SO THIS IS UP LIKE VERY LATE BECAUSE I WAS DYING FROM MOTHER'S BEJEWELED CONCERT SO YES THIS IS A TRIPLE UPLOAD FOR SUNDAY AND MONDAY (that is done on tuesday morning because I was busy studying for midterms lmao)
Question 6: If I wrote a book about my dad, what would be the last line?
Interesting fact about me is I really like to fantasize things in my head. And I think that is because I am just a naturally very curious person. So a lot of the things that I run through in my head are scenarios of me meeting people (that I may not know well) and just thinking of how an ideal conversation would go with them. Ideal in the sense that, I get to know them on a basis where we become good friends/something more than good friends (depending on the person of course).
But anyways, I hadn't really thought about writing a book about my parents, even though I do introspect a fair bit. I guess, that line would be "Underneath the stoicism, there was a heart full of pride and care and sincerity in what he did, just like Stoick the Vast". I mean my dad is one who rarely shows expressions, but I think that he really cares a lot (maybe it's his generational trauma for not showing emotions). But it is kinda like Stoick in HTTYD, where he shows tough love to Hiccup and slowly grows to accept Hiccup for his differences and develops a sense of pride in him. Well, I hope my dad is proud of me anyways.
Question 7: What did my parents do to me that I would never do to my future kids?
For the sake of argument, assuming I do have kids in future, I think it would be to give them more material love when they were young. I grew up in a very thrifty household. I barely went to the cinemas, barely bought my own clothes, barely spent on anything outside of canteen food/hawker food, barely had any toys/gaming consoles until I was in secondary school. I got my first phone at 13, my first bubble tea at 14/15, my first beyblade at 14, never had more than 5 plush toys. (I know that this isn't really relevant, but my parents were so old school that I also started listening to pop music in the veins of Taylor/Bruno in the 2010s, and I never really got into pop music until the 1989 album in 2014. But even then, I never grew to appreciate an album by any artist until Folklore/Golden Hour in 2020. Which does explain why my 2 fave artists are Taylor Swift and Kygo, but anyways...)
I get that it is important to save up for rainy days, but I think that it is also important to get a child the things he wants on a moderated basis. I think there needs to be an easing into the rewards for a child, and some incentives attached to the more grandiose ones, like a Switch or an Xbox or something. But I think me getting shut off from Ben 10/Pokemon/Naruto etc. as a child really sort of removed me from that sense of youth and innocence that a lot of other children got to experience during my time. So I never really understood the hype around those cartoons/figurines until I matured and realised that it was an identity to embrace when growing up. It was something that bonded my generation together, just as how we bond together now over our frankly insane obsessions over sport/music/adulting.
And if you must know, I did write a letter when I was 10 to my parents to get a Wii, but they (laughed and) wrote back and said something along the lines of me being negatively impacted/distracted by it and affecting my future or something along those lines, and that I was never going to get one before primary school ended. So yea, I guess you could say I was suffocated.
Question 8: What is the biggest lesson you've learned, and who taught you that lesson?
You know the funny thing is, a lot of the lessons I have learned over the years have some intrinsic value as a takeaway, but I rarely incorporate that because I am so stubborn and so insecure about selective things. Like, losing friends, or just wanting close friends because I crave it.
But I think the biggest lesson that I have learned is (to put it mildly) that it is okay to be curious about things, but I cannot jeopardise someone else's sanctity and security over it. I don't think it's uncommon for a child growing up to be curious about insecurities that they have about themselves, other people, the world...and sometimes acts will be done and questions will be asked that might draw some embarrassing moments. But I think that there are times in my childhood where I took my curiosity too far, and it really crossed a line by quite some margin and the repercussions of that were serious enough that I think I was ostracised by half the class. For the record, I don't blame them because it is frankly embarrassing and even though in my defense I was just curious about things, I can see why people would be freaked out.
It is not one specific person that taught me that lesson, but rather a group of people who collectively do not know each other. I won't spill the entire can of worms here, but suffice it to say that I think being in a single-sex school for your entire education pre-tertiary is detrimental to your development, because you lack the social cues and skills that other people would easily pick up. I guess there is tuition, but unless you always go for the same group tuition, then I don't think that you will form any lasting friends with people of the opposite gender. Of course there are other avenues, but if you are a freethinker like I am, and if you were in a CCA that didn't get much cross-pollination, then the opportunities are really limited to interact with more people and just have a more holistic view of the struggles that other teenagers have to put up with too.
