Miscarriage

I wanted to write down my experience before I completely forget what happened.

This happened in 2021, about 5 years ago already. So I might have already forgotten some details. But here goes.

We had been trying to conceive for about a year. He wasn't very keen on having a child, but he didn't want me to feel resentful if we didn't have one either, so we agreed to have one child. Just one. Because childbirth is painful enough and having a kid would be very stressful and expensive.

After approximately a year of trying, it happened. I didn't get my period despite being super regular, and he started to suspect that I was pregnant. I was like nah, but he bought me a pregnancy test kit and it was positive. I was like okay, I'm for sure pregnant then. The test kit says 99% accuracy or something. But he was like wait no, it could be a false positive. You need to take another pregnancy test.

I can't remember if I did take another pregnancy test or not. But I remember that we both knew that I was pregnant. Since we had decided to try for one child, he wanted it to be done right. He researched for what he thought was the best doctor. The one with the most positive reviews online. We also looked up when we were supposed to go for the appointment, and the internet at the time said 8 weeks. We also found out that you had to count the number of weeks or days from the first day of the last period, which is weird because the woman isn't even pregnant yet at that point, but whatever.

So we waited till it was week 8 and we visited the doctor. In the meantime, I was listening to podcasts about pregnancy. I wanted to know what it was like. The podcast I was listening to was quite reassuring, because they said that there are so many symptoms and so many things could happen, and all these were normal. Yet at the same time, there were so many symptoms and you didn't know what was going to happen to you, which is scary.

I didn't even really consider that a miscarriage would happen. But I did do some research about when it was appropriate to tell people that I was pregnant, and they said after 12 weeks. It made sense just in case a miscarriage did happen and you'd have to tell everyone the bad news. So I did not tell my friends. We told our parents and I told my sister. She was disgusted, as expected lol. My partner actually told his friends, and I was like WHY did you do that? I'm not sure if he later regretted that decision.

Anyway, we were at the clinic on September 1st and there were lots of baby photos and success stories on the walls. It was colourful and supposed to look nice. We had to wait quite a while before it was our turn. We exchanged pleasantries with the doctor and I had to lie down to be examined. Just like I imagined, and just like in the movies, they put this weird gel on my stomach and they tried to look at whatever it was inside me through an ultrasound scan. Since it was a private clinic, it was fancy. When I lay there, I was facing this screen that was at a comfortable eye level. 

Anyway, the doctor said he couldn't see much so he had to use a different method. What he and the nurse did was to take out this extremely long device that looked longer than any dick I'd ever seen (yes even in porn), which made me freak out because I was like wtf how's that going to go into my vagina? And also, dicks are made of flesh. This device is some metallic thing that's harder than any dick will ever be. While I was freaking out on the inside, they smeared a fuck ton of lube on it. Up and down. The entire length of the device was covered. They said it was going to be fine, perhaps some minor discomfort. But nope. It was painful. I was shocked that the device could go in. And I just had to bear with it.

The doctor used the device (according to the internet it is called a transvaginal ultrasound) and poked around inside. I looked at the screen but it was all black and white and grey, and I didn't understand what was going on anyway. I couldn't make out anything. It was just random shapes and movements. The doctor found the embryo and took pictures of it. I think we got to keep the pictures, but I don't know where they are now. After I cleaned myself up and put my clothes back on, we sat at his desk and he told us the bad news: he couldn't find a heartbeat.

If I remember correctly, I just started crying. But of course, the doctor said that he would try to save the embryo. There were things that could be done. After some reassurance, I probably stopped crying and my partner asked him questions like whether or not my terrible sleep schedule would affect the baby. The doctor said no as long as I had sufficient hours of sleep, and I was happy with his answer.

Again, I can't remember exactly but I think I had to go into a separate room to get my blood tested? I don't know. It was probably the same day. They basically found that my body wasn't producing enough of a pregnancy hormone. It was hCG or progesterone? We had to return the next day and they injected it into my body. I also had to take some tablets. Then they said I had to return a couple of days (or was it a week?) later so that I could take another shot. I joked that the baby was a druggie.

In short, I was poked and prodded a lot. It was gross and as always, I hate going to see doctors. 

Life went on as usual. I'm not sure what happened. But I already had a bad feeling once the doctor said that there was no heartbeat. I knew that it wasn't going to happen. And if it was going to happen, it wasn't supposed to happen like this. My partner tried to stay positive for me. He tried to cheer me up but I was pessimistic.

On the day of the second injection, I started bleeding on the way home. It was just a little bit of blood so we thought it was spotting. And spotting was normal during a pregnancy. I mean, if you asked the internet about it, they would say so. Like I said, there are so many possible symptoms that you might get during a pregnancy. It could be spotting, but it could also be the start of a miscarriage! Who knows?

Anyway, obviously as you can see from the title of this post, it was the latter. It was a Saturday night and I couldn't sleep because of the pain inside my uterus. And at that time, I would usually sleep early (or at least earlier than I normally would) because I had a morning lesson to teach on Sunday. But I couldn't sleep because of the pain. It was like period cramps, but ten times more painful and therefore ten times worse. I could sleep through cramps. In fact, sleeping through cramps is the best way to not deal with it. But this pain kept me up. I went to the toilet and sat there hunched over, in pain and bleeding out from my vagina. I didn't switch on the light because I didn't want to disturb my husband, but in the end he's such a light sleeper that he woke up anyway and I had to tell him what was going on.

He panicked a little. Obviously I was in great pain so he offered me panadol, but I wasn't thinking straight so I said no, I'm pregnant so I shouldn't be taking random drugs. Then he went to call the doctor and even though it was the middle of the night he managed to get hold of him? So the doctor told him to bring me to the nearest hospital and that panadol was ok. 

I put on a huge pad and ate some panadol. He drove me to the nearest hospital. By the time we reached the hospital, the panadol was starting to kick in and I was feeling better. It was 2021, so we had to wear masks and he wasn't allowed to accompany me in due to covid-19 restrictions. But the hospital was freakin' EMPTY. Was it 5.30am or something? 

A nurse told me to rate my pain and instinctively I was like, I don't know? How would I know how to rate my pain out of ten? What's the scale like? I felt like I needed to see some marking rubrics or something. Oh my god. What has the education system done to me? Anyway, I randomly told the nurse that it was 7, but now that the painkiller has kicked in so maybe a 3? She probably wrote it down. I don't know. But I later went online and the internet reassured me that 7 was appropriate to say, because 7 meant that it was so painful that you couldn't sleep. Yup, 7 was the correct answer. I still can't stop being a Singaporean student even when having a miscarriage lol.

