Dear Friend,
Hate is a very strong word; but that's okay, because people have very strong emotions. Sometimes strong words like hate or love probably don't even remotely sum up what a person could be feeling, so given it's the closest approximation, I personally don't have a problem using them. By this I don't mean I misuse or disrespect them, but I use them when appropriate and without worrying myself to death about how strong those simple words are. Today, I shall focus on hate.
I hate:
My family love trifle. They fucking love it. To the end of this earth and beyond they will still love that disgusting mess. From an early age, they knew I was unfortunately not of the correct calibre to enjoy such a nauseating treat. Urgh, I am boking right now typing this. For some reason, trifle makes me feel absolutely sick at the mere thought. Jelly = yay! Custard = yay! Sponge = yay! I enjoy them all seperately, but together they make this absolutely vomit-worthy concoction that I cannot remotely fathom why it is enjoyable.
Given that I have insomnia and that I have worked 13 hour shifts for a year. Feeling tired is something I am all too familiar with. A little bit of tiredness can be dealt with: a splash of cold water, a coffee, some fresh air do the world of good. However, eventually you get to the stage of tiredness where your brain shuts down. Once you reach this point, it's game over. You could be anywhere and doing anything, but despite all your efforts and logic, your brain decides that you are going to sleep
right now. You are willing to do absolutely anything as long as it results in you getting some sleep. All logic, self-control, reasoning and reality goes out of the window and you would even welcome death if it meant you didn't need to be awake anymore. It's a horrible feeling.
You know when your Chinese friend invites you to her birthday party and you're the only caucasian person there and every stares at you? They all speak in Mandarin - which you can't understand - and refuse to speak in English, even though they can to let you in to the socialising? After a few lone drinks you go up to someone and try to introduce yourself and say hello in Chinese, but your Chinese is shit and you accidentally call their mother a horse? Then you try again an ask if their mother is a horse? Then you call them a horse? Then you try to ask them if they have a pen and ask them if they're a vagina? Then they all stare at you horrified and start bitching at a million miles an hour in Cantonese (because they can speak both) just because you might be able to understand Mandarin (even though you just demonstrated you can't: Is your mother a horse? =/= Hello, how are you?). Okay, this might be an extreme example; but you generally get the gist right? Injokes you're not in on etc?
- Being told what I am, and am not capable of.
It started way back in primary school doing the SRA reading cards during "language" (Later to be called English in secondary school). I was the youngest in the class at 6, while everyone else was 7 or 8 and the teacher decided that based on age I was not capable of progressing to the "top" Language set and must spend a year "learning the alphabet" which I had already learned 3 years previously. The fact I was taking 3 books out of the P6/7 library each day to read when I went home didn't register. It was the fact I was too young to be academically competent. I don't know if you know what SRA reading cards are, but there was a massive box with tons of these cards with a passage and then questions on the passage. There were colours, and the colour indicated the "difficulty" of the card. Everyone started at the bottom and worked their way up, being able to if they got 4 cards all correct out of the 20 in the colour: naturally, the more bright students would progress faster and soon be at the top colours, whereas those who found reading slightly more difficult would progress more slowly to an appropriate level. The system worked, and if they still use it in schools, should still work. However, after doing the ENTIRE bottom colour getting everything correct, the teacher decided that because of my age I wouldn't cope with the next colour and so had to do that entire colour again "But I've already
done them all!" "Well then you'll be extra good at them this time." "I already got full marks." "Prove it by doing them again."
This sort of thing happened in every class, so that when we went to secondary school, I was in the bottom "set" for all my classes until the first class test a couple of months in, when the teachers realised I was capable of more and I was moved to the top ones in each.
