuzzy. I can tumble backwards, stand on my shoulders, and lift myself up using my hands.

I have a face that is expressive and chameleonic. It is its own character. I have smiles and grins that shine happiness from far away. My teeth are in good health and I’ve never needed a cavity or filling.

I am not shy about my body. I have just rediscovered its potential and look forward to stretching it out in circus or burlesque. I have a sharp keen mind that loves learning and is especially awesome at creating new connections out of unrelated things. My spirit is seeking, open, welcoming, contemplative of others’ experiences.

I’m always eager to help out whenever I can. I love deeply and warmly. I am always available for hugs and kisses. I am loyal and show my admiration and appreciation for people. I create new things out of all sorts of stimuli. I have enough energy to sustain a room. I work for the greater good. I am silly and random and crazy and nutty. I don’t hold back my laughs. I’m willing to shave my head or wear a crazy costume.

I have the most beautiful friends and family in the world. And we all make each other beautiful.

None of us are perfect, but most of us are perfectly fine how we are.

The Definition of Ugly

According to many beauty standards, I am the definition of ugly.

I have dark skin. In Malaysia there are ads everywhere promoting the concept of “fair and lovely”. Every makeup product contains something “skin-lightening”. I will never get an on-screen job because my skin is too dark. Even in Australia, where a tan is desired, I am still too dark – or perhaps “ethnic”, which can get annoying even when used positively as it makes me just Exotic Ethnic Person rather than Tiara Shafiq.

My face is pock-marked. I have a habit of picking on scars. There are dark circles under my eyes and grey patches on my cheeks. I have a faint moustache above my upper lip.

I am hairy. I can’t be bothered to shave. I do have a bush.

My ears are unpierced. 2 attempts, infected.

I bite my nails. The skin around my thumbs peel.

My hair is cropped short, and has a wave. It’s not long and ruler-straight like all the pretty girls in the ads in Malaysia. I prefer purple to blonde.

I can’t be bothered with makeup unless I’m dressing up in some sort of costume or I’m performing. Even then my colours are often off. My eyes frequently hold the glittering remnants of faerie warfare.

I am a size 12-14. In Malaysia this makes me XXL or more, and I end up only having sacks to wear. I have ample breasts (either 36D or 34FF depending on who you ask) which means nothing in any Malaysian boutique ever gets past my head or chest.

I am 5 foot 5. This makes me short, though my mum and sister keep going on about how “Tall” I am. Standing next to most Australians makes me look really tiny.

I have a belly. My waist is a little bit smaller than my hips, but not enough to make an alluring burlesque-y hourglass shape. This just adds to the plus-size sack dress options. This plus my height makes me look dumpy and squashed.

I have flat feet, diamond-shaped at the front, standing awkward in heels.

My butt is a little bit rounded at the top, then flat all the way down. I often feel my bones when I sit.

I am not often bothered by how I look. However, I do get annoyed or sad when I get passed over for things and it’s rather obvious that it’s due to my appearance. Even when I “make the effort” – dress up a little nicer, put some powder on, whatever – it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m not tall enough, fair enough, slim enough, toned enough. I’m too curvy, too spotty, too hairy, too lumpy.

About the only things going for me are my eyes. And maybe my sharp nose, which doesn’t require a cosmetic nose-pin (they sell these back in JB – they’re like clothespins but smaller, and you stick them on the end of your nose. Seriously. There’s also stickers to give you double eyelids.). But unless there’s a sudden opportunity to be an eye model, I’m not going to be heralded for my look anytime soon.

I don’t really aim to fix my body. I’m usually too lazy to anyway. I just wish that I could find clothes that fit that don’t fit an arm or a leg (at least Australia’s good with this), I could wear bright colourful makeup that doesn’t face on my face, I could stand out in photos instead of blending into the night, I could be the FACE of a project or channel or venture.

When people consider my features to be beautiful. When I don’t have to try to do anything to be beautiful.

I thought of a burlesque routine around this. I come out heavily made up, fair foundation all over, clear perfect faces and hairless bodies. Corsets and binding keeping all my body in shape. A wig with dark, long, straight, hair. Towering heels. Glamourous clothing and accessories. The perfect woman.

Superimposed on me are images and videos of the Fair & Lovely ads, or every product advertising its whitening properties. The Dove Real Women campaign videos. Ad shots everywhere. Light-skinned South Asian women prominent in the media. People being photoshopped. Other perfect women.

The music is soft at first, then gets harder and harder. Likely a track shouting out my worth as an object, my worth in my appearance. Perfect woman.

I strip off every glove, every bracelet, every fascinator. I reveal the boning marks left on my waist and belly by my corset. My fat and breasts and hips roll out of the girdles and bodyshapers. The hose rolls down to reveal hair, hair everywhere. The wig comes off to show spiky short dishevelled hair.

Each item has a caption, momentarily displayed. Who Is The Perfect Woman. Tuck Your Woman In. Fair Is Lovely, Lovely Is Not Fair.

I dip into a bowl of water and wipe the makeup off my face and body. I revel in ecstasy as the water drips down my naked body, over my rolls and flabs. Makeup stains down my face.

I am the Imperfect Woman, nude and bare to the world, dancing luxuriously with all her pimple scars and dry skin and bitten-off nail and hair on her face.

Of friends and roles.

When I was deeply into my KaosPilots quest last year, I found a lot of people who became quite keen on my adventure. I went to Edgeware’s Do Well conference and gained a whole host of supporters. Other KaosPilots from everywhere sent me messages on Facebook wishing me luck. I gained a few volunteering at the GK3 Summit.

Some of these were interested in social enterprise, and my project fell into their interest sphere. Some of these thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and promise eternal support and fandom for me. “You’re so inspirational! You’re amazing! Let me know if I can help you in any way!”

My quest ended badly. I didn’t get in the KaosPilots despite multiple tries. A month or two later, I left social enterprise behind (for the time being) at the Brightest Young Minds, and began a very slow and harrowing process of death, rebirth, and moving on to something else (in this case, performance and a hint of human sexuality).

I was looking through my friends lists online and was so saddened to see that many of my previous “major fans” have stopped talking to me, stopped responding. These were people I still respected and admired, people whom I tried to communicate with from time to time even now. But the adoration of before is gone. They’ve found new people to fawn over. I’m nothing to them now. Not even a “hey, how’s it going”.

It’s understandable that the people that heard of me through their social enterprise work would not really miss my presence – they’re scanning for “social entrepreneurs”, not “Tiara Shafiq”. It’s the people who promise eternal gratitude, the ones who said they’ll help no matter what but then disappear – those are the ones I found really disappointing.

They didn’t really like me for me. They liked my role of “young girl trying to be the first of her kind to get into Trendy Social Enterprise School”. Once I left that role I stopped being interesting to them. They didn’t support Tiara, they supported KaosPilot wannabe.

It’s a pattern I deal with most of my life. I’m only interesting to certain people if I fulfil some deeply-held wishes of theirs. Once I changed I no longer fulfill those needs and therefore I’m no longer a friend with a relationship to maintain.

I’ve now learnt that true friends are the ones that stick by you and love you regardless of your interest waves. They’re the ones that were with me when I alternately wanted to be a popstar, a social enterpreneur, a webmistress, and now a Merch Girl. They’re the ones who have seen me at my most vulnerable state and support me anyway. They’re the ones that understand that I am a Scanner, a chameleon, with core principles but fluid means of expression.

I don’t mind people who only connect to others in their circles. That’s cool. It’s when they think you’re awesome and declare major support, but then disappear when you need support for something else, that really gets to me.

I sent a pretty long message to one of my very close friends, Nikki last night; caught her at a bad time and possibly confused her! Nikki’s become something of a local celebrity amongst the Brisbane Twitter set, and has also become quite close to the Edgeware people for her involvement in their activities (like I was a year before). I was the one that got her into Twitter; I’d known her from college days where she had a completely different circle of friends.

She had built a strong circle of friends amongst Brisbane Twitter and their associated circles, but I was concerned that if she ever decides to drop Twitter to focus on something else, all those friends would drop her and stop talking to her. Not out of malicious intent, but because she no longer fits the “cool Twitter person” role and therefore no longer interesting. Who amongst her close Twitter friends only like her because of Twitter, and who are there for the long run?

Who among your friends have declared their fondness for you, but will ignore you once you stop having something in common? Who will cheer you on no matter what you do, be there for you, give you support? Find the latter and treasure them deeply.

The value of arts

I recently observed a very interesting discussion on the economics of theatre, using the thesis that the theatre world needs to be less self-centred when it comes to funding as the Average Joe may not relate to the “WE MUST SUPPORT THE ARTS” point of view, especially when they’re struggling to make ends meet.

While the discussion was primarily America-centric, I see similar debates happening around the world. This was actually the topic of my first assignment at university – about how Australian theatre is struggling to survive and how it needs to adopt models from outside the art world to sustain itself. There are already a lot of organisations that are shutting down or have shut down because they lost Government funding. This startles me – the idea that the loss of one funder can make the difference in your survival.

Chris Ashworth made a few great posts about this situation. He argues that asking for public funding for the arts may be counterproductive:

Go find a nurse and ask her about her day. Or go read “Mountains Beyond Mountains“. Or go have a chat with a social worker advising single mothers, or a middle school teacher trying to teach students who can’t read. Then come tell me our new president should spend a million dollars on dance tours instead of any of those other things.

Indeed, according to Chicago-based theater artist Jay Rasolnikov, no one really cares:

No one really cares about why an artist deserves money except for those in the arts. Really no one does. A factory worker who’s out of a job and about to lose his or her home couldn’t care less about artists getting handouts. Someone trying to get buy on minimum wage working a series of shit jobs probably has very little sympathy for artists also scraping by.

As Theatre Idea‘s Scott Walters points out (using Johnny Bunko), it’s not about you – and indeed, there’s a value to art that artists themselves may not realise:

For much of art history, artists considered themselves to be craftsmen doing a job; many didn’t sign their work. They knew it wasn’t about them. Artistically, as Pink writes, they “give their client something it didn’t know it was missing.” They give a gift. Which brings us back to Lewis Hyde again, and the difference between a gift economy and a transaction economy. One of the many subtitles Hyde seems to have used for different editions of this book is “How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World.” The artist is the conduit, the vessel for the creative spirit. The artist is a midwife that brings into existence a new life.

This is something I struggle with currently as a performance trainee (and in the recent past while applying for the KaosPilots). My work isn’t directly applied or educational or world-changing. I do it because it gives me happiness. It’s an outlet for my silly creativity. It gives me access to a whole bunch of smart, friendly, open, loving people who have welcomed me wholeheartedly into their world. (<3 Scoundrelles and Vulcana!). It lets me fulfill some long-held wishes (I just managed a few handstands on Monday!).

But it’s not solving world poverty or global warming. It’s not going to make a difference in a life-or-death situation. Circus may be gaining respectability (even if too many people assume I’m working as a clown or with animals, neither of which are true) but burlesque is still fraught in many places with controversy over its sex world connections and its respectability. Why should people care that I’m training in circus and burlesque? What’s in it for them – bendy bodies?

Yet without some sort of funding – financially, in-kind, free lessons, room & board, whatever – I won’t be able to sustain myself enough to keep on performing. Life doesn’t come cheap. I feel like I’m caught in a Catch-22 described by Nick in another Chris Ashworth post:

Xan’s argument is that the public expects the arts to do something before it’s willing to fund it, but the arts can’t actually do anything without the money first because of the overhead of putting something together. … People don’t want to pay for a product they haven’t seen, but the product can’t be created with the capital first.

It’s the WIIFM conundrum – What’s In It For Me? . As it is, I grew up in a culture where the only good “self” to be is selfless. Any form of self-enrichment or self-improvement, especially in contemporary arts, is seen as selfish, self-centered, self-indulgent. You live for your community; you do what other people need you to do. There’s no way I’ll get any sort of capital support in Malaysia unless I severely compromise on what I do.

I’ve been looking at grants to support myself (after sifting through tons of “Citizen/PR only” and “No individuals accepted” opportunities, which make me lose out on majorly awesome opportunities like this Australia Council production mentorship – waah!) and almost all of them require some sort of statement on why you should get the grant. What’s so good about you that they should support you. What sort of benefit you bring.

Uh, I’m the only South Asian in Brisbane doing burlesque, so I can inspire other South Asians? What I’m doing isn’t necessarily accepted within similar cultures to mine, and I don’t want to be known as the token Asian or the token “coloured” person.
I am a totally unsporty person jumping into acrobatics? Would it be cheating if I showed my other previous classes, which took some measure of fitness?
I am linking cultures by being a foreigner? It’d help if I actually planned to relocate to Malaysia anything soon without them banning me from the stage for life. And again, tokenism.

I don’t want to turn my work into some overthought plate-of-academic-wanker-beans, but how else do I justify my existence?

So what are the solutions? Does it involve rethinking theatre as a form? Providing funding for universal healthcare and/or education and welfare, so that people don’t have to worry about paying for their living costs and fulfilling the base rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy? What is it?