I had to wait for the doctor to see me. Despite the fact that I was completely alone in the waiting room, I had to wait for a very, very long time. They told me this was because the gynaecologist who was on duty that night was still making her rounds. So I had to wait. But it was boring. The TV was on but there was nothing good from 5-6am. And you couldn't really hear the sounds from the TV well.

Then a nurse popped by and told me I had to do a urine test. I took the cup from her and went to pee, but there wasn't much pee. Instead, there was a lot of blood. So when I returned the cup to her, it was mostly full of blood. It was disgusting. The nurse looked at it and said that wouldn't do. I told her that the pee and the blood comes out together. She tried to show me how to pee into a cup by doing some kind of weird half-squat and putting the cup below her, which made me laugh. I wanted to tell her that it didn't help, but it was nice of her to try to demonstrate this to me. I listened to her and went to drink some water from the water dispenser, waited for a while, and tried again. She was happy with the second cup.

People in the medical industry are weird. But in a good way. They've seen it all and they don't care how stupid they look when they are trying to show you how to pee into a cup and not get all the blood from your vagina in there.

In the meantime, my partner had to wait outside. With the mosquitoes. 

Oh and the nurse came to tell me that the doctor was finally coming after finishing her rounds. She also told me that she waited for the blood to go down and she could take the pee sample from the top. 

I found out that the film on TV was called Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Jack Black and Steve Carrell were in it. 

Anyway, the doctor finally arrived, and I went into the room where she was. It was a female doctor, which was oddly comforting. My pad was already almost full at this point. When she told me to lie down so that she could examine me, I was like really? I have to pull down my pants? There's a lot of blood, and I'm going to leave blood everywhere and stain the examination table. She said it's ok, she'll put paper towels. So fine. I lay down and she examined my bloody vagina. 

She used the same device (Google says it's called a transvaginal ultrasound wand) that was used on me at the private clinic and showed me the ultrasound images. It was on a screen to my right, and I had to crane my neck to look at random black shapes. Then she told me that it was gone. And I replied, good. I think she was surprised to hear that. Maybe she expected me to cry. I don't know. I was too tired and all I felt was relief.

She poked me a lot to remove the bloody tissue that was in the vagina. It felt like she was scraping stuff out of me. And she put the bloody tissue in a container and showed it to me afterwards and asked me if I wanted to see it, causing me to back away from her in disgust which then caused her to laugh. Yeah, like I said, medical people are strange. She said some people would like to keep it and I said ewwww no need, thanks. She told me the cup of bloody stuff was going to be taken to the lab for testing just to make sure that everything was ok. I would have to come back for another appointment. 

She said she'd prescribe me medicine to pass everything out, and also strong painkillers in case it became even more painful. I think this was because I emphasised how concerned I was about the pain. It was nothing I've ever experienced before. Also, she told me that it was going to be like a period but if I'm soaking through pads in 2 hours I have to go back. I would have gotten a 1-week MC if I was working at a company, but as a freelancer I didn't need to show anyone an MC.

I went to the counter to get the medicine and gigantic pads. By the time I came out of the hospital, it was 7.30am. I cancelled my lessons for the day and we went back home to SLEEP.

Oh yeah. This was 12 September 2021. But the story didn't end there. Because as the doctor said, I had to go back for the follow-up appointment on 20 September.

Oh wait. Before that. Even though I would get a 1-week MC as mentioned, I went back to work. As a freelancer my timetable was pretty chill anyway, and I was already fine. I think most of the blood came out on the day I went to the hospital, and it wasn't that painful anymore. I was worried for nothing.

On 16 September, I was supposed to meet my secondary school friends for dinner. These gatherings are arranged way in advance and I usually attend. I should've told them sooner that I couldn't make it. I only said that I wasn't coming at the very last minute. Told them not to order dinner for me. Told them I was too tired and went to the hospital on Sunday and was still on MC. It was strange. I was deliberately vague since I didn't know whether I should tell them I had a miscarriage. According to message history, I only told them on 25 September. I didn't go into detail though. I didn't feel like talking about it.

Anyway, back to the appointment on the 20th. My mother volunteered to go to NUH with me, so I had to eat lunch with her. Of course we updated our parents and my sister about the miscarriage. I was so glad I didn't tell anyone else. My partner had to update his friends too. I was kind of like see, you shouldn't have told.

Going out with my mother is exhausting. We went to the hospital and my mom brought me to a shop that sold ugly noodles. Not worth the money. I didn't like my mother's decision to eat there. We waited at the hospital for my turn and she annoyed me by saying that if I was pregnant I didn't need to work so much and I could just rest for a year. I was like shut up, no more baby already. She kept complaining non-stop about her husband (my father) as usual. I started regretting going to the hospital with her. But at the same time, I hated going to see the doctor so I preferred to have company. Ugh.

I can't remember what time the appointment was supposed to be. Maybe 2-2.30pm? We were on time and I thought I could still make it to my 5pm lesson. But we ended up waiting the entire afternoon so I cancelled it. Public hospitals are dumb.

While waiting, a random woman came up to me and politely asked me if I wanted to take part in some kind of research study or whatever. She assumed that I was pregnant. I told her I wasn't.

And this was when I lost it.

I thought I was fine and I was perfectly fine when I found out that it was gone. I said 'good'. Even before the miscarriage, I already knew and kept saying that it was dead. Or it was never alive, since there was no heartbeat. It was just an embryo, a clump of cells.

But to have to sit there in a waiting room full of pregnant women? And to be asked to take part in a study for pregnant women? I don't know. I lost it. It hit me hard. I was fucking pissed. How dare you assume that I'm pregnant? I could be here for a variety of reasons, right? Why couldn't this person ask all the other women who were visibly pregnant? Why ask me, of all people?

Maybe because I verbalised it. I said I'm not pregnant. Then I felt sad and angry. I held in my annoyance until the random woman left. I was so triggered that I started crying.

My mom was like, what's wrong? This horrible woman. She was with me the entire time, but she was probably too engrossed ranting about her husband in her head that she didn't notice what happened right in front of her. Or maybe she was watching TV. I think that might explain why she was quiet.

(To clarify: when I said I lost it, I don't mean I started crying hysterically like a mad woman. No. We were in public. But yeah, I lost control of my emotions)

I hate feeling this way. I hate self-pity. In a room full of pregnant people I start thinking: why do I have to suffer a miscarriage when other people have pregnancies to term? But also like, boo fucking hoo. Woe is me! It's no big deal. It's actually very common. Having a miscarriage during the second or third trimester would be way worse. So yeah, on one hand I'm sad and I want to cry, and on the other hand my inner voice is like STOP CRYING SELF-PITY IS PATHETIC AND STUPID. But also, my feelings are VALID. Ugh, so confusing.

