Sharing.

I feel like sharing about myself, I dunno, probably because I'm been feeling less like myself and more like a provider of sorts lately. I don't mind it too much, I just want people to know that I have a somewhat rich history behind me, all of which is interesting only to me and perhaps my wife on a otherwise boring Monday morning. But mostly because I'm just bored.

History

I was born September 25, 1976 in Singapore at KK hospital, the second and last son to my parents. By most accounts, I was a quiet boy, so much so that my Grandfather thought I had problems with my hearing or speech because I wasn't very vocal. Unlike a lot of people out there who like to claim that they remember specific events when they were 1, I am glad to inform everyone that I don't remember much of anything till I was much older, thus sparing you years of nostalgic recollections. The main memory of my childhood, unfortunately, has to do with my father in a very unpleasant manner. He was having an affair with a lady whom I called, "Auntie" (which is something we called elders, doesn't have to be relative) and he was using me as the perfect alibi. I had no idea of that concept, and just went along with it. When my mom found out, there were two frightening things that I had to witness. One was which my Mom was so upset that she threatened to jump out the 12th story window where we lived while arguing with my Dad, and another was a failed suicide attempt when she swallowed a lot of sleeping pills. I mean, this shit's sad, sure, but I hope that people realize that stupid and selfish adult behavior will stay in a child's mind forever. Of course, she survived, but her heart would never be mended again. She has given up on love, and doesn't really even care about finding romantic companionship.

I went to an all-boys school called St. Andrew's, and it was a Christian English speaking school. Now schools in Singapore were either English or Chinese speaking, and that decision has a lot to do with what I'm doing now. So, English became the primary learning language for me, and uneasiness with the opposite sex will probably follow me for the rest of my life, what having spent 14 years of my life in a boy's school. (A postscript - The Singapore government actually had to sponsor dating cruises for single people at some point because everyone was too career oriented, and families weren't happening.) I discovered that I was good at composition, making up stories and such. I was a relatively good kid - I got into trouble skipping school a few times, and tripping some random kid once. He was running and it was just one of those stupid "What would happen if I..." things. I got away with it because I had no prior behaviorial problems plus, it was a completely random kid. Didn't know him, and I claimed it was an accident.

St. Andrew's was a fairly strict school, uniforms, short haircuts, watches had to be plain, shoes had to be white, behavior had to be inpeccable. I wasn't particularly good at sports, didn't like bugs, wasn't social nor popular, wasn't academically inclined, and didn't get picked on because the few times I did, I stood up for myself. The way the grades worked was pretty discriminating. It was Primary 1, 2, and so on until Primary 6, and then you went on to Secondary 1 to 4. Now, Primary classes had A, B, and C. If you were in Primary 2A, you were smart. Primary 2B, not so much. When you took the Primary 6 finals, dubbed something frightening that I don't remember (I do remember my mom being disappointed but me being relieved that I didn't flunk out), you were placed into Normal and Express streams. I was in the Normal stream, which doesn't sound terrible until you are informed that there are only 2 Normal classes for each grade, and about 9 Express ones. Normal was a nice word for "Remedial". Plus the fact that we had to do five years more and Express classes did just four, well, our class pretty much behaved the way they pigeonholed us to behave. We were a rowdy bunch, but I was still the quiet one. I got a little more popular after people noticed that I was kinda a funny guy, but it was always through someone else's mouth. The kid sitting next to me was a loudmouth, and his name was Kuang BingRong. Basically the way it worked would be I told him the joke, he'd laugh and tell everyone else the joke. Always the ghostwriter.

Then my mom won the lottery. It was an immigration lottery that permitted a certain number of people to migrate to the United States with their families, and we got in. We had no intention of going, really, since we already had a flat that was paid for, and my mom had a decent gig tutoring kids and helping run a elementary school. But my Mum was so concerned about our suffering education that she wanted a better chance for us, even though in retrospect we would've done just fine in Singapore. So she left her families and brought us over here to the States. She chose Seattle because one of the maids of the students she tutored had married to an American guy, and they lived in Renton, WA. My brother came for a month, but had to return to Singapore to serve in the National Service, because he was older and was nearing the draft age. He would live by himself for 2 and a half years.

FYI, don't ever displace a 14 year old teenager into a different country and drop them into a co-ed high school - it messes them up. I would go into my angry teenage years now, but that should fulfill my desire to share for a while. Don't worry, Alex will probably not see this part of the blog. I'm guessing 50 percent of the stuff will not be seen. Hmm, for a baby blog, I sure don't talk much about the baby... sorry!