Does it involve changing public assumptions that artists must work for the love of it and any acceptance of money is “selling out”? That you need to “pay your dues” before getting any back? That we do provide a service – of creativity and passion?

What’s in it for everybody?

Honorary citizenship - on condition!

I just received a letter from the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman. We met briefly at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit Youth Forum a couple of years ago; I had asked a question about trying to create change in oppressive conditions and he shook my hand and wished me luck.

Anyway. He got wind of my efforts to obtain Australian residency, and he said that he could possibly get the Brisbane City Council to sponsor my request. They’ve noticed my track record with arts and community efforts, and they want to make a point of supporting people who willingly give back to Brisbane life.

They do have a condition, though. They want me to use my skills…in timber mills.

Yeah. Apparently the Brisbane timber mill industry is suffering major because people are being more eco-friendly and not buying any more fresh wood furniture. Problem is, there’s all these trees taking up space (and choking other trees), and the timber mills can’t cut them down because they’ve got too much timber sitting around in their mills. TOO MANY TREES! And of course, this is costing them money – about AU$500,000 per acre, apparently.

Campbell Newman wants me to be project manager for a campaign on supporting the timber industry, so that the timber mills can produce more construction-ready timber and go through their backlog (har har, geddit, ‘backLOG’). Then they can clear out the older trees taking up space, so that the new trees an breathe. The environment is improved, people have furniture, timber mills make money. Tada!

Since I have the talent to combine things, I could use my arts skills and networks to create a festival around timber milling. A Wood Festival. Like Woodford minus the Ford. Get songs about wood. Make stages out of wood. Everyone plays on wood instruments. I’m sure the burlesque-rs can make a joke about “giving you wood”.

Hmm, should I take it or not? Honourary citizenship would be great, but I know absolutely nothing about timber mills. Or whether cutting down old trees in favour of new ones are even a good idea environmentally.

Who should I ask – the agent? My parents? My Aussie friends? Dilemmas!!

April Fools!!!!!

Honourary citizenship doesn’t come THAT easily. And why on Earth would I work with timber mills?

Thanks Mark for the idea of timber mills ;)

Shifting centers

For most of my life I was very mind-centric. I was one of those people that pretty much lived in my head. I read a lot (still do), had an active imagination (still do), and wanted nothing more than to learn, learn, learn (still do).

I was hopeless with sports, or anything to do with my body. I couldn’t run, throw a ball, catch a ball. I did badminton and swimming for a while at school but was never great at it. I wanted to do gymnastics but was too big and too scared. I only climbed a tree once. Whenever I was the slightest bit ill, I was rushed to the doctors. And who gives a damn about personal appearance? No one ever looks at me anyway. Not like I was interested in attracting anyone – I was an asexual who couldn’t really see the point in sex. Too messy.

My soul was just slightly better. I grew up in an Islamic environment, taking Islamic classes for my entire schooling life. I’ve gone from clueless to pious to pious in a different way to non-religious to doubtful to searching, and possibly many ways around yet. I’m pretty sure of what I believe and how I express that belief; it’s more labels that confound me.

My heart just tended to be broken. I had no concept of romance or courtship; even as a teenager the closest I had to a relationship were long-standing crushes on people and spending a night with a Savage Garden poster in my arms. (My mum’s remark on her seeing me like this: “I think you’re ready for boys now.” None came for about 8 years.) I had very awkward interpersonal connections; friends didn’t come easily for me, and I was more often betrayed and outcasted than welcomed and accepted.

My body, soul, and heart floundered. But my mind – oh, that was very very strong. It was the only thing that mattered. I placed pride in how much I knew, how smart I was, how deeply I thought. I wasn’t one for academics and grades because I didn’t find most of the work challenging or engaging. I yearned for things that awoke my brain, got me thinking, sparked my neurons.

Of course, it wasn’t long before my neurons eventually fried. A lot of stress beginning at childhood led to full-blown anxiety and depression at 17, partly caused by misfiring neurons. My mind became both my escape to and escape from. I thrived in my head and was also trapped within it.

The next few years after that were a crazy mix of challenges to all my aspects – not just my mind. I moved around the country and around the world, challenging my physical endurance. I explored different spiritualities and questioned a lot of my previous beliefs. I gained the courage to actually make the first move in relationships – though I still didn’t get lucky with anybody.

When I moved to Australia, I slowly found my focus and center moving away from my mind. It was still important, but it didn’t quite hold as central a role as before. My heart finally found satisfaction in Mark , and my body flourished in its new dimension – what asexuality? As it is, it was getting more exercise than ever. My soul found expression in service, working hard to find ways to help other people.

Now I find myself more body-centered. I’m training in circus and burlesque three days a week, seven-and-a-half hours all up, and while I’m still not a champion sportsperson I am a great deal fitter and flexible than I ever was. I still don’t give a damn about fashion and trends, but I have gained a strong appreciation for costuming and creative styling. I’m fascinated by expressions and experiences of sexuality – not just in the raw sense, but as combined with psychology and creativity and culture and society. I move more. I flow more.

My spirit’s shifted its mode of focus; while there is still an interest in making a difference, it is a tad more academic. My heart is still strong with Mark but it has also expanded in its understanding of itself.

As for my mind? It’s funny; I don’t feel quite as sharp mentally as I used to. Not so much “oh goodness I feel stupid”, but I haven’t had quite the same mental challenges as I used to. No trivia questions or MENSA tests. Now it’s more about creating, about expressing the mind through the body. Focusing on moves and poses, clearing the mind when possible. Learning, but also doing.

I’m still a voracious reader and I still spend too much time online. But I don’t feel quite as lost in my head as I used to.

Wishcasting Wednesday (or Friday!)

This week’s Wishcasting post asks:

What is your money wish?

Apt timing! My money wish is to be financially free through paying off my parent’s loans and no longer relying on them for money; instead, to earn enough to support my life and passions though meaningful creative works, projects, and strokes of good luck! Basically to be able to support the things I love without worrying about going broke.

Ideal Australian Accommodation & Income - putting it out to the universe

I just graduated today. Huzzah! Finally I can leave university life behind me, at least for the moment.

I’ll know tomorrow, when my parents and I meet the migration agent, what our plan is regarding visas and my move to Australia. Whether I stay here past this month and only go back for my sister’s wedding, or if I spend a month in Malaysia then come back for good…things are mutable. Here’s hoping it’s for the best.

While I figure out what I’m doing with myself, I would like to put out my wishes and aims for my ideal living and earning situation when I’m settled in Australia. I know about things like The Secret and Law of Attraction, and while I’m not a wholehearted believer, I can see the merit in making your intent clear. I’ve had that happen in mysterious ways, but I’ve also had the total opposite happen (working so hard for something that didn’t happen at all) so who knows! Also, this will help me make my goals clearer, so I know just what to look for. And if you know anything that fits this description, by all means share!

Ideal Accomodation

1. Near city or surrounding suburbs, Zones 1-2 – I’m pretty familiar with those suburbs and I can navigate to and from easily. Transport costs are also affordable when maintained at Zones 1 & 2.

2. Accessible to New Farm – a lot of my things (chiropractor, naturopath, burlesque classes, circus training) are based in New Farm. It’s also bordering the city and the Valley so I have easy access to a lot of things. It doesn’t have to be right at New Farm; I just don’t want to take 3 buses and a train just to get there one way!

3. 2 to 3 other housemates – I’ve lived alone, with one other person (who was also the houseowner), and in a sharehouse of 8. None of those were ideal; it was often overwhelming and it didn’t really feel like home. I’m currently in a 3-person arrangement and it’s comfortable – there’s a close connection to each other, but there’s still the space to do your own thing and you don’t have to absolutely entertain each other. A house of 3-4 seems just right.

4. Own room of reasonable space – I’m currently sharing a room that’s really just meant for one person. It’s ok at first but is driving us nuts! I need space to relax, work, meditate, spiritually reflect, read, sleep, do my own thing. It doesn’t have to be especially spacious but I don’t want it cramped either – just enough space to breathe and live.

5. Has Internet access, all utilities, fully furnished – because I really don’t want to go hunting for my basic living needs like electricity, a bed, or running water. Also I’ve lived in houses with no reliable Internet and it was such a pain in the arse!

6. About AUD$150 per week rent inclusive of bills – That’s my budget, which is more a suburban price than an inner-city one. It’s doable if a bit challenging at the moment since places are raising rents here and there. Lower is good; I’m not sure about higher unless the place absolutely deserves it.

7. Animal-friendly – I might get a pet. That said, the last time I went to a house just because it had pets already I ended up having a bad time, so I’m willing to compromise!

8. Relatively young/young-at-spirit people with creative, interesting, meaningful inclinations – it doesn’t necessarily have to be a “theme house” (I know of a Witch House and a Circus House) though I’d be cool with that. I’d just like to have some connection with my housemates; at least friendly if not best-buds-for-life. Having similar inclinations help with conflict management and makes it easier (I feel) for us to live together.

9. Friends are OK but doesn’t have to be – I’m thinking now that I might be better off with acquaintances: we know each other but maybe not extremely well yet, so we know the other’s trustworthy but we don’t have a huge relationship at stake. I have lived with complete strangers and that’s worked out OK, so I’m not ruling them out either.

10. Comfortable, safe, livable – it doesn’t have to be super-posh (and I learnt the hard way that choosing a house based on its decor can backfire) but I don’t want a total dump either! I don’t have terribly high standards; a clean bathroom, a clear floor, and dust-free surfaces work well.

11. Fire/smoke-friendly – because I’d like to light a candle or some incense once in a while. I don’t smoke cigarettes.

12. Homestays are fine – actually they’d be great because I’d get paid to live in a house!

Ideal Income

1. Not from my parents – I want to develop my independence and have control over how my money’s being used. Parental money, while appreciated, often comes with more strings than I’m comfortable with. Special occasion gifts are OK; I just don’t want them to subsidize my life.

2. Ethical sources – so no illegal or immoral activities involved, like selling sex slaves or dealing drugs or burning Mafia cigars, that sorta thing. The ethics of the company matter a lot to me.

3. Does not involve someone’s death – I don’t want my main income to come from an inheritance from someone who died in an accident very recently! I’d rather have this income come from people who are alive! (That said, if it was part of a foundation built from someone’s death ages ago, that’s fine. I just don’t want a long lost relative being hit by a car just so I can inherit money, for example.)

4. Diverse sources of income – paid employment is my main focus, but I’d also like to get income from projects, freelance and contract work, grants and other forms of funding, prize money, ad sales, sponsorships, donations, that sort of thing. In-kind help works too. I want to keep my options open and not limit myself to just thinking “I need a job” when I could get stuff out of a lottery, for instance. Also, having diverse sources means that I’m not totally out of luck if one of them shrivels up.

5. Flexible part-time hours – I do have circus training and performance stuff, among other things, and I don’t want to spend all my time at work. I’ve calculated a budget with living, creative, and misc expenses and a typical part-time job salary is enough to cover expenses and provide a savings buffer, while still having enough hours to do my own thing.

6. Positive, respectful open working environment – this has SUCH a major impact on me, moreso than things like the pay or the exact nature of the job. I have left seemingly-good jobs because the atmosphere was toxic, and I’ve worked in many volunteer gigs where the people were fantastic

7. I can leave work at work – I don’t want to have to worry about work 24/7. My current schedule actually works pretty well; I train, I do casual work as an Aussie (assisting English classes), I work on projects, but they don’t bleed into each other.

8. Engaging and stimulating – I’ve been told that I engage really well with “meaty” work and work best when given a challenge. Something that gets my mind and body moving (so I’m not stuck to a chair or on menial jobs) would be excellent.

9. Involves people but not overwhelmingly so – I like having company and working together with people, and I also like having space for my own time and work. I also like to bounce ideas off people and get their input; collaboration is fun!

10. Does not fire me just because I occasionally check my email despite being extremely productive – enough said.

11. Casual open environment – I don’t think I can cope with a conservative corporate job. It doesn’t have to be radical, just creative and free!

12. Meaningful – whether to the end user or to the co-workers (ideally both). Something that holds part of a greater purpose, even if it’s just as simple as making someone smile.

13. Values personal time – Everyone has their own priorities; I wouldn’t be able to deal with a place that made you consider work as your #1 priority in life. Life’s greater than that.

14. Accepting of diversity – I definitely don’t fall into any specific roles and wouldn’t want to be marginalised for who I am!

15. Creative – I like to explore my creativity, whether directly or otherwise. The form is open (as long as it’s actually something I’m good at, so not drawing or programming) and I’m open to suggestion.

Some cheese with that w(h)ine?

I’ve just been told that I sometimes come off as being whiny on this blog.

I don’t know if it’s just that last post, which was written under a lot of stress and frustration, or if it also extends to other posts on this blog. Or to my Twitter and Facebook streams as well.

Meh. I know that I can come off as whiny when I’m stressed, whether I want to or not. I write it online because I’ve seen the creativity and support of people here who can come up with great ideas or commiserations. It’s a release. It helps.