When I finally saw the doctor, she said it was normal pregnancy tissue. Nothing was wrong with me. My mother asked if it was a blighted ovum, and I don't know what that is. The doctor said we should ask the private doctor because he did the initial scan. I don't really know or care. I can't remember if I was crying again.

The doctor said to wait for two cycles before trying to get pregnant again. And then they poked me again down there to see if everything was fine. My ovaries are healthy. Everything came out. My uterus is empty. Whoosh. All gone. By the time we left, it was 5pm which was supposed to be lesson time. This miscarriage was costing me money since I couldn't make it to lessons. Annoying.

And you know what? On the way out, they told me to come back a month later for yet ANOTHER follow-up. Why the fuck would I want to come back to a room full of pregnant women? To be poked? To wait for hours just to see the doctor? To miss opportunities to earn money? No fucking way. I did not go back. I later cancelled the appointment in October.

I felt angry. Like my body had betrayed me. It didn't do the thing it was supposed to do. It was unfair. Why were all these women pregnant and I wasn't?

See, society is fucked up. They have you believe, ever since you're a girl, that you're supposed to get married, get pregnant and have kids. And in the media, you see pregnant ladies all the time right? On television, in movies and all that.

And how is miscarriage depicted? Usually, the pregnant character gets pushed by a violent person. Like a criminal. Maybe a robber, a terrorist, or an abusive husband/boyfriend. Maybe the pregnant lady in the story was in a hostage situation. Or a car accident. I don't know. Take your pick. As long as it's stressful, chaotic, violent, messy and dramatic. Not to mention, she's also usually HEAVILY pregnant. Then when she falls down or gets pushed or when the car crashes, she gets hurt and blood starts trickling down her leg. That's when you know she miscarried.

So that's what I thought a miscarriage looked like. I guess it makes sense in the film/media industry because that's the most visual kind of miscarriage. But it's so stupid because most miscarriages actually happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, when you don't even know that the woman is pregnant. But nobody talks about this or portrays it in the media.

After the miscarriage, my father told me that it was ok because my mother had a miscarriage before too. And I was like, well why didn't she talk about it? Why does no one talk about it?

And of course it's the shame. According to my sister, my mom used to say that miscarriage happens to women who did something wrong in the past. Wtf? What kind of dumb boomer belief is that? And this was coming from the woman who miscarried before as well! At least, according to my dad. And she's a nurse. Not exactly a woman of science, though she likes to pretend that she is.

It's also because of the way miscarriage is portrayed in the media, everyone thinks that it's the woman's fault. Like oh, she shouldn't be out and about when she's heavily pregnant. Then she wouldn't have fallen down or gotten pushed!

But what about the men? What if it's their lousy sperm? It takes two hands to clap. But no, people blame women all the time. (To clarify, I'm not saying my husband's sperm is lousy. I don't know, I don't care. He didn't get checked so who knows. That's not the point I'm making) It could just be bad luck. Shit just happens. Why blame it on anyone? 

Anyway, I told my uni best friend about the miscarriage. It was probably when we hung out after we attended our classmate's wedding. I think he looked traumatised by my story. It was funny. He said I was crazy (or rather, siao) for not wanting to go to the hospital at first. I forgot to mention that earlier in this post. I'm very resistant about going to the doctor. I didn't want to go to the hospital because I read online that it could happen naturally at home, and I didn't want to have to go through some kind of procedure. I thought I could just deal with it on my own, to be honest.

I also told my secondary school best friend. He was sympathetic too, and he even treated me to a meal that was delivered right to my doorstep. (Covid times) But at some point he made an insensitive comment. He told me to go make more babies, as a joke. I told him it wasn't funny and he apologised. It was too early for such jokes.

I vaguely remember someone asking me if I did anything wrong. I can't remember who it was. But I think it was a guy, and he asked me if I might have done something to cause the miscarriage to happen. By accident, of course. I got angry. It was a dumb question.

I've told the story at least twice on Twitch live streams so far. It's an interesting story even though it made me feel all sorts of feelings. And I think in general, we should talk about miscarriages more.

Oh yeah also, I was getting upset seeing people posting their babies all over social media, so I muted a bunch of their Instagram stories. They are still muted now. Thankfully, most of them are acquaintances and not actual close friends, so I don't have to meet them or talk to them. One of the people I muted was my partner's friend. He thought that my partner would be the first out of their friend group to have a baby, but in the end it was him! Ironic, isn't it?

I forgot to mention that I think the doctor (or was it the nurse) at the hospital asked me if I had passed out something. I don't know what it was. I forgot what she said. Maybe I was being asked about the gestational sac? Whatever it was, I said I had no idea, because I was using the toilet in the dark. Also, I wasn't looking at what was inside the toilet bowl. Actually that was a good thing, because if I had seen something, I might have freaked out. And even if I had seen something, I would not have known what it was anyway. But still, ever since then, I always switch on the light when using the toilet. 

Oh and when we attended my sister-in-law's wedding in 2022, some relatives asked my husband if we were having a baby. He wanted to tell them WE TRIED BUT IT DIED LOL (to be precise, he wanted to say: 去年有，可是死掉了) but obviously you couldn't say that to traditional boomers. And you can't say inauspicious things at a wedding. And they could start speculating that it's my fault or something. We live in a very stupid world.

Then Taylor Swift released her album Midnights in 2022 and now every time I hear the song Bigger Than The Whole Sky I end up crying too. 

So anyway, I'm ending off this really long post with my thoughts on having a baby. Right after the miscarriage, people said we could try again. Friends and family members said that. Even medical staff seemed to assumed that we would try again, since they told us to try again in two cycles or whatever. But I can't do that anymore because the miscarriage was already so painful. Can you imagine what childbirth would be like? I can't. I don't understand how women willingly go through this shit. We already have to bleed and have menstrual cramps every month and a bunch of other symptoms against our will. And to add on to that, miscarriages and pregnancies too? And what if there were complications? It's insane. No mentally sane person would put themselves through such pain, which has made me realise that people who have given birth before are all mental.

And speaking of symptoms, I feel like so many pregnancy symptoms, or maybe even perhaps all pregnancy symptoms, are also PMS symptoms. For example, spotting could mean your period was coming. But it could also be implantation bleeding! Nausea and/or vomiting? Period or pregnant! Fatigue? Cramping? Swollen boobs? Mood swings? Food cravings? Period... or pregnant! It's all the same shit, just that if you're pregnant it'll last for 9 months straight! And it's probably a fuck lot worse! So it wasn't surprising that a miscarriage felt like I was having extremely bad period cramps that were ten times worse than usual. So what was childbirth gonna be like? 100 times worse? Unbearable pain? 10/10 when rating your pain? No thanks.