Bonus if you read till here: my musical interests, specifically why I like Taylor Swift as an artist but why I don't know more than half of her songs.
I just felt compelled to write this since I went for my first pop concert last year (Lauv) and my second a couple nights ago (Taylor) and am going to my third in exactly a month (Bruno). My parents are real oldies. Like, if I didn't blast modern music in the car as a passenger prince, I don't think my dad would like Chainsmokers (not a joke btw), and I don't think my mom would know much about Taylor/Adele/Billie etc. Like, before that all they would listen to is the pre-21st century songs, or their canto-pop. I think that the moment I flipped to a more modern radio station and started to hear Beyonce/Rihanna/Taylor on the radio, I just started to like the music more because the rhythms were more catchy. Like I think I just never liked much of the old music because it felt...detached? There are of course some good singers/bands like Richard Marx or Savage Garden, but I never related to it because for some reason everything sounded like R&B to me. Only the disco beats or the more pop-sounding ones from the 80s onwards really started to vibe with me.
So naturally, when you start to hear things like Love Story or Halo, then you would like it (because the former is an all-time classic, even if I didn't know it would be back then, and the latter is sung by one of the best vocalists of this century). And I think from there on I just started to listen more to music. But the opportunity was still limited because I never developed a bond with the artists until I started to be able to grasp at how big Adele or Bruno Mars or Taylor Swift was. Like, if there was a Big Three in pop music it would be them (plus Ed Sheeran maybe). But even then, I never knew things like "albums" or "track listings" existed because I never discovered it until 1989 came along. Like, that was when I realised that singers released songs in things called "albums". But I still never knew that each album carries a central theme and revolves around a specific sound and message that allows the artist to convey meaning.
I never bothered listening to 1989 fully, or 25, or Starboy, or any of Ed's mathematical notations. Because I didn't understand the value that an album has. Not even when Taylor re-released her old albums did I listen to the songs in detail (except for the more already popular ones just to hear what difference there is in sound and texture, and for her vault songs) and I realised that, given she has around 250 songs at the moment, it is impossible for me to pick up what was released 10 years prior and appreciate it now when it is just a re-mastering to own the rights (and also cleaner production for the albums), and she was also releasing new music at the same time. (For the record, I know roughly 80-90 of her songs. To go into the other 160 now from the remnants of her first 7 albums means I have to dedicate time to remember it lyric for lyric, chord for chord and that would take months).
Only when covid hit did I finally find time to listen to albums completely. And since Folklore, for Taylor at least, have I been listening to the entire album of whatever she's been releasing. But I don't bother to remember the songs that I don't vibe with, such as Illicit Affairs. I know that is extremely controversial, but I just don't think it has a stand-out instrumentation and it feels like one of her worst songs on the album (by the way, worst is still somewhat decent overall). And of course, for the older albums, even when she re-releases them, I don't put in effort to listen to all of them, especially if the song was already out there beforehand. Only if they were from the vault might I take the time to listen (and even then I don't do so for all). Which is why it is lowkey weird to be at her concert a couple nights ago and everyone was freaking out over The Story of Us and Clean. Honestly, both are decent songs (I think Clean is better), but admittedly I didn't recognise them and I was more happy that she played Evermore because that was one of my top 3 from the Evermore album.
Am I a die-hard fan of Taylor Swift? No. Not if your definition of die-hard is to know (most of) the lyrics to over 150 of her songs. But I appreciate the songwriting and creative process, and the effort she takes to experiment with different genres across her 18-year career so far. And that is why I wanted to go to her concert. Not because I have been a Swiftie since Day 1, but because I think each era has a special significance and that it is a memorable experience that I wouldn't want to pass up on.
So would I listen to every re-recording? No. Because I don't think I can appreciate it for what it is, unless it is a new song, and so it isn't worth my time and effort.
- steve, still in his wildest dreams after the bejeweled concert where he was left enchanted
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