I’m not a big “personal image” person. I’d rather be honest and open about myself – including the dirty, unappealing sides. “Good” and “bad” are relative. One person’s whine is another person’s stress is another person’s trying to work things out.

This blog is meant to reflect my process as I grow and make sense of the world. And there will occasionally be sticky bits. Difficult bits. And sometimes it takes a while before I am detached enough to be able to evaluate them objectively. Sometimes I need help while I’m still at the thick of the moment.

My parents read this and apparently some of the things I’ve posted online have shocked them, scared them. They come from a very different mindset and culture than I do and will understandably have their own limits. However, I’m not writing this blog for them. I’m writing this for myself, and for others joining me on this crazy mixed-up journey. I cannot control their reactions. I can only control myself.

I’d rather not feel like I have to censor myself online because someone will be shocked. Definitely no hate speech or stupid racist things or anything like that – but those are things I don’t want to say anyway because I personally find them reprehensible. But I’m not going to censor my bad days. I’m not going to censor my fascination with Asian burlesque dancers who may or may not strip. I’m living my life my way and part of it is to share my discoveries as openly as I want to (there’s still a lot about me that doesn’t make it online anywhere).

Am I too open? Maybe. Even then I still have my secrets. But this is part of the journey – finding out people’s limits, finding out my limits, deciding what I’m willing to do and what I’m not so keen on.

Here, have some crackers.

Visa quagmires. (EDIT: Possible solution!)

OK. So I’ve just received some new information about the Temporary Graduate visa I was going to apply for, and now my head’s in a tizzy.

1. The Temporary Graduate visa takes at least SIX months to be processed. This made me yelp because I do not want to be in Malaysia (well, Ulu Tiram) for six months. There’s nothing to do and I’ll stagnate in there. I’d lose half a year of circus training and just end up atrophying in front of my computer like I usually do.

HOWEVER

2. Apparently once you lodge your application you are NOT ALLOWED to leave Australia. You are given a Bridging visa that lets you stay in Australia legally while the other visa’s being processed. I’ve heard “you can’t leave” to “you can only leave for compassionate reasons” to “you can stay, or you can leave”. I don’t know if you are given the Bridging visa immediately or if you have to apply for it and wait (hopefully not for months). Some bridging visas give you working rights, but I have to check that too.

I’m cool with remaining in Australia for as long as I need to. I can continue circus training, learn burlesque and pole, do fun stuff, get involved (there’s TONS of things happening in the next couple of months), and actually apply for jobs without wondering about whether I’d be around long enough to start work. However, there are a few issues here:

• I am running out of money. I have less than $200 in my account, which is just enough to last me until the 27th – the date I was supposed to fly out to Malaysia. I have been looking for jobs, but without luck – I haven’t had an interview, and people are generally reluctant to hire folks with immigration issues (like myself). I’ve been doing casual and part-time gigs here and there, but they haven’t been enough to cover major expenses.

• I need a place to live. Currently I’m sharing a room with Mark (in the same apartment with Nikki, who has her own room). While we generally get along, being in the same small room as Mark 24/7 has really taken a toll on our relationship. The room’s only meant for one person, so there’s not enough space for our clothes, our computers, and so on. We end up being pissed off at each other, or feeling cramped. We had a long conversation about this last night where we came to the conclusion that we work better with having our own working spaces (or at least a working space that’s separated from the bedroom) but sharing a bed, instead of having everything “on top of each other”. Any longer in our current situation, though, and things may get really ugly. (Those of you who received a message from me saying “We all live and die alone” – this was part of the impetus.)

• My parents will be pissed off. They’ve been wishy-washy about me being in Australia – a few months ago, when I was going through a deep depression and just wanted to get out of everything, they were so eager for me to be a PR that they even got all the forms and hired agents before I was ready. Now, though, they keep dropping anvil-sized hints about “taking a break” by coming back to Malaysia, forgetting about Australia because we’re apparently getting Malaysian citizenship anyway (after waiting my whole life!), and besides circus doesn’t give you a future so why bother. (There’s a looooooooong story behind this.) They were willing to support my visa costs, but were more willing to pay for everything if I lived in Johor. Even my dad says on the phone, “You know, we’re allowing you to apply this visa to make you happy…” and doesn’t get it when I say it’s not a question of me being allowed or not allowed to do something. When they find out the quagmire I’m in, they’re likely going to conclude that I’m so disorganised and it’s such a hassle that they’re not willing to cover the AU$3000+ cost for the visa and paperwork – “just go home!”

The factor that complicated this is my student visa. It’s valid till the 30th of August, but due to credit transfers I’m graduating a semester ahead of schedule. I called up DIMIA a few months ago asking about my visa and they told me that my student visa stops being valid as soon as I graduate (this Tuesday). With this understanding, my parents booked tickets for the 27th – graduate, put in application (even though I can only apply around the 7th of April because I have to wait for my IELTS results to be released), go home, wait for approval. But if my new information is correct, I can’t go home at all. Not a loss for me – but a big source of trouble for them. I had already delayed my return date twice.

I sent an email to the migration agent I visited in February asking for clarification, and CC’d my family. If they read the email they’ll hopefully see my side of the situation. My parents are currently in the Middle East and will be in Australia just before my graduation – I don’t know if they’ll get the chance to even read the email beforehand. And we have 3 days between the graduation and someone having to go back on the flight. Or something.

ARGH!

I’d love to remain in Australia; I just need the following:

• A job, or enough money to live on
• Somewhere to live – cheap or free rent, good people, utilities included, not dodgy (I’ve had two renting experiences that didn’t go so great; I’m worried to go renting now!!). Hell, I’d go live with my burlesque teacher and be her apprentice if she’d let me. Or something.
• My expenses and needs taken care of
• Some way of going back legally (there’s a Bridging Visa variant that lets you do this) – my sister’s getting married in July! Ironically she’s more supportive of my plan than my parents are!
• Less stress – I already had such a stressful night talking with Mark about our future, starting over, whether we cope well together, and so on. I couldn’t sleep at all. Now this is just giving me a greater headache.
• A guardian angel

I was doing so well. I had dreams! There were things I wanted to do! There were people here who wanted me around! I found the people that care for me and want me back here! And now this?

I’m running out of things I can do in the mundane world. I’ve asked for advice, I’m getting the paperwork sorted, I’ve told my parents. Sometimes I wonder if my parents are praying for me to just come back to Malaysia and drop this Australia thing – they are in the holiest Muslim place in the world. Can prayers override each other? If I asked all my spiritual and magical friends to pray and spellcast and wish and who-knows-what for my visa success, for my dream life to be true, for my wave of joy and good fortune to return – will it work against the wishes of my parents which seem to be conflicting? (If you are a magical person, feel free to do whatever ritual you want towards my aid. Or pray for me. Whatever works for you. You have my eternal gratitude.)

URGH! I hate visas. Hate them so much.

EDIT EDIT EDIT! POSSIBLE SOLUTION!

I just took a shower and I think I’ve come up with a solution that suits everybody.

1. Graduate on the 24th. Get degree cert to apply for VETASSESS. Go talk to immigration agent to see if this plan holds water.
2. Go back to Malaysia on the 27th.
3. Receive IELTS results by mail around mid-April. (This is the main thing stopping me from making an application now.)
4. Go back to Australia either on the student visa (risky, but it does say “valid till 30 August 2009” on it and apparently people have done this before) or on a tourist visa (a bit of a hassle, and costs a bit, but it only takes a day and there are cheap flights) by end of April with IELTS results and other paperwork stuffage.
5. Apply for Temp Grad visa.
6. Get Bridging visa. Possibly ask for modification to go overseas in July.
7. Live in Australia for as long as I need to.
8. Rock on.

!!!!!

The main things here are the flight back to Australia and the visa to come back. A little bit of extra cost, but possibly worth it?? My parents will have me back (though I hope they don’t kick up a fuss that it’s not as long as they’d like), I get to come back to Australia early, and I get to liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.

YAY!

The Future?

I used to be quite worried about my “future”. So did the other people around me growing up, or in my life now.

How will My Future be like?
Will what I do lead to a good Future?
Is My Future secure? How can I be certain?

bloody future, seriously!

I would think way ahead to my future self, and try to work out what she’s up to, how she’s happy, how she looks. For some reason she’s stuck in a red turtleneck and a trenchcoat – an outfit that’s only brought me bad luck so far (I’m slightly superstitious about clothes). She seems generally content…why she’s content is never really concrete.

And then I’ll make grandiose plans. Oh, I’ll embark on this trip! And work on this job! Then I’ll meet these people! And achieve this and that! And BE HAPPY!

But my plans always fell apart one way or another. Usually due to something out of my control – usually a rejection for something I’ve wished and worked very hard to get. You can see the aftermath of the most recent attempt here. They were learning experiences, and it’s not like I didn’t get anything out of the process – but it still never guaranteed a future.

Nothing does.

You know why? Because there is no Future.

Everything is NOW. We can only work with the information we have now. We can only control so much over our circumstances. Why worry so much about The Future, when all you can work with is NOW?

There is some value to future planning, but only in a more short-term or general sense. For me, I find super specific things like “I will produce a book in 5 years” really unhelpful, as I’ve found that my passions and interests come and go in phases. They don’t disappear completely after the end of their phase; they just become less important or less pressing. But I still incorporate them somehow into my life work.

When I was a teenager I was all about current pop culture, television, media. Then I went to Up with People and became obsessed with non-profits, social enterprise, saving the world. Now I’m flowing into performance, burlesque, creativity on a larger scale. All of those have always been important in some way in my life; they’ve just shifted priorities.

My parents are worrying about My Future. Especially my current circus and burlesque kick (aside from all the culture-bending). They think this venture doesn’t give me a safe, secure future. As my dad put it:

THERE ARE TOO MANY UNCERTAINTIES!!!

But are there? Right now I’m certain that this is what brings me joy. It brings me smart, creative, loving, awesome people. It brings me new skills and the rush of accomplishment. It brings me freedom to be the crazy nutter that I am without judgement. It brings me new experiences. It brings me fun, LOTS of fun.

It may just be something I do for a few years before moving on. It may be something I do forever. It may be something that I become famous in. It may be my calling. Who knows.

But at least I’m certain. I’m certain that this is what I want to do right now. And I’m happy.

The future can be dealt with when it comes. I want to live now.

March Dreamboard

I didn’t make February’s in time so here’s my dreamboard for March!

I wanted something starry and fantasy-esque for the background. It took me a while to look through wallpaper sites before I found this one. It’s quite pretty!

There are two main things here: performance creativity and financial freedom.

I’m getting more involved in burlesque performance – I performed with my classmates in the RaGTaG Revue, and yesterday I did my first solo (well, a trial run anyway) for our school’s Open Day type thing (to rave reviews from my burlesque teacher – which is a massive compliment!!). I’ve also been volunteering at the Burlesque Ball, which is where the photo (of Vivi Valentine) is from. I really enjoy the experience – it’s creative, crazy, individualised, and everyone supports each other. And it’s FUN! Which is something I need more of in my life right now. Barbara Sher once said that what you love is what you’re gifted in – apparently I’m now gifted in being a burlesque ham. Hmm. we’ll see about that!

To achieve this, I need to gain a measure of financial freedom. Right now I’m mostly supported by my parents, while doing part-time or casual jobs on the side. While this does mean I don’t have to worry about rent or living, it does mean that I am beholden to them to not do anything too outrageous. They’re currently working under the model that they “allow” me to do things – when really I’m trying to wrest my independence away from them. (I’m sure they’ll comment here and protest!) I’ve been applying for jobs, and I’ve just started The Merch Girl , my burlesque+merch girl/ASM/stage help service venture. I’m also looking for grants I could use for professional development. Hopefully this year will be the first year I’m self-sustainable!

There’s also a WishCasting (somewhat belated) attached to this:

What do you wish to change?
I wish to change my source of income to be more financially free.

Cultureless.

This is written for the Asian Women Blog Carnival.

I don’t really feel like I have a cultural identity. Never have.

Technically (according to my passport), I’m Bangladeshi. That country didn’t even exist when my parents and grandparents were born. Technically my dad’s Indian and my mum’s East Pakistani, but they were from the same area. My sister’s the only one amongst us who’s properly Bangladeshi, having been born there soon after independence – but she moved to Malaysia as a baby and had very little experience with Bangladesh. I was born and bred in Malaysia. Bangladesh is a foreign tourist country to me. It makes me homesick.

But I don’t have a home.

In Malaysia I’m an outsider. I’m not Malay, not Chinese, not Indian. I do not figure into any quota systems, any allocations. Just Lain-Lain- The Others. I grew up amongst people from all those cultures, and more, and experienced firsthand their religions, their food, their family life, their relationships. The tales of Sunday School, the incense smoke, the muezzin call and lines of beggars waiting for the sacrificial meat. Yet I’m still an outsider.