Encanto (2021)

I finally caught up with everyone else and watched some Disney movies recently! Because of the pandemic, I don't really like going to movie theatres anymore (Why torture yourself and sit in an ice cold room where you can't adjust the air conditioning? You'd also need to put on a mask and you can't hit pause when you have to pee... so many disadvantages honestly)

The Disney movies I've watched this year are Luca, Cruella, Encanto and Turning Red. And all of them are good! Like what the heck! I thought at least Cruella was going to be a movie I didn't like because Maleficent was boring. But yes, Cruella was surprisingly good too.

Usually in a movie with lots of characters, you can get confused and you may find some characters boring, but nope. All the characters in Encanto were different from one another, and each one was so fun and fascinating to watch.

I think therapists are more well-equipped to discuss Bruno's OCD and how the family treats him as the identified patient or the black sheep of the family, so I won't be talking about that. But I'm sure everyone would agree that it was heartbreaking to find out that Bruno was living in the house all along, even eating with the family from behind a wall. It was also sad that Dolores could hear him but nobody actually cared about what she said (as shown in 'We Don't Talk About Bruno').

When I googled 'Encanto' to read some reviews and opinions on the movie, I realised that a commonly searched question was this: Why did Mirabel not receive a gift?

There were many theories but the one that I agreed with the most is that Mirabel is poised to take over from Abuela. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. Both Abuela and Mirabel seemingly have no powers

Mirabel sings a whole song at the beginning introducing her family and each of their superpowers, and guess what? Abuela and Mirabel are the only two in the family without obvious superpowers. 

Nobody questions Abuela because she's the head of the family and the miracle didn't find them only after her husband died, so there's that. But we're talking about magic here. The candle could've given her magical powers like superstrength if it wanted to. Yet it didn't. Because Abuela has to 'run the show' (from the song 'The Family Madrigal') and that's already a lot of work. She had to raise triplets, run a household and build a new village entirely from scratch. Seemingly without powers.

And I say 'seemingly' because her power is actually there - her connection to her house, Casita. 

Mirabel has no powers and didn't get her own room. My theory is that she was meant not to get any powers because she already has her own powers - the power of communication, the ability to empathise, the determination to solve problems, and the strength to bring her family together. 

In the film, we see that her sisters were facing their own personal problems (Luisa is burnt out while Isabel strives to be perfect) but didn't talk to anyone about them - they only opened up to Mirabel. The cracks in Casita symbolise the cracks in the Madrigal family, and only Mirabel was able to make the cracks disappear (as seen in the song 'What Else Can I Do?'). Their family was broken and only Mirabel bothered to patch things up and save the magic. Who's supposed to do that? Oh yeah, the head of the household, of course!

2. Both have made sacrifices

Abuela and her husband sacrificed everything to get their family to safety. They had to abandon their home, and Pedro sacrificed his life to get rid of the attackers. Then Abuela had to rebuild her entire life without her husband.

Mirabel has things relatively easy compared to Abuela, but her sacrifice was obvious as well. Her cousin Camilo receives a great deal of attention for his shapeshifting abilities and so does Isabela, for she has the tendency to descend majestically from vines. Unfortunately, Mirabel has to give up the joy of receiving a gift and being in the spotlight. She has to fade into the back and do more of the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff that people do not necessarily see or appreciate. That includes going to Bruno's tower and searching for his vision, for instance. 

The sacrifice that she makes also includes becoming the black sheep of the family because after Bruno left, she took his place, judging by the way Abuela and Isabela (probably influenced by Abuela) treats her. 

But Casita has chosen Mirabel, and this is also apparent when we see how much Casita listens to her. When the house fell apart, Casita pushed everyone else out and only kept Mirabel inside to let her grab the candle, then shielded her from the falling debris.

Mirabel might be rather sad at the start of the film that she doesn't have a gift, but she's only 15 and at that age all you want to do is fit in. She's the odd one out and Abuela even insinuates that she can't do much to help when it came to preparing for Antonio's gift ceremony and tells her to step aside. She grows as a character and by the end of the movie, she realises what she said at the start of movie is true - gift or no gift, she's just as special as the rest of her family. The door at the end of the movie proves it. 

3. Their decisions affect everyone

Even though Abuela evidently did a good job raising her family after her husband had passed on, she's losing her touch and that's why Casita chose a successor for her.

Abuela's decisions affect all of them, and in the movie, we mostly see that she's made some bad decisions. Her opinion of Bruno has caused everyone in their family to blame Bruno for all their troubles. He's ostracised by everyone in town and knew that Mirabel will be ostracised too if he told Abuela his vision, so all of this caused him to run away. 

Her decision to have Mariano be engaged to Isabela ("What a perfect match" she says) has caused Isabela to crack (as seen in how she fretted about his arrival and repeatedly told herself that she's fine in 'We Don't Talk About Bruno') and has caused Dolores to feel sad because she's the one who actually likes Mariano. 

Most importantly, all of them feel that they can't stand up to Abuela despite how unhappy they truly are. Even when they do, their voices aren't heard.

Mirabel's parents, for instance, do stand up for her. It was when the family found out about the vision and Abuela was berating Mirabel's dad for attempting to keep it a secret. Mirabel's mum finally says 'You've always been too hard on Mirabel' and on cue, a crack forms in the wall behind Abuela. A visual indication to show that Julieta and Abuela's relationship has now become strained. But Abuela was more concerned about the miracle and the house than the people in her family.

Mirabel's decisions affect everyone too. Bruno even explains that his vision changes. There's no clear fate and it depends on what Mirabel chooses to do (to hug Isabela or not, for instance). It was her decision to find Bruno, her decision to talk back to Abuela, her decision to make up with Abuela, and also her decision to rebuild their house with a new foundation.

And yes, the relationships in their family clearly needed to be repaired! I like how the house represents how healthy their relationships are. 

4. They are pillars of support

You can't deny how much Abuela has done for the family. She encourages them to use their powers to give back to society, and even though she puts pressure on them, it comes from a good place.

Mirabel is also a very supportive family member and literally sings all of their praises at the start of the movie. She lifts them up and the best example of this is when she was the only one who could find and reach out to Antonio when he was having the jitters about his gift ceremony. (Antonio later returns the favour and holds his hand out to her at the end of the movie too. How sweet!)

