Pain vs Truth

To anyone who doesn't know here is my tale.

In the year of my 8th year of school, I was in the middle of a P.E. we were doing wrestling and were partnering up. when with a knock the school's student councillor came in and asked for me. Confused I went and followed her up to her office on the second floor. There I sat in her office confused and anxious.

"Shit this is about math isn't it.

Was the only thing running through my head.

"So Cindy, do you know why I asked to see you?" she asked peering at me over her spectacles. (Her name escapes me at the moment)

"Umm, math?" I replied with great uncertainty. After all my math mark was terrible and the thought that it was that bad that Mrs. D actually called the councillor in had my guts in knots. My parents were gonna kill me.

"No, no if it's academics the Resource Centre deals with it." the councillor replied. "Do you have any idea who might ask me to see you?" she asked.

My mind buzzed with thought and only one person came up. Very sweet, very quiet Mrs.V both my French and English teacher. So I answered and she nodded.

"Yes, Mrs. V asked me to see you." she turned opened one of those metal drawers and pulled out a folder. Confused I watched as she retrieved some papers. She pushed up her reading glasses and began to read. Soon as she did I knew what the hell was wrong.

See, my English teacher. Mrs. V was a very artistic and literature loving woman. And she had us write poems often. Well I wrote them and submitted them in and you know what?

"Oh my god she thinks I'm being abused."

 I don't have the poem on me anymore, but I remember it was called Scars of Pain. Yeah I was a very depressed child, anyways. Here's what I do remember distinctly.

"full of rage- Rage. That's a very strong word." she said and peered at me, I couldn't read her face so I sat there wanting to laugh it off and reassure her it was all a very bad misunderstanding. "Tell me Cindy was there any reason why you used this word?" she asked.

"Umm, no not really. It seemed better than using angry..." I said. What was I supposed to say? It's called variety woman! A thesaurus you know! Expansive vocabulary.

She nodded wordlessly and finished the poem that I, by then regretted writing very much. All I had wanted was a good mark, but all I got was this.

So as she questioned me about various parts of my emo poem I thought back on our very recent report card marks. In the folder had been a particular green sheet of paper outlining parents about child abuse and what counted as abuse. I remember reading it and throwing it away before my parents could get a look at it and ask what it was.

So that's why that was in there

Anyways, fifteen minutes later I had reassured the woman I was not in anyway being physically or emotionally abused, nor was anyone in my family. I returned to class to find I was partnered with a boy and was forced to play king of mat vs him, ending up getting bruised by having one hell of a time winning. Hah.

Why did I tell you this story? Why because I wrote that poem in a set of three and see, I found one of them. And so here is my very emo, and very badly written poem from oh 5-6 years ago.

Freedom
by Cindy Wong

My life was empty,
Filled with nothingness,
And torment

But then you appeared,
And saved me...
Ending my tears

I cherished our times together,
Both good and bad,
I lost my tears because if your smile

The smile filled,
With love, kindness
And affection

You did not mind,
My mistakes or even
The ugly scars that I held
I am truly happy finally

And I have,
Only you to thank,
For loving, caring and freeing me from,
The darkness of my own pain

HOLY CRAP is that a load of well, crap. Yeah it was horrible and I cringed as I retyped it out. Never let a 13-14 year old girl free verse poetry in under five minutes things get ugly.

So yeah, that was actually much cheerier than the other two poems which I remember talked about parents fighting and killing each other and a child being left to wallow in a suicidal black hole.

So laugh, cringe and thank those teachers with me. It's people like them who worry for their students (even if false cases) that abuse gets stopped, that children are helped. We may laugh about this but the thing is, this stuff really happens and more than often the teachers are right in their paranoia.

Not only is it our moral responsibility but our legal one to report to the authorities if one witnesses or knows of any type of abuse. Even if you suspect it. It is illegal to stand by and do nothing. Thank you.

------

btw, my current project for school is a presentation on child abuse. Hah.

The Land vs The People

I had a dream. A group of travellers were in native territory and as they were crossing a river, one of the natives rose from the waters. He was as large as a half giant and was furious. He tossed the jeep over and killed the men inside in his fury.

Then suddenly I was in someone and I was shaking another man angrily.

“You're corrupting the land!”

“What?” he asked in confusion.

I turned him and there in the distant was a factory spewing out black smoke, the land was dug up by machines and the earth was brown without plant life.

“Toxins in the air, the land turned to waste and these machines-!”

Then all I remember is seeing him running with me chasing him. I stop and begin shouting at him.