The only representations of my “mother” culture in Malaysia come from the press – demonizing my people as thieves, cheats, imbeciles. My people? I can hardly speak the language. I can’t even write it. The country was born from language, the need to express themselves in their own tongue. I have no command of it, and very little understanding.

One of my cousins married a French man she met while at work in London. Her now-husband’s best French friends, and some workmates, came to the Dhaka wedding. They were given matching scarves as part of the “foreign” contingent. I was given the same scarf.

I understand the complaints and quips people make around the kopitiam about current affairs. I love durian and long for local food. I understand Manglish like it was my mother tongue. I think mi goreng is nice but normal – not the fetish food of the Aussie students here. (Besides, mi rebus kicks its arse.) I gulp down teh tarik. I know what a bunian is, what Puteri Gunung Ledang’s story is, what ghosts are hungry for, why people are running up the stairs at Batu Caves with needles in their back.

But I’m not one of them. I’m not the girl with the needles on her back. I’m not the girl who grew up in a baju kurung hearing stories about mousedeer and tigers. I learnt this, did this, in school – but school, of all places, constantly highlighted the fact that I’m an outsider. Lain-lain. I don’t belong.

When I’m overseas, and especially when I’m out of Australia, I get stymied when people ask me where I’m from. If I say “Malaysia” they look at me with disappointment. They smile when I say my parents are Bangladeshi, but don’t ask me anything beyond that – I don’t watch Bollywood, I can’t speak Hindi, and besides, India’s a separate country. I’m not Malay, I’m not “Asian” the American way…who am I to talk?

I feel out of place in the Malaysian Students Association, or any gathering of people who supposedly share my “culture”. Do they know I spend time under the full moon with out and proud gay men and sexually-ambiguous women? Do they know that one of my heroes and possible mentors is a burlesque dancer that worked almost half her life as a stripper? Do they know that I once spoke up in a rally about Internet censorship? Do they know that I’m dating a straight Aussie male but I’ve kissed gay men and asexual women? Would they approve?

I feel out of place amongst gatherings of Australians, or anyone so obviously not of my “culture”. My heritage and childhood become exotic artifacts. I’m the only person who doesn’t lump all religion and spirituality into one category. I’m often the only dark-skinned girl and end up being the spokesperson for all things foreign. I don’t recognise the childhood games, the TV and movie quotes, the political rumblings. Would they care?

I pass for one by the other but really I’m neither.

Where am I? What am I?

*****

I just learnt today that one of the shticks my burlesque teacher has is religiously-themed strip shows. Apparently she’s done a Buddhist one (how the heck does that work?) because there were tons about priests and nuns. In her words – “I’m not sacrilegious to just one – I’m rude to all of them!” She did comparative religion in university, which sparked her creativity apparently.

She seemed to think that I may have been offended by one of her shows (or her constant Indian fetish!) – no, I’m more amused than anything. But at the same time, something doesn’t sit right with me. You may have studied comparative religion in school – I lived it.

I’ve seen how Buddhists, Taoists, and the general intermingled middle live. I’ve spent my childhood and teenage years being educated as a Muslim. I’ve offered thanks at Baptist churches, Shinto temples, and synagogues. I’ve argued with humanists and commiserated with agnostics. I’ve shared Deepavali curries, Chinese New Year ang paos, and Raya cookies. I’ve eaten the beef that was slaughtered for sacrifice that morning.

What didn’t sit right to me was their comparison to priest and nun shows. Catholicism and other forms of Christianity are more likely part of their upbringing in some way – Catholic school, church services, local moral values. They would be able to comment on that because they’ve lived it. But have they lived Buddhism? Or any of the other cultures they mess around with?

It reminds me of the Roma people who are annoyed at bellydancers who claim to be gypsies. Or Native Americans who resent the use of dreamcatchers and sweat lodges out of context. The meaning, the nuance, the history, the context is missing. The experience is missing. It’s been appropriated.

I never really understood appropriation. So what if they took an African pattern and put it on cloth? I wish salwhar khameez were more popular – they’re tons prettier and better than Western formal clothing! But who am I to talk about what’s appropriate to be taken and what’s not? I don’t have a culture. I don’t lay claim to one.

I didn’t know whether to be amused or bemused when I first started the Performance Innovation class and learnt that their definition of “innovation” in theatre basically revolved around taking things from other cultures and putting it into Western shows.

***

Malaysia would actually not be a bad place for burlesque. The stripping and nudity would be a problem – what would be normal stage dressing here would earn you a fine for “public indecency” in KL pronto. Clubs are never safe from raids. Stripping? What’s that?

But if you go by the definition of making the serious funny and the funny serious…just look at any mainstream newspaper or TV news slot. Just listen to the complaints at the kopitiam. The country is RICH with material! We just have to use it!

There are a number of cabaret-esque comedians and stage actors. I remember a few Singaporean names – Gurmit Singh, Hossan Leong, Kumar. I’m sure there are Malaysians too, I just can’t recall them off the top of my head. Stick a pasty on them and they’d be burlesque immediately.

Pole dancing is starting to become popular – I know of one person in KL that holds classes. The Pussycat Dolls did spark some sort of curiosity. Singapore just had Little Kelly Doll (Kelly Ann Doll) for 3 months. Could burlesque hit Malaysia next?

We could call it Malaysia Bolehks and incorporate P. Ramlee, dangdut, and joget. Or really cheesy Chinese restaurant karaoke. Maybe even some Bollywood. Start with a school pinafore – and get really cheeky? A rambutan pasty? A dance involving pulling teh tarik for miles? Who woulda thought?

I’d like to incorporate more of my cultural history into some burlesque routines. Make things more interesting and more personal. But what can I legitimately add and incorporate? What’s off limits because I do not know enough?

I don’t have a culture, remember.

Tribes, small armies, and bat colonies

I’ve just read Seth Godin’s Tribes, about building and leading groups passionate about a cause, idea, product, and so on. Being a Seth Godin book, it does mainly relate to marketing and commerce, but the concept also works for all sorts of situations that involve teamwork, collaboration, and support.

I have been semi-unofficially leading a tribe of young people (and supporters) who want to veer away from the Malaysian status quo in education and career development, through EducateDeviate . Just recently I was asked to promote and contribute to the totally awesome What’s After SPM? project, which collects stories of what young Malaysians can do after secondary (high) school. WOW. I wanted to do something similar but I’m so glad that there are other young people out there that are taking the reigns and leading their own tribes. I’ll get a story soon, and I’ve proposed a fund to support a young person with their own interesting post-school plan – just waiting to hear from the committee about it. This was the sort of thing I was hoping to see after forming EducateDeviate and I’m so glad it’s taking place.

Now that I’m moving along to a different focus – creative performance, with a hint of sexuality and taboo-busting – I’ve been mulling over building a tribe of my own to support my endeavour. As Chris Guillebeau describes, I’m trying to recruit my small army of remarkable people.

There are a couple of selfish reasons. One, there is a certain wish to be an Internet cool kid (though I’ve recently been reading Hipster Runoff and saw just how ridiculous the whole thing is) and get to do fun stuff without worrying about how I’d able to afford it. Which brings me to my second selfish reason – I’d like to get some support to fund my creative journey . I’ve had some people say that they’d be interested in paying for some exclusive content related to my circus journey.

There’s also a not-so-selfish but not-so-altruistic-either reason. I like to see my friends from different circumstances and contexts interact with each other and create great partnerships – whether in work, love, friendships, or anything else. Sometimes this happens without me being involved (for example, two people I know from very different circumstances got married to each other last year); sometimes it happens when these people meet in the same situation and forma partnership there or soon after. A good example: I live with Nicole Jensen and know her from college; I used to work with Sarah Moran in the QUT Student Guild and bump into each other on projects often. They met at my birthday party, then again at Edgeware’s business creation workshop, and got along awesomely. w00t!). I’d like more of that to happen – get together a group of people whom I admire and trust in their personalities, creative work, success, etc, and get them to inspire each other and create something interesting. Be friends.

The thing is, though, that the truly effective and powerful tribes and small armies are led ultimately by a common cause. Seth Godin’s version involves a product or service (just look at Apple) but a more common version involves an activist cause for change – civil rights, gay marriage, no smoking, etc etc. Something that people believe in, something that matters to the world.

In comparison, a tribe of People Who Think Tiara’s Awesome doesn’t have the same pull. It benefits no one except me (aside from the networking opportunity). Ultimately their support will go towards me being more creative – and then what? It’s not like I’m running a business or advocating for human rights or curing cancer. Heck, I don’t even have enough design chops to give advice like Nubby Twiglet. I’m just hoping to lead a life of creativity, passion, and fun – and inspire others to live their own lives with fire and zest.

(There is the Facebook group Ecstatic readers of Lovely Tiara’s written composition started by request of my mother. Aww mum. Not quite the same though. Join if you want to :D)

I seek my legacy project. Something that lives on beyond my happy memories and warm feelings. Something that leaves an impact, creates a wave of happy memories and warm feelings and positive change. Something that saves a young girl from despair or a just-grown-up guy from boredom. Little things turn into big things.

Can my life be a legacy project? How would I do so? How would I live a life that is inspirational, creative, life-affirming not just to me but to others that support me?

I would like to build a Bat Colony:

A group of interesting, fascinating, somewhat off-beat people whom I respect and who support me. Independent on their own things, but also social, happy to interact with each other to share ideas, find resources, feast on sweet fruit. Carry each other’s babies when the other needs help. Be eager to journey into the darkness using alternative senses.

I’ve already thought of a few people I’d like to invite to this bat colony. Nikki. Mark. Spidey. Kakak. Megan. Sarah. Lena. Hannah Havi. Pace and Kyeli. Leonie Britt. Darren. Richard. (ok, the last two’s a bit of a longshot.) Some other people, famous, not famous, friends, acquaintances, muses, whoever – people I’d love to have in my bat colony, whether as core members or as visitors on the edge.

I’d love to welcome others who are interested in joining me. In supporting a vision unfurled slowly through each night of dreaming, dancing, playing, exploring. In sharing their selves with each other. In providing some sort of material, financial, emotional, mental, creative support for me and for each other. To hunt for and delight in strange fruit.

What would you like in this Bat Colony? What would compel you to join this Colony? What would make it worth your while, especially when it comes to payments and in-kind support? What would chase you away from the Colony? What would you need from us, from me? What ca:n you give?

Would you like to fly with me?

Sleepytime

I just noticed a pattern in my work habits.

Just before I have to do the difficult or time-consuming part of something – currently: filling in job applications – I get sleepy. I think oh I’m too tired, I can’t concentrate. I take a nap. I loll about in bed. and the things that need to be done don’t get done.

I just thought I was always too tired to do anything. Then I realised that the sleepiness could be a coping mechanism, a way to procrastinate from doing the difficult things.

It’s too hard. It won’t work. I’ve done enough for the world anyway. I’d rather sleep. Sleep is nice.

The sleep’s never restful though. When I am genuinely in need of a nap I doze off and wake up from 20 mins to 2 hours later feeling a bit better about myself. However, with these procrastination-based sleeps, I just feel tired. My eyelids are heavy. But I can’t get to sleep. It’s like being stuck in the middle of sleep and awakening.

Havi has been doing a lot of self-talk with her inner fear. I wonder if I should do something with my inner sleepyhead. Where do I start?

firstly, by writing some job apps.

Visas, and life beyond it.

Last week I went to see Sylvia Arroyo at No Borders about my visa options. Basically we worked out the following:

• I could get the Occupational Trainee visa, but it does mean that I’m highly limited in the work I can do – and unless I win the lottery or get a massive grant, I won’t be able to solely support myself on circus training.
• I’m 10 points short for a General Skilled Migration PR – but that’s not a big concern
• The Graduate (Temporary) Skilled visa is best for me – 18 months, non-restricted, and it gives me the 10 extra points I need if I ever want to get a PR
  • To get that visa, I have to nominate myself in a skilled area on their Skilled Occupation List (which doesn’t include every job under the sun, just a select few). After some review, I find that I’m most “qualified” as a Print Journalist.
    • This means that if I want to apply for PR after 18 months, I should have at least one year’s work experience in print journalism or something closely related. It doesn’t have to be all at once or all with the same company. I could work wherever I wished if I wasn’t concerned about the PR.

This is a basic breakdown of the costs and materials needed to get this visa:

Minus the migration agent and the Malaysian stuff, this comes up to just under $1000. I’d like the assistance of the agent though (even if it’s more than double the visa price!!) – it’ll definitely help get some clout with getting paperwork done early (especially the IELTS test!!) and managing the application while I’m in Malaysia.

Since even the non-agent visa costs are way out of my budget, I asked my parents for help. My mum’s not really saying much about it, but my dad went ballistic.

“You spent $20,000 on a degree! Why don’t you use that degree for a job? Why do you want to go to the circus?!”
“How long do you want to live in uncertainty? THERE ARE TOO MANY IFS!”
“If we get Malaysian citizenship (my dad’s been hinting about this for months) do you still want to apply for PR?”
“You spent some time camping and got sick and didn’t enjoy it (Woodford; I left halfway due to illness and being overwhelmed). Do you think you’ll be physically capable for circus?”
“I think to get the 10 points you should apply for a master’s course that can get you points.” (This coming from the same person that said “if you can find any way to get Aussie PR I’ll support you, to the point of hooking me up with another agent months ago! Appreciated the help, but that agent was borderline useless.)