Three songs in the movie basically feature Mirabel lending a listening ear to her family members, namely 'Surface Pressure', 'We Don't Talk About Bruno', and 'What Else Can I Do?'. She's also the only one who bothered to seek Bruno out and promises him that after she saves the miracle, she was going to bring him home. And by the end of the film, we can see that everyone respects her even after they've lost their magical powers and there was no way of knowing if the door knob would actually restore it.

I can imagine Mirabel helping Antonio with his powers in future just like how she helped Isabela. And we already see that Mirabel has a good relationship with the kids in town. She represents the future of the Madrigal family and she'll be the next matriarch as she's the one in the middle of the new door. My guess is that Mirabel doesn't get a room because she'll be staying in the nursery, nurturing any future kids her cousins might have, and she'll get to inherit Abuela's room when she passes on.

This film is so great and the songs are so meaningful too. I can't help but to listen to the songs over and over again! And I cried so much while watching the movie. It was so good. 10/10 will watch again.

Getting Spooked Easily (Introvert Problems)

Shadow scratched me recently by accident. She was spooked by Snowy, who was hanging around sneakily or something, but I didn't realise that she was on edge. So when she came to the sofa, I tried to pat her and she jumped into the air, scratching me in the process.

I don't blame her at all because I didn't read the situation well and I realise that the both of us spook easily. This incident has inspired me to write about how I get spooked easily too.

1. Making friends online

It's difficult to make friends online when people around you are always warning you about potential scammers and creeps out there, especially if you are a girl. When I was thirteen, I was playing an online game and I met an Australian dude there. We were chatting and hitting it off but I suddenly stopped talking to him. I think it was because we had a talk in school about how dangerous it was to make friends online and how weirdos might tell you that they are 13 but end up being like 60, so I freaked out and just stopped.

I remembered his name and email address (I no longer do) so a few years later when I randomly thought about this, I searched for him online. Turns out that he was using his legit name and it was linked to the email address that he had given me. I was surprised and also thinking like, damn it. I could've made a friend!

In the past few years, I have managed to make some friends on Instagram because of our mutual love for cats. But I'm still super wary of weirdos and so I usually assume the worst of everyone by first jumping to the conclusion that the person is a creep. I don't follow back until I can confirm, after some time, that they are just fellow cat lovers.

Last year, I created an account on Twitch and so far it's been okay. Although most Twitch users are males, it is clear whether they are creeps or not. I have learned that generally, creeps send you private messages and ask you to do strange things like take off your underwear. Most of the dudes I've met there so far just want to talk about games though, so that's wonderful. It also helps if most people in group chats don't click on your profile and assume that you're a guy anyway. At first I thought it wasn't a good thing, but now I'm all like, "Yes, please keep calling me a 'dude/guy/mate' and keep using 'he/him' pronouns. Idgaf. It's safer that way."

P.S. I hope nobody's reading this and thinking, "Oh she's so full of herself! She's writing this and calling guys creeps, which means she thinks she's attractive etc." That's not it. That's just the way girls are brought up. We've been taught to be wary of men from a young age because they could be rapists, molesters, creeps and jerks.

P.P.S. Speaking of which, how many you males have been sexually harassed online before? I don't even use dating apps like Tinder but I have had such experiences. For instance, you'd think you'd be safe on Carousell, an app for buying and selling stuff. But nope, girls are harassed there too. I've been asked to try on clothes that are made of sheer fabric and send pictures of myself because I thought it would be good to be honest and tell people that the top or dress could be slightly see-through. I've been propositioned on Carousell and he said he'd pay me $50. How dumb and/or easy do they think I am?

2. Ordering food

As an introvert, I hate ordering food. I generally try not to make this too obvious, but I think friends who are closer to me might have sensed it, and those who are observant would have noticed my awkwardness. I love going on dates and playing the gender card so that my date would order my food for me. Sure, some people may think that I'm being a bitch and a fake feminist but I hate talking to strangers too much to care about that.

There are so many reasons why I hate ordering food. Firstly, as an introvert, I don't find it necessary to yell my order at people, even if I'm at a crowded place. This means that sometimes, I get the wrong order. Sometimes I just deal with it by taking whatever they give me without complaints, but at other times I have to awkwardly tell them that they've got it wrong -- like if they give me bowls of food when I actually ordered it to go -- which is a waste of time for everyone involved.

Secondly, there are strangers who stop to make conversations with you. For instance, I like eating caifan (rice with side dishes like meat and vegetables) and I order it quite often at hawker centres or food courts. It's fine when the people there just serve me what I want without making small talk. In recent years, due to my lip eczema, they might stop to point out that my lips are dry and/or flaking and tell me to drink more water because they think I'm dehydrated. They don't know that it's eczema and I don't bother to correct them unless somehow I've been feeling rather extroverted that day. (Can extroversion be a feeling? What I mean to say is that sometimes I feel more comfortable and confident talking to strangers I guess? It depends on the situation, my mood, the person whom I'm talking to, and possibly a bunch of other factors)

However, when conversations bother on creepy, I'll for sure get spooked and avoid eating there for a while. I might return if I really wish to eat from that stall again, or if the creepy person working there isn't there that day. For instance, some caifan uncles may call me "Xiaomei" which is fine, but it is weird if they start saying that I'm pretty or ask me if I'm single. They might just be friendly guys but I still get spooked because I don't like awkward conversations with random people.

One super awkward thing that happened was when I had to buy dinner for myself and John after work. It was a Saturday evening and I had lessons from 9am to 6pm, which means standing and teaching for about 8 hours. I was mentally fried when I walked up to the stall and placed my order in Mandarin. Guess what? I slipped up and the words came out of my mouth wrong since I was exhausted, and the dude laughed at me. Even though he knew exactly what I meant, he just had to embarrass me. Wow. I know my Mandarin sucks lah, but still! Anyway, I tried to avoid going back there as much as I could. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to return even after that awkward conversation because John forced me to buy from there since he liked the food. I haven't forgotten about the incident though.

Lastly, I hate ordering food because sometimes the people who take your order don't seem to even hear you or notice your presence. I'm not sure if it's just me or if the service in Singapore is shit. My most recent encounter was when I waited for someone to take my order at a stall in a food court. The lady in charge of this was busy, but when she returned to the counter, she took someone else's order even though that person appeared much later than I did and was queuing up behind me. I've never been more furious so I went back home with only John's food and had cup noodles.

3. Being snuck up on at night

I'm a night owl. I take forever to wake up and I'm extremely unproductive in the day. For instance, I just managed to clear quite a lot of work and I'm feeling pretty energetic even though I'm blogging at 3am.