“All this is fuelled by your greed! Because all you do is Want! All you do is Want!”

Then I turn to the campsite of the survivors and begin snarling in their faces, I stamp on their luggage as they hurry to pack and flee. The man form earlier returns and attempts to get an interview with them and tries to coerce them into bringing this to court. But I snarl and they rebuff the man.

I see the native who had killed and attacked these men and he has a cold and serious expression. Behind him his tribe watching, elderly and children.

All I can feel is anger.

And I knew helplessly the world was going to hell.

----

Man, I knew I was into the environent but clearly my unconscious is telling me I'm really into the environment. Either that or I apparently hate jeep driving white men.

And apparently in my mind angry aboriginals can grow to teh size of a large house.

Anyways, I've been to two Social work classes and wow. I learned a lot in the first class about what social work really was and well. Wow. I had no idea how much social workers did or even why or how. A job driven on personal values and social justice, if things turn out well I think I really will go into Social Work.

Waiting for the day to come. Whether it is happiness or sorrow is the surprise.

Meeting with the Past

Met Tony on the bus today going home. Talked about uni and high school, damn kids only have their exams now of all times. Anyways, tqlked to him about uni choices seems he wants to go into medicine pretty badly. Poor midguided Asian boy lol.

Anyways, also talked about choir and as I quote him. "We suck as a choir and the class sucks now that you guys all left."

Well it's an inaccurate quote at best. haha, nice to know we're missed.

Sleep now.

Sometimes I just wish time would stop. The future holds nothing but fear, the past nostalgic sadness and the present an anxious disappointment. 

Time vs Reality

It's January 9th 2011, I'm sorry to say my first post of the new year is so late. Anyways, I arrived back in Calgary on January 2nd and let's just say I've had a lot of fun getting back to Canada time. Yep, a lot of owl nights, no sleep and general awakeness and blacking out.

So I'll go over a bit of my vacation since I have little to say. After a long 13-14 hour flight with an hour delay in Vancouver we arrived in Hong Kong only to take the ferry over to Macau. There we were picked up by my mom's childhood friend Ping-yee or auntie Ping if you want in English. We stayed in the Holiday Inn since we were only gonna be there for three days. The Inn was actually pretty nice there in Macau.

We went into a few casinos, saw scantily clad women dance around, ate far too much food and I got to hang out with my brother's girlfriend Evelyn, who I found out is really nice and a great person. So anyways, I love food there in southern China. I love it soooo much. And the great thing is lots of good food plus lots of walking and shopping equals no weight gain.

We headed over to Hong Kong where we got to eat on our terms. We stayed in the very fancy and very new Crown Plaza in Causeway Bay or Tong-loh wan (?). Super nice hotel, free wireless Internet great rooms but one bed. Since there were six people and two rooms we shared. the first night all three of us were in the bed, we fit but OMG the blankets must have been down or something. I was sleeping in the middle and it was like a sauna with clothes on. I literally had to crawl out of the bed without waking my mom and Evelyn up to get air and ot cool off. After that I slept on the floor with the blanket as my mattress, pillows around me and a bathrobe as my blanket XD

It was great, really. Seriously.

While I was in Hong Kong I discovered a few things. A, I could live on fan hup. Or uh rice boxes in English. You know its take out, a take out box filled with white rice, some osya sauce and then your choice of meat on top. I love the BBQ pork there, or I prefer cha siu.

We walked around 4-6 hours everyday so with sore feet and a lot of browsing I didn't buy all that much actually. My mother went crazy buying stuff simply cause it was cheap. Sigh, so asian. Myself, I got two bags, two jeans, a pair of new sneakers, lots of candy, a new DS lite and a camera shaped memory stick.

We were intending to go see the Big Buddha in Hong Kong but well, no one really wanted to go so we stayed in the hotel and shopped. Be proud my readers, I went to the gym. But that was really only because after Macau I felt fat and both my brothers and Evelyn went. It was either that or swim, and we all know how well THAT would go over with me.

Insert flailing, screaming and much suffering here.

So I have to say the most memorable thing in HK was the cha siu fan. Yep, that and my new DS very happy about that. It's silver!! OH and my new toy wild pig. It's soo cute, I'll get a picture.

So now here I am waiting for the new semester to start. Sigh. I get the feeling it won't be much better than the last. And I'll post up pictures soon as I get off my lazy ass.

As much as you wish, as much as you desire it. The world continues to turn and time continues to run it's course. Reality stops for no one, but you don't have to stop for it either.