I understand and acknowledge that they’re worried. That they just want me to be safe, healthy, happy. What I don’t get is why they don’t understand that this makes me happy. The circus thing is a dream come true – why are they letting their own prejudices and misconceptions cloud what I’m doing? So they don’t think it’s worthwhile. I think it is. Shouldn’t that matter?

Why are my parents worried about me being in “uncertainty” when I’ve at least found something I’ll be certain for the year? My dad keeps asking “after that 18 months and your circus thing, what would you do?” I can’t give him a concrete answer now – things change, people change, I change. All I could tell him is that I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

My dad wants all sorts of official information from Sylvia. Apparently he’d rather believe her than me. I asked him to call her; don’t know if he has. Sylvia isn’t responding to my emails. I really want her help. I just can’t afford it on my own right now.

I’ve been applying and looking for jobs to support myself in the meantime. Not many purely about writing; quite a few marketing/communications which aren’t exactly my thing (I’m useless at selling things) but could try for anyway. And a few somewhat left-of-center ones that sound pretty cool. There are some other cool projects here too, but they’re voluntary – and voluntary don’t pay the bills.

Then I’ll probably have to find a place to live – right now I’m bunking with Mark (boyfriend) and Nikki (close friend) because it helps all of us afford rent and it was meant to be a short-term thing. (Nikki used to have her ex as her roomie before they broke up recently.) However, Mark and I have the smaller room, and neither of us are particularly keen at this moment in time to keep sharing a room 24/7. Sleeptime’s great, but we both need our personal space (especially since we both have overflowing collections!) and I don’t want us to end up like Nikki & Ex who ended up resenting each other. On the other hand, my past experiences with private rentals haven’t turned out too well.

I’d like to find a creative circusy or performancy house, with enough space to practice & train, and some space to be private, go into prayer, etc. Mark and I were thinking of us having separate rooms but coming together in the evenings; that could work. I know friends that are in “theme houses” – circus, Pagan, etc. They seem to get along great. Where do those friends find each other? Do they meet first and then househunt, or the other way round?

If I do end up in Brisbane longer, I’d like to continue burlesque dancing. I’d like to choreograph some routines, and perform them at smaller intimate (ha!) events. I’d like to do some long-term volunteering projects, such as a coordination role in Backbone Youth Art’s 2high Festival . I could get a head start on the 1000 True Fans business idea (seriously: this is a standard website for solo performance artists . I could draw better than that, and I can’t draw.) I could go for Aspirant training with my coven . I could risk going for the long-term stuff. And of course, I could whip my way around the circus and live my dream.

But I can’t really even commit to anything until I know where in the world I’ll be.

A confession.

Since New Year’s Day 2006, I’ve been working hard on EducateDeviate and on everything related to it. Spending hours looking for opportunities to share with other young people, attending as many related events as I could, talking and networking and campaigning and learning. About a year into it, I became deeply involved with social enterprise and entrepreneurship. It blended my passion for social change with the need to incorporate more structure into my ideas. I have tons of books and binders full of printouts about setting up meetings, running organisations, other youth empowerment programs, other empowering young people. I’d draft ideas to bring the failed Brick in the Wall project up, bring alternative education to Malaysia, bring young Malaysians some respect. I’d be conference-hopping, sometimes spending thousands of dollars on airfare to meet other passionate young people doing something in their community. This was my lifeblood for the past few years.

I’m tired of it. I want out.

I first got sick of it all during the Brightest Young Minds conference. I had just been rejected from KaosPilots Rotterdam after a tumultuous 8 months of trying to get into any of their schools, going crazy about social enterprise and about getting admitted . I was bummed out, stressed, lonely, depressed – and, surrounded by 99 other “bright young minds”, I felt like an impostor. I proposed a few projects, but never really had any desire to bring them to fruition – I just wish someone would do it for me. I didn’t have a brighter future in mind. No set goals. I was spent. I spent some evenings crying alone in a room in the university (I did get rescued by the other attendees, who were awesome on their own).

On the last day there was a quote on the slides by Mahatma Gandhi. Something along the lines of “The moment you feel you cannot change the world is the moment you begin to die.”. That was me. I had started to die.

I still flitted with social change and social enterprise and alternative education for the next few months. I was dealing with a lot of stress – work experience, final semester, tumultuous relationships, bad hormones. It was crazy time. I was going nuts. The things I thought would sustain me for life now don’t even look desirable.

I admire people who work hard to make a difference. They are an absolute inspiration. I too want to have a positive impact somehow; it’s just that I’ve grown tired of my current methods.

I’ve grown cynical of effective social change. I believe world peace is impossible because humanity has the innate need to fight and destroy. I’ve been away from Malaysia for long enough that I’ve lost touch with what’s going on. The EducateDeviate blog has run its course as a blog. For it to be more effective it needs to do real-world outreach things – resource centres, roadshows, school talks. But I’m not sure I particularly want to work on any of those.

Right now other things excite me. Performance has always been therapy for me but right now it’s become more life-affirming than ever. Even just going to burlesque classes can lift me out of a stressful dour mood. Human sexuality is utterly interesting. All the nuances! The politics! The psychology innate in sexual expression! A formerly taboo world now open for exploration. What lies beneath?

I would rather either hang around in Brisbane and travel around Australia (and perhaps elsewhere) doing burlesque performances, working on creative projects, swapping lines with other fun creative people. Or go to San Francisco, apparently the Center of the World for creativity and sexual positivism and Reclaiming, and explore a whole different world for a while. Or go on an educational cruise ship and travel with young people across the world. Or be one of Hipster Runoff’s mocked alts semi-tongue-in-cheek, write a nonpariel blog Gala Darling style and earn enough money while sleeping to do whatever I want and wear whatever I want.

None of those involve going back to Malaysia to set up a youth center and rally for youth rights (which I can’t really do anyway, since it’d jeopardise my permanent residency and potential citizenship). None of those involve writing a business plan, sitting with governments, being at a protest rally. None of those involve posting opportunities only to have people email you asking for every single resource you’ve collected.

Writing the Sauve Scholars app to research peer-to-peer youth empowerment methods felt more like something I should do, something that is morally right and maintains my reputation. But honestly? If all my costs were covered for a year I’d pick up a ton of dance moves, travel around the place, and learn whatever looked interesting at the time. I’d be more open and spontaneous. I’d be able to do utterly stupid things and not worry about sacrificing my lifelihood. I’d take more risks.

It’s not that I’ve totally lost interest in empowering young people, in alternative ways of learning and schooling. They still intrigue me. I’m just tired of feeling like I have to either be the national representative, or that I have to actually do something to be considered legitimate. I’d like to get involved, but I don’t know if I necessarily want to be the person that creates the opportunity to get involved in the first place. I want to take it casual, do it on my own time, not feel resentful for not spending 5 hours a day on them. Take breaks when I want to. Shake my head around.

This is why I keep saying I don’t know what to do. Because I don’t want to get stuck in one thing, especially one thing forever. Not when my passions change every 5 years! Not when I have multiple personalities with multiple desires! (more on that soon) I’m ever evolving and I’d like to keep that a constant.

So what shall I do? Put EducateDeviate on infinite hiatus? Go to sleep because I might just be rambling? Where now?

My Vagina Moan-ologue

Our Vagina Monologues performances were awesome. Nearly packed Thursday, sold out Friday. People from everywhere (mainly through Facebook chains) streaming in wanting to support vaginas. Some men who were skeptical at first but realised that V-Day wasn’t about being anti-men; it was a celebration, a commiseration, and a presentation of the vagina and its place in people’s lives – the hurt and pain, the glory and beauty. Bad and good. Everything.

This is a recording of my monologue, The Woman who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy. It’s about a dominatrix who works exclusively with women after discovering her enjoyment of moans, and how women were really the only people that appreciated them too. We played her as a vagina geek, rather than a sex goddess; she’s still sexy, but she retells her job as more of “my job is awesome!” rather than “I’m here to seduce you”. Possibly NSFW due to a bit of swearing and plenty of moaning.

The Woman Who Loved To Make Vaginas Happy (V-Day 2009 Brisbane) from Tiara Shafiq on Vimeo.

Even though these monologues are at least ten years old, and even though there have been hundreds of people around the world that have performed these monologues before (and hundreds more that viewed those performances), these monologues feel like they’re ours. Like they were especially written for us. Like they were about us. Like we were there from the day they started writing them to the performance date and beyond.

Only Lesley could be the Angry Vagina, pissed-off at efforts to undermine her coochie!
Only Helen could come up with a ton of Vagina (Not-So)Happy Facts.
Only Jodie could be neurotic enough to go to a Vagina Workshop.
Only Anja could have a Little Coochie Snorcher.
Only Sarah T could have a great experience with Bob.
Only Claire could reclaim “Cunt”.

and then some.

I just heard a snippet of someone else’s version of My Angry Vagina. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t have a “sunny Southern accent” (as reported in Time Off), it has “pussy” instead of “coochie”, it doesn’t have smiles interspersed between yells. It’s not quite it.

On the one hand, I feel like I am in solidarity with all the other women, including Eve Ensler, that have performed these monologues and likely can relate to the experience of production and staging. The celebrities, college women, community women, older women, younger women…ok. Sometimes I wish there was a list of performers by monologue, so that we can bond over the experience.

But it’s just not the same. It’s not quite right. The version pure to me is the version performed and directed by the Brisbane Coochie Coup. No one else can capture the heartbreak, sorrow, joy, laughter, silliness, angst, confusion, innocence, cynicism quite like we did.

The Coochie Coup girls came from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences. Some, like me, have never really acted before. Some others are in training to be professional dramatists. Yet we got along swimmingly. No bitchiness, no back-stabbing, no sourness. Just a group of women supportive and cheerful for each other. It’s only been 6 weeks that I’ve known them, and I wish it were 6 weeks more. Or 6 months. Or 6 years.

Will we meet again? Will we ever commiserate over stupid male comments (while getting props and gear for my role, I walked out of the Valley’s plentitude of porn shops, and some guy in a car yelled “I thought you were a bloke!” o_O) or shout each other’s lines or pace around dancing behind the curtains waiting for everyone to scoot in already so that we can start. Two days is too short.

Our vaginas need a community, a culture. And I think I just found mine.

The New Liberal Arts

I’m really excited about Snarkmarket’s book project The New Liberal Arts. The idea sparked from a discussion about liberal arts in the modern era, and has grown into a 100+-comment monster on what should be included in the definition of “liberal arts”. Some suggestions:

• Synthesis, mashups, reframing, Creative Commons
• World economics
• Search and information/knowledge management
• Intuitive thinking
• Theory of creativity
• Electronic communication
• Online archiving
• Photography
• Home economics
• Identity management

and so on.

Malaysia and Australia don’t tend to use the term “liberal arts”. In Malaysia, it tends to get smooshed into Arts (really Business/Accounting/money issues) or Humanities (the “leftovers”). Even there it’s heavily limited – no theatre or performance studies, logic is covered in a subchapter in Form 3 Maths, rhetoric and astronomy are unheard of. Indeed, Malaysians have a big stigma against those who don’t do Maths or Science (or, currently, traditional Business) – such students are seen as “not smart”, under-achieving, ne’er-do-well. The classes that offer Humanities/Arts in schools are generally for people who’ve failed their exams. I caused such a huge controversy in my school for moving to the Humanities class because they offered Literature (“you’re wasting your grades!”) but at least now more people are following my lead!

Heck, if you bring up “arts” with anyone there you’ll usually get “Oh, so you’re doing graphic design?” WHY IS IT ALWAYS GRAPHIC DESIGN I CAN’T DRAW MY WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG.

In Australia such subjects usually fall within Humanities, which in my university (and possibly some others) is being phased out due to budget cuts, lack of faulty, and general prioritising. There was a lot of hullaballoo two years ago when QUT closed down the Humanities faculty and reshuffled some subjects around. I was in the Student Guild at the time and the party line was “QUT’s evil, all proper universities must have Humanities, BOO”. My main concern was with whether international students (them being my portfolio) were being dicked over – arriving for a course that doesn’t exist, missing a few subjects, changing faculties and campuses, etc. However, I didn’t disagree with the principle of closing down the Humanities school. Unlike most of the other Guildies, I didn’t think a “proper university” only existed when they had Humanities in the curriculum. Why not build on your strengths? If you don’t feel that Humanities is your strong point, why not reprioritize?

The QUT admins were planning to make Creative Industries “the new Humanities” and I can see where they’re going with that. The creative industries, as I understand it, is the expression of arts and creativity through business; using creative skills as avenues for making money or providing value to local and global economies. It’s not just ‘how to write a story” or “how to paint a picture” or “how to act”; it’s about how publishing companies select pieces, how to use rhetoric in your work, how to organise galleries, how directors create innovation.