Anyway, when the people living with me creep up on me in order to tell me to go to sleep, I get spooked! They're supposed to be sleeping!

When I lived with my parents, it was usually my mother who did this. She would shuffle her feet so I knew that she was coming and it wasn't so scary. My father would occasionally scold me and I would immediately go to sleep because he would look pissed off. Now that I live with John, I get spooked because he doesn't make a sound when he sneaks up towards me! It doesn't help that I'm wearing headphones as well. I jolted upright and said "Ahh!" when John crept up from behind recently.

And of course, this could all be made worse if I'm watching, playing or thinking of something spooky.

4. Not answering the door

I used to play Neopets when I was a kid. When you create your Neopet, you get to choose their personality. One question was something like, "How does your Neopet greet others?" And there were a few options but those I remember are as follows:

a) Try and make friends

b) Approach with caution

c) Run away!

I think I would usually pick option (b) since option (a) was a little too friendly (Stranger Danger!) and option (c) sounded too cowardly. In hindsight, option (a) was probably for extroverts, option (b) was for ambiverts and option (c) was for introverts.

Anyway, IRL, I don't run away from others obviously but I do run away from strangers if they come to the door and they can't see me. When I lived with my parents, I'd just whisper urgently, "Mum! Answer the door!" and basically refuse to answer it myself unless she was stuck in the toilet. I would check the peephole and just tiptoe back into my room if it looked like someone who was just there to sell me something I didn't need.

It's still ok if the strangers at the door are simply there to deliver food or other stuff that we've ordered online. But it really sucks when the door is left open for fresh air and someone we have not been expecting comes up to the gate. Then they'd see me sitting there on the sofa and it'll be awkward not to respond, so I'd have no choice in those situations.

In recent years, I live with John and he has always been answering the door as well. Once, I heard a sudden knock on the door and jumped up in surprise. Then, I ran away from the door and realised that Shadow was doing the exact same thing! LOL.

5. Avoiding strangers on the street

People on the street have spooked me multiple times. There was this funny incident that happened to me relatively recently. I was shopping alone at Westgate and just strolling about, completely lost in my thoughts and probably also drinking milk tea at the same time. Then, out of nowhere, this young lady came up to me and said, "Hi! I'm actually from Westgate!" (I'm not even kidding. This was exactly what she said)

I didn't know what the heck she wanted from me, but she spooked me and shocked me out of my reverie, completely causing me to lose the feeling of peace and tranquility that had descended upon me at that time. So I probably gave her an incredibly judgmental stare and just walked away.

Then I went home and laughed about it. But I also felt a little bad because she was probably just trying to do her job.

There are some really pushy touts on the street. Some of them actually follow you down the street and even when you speed up, they speed up as well to match your pace. They can't take 'no' for an answer and they don't seem to understand body language. This sucks if you're in a rush or if you're an introvert like me and you simply hate talking to strangers.

I've tried my best to be nice by shaking my head and giving them dismissive waves or smiles to indicate my disinterest but they are so persistent. Even when I'm trying to be nice, I can get insulted. I remember some guy calling me "rude" when I tried this. What a loser. I can't remember what else they've said but trust me, there have been many other stupid comments.

So I've decided not to be nice and nowadays I just pretend not to hear them instead. I'll look at my phone and pretend to be completely absorbed with what I'm doing. This doesn't work sometimes because the salesman on the street might say, "Oh! Playing Pokemon Go?" or something like that in a most irritating manner. Ughhh. Don't fucking look at my screen and give me some privacy!

Ever since I was a teenager, evangelists have approached me on the streets. And I've always hated it. Why do they even do this? No offence to your religion, but what makes you assume that I'm not spiritual? What makes you think that I'm unhappy with my lack of religion? What makes you think that I'm unhappy at all? What makes you think that I need your help? What makes you think that you are in the position to give absolute strangers advice and tell them what to do with their lives when you don't know a damn thing about them? Isn't it very high and mighty of them to think that they have all the answers?

One of them actually chased after me and followed me all the way to the bus stop so I had no choice but to listen to her there. I was praying so hard for the bus to arrive but I was forced to listen to a sermon that wasn't well-explained. When the bus came, I said "bye!" and rushed off. I was so relieved!

Regardless of race, language or religion

There's been a lot of talk recently about race and religion, and all these discussions are understandable since there's been so much going on. I'm sure I don't need to refresh anyone's memory because it's all pretty recent and still in the forefront of most of our minds and social media pages.

I just decided to sort of weigh in with my own experiences.

Obviously, I first need to acknowledge that I'm a Chinese person in Singapore and I'm aware of my privilege. However, it has become extremely disturbing and deeply disconcerting that some of my fellow Chinese Singaporeans are unable to even come to terms with their own privilege and what racism in Singapore looks like. 

Some of them seem to be in disbelief, still ignorant that there's racism in Singapore. Others somehow decide to play the victim and become defensive, claiming that Chinese people can also be at the receiving end of racism in Singapore. 

To me, it is not at all shocking that racism exists in Singapore. It has always existed. The shocking thing is how people are blind towards their own prejudice.

The other shocking thing is how some Singaporean Chinese people simply do not understand that the issue here is about how minority races are being treated, and therefore as a Chinese person, we are part of the majority and we shouldn't be jumping in to play victim when we are the oppressors. Just no. To be completely honest, it just makes us look foolish. 

My concern with the issue is how Chinese Singaporeans appear to be uneducated when it comes to matters of race and religion. Sure, Singaporeans are supposedly highly educated. We have high PISA scores and whatnot. But whoa, when it comes to race and privilege, some Chinese Singaporeans appear to know nothing and are trapped in their own bubble of privilege. When others try to poke at it with reasonable, logical arguments, these Chinese Singaporeans are afraid that their bubble might burst and their privileges disappear and so they act out.

It is revolting, akin to pampered children lashing out at parents who have spoiled them.

So why are these Chinese Singaporeans uneducated? To me, it is because when we go to school, we aren't taught about what race and religion truly is.

Here's my experience.

When I was a kid, I went to a SAP school. Everyone there was a Chinese person. As a kid, I was "colourblind" and could not tell the different races apart. (I know that the term "colourblind" is not a great term to use when discussing racism because it can be used by people who do not wish to discuss racism and confront their bias, but I'm just telling you that hey, I was a dumb kid, alright?) 

Then came Racial Harmony Day. In my primary school and in most schools, we'd dress up in ethnic costumes, learn about different cultures through games, songs, and food. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember learning about the three different races: Chinese, Malays and Indians. I remember being taught that Malays wear tudungs and Indians wear saris. 

