I’m such a tropical child, there’s a part of me that can be presented with facts, and still fail to understand the experience of cold weather (Edinburgh 2014: 14°C? I can take 16°C temperature in aircond at home, no problem!).

I knew Taiwan would be cold, but I still packed a pair of shorts to sleep in. Because logic goes: when I’m in C’s house, I can’t just be in my underwear! And so I brought shorts that I now cannot wear around this house because it’s too goddamn cold. It seems so instinctively ridiculous to pack a pair of long pants to sleep in, even though I now rationally see I am a giant flaming bouquet of idiocy.

Everyone in this apartment wears thick gym (?) pants as part of their comfy pyjamas. To me, they look like they might break out some hip hop moves at any time. I guess it doesn’t help that I also don’t have pants like that anyway.

Thank god I pack a backup sarong every time I travel. Would have been warmer if I had gym pants.

Staying with a household of creative queer women, and it’s also a home bakery. It smells amazing 24/7 here. I walked for 12 hours today. Maybe 10, discounting the one hour we spent sitting in a cafe. Against the odds, I’m losing weight here.

It’s interesting to note the US and Japanese influences here, because so much of what I hear about is deimperialisation, and now I’m experiencing a sliver of how it’s embedded in so many aspects of life.

—

I just realised you’re doing what you’re doing because it’s the only way to make the rejection a mutual affair. WHY YOU SO GIRL. GDI.

Dinner with B last night. Received news that my position in her festival was refused because I’m “too political”, whatever that means. I always thought the hill I would die on was being too gay and too out, I didn’t realise I was political, much less enough to be deemed too much of it. Shame, but *shrug*.

She got into mentor mode and gave me such a long list of recommendations for Taiwan. Everything is amazing and awesome and the best and absolutely essential to my trip. She loved it during her one-month residency and she’s certain I’ll find the same love for Taiwan in the seven days I’ll be there. It’s the most enlightened people on earth, she said. Wept at the airport when I left, she said. I believe her, she’s never been this particularly enthused about any place I go to.

Was instructed by her to download (and use) Tinder in Taiwan, and in the same breath cried “If you meet a Taiwanese girl that you like, then finish, we’re going to lose you to Taiwan!” Interesting that her instincts are telling her to panic about my love life before I’ve even flown to the country, she is the only one 😒

I guess now I have seven days to become a legal lesbian in Taiwan, fall in love with a Taiwanese girl, get legal married, migrate, and disappear from Malaysia forever. Just a trip full of love and migration.

It’s okay. I hear they have beef noodles in Taiwan. Can lah kot.

—

Met PG and JJ after dinner for drinks. I love my friends. Every time I lean on my friends I don’t know how I ended up with such good company.

—

Facebook’s new policy for Pages is balls. They say they’re prioritising posts from family and friends for their audience, and thus Page views will suffer.

What is understood by social media managers is, this means more cost, just to reach the audience they have built. FB doesn’t care that an NGO or a cause doesn’t have the same reach as KFC. At most, you get some free ad credits, and then you’re sent out on the same capitalist battlefield as corporations with a media budget that outranks your entire operations budget for the year.

I was talking with another comms person about The Problem That Is Facebook. My observation is, Twitter is making it easier to participate on their platform. The ability to thread tweets before hand, removing the character limit from images, doubling tweet capacity, having a mostly chronological timeline. But tweets are ephemeral (so are FB posts, rly, if you’ve ever tried finding a post you put up months ago), and Moments aren’t adopted as readily.

Still, the effect of this is, social media managers are forced to pay more attention to Facebook. I don’t know if this is a conscious strategy (my bet) or a somehow unresearched and very natural consequence of FB policy. I see this most clearly with people who already have other duties and are suddenly told to also be “SM managers”.

Figuring out public FB Pages takes up too much mental resources: Trying to figure out how to craft posts that best reach the audience they have built but can not readily access — an audience that keeps changing as more come in. What makes a post reach 200 people as opposed to 2,000.

Companies without the resources to spend on a proper social media manager struggle with both platforms, and they usually choose FB. Likely because whoever has been signed up already has an active FB account. I think it’s the wrong choice. Twitter users are much more engaged, if your brand is suitable for it. It takes more time to build the audience, and in the long early stages, it can really feel like you’re making speeches in an empty room — but for socially engaged brands, that platform is more valuable. Unless you do videos. Then by all means, masuk FB too.

Neither platforms are transparent, and both are capitalist and extremely problematic, but FB is more readily a dystopia than twitter. Then again, Twitter is where the worst people also build their platforms. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Maybe we should all return to blogs and mailing lists.

Did one person leave two others with the same cards? That is a chilling amount of destruction.

My cards have been ruined by rain, I blame myself. I feel like a traitor.