Those principles – innovation, opportunity creation and seeking, interdisciplinary studies, collaboration – are those that can definitely transfer across fields, and connect fields together. We have tons of knowledge and experience in our hands. We’re exposed to more cultures than before. What can we do about them?

Visas are a pain.

Visas.

The massive sticker you get in your passport that allow you to visit countries and (hopefully) not get deported.

I hate them.

Being a holder of a Bangladesh passport means that I need visas for almost every country in the planet. Usually I’m placed in a “high-risk” category, which means I have to surrender my financial documents (and that of my parents, since at the moment they’re my main source of money), my education and work history, letters from who knows what about who knows where, my last few addresses in the past 5 years…everything. And I have to wait a lot longer.

Being a Malaysian resident means that I’m usually dealing with visa offices in KL that aren’t used to dealing with SO MUCH paperwork from one person. (Well, except for the US office, who seem to collect paperwork like it’s going extinct.) Many questions about when I migrated to Malaysia (never; I was born in Malaysia), about why I don’t have a Malaysian passport (because permanent residents don’t get passports), about why I’m not a Malaysian citizen (because your lack of a jus soli policy and convoluted citizenship process means that I have to wait forever to even apply for citizenship. And we’re still waiting.).

My family tries to get long-term multiple-entry visas whenever possible. 5 years for the US. A year or so for the UK. 5 years for Australia. That way we won’t have to deal with the paperwork hassles more than once. We’re all keen travellers – I first flew when I was 40 days old and have been overseas an average of 1.5 times a year since – though we would be keener travellers if it wasn’t such a pain in the arse!

In late 2007 I was accepted to the admissions workshop for KaosPilots Stockholm . I had one week to get there. I knew if I asked my parents for permission it’d be too late. The morning I heard the news, I raced to the Swedish visa office for help.

She looked at me sceptically. Young student, third-world passport unrelated to Australia, last minute? I begged and told her my circumstances. I brought as much paperwork as I had on me. She said that even Australians need at least two weeks for a tourist visa, but she’ll call the Sydney office and check.

To the surprise of both of us, the Sydney office said yes. On one condition: I had to get a plane ticket, bank statements, and university letter sorted by 2pm that afternoon.

I had about $4000 in my account. I had 4 hours. No time to hesitate.

In a big flurry of activity (and quite a bit of time sitting in front of a Flight Centre lady working out the cheapest routes that won’t require me getting another visa) I dropped over $2000 on a ticket to Stockholm, got my bank accounts sorted, and got a letter from the university saying that I was a full-time student. I rushed them over to the Sweden office with the rest of my paperwork and my passport. In the hours after, I contacted KaosPilots with plenty of requests for faxes and official letters.

And I waited. And waited.

Two or three days before I was scheduled to leave, I got a phonecall from the office saying that my visa has been approved and that my passport was ready for collection. Record timing.

Oh god.

I called my parents. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “What? You got a VISA? You’re going WHERE? You spent HOW MUCH? That money was for YOUR EDUCATION!!!” Too late to object; I was off.

I spent a crazy winter week in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Aarhus (hey, while you’re in the other side of the world, might as well check the rest of the place out). I rode a ferry and an interstate train. I lived in a hostel boat and with someone from Couchsurfing. I lived on crispbread and salmon on tubes for breakfast.

On the flight(s) back I had two 10+-hour layovers – Tokyo and Sydney. In Tokyo I heard that I was rejected from the KaosPilots. In Sydney my flight was cancelled and I had to fight to get a flight home.

It was crazy, it was stressful, and at the end it was heartbreaking, but I’m so glad I did it. Mainly because it showed that I could get a visa on my own legitimately.

I’m not always going to be so lucky though. I could have ended up like NJ Thompson and get stuck at the border because Seth Godin’s Alt-MBA isn’t considered accredited enough for internationals. That’s the best case scenario. I could end up being stuck in detention, starved for 24 hours, and deported (I’m not surprised that the family turned out to be Bangladeshi, despite being Australian citizens – Bangladeshis get a hard time at immigration everywhere). I could get stuck in limbo because neither country really wants me. I could end up with a record against me for no reason. Or I could end up with a sexist idiot.

All those examples involve US immigration, which have some of the most fucked-up immigration policies in the world. However, this doesn’t mean I’m immune everywhere else. No matter where I go, I’ll always face visa issues. I can’t even get a visa to Singapore most times because “just visiting” isn’t a “legit” option – and I live right next door! Whenever I fly back to Malaysia I’m quizzed about my lack of visa and my PR card flummoxes them. Sometimes I get asked a lot of questions. However, I get it easy. If I were male, I would be detained as soon as I arrived.

I’m interested in conferences and alternative education programs, but there’s no easy way to get visas for them mainly because you’re not really a student (in the conventional sense) or an employee or a trainee. Most places can’t really be bothered to help beyond an “official invite letter”.

There was a campaign by young European activists about having visa-free options for young Europeans, or at least “youth visas” that are easy to apply for – I support that idea. A lot of young people travel but visas hamper their journeys so much. How can a young person necessarily hold at least $50,000 cash? Why limit world travel to just the privileged few, when opening up borders will result in better integration and understanding of multiple cultures? There are the working holiday visas, which are a great idea – except that they’re limited to certain countries. I can’t even get a special visa to work as a camp counsellor in the US because they’re not offered to Bangladeshis. Whoopdedoo.

I am considering being an Australian permanent resident, working my way up to an Australian passport. I like Australia and it’d be nice to have my base here. However, Australian immigration doesn’t make it easy for me to even get a general migrant visa. You need to nominate a “Skilled Occupation”, and that depends solely on your degree – nothing else. All those volunteer and work experiences? Count for nothing. My degree is Creative Industries (Interdisciplinary). That doesn’t really fit most, if any, of the Skilled Occupations with points. Most jobs I’m best suited for don’t have strict titles and may not pay the minimum. And again, my experience doesn’t count.

The experience that does count require me to get training that allows me to legally pursue those lines of work (such as working with children). To get the training I need a visa. Catch-22!

If I had it my way, visas would never exist in the first place. Everyone gets a UN passport and has freedom to travel. We can’t have a global community if we keep fencing ourselves from each other.

Changes of opinion.

In my lifetime I have shifted quite a bit in my opinions and viewpoints.

I’ve gone from super-outgoing chatterbox who’d talk to strangers in a second, to a more awkward intro-extrovert who stands awkward at parties but will open up in the right situations.

From spelling genius to typo queen.

From self-denying closet homophobe to open-minded but don’t-see-the-point asexual to a few degrees shy of “uninhibited militant bisexual”.

From quietly anti-porn to loudly pro-sex industry.

From pro-life (“Abortions kills babies!”) to pro-choice (“Abortion isn’t all that great, but women have the right to make their own minds up”).

From rabid fangirl to mildly interested (well, except for Darren Hayes. But I’m not writing fanfic.).

From prolific web designer to someone lost with web standards.

From having a massive fear of public speaking to jumping up whenever there’s a speaking opportunity.

From devout monotheist to seeking pantheist.

From following pop music dedicatedly though MTV/Channel [V]/Power98/Smash Hits/etc to not recognising the #1 tune on whichever chart’s in vogue at the moment.

From hating sewing so much that I couldn’t be bothered to do my school samplers to seeking out patterns for T-shirt surgeries.

From not believing that best friends exist to having my lover be my best friend and have a close group of besties otherwise.

From refusing to ride rollercoasters to seeking them out once in a while.

From being too shy to say the f-word to openly declaring my love for vaginas on stage.

Most of these changes come from different perspectives. Joining different social circles. Living in different countries. Some aren’t really that radically different, just a reframing of current positions. Some took drastic changes. Some came gradually.

I’m pretty sure that within the next 10 to 20 years, they’ll all change again. But I’m also sure that there are some things that won’t change.

I’m still passionate about people being respected for who they are.

I’m still seeking to work for the greater good.

I’m still weird, random, crazy, insane.

I’m still an attention fame seeker.

I’m still somewhat strange and awkward with personal relationships.

I’m still jazzed up by creativity.

I’m still a geek that spends hours on the Internet.

I’m still a nomad.

I’m still borderline ADHD.

I still believe in magic.

I still can’t do sports very well.

I’m still loud.

I’m still restless.

I’m still me.

In search of a moon buggy. (And maybe a map.)

On the Triiibes Ning site, Megan posted an intriguing clinic challenge that resonated with me:

Margot has a ton of potential, and she wants to translate that into a ton of success. She does lots of things that she enjoys and even makes a living from them most of the time. She knows she can push the envelope a lot further; it’s just a matter of navigating the sandy, rocky, often unfamiliar terrain without spraining an ankle. (She’s doing good so far.) She still has a ways to go, however, and she can see some very exciting motes of success in her future. But she CAN’T see the path that gets her there, and she can’t understand how she might influence it — to make the journey happen faster, or to make the terrain smoother. What she really wants is a moon buggy.

Her question was: The missing link between POTENTIAL and SUCCESS is _______________.

I could be Margot. This is pretty close to my current situation. I have tons of potential (at the very least, some people feel so), and I strive to do more things that I enjoy. Haven’t gotten to the “making a living” stage yet. I’m facing very unfamiliar terrain – the near future – and while there’s some really interesting leads, I’m not sure where to go or how to get there.

First I have to define what success means for me. I don’t tend to live on goals (like “I’ll be published in 5 years”) – I’ve found that my interests and desires tend to shift often enough and that some of the best things I’ve experienced were things I couldn’t even imagine. Instead, I strive to live my life by a few principles:

• Live through experiences.
• Work for the greater good of the people around you.
• Be energised creatively.
• Be engaged.
• Accept and welcome others regardless of their background or preferences.
• Appreciate that people have different perspectives and viewpoints.
• Speak up against injustice.
• Feel alive and thrive in your life.
• Make sure your core needs are met and respected.
• Honour your emotions and feelings.
• Be welcome to surprises.

I’m still working on wholly implementing these principles into my life, but they serve as a great guide so far. So for me, success would involve being in experiences that inspire, engage, motivate, involve, and welcome me and allow me to give back.

Next question: where can I find such success?

The moon buggy will need to know where to go. The map needs an X. Here’s where I’m stuck – what do I pursue next?

I do have a few ideas – the “run away to the circus” jobs:

• Literally join a circus
• …or burlesque troupe, or street theater
• Be a sexologist and concentrate on sexuality and creativity
• Mentor young people to support their dreams
• Work in stage management on Darren Hayes’s musical version of This Delicate Thing We’ve Made (yes, I’m a massive fangirl. And I want to be his intern.)

Will I achieve my desired success in any of those pursuits?

I’ve been burnt from diving headlong into things that I thought would bring me what I desire, only to be absolutely shattered and disappointed. My KaosPilot drama of 2008 was the last example of that. Now I’m too shy and scared to try anymore – because I’m scared that I’ll be broken again.

Writing this, the answer seems to obvious: Give it a go. But how? Where do I even start?

Where is my X?

A rant on the sex industry.

Firstly: my mum reads most of my online writing, and I have to warn her that this will be an especially sensitive topic for her. It doesn’t directly involve her but she’s more traditional and I figure that just the title will give her a heart attack. So, for everyone’s sanity:

HI MUM! I love you, but you might not want to keep on reading. Be assured that your daughter is OK and fine and dandy. If you still want to read on, well…don’t say I didn’t warn you. Thank you :D

Now that we have the Parental Disclaimer out of the way:

It amazes – and sometimes disgusts – me how people that work in the sex industry are viewed by others. Prostitutes, strippers, dominatrices, submissives, porn actors, whatever. Men, women, feminists, chauvinists, whatever.

I’m a pretty vocal feminist. I’ve also very recently developed an interest in the workings of the sex industry. And I see so many clashes of cultures, particularly in terms of morality.

Too much slut-shaming.

Women have the right to choose the direction of their life. To set their own boundaries. To decide how they use, show, display their body. How they use their sexuality. Whether they want to make money out of their sexuality at all.

So what’s all this crap about sex workers being “immoral”? “Lacking dignity”? “Tramps”?

It’s a job. A profession. In many ways it’s not that different from most other jobs; you show up, play a role, do your stuff, get paid, go home.

Yes, there are plenty of issues with exploitation. Trafficking. Disrespect. Abuse. They are NOT exclusive to the sex industry. Exploitation and abuse happens in almost every industry. Politicians being shot down for not looking “feminine” enough, women being kidnapped and sold as “domestic help” slaves, inadequate pay and maternity leave – there’s still a lot of issues with women in the working world.

The sex industry isn’t inherently exploitative or evil. It’s linked to core beliefs and structures that support the ideas of women not being allowed autonomy, of women being property, of people having to fit certain moulds to be accepted.
Deal with the issues directly.

I’m often surprised at how different the perception is between countries that have different legal and moral concepts of the sex industry.