I also remember a rich Chinese schoolmate of mine who came to school wearing an expensive-looking sari from Little India to show off. 

Thankfully, I did not do well enough for PSLE and managed to go to a neighbourhood school. I think that, above all else, saved me from becoming an ignorant Chinese Singaporean.

When I was at this neighbourhood secondary school, I was somehow still placed in an all-Chinese class despite the fact that there were Malay and Indian kids in my cohort this time. This didn't matter, because we were all forced to join a CCA, and there were two Malay girls who were in my CCA. (I told them that they were my first Malay friends and in hindsight, I've learnt that that's another dumb thing to say even if it's true)

We, the ignorant Chinese people, had a lot of questions for them, especially when they were fasting. They were happy to oblige and taught us about their culture.

There was an incident in secondary school that stuck with me. One of my CCA seniors is a dark-skinned Chinese person. She hung out with another senior, who's an Indian. She told us that when the two of them were taking public transport, some mean Chinese ladies said offensive things about them in Mandarin, thinking that my seniors couldn't understand. So my seniors glared at them and started speaking in Mandarin too, much to their shock, and they awkwardly moved away.

In my teenage mind this was extremely cool. I knew that my Chinese senior could speak Malay as well, and my Indian senior could speak Mandarin. It was a classic "Don't judge someone by the colour of their skin" story and I loved it. I loved how the Chinese person stood up for her friend and stood up against racism. 

However, this story alone also shows that if you are a minority with dark skin, you'll be discriminated against. And minorities have to pick up some Mandarin in order to survive, while Chinese people can get by without worrying about language barriers. 

After 14 years of being surrounded by Chinese classmates, I was finally put in a class with Malays and Indians. However, there was still one class in our cohort that consisted of only Chinese people, and that was the best class. Everyone there took triple science.

My class was the second best class because only half of us took triple science. And perhaps for timetabling purposes, students who took other Mother Tongue languages (i.e. students of other races) were put in the same class. However, again in hindsight, this is troubling. It can be seen as a microcosm of what's wrong in Singapore: that minorities are being treated as second-class citizens and will always be seen as second best.

But I didn't think much about it at the time. I liked going to school and I liked my new class. I was away from my lower secondary school classmates, some of whom were toxic and tended to make racist comments because all of us were Chinese and it didn't matter to them.

When I went home from school, I would tell my mother the things that had happened. In particular, I told her about three Indian boys in class who loved cracking jokes. They made our lessons more bearable by doing so. As I told my mum whatever story it was, she made me realise something that I hadn't realised before due to my uneducated mind: that race and religion were different.

According to my mother, one's a Catholic, the other boy a Muslim, and the last one's a Hindu. She could tell by their names and again, in hindsight, this should've been obvious. But it was a revelation to me when I was younger.

Why was this a revelation though? I have Chinese relatives. Some of them are Christians and some of them are Buddhists. Some, like myself, do not have a religion. I should've known that race and religion were different things. So why was this information considered new and somehow mindblowing? Well, I can point you exactly to what made this so confusing: what I learnt back in primary school during all those Racial Harmony Day assembly talks.

We weren't learning anything meaningful that would have contributed to the strengthening of bonds between the different races. That was how it was packaged on the surface but nope! What did we actually learn? Racial stereotypes. We learnt that Muslims are all Malays. Wrong. We learnt that all Indians were Hindus. Again, wrong.

Fast forward to university. I met an extremely privileged Chinese girl while I was there. She came from a wealthy background and an elite school. Perhaps even multiple elite schools. When I pointed out that something was racist, she said, "Aiya, everything to you is racist lah." 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Suffice to say, we didn't become friends.

Fast forward again to working life. I got a job easily and met my boss, a typical Chinese Singaporean uncle type. He spoke in not so perfect English, and also a little bit of Chinese. This was fine, I thought. His English isn't very good, and since we're both Chinese he spoke to me in a mix of English and Chinese. Nothing wrong with that, I thought.

Then I attended company meetings where people also spoke in Chinese. And it was... fine? But why was it fine? I was curious. Wondering if there were going to be any minorities telling us to "switch to Channel 5" like what usually happened in secondary school, I scanned the room. Everyone understood Chinese. Every single employee there was a Chinese person. Even the person with the darkest skin.

The company also emphasised that you needed to fit in with their culture. But what exactly was the company culture like? Isn't it just Chinese culture? But isn't Singapore a multi-racial society? It was extremely strange to me. 

I didn't work there for long. The next company I worked for was very different. It was much more organised and after being trained at headquarters, I was sent to a branch that was closer to my home.

To give some context, I worked for a tuition centre and had to teach English. Our team consisted of a good mix of Chinese, Malays and Indians. We were specially told to speak in English at all times, unless the customer spoke in another language. 

The students in particular were confused. They didn't understand why my colleague, who's an Indian lady, could speak Malay. She had to explain to them that she took Malay as her Mother Tongue in school.

The students were also confused because another colleague of mine, who's also an Indian lady, looks fairer and wear a tudung. They thought that she was a Malay. She had to explain to them that she's an Indian Muslim.

I'm glad that my colleagues and I had the chance to explain some of these things to them because they were already becoming more educated than I ever was when I was in primary school and knew nothing about race and religion because our Racial Harmony Day celebrations were inadequate.

Later, two male colleagues joined the team. One's a Malay man who's dating a Chinese woman, and the other a Chinese man dating an Indian woman. No one at the office said anything dumb to show that they frowned upon interracial couples, unlike what happened in the news recently. 

Once during a meeting, the front desk staff told us that there was a customer who specifically wanted a Chinese teacher. If I recall correctly, I was the only full-time Chinese tutor working there at that time. Of course, their professional response was that all our teachers are well-trained and so it didn't matter whose class you were in. However, behind closed doors, my instinctive initial response at the meeting was "What the heck? I don't want more students to teach! And what has being Chinese got to do with being a good teacher? I'm not going to speak in Chinese during class what right?"

My joke about being lazy and not wanting more work made my colleagues laugh. Looking back, I was probably the most outraged out of all of them as they were perhaps already used to such racism.

If you've read till this point, you might be thinking: what's the point of sharing these stories? 

Well, hopefully by this point, you might have made a few observations.

Firstly, as a Chinese Singaporean, none of these racist incidents were ever directed at me. (Of course, when I was in Australia, I experienced some form of racism, but that's irrelevant to the current discussion about racism in Singapore.) It was incredibly easy for me to look the other way when my classmates made racist jokes. It was incredibly easy for me to get a job at a company full of Chinese people. That's privilege. Many Chinese Singaporeans like myself have also probably never experienced racism or microaggressions in Singapore before. That's privilege too.   