Though this isn't to mean the secondary teachers let you fulfill your potential. In 6th year when I asked to do 4 Advanced Highers I was told it wasn't permitted and I may not take those 4 courses, but 3 instead. I didn't take no for an answer and signed up to all four behind the Senior Management's back secretly, then three months down the line, they realised what I was doing. I was commanded to drop a subject and concentrate on three, because "you are not capable of doing 4! It's too much of a workload: we recommend 2, maybe 3 at a push, but four is too difficult and you'll nto succeed." After refusing to drop one and sitting all four exams "on my own head be it if I fail" what did I get out of it? As? Yes. Then the school had the cheek to be "Oh, we knew you could do it all along! We're so proud?" What a load of shite.
You'll never be able to progress to a good enough level of flute for your age if you start this late? Sorry? Do I hear young musician zone finals?
When someone tells me I can't do something, it motivates me to prove them wrong, that my entire life what my mother's said to me is true: you can do anything if you put your mind to it - don't let other people tell you you can't.
- People who make fun (in a genuinely malicious way) or are ignorant of the less fortunate.
Call me "noble" or "pretentiously good" or whatever you want, but it is one of the things that infuriates me to no end. One could winter's evening, after a particularly hard day shift at the Royal Vic Hospital having been covered in Winter Vomiting Bug Vomiting and Diarrhoea I was on the bus home. Irritable, tired (almost at that abhorrently tired stage) and cold, I was not in the best mood. My family know this very well - after a 13 hour vomiting elderly day shift, do
not fuck with Sean or provoke him in any way. A family get on the bus, with their obviously severely mentally disabled young child in a wheelchair. What happens? The two 14 year old girls in front of me exclaim, "OH MY GOD! LOOK! IT'S A FUCKING MONGO!! EHHHHH! MONGO MONGO MONGO! EUUHGHHGHGH". I think that was one of the moments I was most angry in my entire life. What absolute arseholes. I went absolutely ballistic at them - they didn't take any of it in because they were too bloody ignorant - telling them how disgusting it was that they found such a thing a source of amusement. Eventually I had to get off the bus in fury. I stood there at the bus stop for 15 minutes seething with (probably) actual steam coming out of my ears.
Another example? My flatmate, Evil Claire, had some of her friends from Kirkcaldy over the other week for her birthday. The entire night, they had been sociable, friendly and came across as genuinely nice people. At the end of the night, this lovely idea was shattered into a million pieces. "I was raised racist, so that's how I am and I'm proud of it." Excuse me? What? "I can't change it, I mean, I believe it too. Those fucking foreign cunts shouldny come here and steal aw' our jobs eh? Ken whit a mean?" No, I don't "know" what you mean: they don't steal your jobs because if they get them, it's because they're more qualified. We are in a multicultural society where there is no place for racism. Me: "What problems do you have with them being here really? They're here because back in their home countries, their children might be starving to death on the streets, or dying from malaria? Do you honestly grudge a mother trying to do whatever she can to keep her children alive? Uprooting her whole life to another completely different country to try and do the best for her offspring?" Their response: "Well, aye. If the mother canny afford tae because their country's fucked up, thae kids deserve to die, eh?"
Now, anyone who knows me, knows that children suffering is my button. I'm the kind of person who cries at the unicef adverts and will burst into tears at the thought of a child dying. I'm the kind of person that would jump off a building in an instant if it ensured the protection of a child. Figure how angry I was?
- The feeling that if you didn't make the effort, they probably wouldn't speak to you or even notice your presence.
You know, especially in the internet sense? That 'friend' you have, that will chat (sort of) if you message them, but they'll never message you. You know they're there, but seem completely oblivious to your presence. They say how much they miss you and want to chat more, but when you're there, they don't try, and if you do, you hardly get much apart from one word answers from them. They claim they're "playing a game" or anything like that, when this might be the only time when you get to speak to them because your laptop's broken, or they're in another country. So one time, you wait and see if they try to speak to you; despite your best efforts you wait as a sort of test to see if they do. If they desire your chat as much as you desire theirs. And they don't, clearly. Note above, that 'friend' is now a lost cause.
I can't be bothered typing anything more that I hate because I'm cold (another thing I hate) and my fingers hurt and I need a cigarette.
Ciao bella
Sean
x