In Malaysia, a conservative Muslim country that has made the sex industry illegal, the most you hear about the sex industry in mainstream media are “guest officers” illegally from different countries being arrested and locked up. Also massive discrimination against transgendered people. It’s hush-hush; any mentions usually go along the lines of “OMG those immoral bad culture-corrupt people!” Anything remotely sexual is frowned upon – just look at the yearly hysterias surrounding so-called sex parties.

And then you have Bangladesh. Also a Muslim country, but with a different mazhab (school of thought) of Islam, comparatively liberal. Still very traditional in many ways. In 2000, prostitution was legalised in Bangladesh. This was a response to outcries from Bangladeshi sex workers whose brothels were being unfairly raided and shut down by the police. They demanded protection – and got it.

Most of the sex industry is legal in Australia, with different states handling various aspects differently. For instance, brothels and private escorts in Queensland can’t list services on their websites; not so in New South Wales. In the past couple of years, strip clubs have become a trendy hangout for young men and women alike. There are still places considered “sleazy”, but there’s also a growth of more high-class venues that put a lot of attention on all aspects of the club – such as Love and Rockets and the women-owned B Confidential . If anything untoward happens to sex workers, they have plenty of rights and protections on their side. You still have the goons who think all sex workers are stupid/slutty/useless/whatever, but you also have a lot of other people who stand up for sex workers and beat the stereotypes. Satisfaction) is one of many fantastic fleshed-out portrayals of the sex industry (in this case, a high-class brothel) in Australia; they don’t gloss over the sex, but they also give the characters thorough stories, motivations, and personalities.

In the US, where it’s only legal in Nevada, there seems to be a stronger case of “sex workers are slutty”. At least, I’ve seemed to notice more of a backlash against sex workers. A lot of chauvinists feel that sex workers live only for them and that they have the right to treat them as crap because they’re somehow less than human. Some very radical feminists consider sex workers to be in cahoots with the patriarchy, and think that there is no possible way that sexuality and feminism can ever match. “OMG THEY’RE PROMOTING POLE DANCE CLASSES HOW EVIL.” (Most sides of that debate are annoying – “pole dancing is patriarchal oppression!” “it’s just for FITNESS, let’s not talk sex!” “only stupid women do it, it’s not fit at all”. It’s sexy, fun, fit, and some women find it empowering. Deal.) America seems to have a very confused relationship with sexuality – it’s treated as such a taboo thing, yet also strongly desired; representations of sexuality are either heavy on the stereotype or far away on the other side of the spectrum; it’s both treated as the Holy Grail and Hell’s Banquet. There’s no humanity in this. I don’t think a show like Satisfaction could have ever existed in America at all. You do have the outliers like Annie Sprinkle, but she probably wouldn’t have been so famous if the US was more lax about sexuality.

So you have a whole bunch of threads getting tangled here:

• Women cannot own their sexuality!
• Sexuality cannot be a commodity!
• Sex is immoral if there are no babies!
• Anything to do with sexuality is by extension evil!
• Sex workers have no right to be human!

• You can’t possibly have chosen to be a sex worker! (well guess what: many do!)
• Some aspects of the industry are fucked up. Therefore the industry as a whole is fucked up.

Which then leads to the following underlying beliefs:

• Women don’t have the right to set boundaries that work for them.
• If you consent to one thing (say, being nude or doing a lapdance) you consent to everything.
• Being aroused is bad.
• People can only relate to each other in specific ways.
• You can only use your body in certain ways dictated to you from outside authorities.
• Women are property and only exist for men’s amusement. (speaking of which: a common argument is that sex work exists only for male titillation. What about girls that like girls?)
• You can only be empowered in certain ways; other ways don’t count.
• It’s not good to be an opportunist.
• Sex is bad.

It’s just sex!

It’s odd how in so many places – including places you think will know better (aherm, US) – sex is seen as both a big deal and something not worthy of respect. We value violence and killing more than we value sexuality. Death over birth. Hate over love. Oh, shoot-em-ups are fine – but oh woe is us if we have to see a breast!

It’s our bodies. We all have them. They’re odd-looking things. Certain things make us feel different. Certain touches, tastes, smells, sights, sounds excite us, cause various reactions. That’s just how it is.

So why the muddle?

What is so immoral about going to a strip club and watching a dance? A lot of contemporary dance isn’t all that different in its aesthetics. And so you went to a brothel and paid for a sex session. With legal brothels, you at least have the assurance that the sex workers are checked out, clean, healthy, well taken care of. (Illegal ones don’t have the same resources – this is why I’m all for legalising.) They’re professionals. Their job is to entertain, comfort, console, excite, whatever it is you’re looking for. And like other service workers you meet, you treat them with *respect*. Just because they’re naked when they see you doesn’t mean you can treat them like crap.

Here’s what I’d like to see change with regards to society’s expectations about the sex industry:

• Have comprehensive sex education that educates people about different facets of sexuality and sexual health, gives them options and resources for health, and ultimately teaches them to respect their bodies and other people’s bodies.
• Stress the fact that it’s perfectly fine to set boundaries for yourself. No one should make you ashamed for being a virgin by choice or having casual sex or whatever, as long as it’s consensual and informed.
• Provide resources for people to know more about sexuality and its different modes of expression.
• Teach people that other people are not their property and that, no matter their background or lifestyle, they deserve respect for being a human being. I feel that if that one’s sorted, a lot of others fall into place.
• Legalise the sex industry and provide legal recourses for things like assault & battery, financial rip-offs, legal/work disputes, and so on
• Get more women (and people really) out of exploitative situations and stress the fact that no one deserves to be exploited.
• Stop criminalising petty things like a nipple on TV or a breastfeeding mother.
• Provides spaces for people to explore and consider their bodies and sexuality – heck, a lot of “sexual” stuff isn’t actually sexual but more something else being expressed through body and relationships.
• Make sex less mysterious and taboo – it’s part of the general human condition.

Stop being an ass. Respect your local sex worker.

Crossroads

I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

In a couple of months I officially graduate from university. Then I leave Australia for Malaysia – my visa expires, and it’s about time I got back anyway.

And then what?

The thought of going back to Malaysia leaves me cold. There’s nothing where I live (in the middle of nowhere). A lot of the things I enjoy would be considered immoral if not illegal. I do a lot of work around Malaysian education, but I’ve been so out of the loop for about three years. And now I’m not sure if I want to keep going – or if I want to focus on myself instead.

I like Brisbane. It’s laidback, people are friendly, there are opportunities here. I’ve built up trust, and I’ve learnt how things work. I still don’t know how things work in Malaysia. I know how to start a business in Australia but not in Malaysia, for goodness sake! I’m able to comment on Government stuff and have ministers respond to me sincerely, instead of worrying about being ISA’d. I could decide to change my look a thousand times and no one would care too much.

The only things I miss in Malaysia are my loved ones and the food. Everything else can just bugger off.

I am obligated to go back. When I applied for my Australian visa I wrote a letter saying that I’ll “go back to Malaysia to serve the community” or somesuch. It’s theoretically “my country”…except that I still don’t have citizenship, so I can’t do too much anyway. It’s kinda sad that I’ve somehow managed to contribute more to Brisbane than I have to Johor, or to Malaysia as a whole.

I’m not sure what to do for myself. Some time ago I had an epiphany – I want to help and serve people through prayer, healing, and creativity. I just don’t quite know how, logistically. Also, that just serves one aspect of me. There’s the Magick Witch Woman, who needed that epiphany; there’s the Do-Gooder Social Entrepreneur/Conference Junkie; there’s the Shimmy Shimmy Burlesque Sexologist; the Drama Queen Ham of Bounce; the Sleepyhead Lazybum (who seems to dominate currently); the Fameseeker…tons more. Often they overlap, but they’ve got their own interests and aspirations. And I’m not sure how to satisfy them all.

I applied for Sauve Scholars for a year-long fellowship to study youth empowerment. Besides being totally over my head, I’m not sure I’m cut out for it or even want it. Uni work = boring. And apparently Montreal is cold 8 months of the year? I get seriously depressed in winter. But the chance to do your own thing for a whole year! Do whatever you want! Sounds like heaven.

There’s an opportunity to be an artsworker with Vulcana Women’s Circus . Learn and develop your circus skills, and train others similarly. It’s been a dream for a while to be trained in circus for a year – this sounds oddly like that dream come true. Except I’m not actually competent in circus. I can do some aspects, but I’m not especially agile or fit or flexible. I just want to be trained up to a competent level. Does that make me a poser? I feel so happy and free onstage, prancing about…is that OK?

I don’t know what to do. What to hope for. Last time I hoped for and worked towards a goal, it fell flat on my face spectacularly. I’m too scared to wish now.

Which road?

The Internet Cool Kids

Some time ago I noticed a growing popularity around what I called “personality based design/art/fashion blogs”. They seemed like a blog version of a teen or women’s magazine, except that the content tended to revolve around the life and personality of one person. They had similar regular content – What I Wore Today, Link Love, Things I Love Thursday, How Tos. They gained fame on the strength of their personality. Some made a living off blogging. In some cases the layout looked oddly similar to each other.

Gala Darling. Nubby Twiglet. Queen Gilda. Doe Deere. This is Star. Agent Lover.

Who are they? Why do they blog so similarly? Are they friends? Did one or two start off a trend? Is this the next wave of teen/youth blogging? I remember similar waves in my teenage years – poetic domain names, fanlistings, vector pictures (“vexels”), random pages of “content”, web-based TCGs. Was this similar? Had someone else noticed this?

I asked about it on Ask Metafilter. Someone commented that they seemed very similar to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope (as seen here ; here’s some examples ), which inspired me to register ManicPixieDreamGirl.com partly as a joke, partly as a dormant project. (If anyone wants it, let me know.)

It turns out that most of the people I linked to in the question were friends. . I inadvertently caused a flurry within the “lady-blogosphere” (their term not mine); some of the commentators thought I was somehow mocking them or decrying them. The original bloggers weren’t necessarily that charitable either, which turned me off, but I did manage to spark a few interesting conversations.

I asked my question mainly because I found the whole group rather intriguing. These girls lead rather unusual and obviously self-designed lives. Just 10 or 15 years ago they wouldn’t have received much mainstream attention. Yet now it seems they decide where mainstream attention falls. They could write an article about anything, and get a gazillion comments. Passionate fans who defend them at any perceived slight. Copycats and imitators. Some of them are able to subsist on blogging alone, spending their time having great adventures and writing about it, without worrying about having enough to eat or live on. They get interviewed by mainstream and indie press, hailed as the voice of their generation.

Frankly, I’m jealous. I mainly envy the opportunities that seem to fall on their lap. Gala Darling gets to speak at SXSW – I can’t even afford to go. They can easily get companies to sponsor their ventures at a tip of a hat; I was having a hard time getting people on my side to begin with. . I’d like to go off adventuring around the world too, without worrying about exchange rates or running out of beds. I wouldn’t mind having a group of passionate fans.

In some ways though, I may not be all that different from them opportunities-wise. This gets whacked into my head by others when I whine about not being “Internet famous”. I did manage to snag a free book thanks to another Ask Metafilter question. I received a DVD for review on EducateDeviate, where I’m currently fending off an online marketer keen on “buying an ad” for his spam site (never mind that Wordpress.com doesn’t let you show ads in the first place). And I have spoken at conferences – once was of my own doing, a year before EducateDeviate came about, and the other was because my boyfriend’s mum was participating in a Teaching & Learning conference (she works at a university) and wanted people to share their experiences of being university students.

Those seem like lucky one-offs though. The Internet Cool Kids/Manic Pixie Dream Girls/etc get them all the time. It’s almost part of their job description.

Be influential.
Be known.
Be gifted amazing opportunities.
Be adored.
Be heard.
Be respected.
Be free to be you.

Who wouldn’t want that?

It could all just be a matter of perception though. There isn’t necessarily an objective measure for “cool”. Isn’t it something that other people define on you? But then again, there has to be some quality that makes you more accessible to free trips and public speaking opps. Looks? Personal branding? Luck?

Or maybe I just have a misguided vision of what life/meaning/authenticity/art is all about and have a hard time adjusting to the modern world.

Criss Angel's mindfreakish magic

As a little girl I was obsessed with stage magic. Seriously so. I still have stacks of books about doing all kinds of magic tricks – cards, coins, mentalism, even a big textbook with complicated classic stuff like “Make The Woman Float Through A Ring”. When my family travelled to Australia for business, I’d ask to go to a magic shop, and we’d pick up a few tricks along the way. Most of my tools are gone from various house moves, but there’s still a few replicas.

When I was about ten we went to see David Copperfield live. Oh that was an EXPERIENCE. I desperately wanted to be the girl he floats on stage (didn’t happen) but at the same time I had so much fun watching real stage magic live. It was one of my first theatrical experiences and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I stopped doing stage magic after a botched attempt for a school party. I’m now tentatively looking at it again. Still, some tricks entertain me again – especially those that make you go “HOW THE HELL DOES THAT HAPPEN”.