—

han bao bao.

“They’re trying make you talk like a three year old”

👀

ok, I’m just gonna pretend I don’t speak any Chinese at all in Taiwan.

—

Why must my own face kantoikan me, gdi Lainie, get a proper tan on your fes.

I told a friend about this and she gelak I 😒. No need to ever discuss again.

—

I’m going to have an intense work month right after I return from Taiwan. Sudden unexpected expenses that I kinda walked right into omg what am I doing why am i like this.

—

Reminder to self: let go. Do not be held hostage. Nothing is more important than the self. Do not negotiate or rationalise or attempt to “win” over the narcissist with good points, because engaging on those irrational terms itself is an act of irrationality.

Bait is an attempt at control. Bait will attempt to reach you through your weaknesses. Bait will try to get you to blame yourself if you don’t solve this situation you seem to be in. Bait is the idea that you can seize power with the products of your mind against theirs. Bait just needs you to look it in the eye and say “Fuck off.”

The best weapon and defence I have is the ability to see the bullshit for what it is, the intentions behind the actions, and the person who wants to manipulate and gaslight me. Nothing being thrown and used against me is real, that’s just ammo to wear me down and keep me in the wrong arena. I’m the only one who cares, my task is to accept that fact and learn to manage that emotionally. I need to remember sincerity matters to me.

I am not used to recognising, and then not playing the game. It is strange to hold this power. I don’t know what to do with this new sense of knowledge and control, except to use it, shield myself, and remind myself I deserve this. Let go. No need. Do not be held hostage. If need be: seek support elsewhere.

💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

—

I miss my besties, most of my honeybunnies. It does not escape me that I’m the one who stayed behind in Malaysia. I don’t think we’ll ever reside in the same country again.

—

Went dancing with Petra and Serene. I liked that it was quite an inclusive environment, and clearly stated that dance roles are between “leads” (typically male) and “follows” (typically female).

I liked that I saw both women and men as leads and follows (although admittedly, I was the minority amongst leads). I met someone who could do both parts, and was kind enough to show me some steps as both lead and follow — apparently quite a few of them can dance both roles.

Reza had earlier suggested that I take lead because to follow, one has to be quite attentive to their lead. I can’t even take instructions to learn to play pool, I really think if a man tried to lead me in dance, my body would instinctively resist. I think I could take cues from another woman, but that’s not a given and also not statistically advantageous right now.

It does make me look kinda butch though 👀, when I dance traditionally male steps.

I like the vibe at Lindy (and most importantly, the code of conduct). Still, I’m not a confident lead, and I don’t accept mistakes I make well — which is ridiculous because I’m completely new to this, but also predictable.

I don’t know if I’m social enough for the Lindy format, but the dancing is fun.

I told my sister you did Lindy

She said

“I can see Lainie being pretty good actually. But having no clue about what she is doing.”

I have too many psychic friends. Maybe something about my mind is like entertainment tv to them.

I did take to the steps quite well until I got a blur and extremely nervous partner, I think I serap her energy which made me think my steps, and miss some instructions, and both of these didn’t translate well to my body, which made me both terrible at the dance and leading.

Still, this is what I discussed with Sharon (muay Thai) and Sze (yoga). I think Lindy is the opposite of my body with its joyful movements and I think maybe this is what I can use to unlock. Not exactly going to stand up to examination, but it’s a combination of useful and powered by faith.

Had a useful talk with Reza about this, and about how he leads, and how I am not socialised at all as a woman for this.

Still intuitively working my way through the memories embedded in my body. I should read a book about this, or something.

—

Reading Eva Kurniawan, borrowed the book from Jac. Really digging it so far, Dhyta’s recommendation was spot on. I need to send her the book I got.

—

Gave Mayte my ukulele, Macarena the Jonathan Safran Foer book (Mayte got a better deal). I don’t know if she’ll keep it, but hopefully it travels with her for a while.

I should probably stop going to TTDI.

—

I want to like Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, because it’s so weird and quirky, but it’s also intentionally aggravating and annoying in a childish and aggressive manner.

I just discovered a Max Landis connection to the show. I’m watching it now because I know the series is cancelled anyhow.

—

I said choosing between Najib BN or Mahathir Pakatan is like choosing between the left butt cheek or the right butt cheek — eventually you end up with an asshole.

I don’t know why I say things like this, but at least it amused the others.

I know I had an extremely interesting dream, something that examined the structure of daily life in a different world, but I awoke with this thought instead: someone told me once that much of flirting with men can be guiding them on a path of action and allowing them to believe everything was their idea. It sounded ridiculous at the time but it was the first thing in my mind this morning: “Hang on, am I that guy?”

So much for sleeping in on a Sunday, I think that is going to stick on and off in my mind today .__.