Obviously, being performance magic, there is a method to the madness – so all the people decrying magic for not being 100% authentic – “omg stooges! omg cameras! omg misdirection!” – are rather missing the point. It’s like complaining that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park weren’t real. It’s the effect that makes them extraordinary – that, for a few minutes, you’ve watched an unusual miracle.

This post was sparked by a few Criss Angel videos I just watched. I’ve heard of the guy but never saw his stuff until just now. They are freaky. He takes some classic magic tricks – saw a woman in half, pulling something out of nothing, etc – and subverts them through modern settings and implausible areas. He does a lot of stuff in public, which just makes the illusion even stranger.

Here are three extremely mind-freaky videos; they may not be safe for work, or indeed safe for your sanity:

Woman Cut in Half (warning: Nightmare Fodder)

Criss Angel And Half A Woman – The best video clips are here

8-year-old into 20-year-old

Model out of a Bag

Criss Angel – Magazine – Click here for more blooper videos

Apparently there was a trick that involved Criss naming a few household items and predicting which the audience would choose. I’d like to see that one – the audience-interaction ones (even those that ultimately rest on mathematical principles) are my favourite!

Being the Right People in the System

The topic of the “Right People” has come up recently within some of the spiritual/personal development type blogs. I first saw it mentioned in Havi’s rant and then Goddess Leonie brings it up in a more cheerful way . ROFL at:

What if people think my emails are slimy salesity-salesville and unsubscribe when I’m trying to be “hellloooooooooo-just-wanted-to-let-you-know-possum” instead?

Both of them are launching exclusive online self-development programs and both have come up with issues related to pricing and marketing. The price is too high, the conditions too strict, etc etc etc.

In response to those criticisms, they state that if you don’t feel their program is for you, then you’re not the Right Person for it. They are after the Right People, and – judging from the comments – they’re not in any desperation for them.

Pricing is a tricky thing when it comes to things that take place online. The Internet has made a lot of options more accessible, and what used to be behind a barrier of dollars is now available for free (legally or otherwise). The idea, then, of paying about $100 or more for what is essentially an online forum may seem at first to be odd – there are so many free forums! Blogs with the same information! Cheap e-books! Affordable real books! What justifies their price?

Now I am a major proponent of asking for what you’re worth. Nobody should have to compromise themselves for an opportunity, or be exploited just because the option’s there. I’ve been in quite a number of toss-ups with spec-work sites who use patronising justifications such as “a designer in the third-world would be lucky to be paid the [extremely low] rates!” (or the more common “It’s such great exposure!” Which has launched a thousand celebrities, I’m sure. )

However, at the same time, it can’t be denied that money works very differently between cultures and regions. Costs of living are different everywhere, and this also reflects a shift in priorities. Here in Brisbane one really basic unimpressive meal (think college food) would cost you about $7 – which translates to about RM21-RM24, the price of a few pretty good dishes in Malaysia. Heck, I don’t know whether to be amused or horrified by the people peddling kaftans at roundabout $100 – you could get similar quality for a lot less! (This has also led to people from our general area being pretty good hagglers. Except for me, because I suck with negotiating money unless it’s massively unfair.)

So do the conversions: Goddess Leonie’s $67 Creative E-Course (which I’m a part of, incidentally) calculates to about RM162, which is a lot for an online-only unaccredited course. Even highly popular “How To Score As” workshops don’t go for that much. Similarly, Havi’s Kitchen Table , which goes to $396 for a year’s access, equals nearly RM1000 – about a semester of tuition! For what is essentially an online forum and an occasional phonecall. I could argue that I get very similar (if not better) value from a one-time $5 Ask Metafilter account, with expertise from everywhere – and that’s just because I wanted to post; lurking’s free.

This isn’t meant to slam on Goddess Leonie or Havi. I do find value in their blogs and I feel they’re generally good people who’re making a living for themselves the best way to know how.

But see how, to someone who doesn’t hail from the typical American/European/Australian (a.k.a. proto-Western) financial society, those figures don’t make sense? The idea of charging for personal advice is controversial; some say it should be given freely, some note the personal costs of the advice-giver, some feel that the pricetags often give a “Salesity-salesville” vibe and that donations would have been better. Who knows.

Someone who comes from a country with lower costs of living won’t necessarily be able to afford something like Goddess Leonie’s or Havi’s projects. Even if they really wanted to. Even if they could afford it, the cost doesn’t seem justified. And yet, programs like the above don’t quite exist yet in our country. The urban areas are growing quickly, but they’re still growing; creative circles and self-development groups aren’t quite yet commonplace.

So is it really our fault that we’re not the “Right People”?

Current pricing systems for great opportunities like these are inherently skewed away from about 3/4 of the population. So-called ‘world-changing’ conferences and programs are priced way beyond what most of the world can afford.

It’s not just monetary price, either: my biggest bone to pick with Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA was its lack of support for anyone who didn’t already have a year’s worth of expenses saved up and who came from outside the US. No visa help, no accommodation, no stipend, nothing. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Seth hadn’t pumped the program up as being for “world-changers”. People were offering to sleep in their cars to sacrifice for entry into the Alternative MBA; I can’t fathom how anyone can ever give up food, shelter, and/or health for anything.

The only people who could realistically afford something like the above are usually the same old nearly-affluent middle-class usually Caucasian people who come from relatively well-off society (so not so stuck in poverty that they have to worry about their next paycheck – like I did when I realised mine wasn’t coming for another month and I was broke. Thanks Mum & Dad!). Yet the people who would most benefit from those opportunities, and the people who would bring the most benefit to others, are the very same people shut out due to factors outside their control.

Due to their country’s economy, they aren’t able to gain knowledge to develop themselves.
Due to this lack of knowledge, they may not be able to help their country effectively – including in their economy.

The groups above suffer too. Their perspective isn’t as diverse as it could be; even those from “different” cultures would have pretty similar class leanings. Or they may have to work harder to gain more side opportunities, only to miss them because of work – this was very common with foreign KaosPilots (to afford being a KP, they had to work multiple jobs, but working kept them from special opps which drew them to KP in the first place!).

And then the System gets perpetuated. The relatively-rich get all the opportunities. The relatively-poorer, who would get the most benefit out of the opportunities, gets left behind.

In a young social entrepreneur’s panel I went to, one fundraiser advocated for collecting donations from their own local communities to further their work. An African delegate working on poverty stood up and said that his people lived on less than a dollar a day – how was he supposed to get donations from them?

This is the main reason the term “Right People” makes me really, really twitchy. Havi, Goddess Leonie, Seth Godin et al have a point when they say that their programs aren’t suited for everyone. But they make the assumption that if you acknowledge the logistical and practical costs, and you’re not necessarily willing to forgo your basic needs, you’re not “right”. It puts a separation, places people into different classes. When what’s needed are classes dissolving and people integrating. It rewards privilege and blames people for not being “privileged” enough – even though you usually don’t get a choice with your privileges.

Just because I come from Asia doesn’t mean I don’t want to know how to be more creative or how to find my soul purpose. But just because I’m the sort of person who is urban enough to be thinking about “soul purposes” doesn’t mean I’ll consider every price fair, or take up every opportunity as the Holy Grail.

Stop playing into the System. Stop perpetuating the System.

Think about what you want to achieve with your project. Think about how you can make your project accessible. What is your ultimate aim? How else can you get that aim fulfilled while acknowledging privilege? Are you willing to admit that you intentionally won’t let certain people in? (That’s not a bad thing. Just be honest and say “yeah, ok, I’m going to get a lot of middle-aged wealthy people because they’re the only ones that can afford it usually”. Just be clear of your limitations.)

If you want to change the world, you have to let the world in. Don’t claim “world-changing” and then price people out. If you want people to make sacrifices for you, you better be prepared to make sacrifices for them. Or else be clearer about what you really want.

But don’t blame the People for not being the “Right People”, when it’s the System – that you are a part of – that makes them so.

The fear of nothing

I spend a lot of time (over)thinking things, especially on bus rides and anytime I’m not already occupied with something else. One topic that comes to mind often is humanity’s relationship with death – how it forms the rest of our social norms and structures.

It seems to me that pretty much everything current humanity stands on is based upon one major fear:

Destruction without consent.

Indeed, I would suggest that the lack of consent is, in some ways, scarier than destruction itself.

Humans desire autonomy and free will. We desire control over our lives. The accessibility of choices. Freedom is a human right, something sought after more than wealth or health. In some ways, even the desire for wealth or health links to a desire for freedom – to not have troubles with your body or your money hinder you from living.

The most heinous crimes deal with death and destruction – murder, torture, rape, genocide. Something intrinsic to the human being is killed: if not their physical life, then their society, dignity, autonomy. The things that hold us up as human have been broken down.

Current fears of poverty and climate change also relate to similar fears. If the Earth is dying, humanity will die too. If there are not enough resources, people can’t feed, drink, live.

The other strong point about all the above is that it happens beyond the control of the person. Victims of heinous crimes don’t choose to be victims – they didn’t ring up a Dial M for Murder service and volunteer themselves. They didn’t set out to destroy the Earth through global warming or poking holes in the ozone layer.

There are people who are comfortable with death, who want to take death into their own hands. There are the obvious examples, like suicide and euthanasia – extremely controversial and touchy. But think of war, for example. Victims and casualties of war don’t tend to wish for death. However, the fighters in wars often know that they’re likely to die, and go in anyway – many with the feeling that their death will be honourable.

And what about the less serious things? Losing your job -> no livelihood -> death of dignity (and perhaps physically). Being heartbroken -> loss of dignity and self-esteem. Rejections -> beyond your control.

Here’s the thing though: Our deaths are usually beyond our control. Most of us don’t know when or where or how we’re going to die. We can’t usually call up the Grim Reaper and make an appointment. Deaths often take everyone by surprise.

So why are we demonising something that is inevitable?

A closed one dying sucks. I hate death, personally. It’s the dying aspect that gets to me – the pain and anguish and wait. The mere idea of losing my loved ones hurts me so much. But many people die quickly without pain. They die peacefully. In some cases death was better than living (say, for example, if they were suffering a major disease – loss of peace?).

If you believe in an afterlife, usually you’d believe that you meet everyone you care about in said afterlife, so you don’t really lose them forever. If you don’t, then there’s just nothing at the end of it, so it doesn’t matter.

Are we afraid of nothing?

Nothingness is a very difficult concept. We can think of zero, emptiness, space, but even space is “something”. There’s something that surrounds the space, something that holds it in. Absolute nothingness is hard to grasp. We can’t conceive it. If there was nothing, there’s nothing that will help us conceive it anyway. We just don’t exist.

It’s understandable why this would throw people into a big loop. We’re all here and we want to be something. Have some point to our existence. Not just disintegrate into nothing.

But is nothing such a bad thing?

What if we turned our fear of death, destruction, no free will, nothing around? What if death was a celebration, an achievement? Would our taboos be completely different? How would life be structured? Would “achievement” even be a concern? Will we have goals, benchmarks, targets? What would we do in our life?

If we didn’t fear nothing, would we still fear something?

Summing yourself up

Sometimes I get jealous of some friends of mine, who seem to be able to sum up their interests and abilities into a few succinct words. Web development. Events. Illustration. Pagan writing. Things like that.

Being able to do that means that it’s easier for them to scout out ways for them to pursue their interests. Just plug those keywords into the search engine of choice, and there you go. Mention it to anyone and they usually get what you’re about straight away.

I, on the other hand, can’t seem to find a few succinct words that get across what I’m interested it easily. It’s not that such terms don’t exist, because they do:

Multicultural, multicreative, multitasking (a.k.a. my tagline).
Interdisciplinary.
Creative generalist.
Scanner.

The idea here is that I like to explore a lot of different things and am especially interested in how different things can connect together. However, whenever I even mention one of those words to anyone, it usually ends up being a 5-minute lecture. I already get that when people ask me about my degree – “Creative Industries? What’s that?”. Ask about my “major” (Interdisciplinary – no seriously) and you can have a whole seminar!

This also means that I’m not quite sure where to start looking for opportunities, options, jobs, ideas – mainly because I’m not quite sure what other people call them. I get emails about job openings often, and I end up passing a lot of them to Nikki because she and I have similar career interests. But also, there are a lot more jobs that specifically mention her skills, than mine.

It doesn’t help that I tend to subvert certain terminologies too. I don’t use words quite the same way as the majority.

Alternative education – to many Americans this implies either alternative schools or homeschooling. While I do have interest in those areas, my main passion is in ensuring that students are treated fairly and that various ways of learning and subject matter are treated as valid.
Holistic therapy – I’m not looking to be a naturopath, specifically. I’m interested in creative therapy, in incorporating creativity into your life to assist you in dealing with your issues.
Youth development – I want to help young people pursue their passions. While I do care about big issues like the MDGs, they’re not as strong a concern for me.
Performance – I don’t need to be validated with an award for best skill. I’m mainly in it for the creative fun factor.

I favour the unusual, the non-boxed, the ones that not only build bridges between faraway lands but builds whole networks and glass elevators and tunnels and all sorts of ways for contact.

But what am I, in a few words?