As Chinese Singaporeans, we've never had to deal with systemic racism. Ever. And that's privilege.

Secondly, there is a huge problem in how we celebrate Racial Harmony Day. I've asked students about Racial Harmony Day before in recent years and it hasn't changed. They tell me that it's still celebrated the same way in schools: you can go to school dressed in ethnic costumes, and the school just reminds everyone about the 1964 race riots. When I ask them when the riots occurred, most of them couldn't even tell me it was 1964. Because they weren't paying attention. 

The students are BORED of the way Racial Harmony Day is celebrated. Why? Because it isn't meaningful at all, and it's the same thing every year. 

If Racial Harmony Day has been celebrated the same way a decade ever since I left JC, it means that generations of Chinese Singaporeans not learnt anything about racism in school. They've either had to learn about racism on their own through their minority friends (if they even have any), or look stuff up on the internet to educate themselves. Those who don't bother? They have been stereotyping others and living in their own world. They think that racism doesn't exist just because there aren't any riots.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a world where racism doesn't exist isn't reality. It's a dream. For years and years, we've just been avoiding the problem instead of seeking a solution.

If I had done well for PSLE and gone to yet another SAP school, I might be living in a bubble of my own too. My racist parents would continue saying racist things to me, and I wouldn't find that problematic like I do now. I would have spent my entire teenagehood continuing to not know anything about racism in Singapore until I became an adult, got a job and said stupid things to my co-workers like, "You're so pretty for an Indian!" Ugh.

So here's my suggestion and it's not mindblowing: change the way Racial Harmony Day is celebrated. Actually teach students about diversity. Get minority voices heard. Talk about racial stereotypes and why they're hurtful. Teach them about what microaggressions are. Encourage them to call others out for making racist comments. Teach them to stand up for what's right instead of simply doing what's convenient.

This is completely doable. As a tutor, I've called students out multiple times for making racist remarks in class. Also, I've seen a lesson on racism before. When I was an intern at a school, I observed an English Literature lesson conducted by a teacher who explained what the word "stereotype" means. Then, the teacher divided the class into groups and told them to write down all the racial stereotypes they have ever heard of before on a large vanguard sheet. 

The students did what they were told enthusiastically, but when they had to present these ideas, they realised that it was awkward and embarrassing to share these stereotypes with the rest of the class. They didn't want to be seen as racists nor did they wish to hurt any of their friends. But the teacher needed them to understand what racism is because they were reading and analysing the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" for class. 

But why should this only be done during English Literature class? Why should students get to learn about these issues only when reading a book that has to do with racism?

This brings me to by next point. Some keyboard warriors or trolls claim that ideas like "racism" and "white privilege" are imported from "the West" and these ideas are going to mess our society up. 

WRONG.

Racism has always existed. Don't act blur. Chinese parents and grandparents have been known to say racist things to impressionable children! Ask any average Chinese person. They wouldn't want to admit it, but they'd know what you're talking about.  

Privilege has always existed too. The concept of white privilege doesn't just apply to America, for instance. White privilege has affected basically the entire world in the form of colonialism. The "coloured" people of South Africa were oppressed under the apartheid system. The Aboriginals in Australia are oppressed because of white privilege. White tourists are treated better than non-white tourists in most places.

In Malaysia, Malays are in a privileged position. In Singapore, it's the Chinese. That's the truth that privileged people, including Chinese academics, wish to deny because they are afraid of losing their privileges. They are afraid of rocking the boat, afraid that the tides would turn against them somehow. 

I'm not an academic who studies critical race theory. But I'll try to do what's right. And racism is always wrong. So I'll continue calling it out whenever I can.  

If you're a Chinese Singaporean who supports racism, then I guess your racist parents and grandparents must be really proud of you. You will never marry someone of a different race. You will continue saying idiotic and hurtful things, then somehow be surprised when people call you out. You might never see the error of your ways even after being fired from your job. You might even end up spying for China, your beloved motherland. But I wonder how you sleep at night with such a wack moral compass.

Bong Joon-ho's Mother (2009) and Okja (2017)

During this circuit breaker period, we can finally catch up on shows and awesome films! Last week, I watched Okja and this week I watched Mother. Both were so damn good! So I'm going to review them in the same post since they were made by the same director. One left me in tears and one left me feeling mentally exhausted. Even though they are pretty different films, both made me feel that society is rather screwed up.

Okja (2017)

My friend Michelle recommended this movie to me and my friends while we were chatting on Zoom. She warned that after watching this movie, you might not wanna eat pork anymore.

Basically, Okja is the name of a genetically modified super-pig that was created by a company called Mirando Corporation, headed by Lucy Mirando. We are introduced to her in the first scene and she looks like Willy Wonka all dressed in white. She appears in front of press to explain her plans for the super-pigs that are supposedly going to revolutionize the industry. It sounds too good to be true and it is: she's pretending that everything is done naturally but it is all a lie. The pigs are test subjects and they were created in a laboratory. When Okja was recaptured, they attempted to force her to mate (probably weren't successful), tortured her, and got a chunk of meat from her for taste tests. Ugh.

That already says a lot about big businesses, the food industry and capitalism in general. So on the other side, we have the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which isn't a made up company like Mirando. IRL, they have been criticised for being violent terrorists who break the law in the name of helping animals. I'm not familiar with the work they do, but well, they weren't portrayed as the good guys either. (There's always a lot of grey area in Bong Joon-ho's films, which is why they are so popular)

Anyway, the protagonist of the film is Mija, a girl who lives with her grandfather on a farm, which is situated in the mountains. She's extremely close to Okja and the pig even saved her life instead of letting her fall from a cliff. Then in comes folks from the Mirando Corporation, including a crazy celebrity slash zoologist called Dr. Johnny Wilcox, played by none other than Jake Gyllenhaal. They inspect Okja and whisk her off to New York because she's the biggest pig and therefore the winner of the super-pig competition Lucy came up with ten years ago! When asked about his methods, grandpa said he just let her roam around freely. Free-range pork ftw!

Anyway, Mija leaves home and tries to get Okja back at all costs. As a character, she is portrayed to be an innocent girl who doesn't know what awaits her in the real world. It is easy to root for her because she just wants her pet pig back. It is her best friend and they grew up together! 

When the ALF swoop in to help her, they propose letting Okja get recaptured so that they can plant a camera on her and get videos of what really goes on in Mirando's facility. Jay, the leader, asks for her permission to go ahead with their mission - but she flatly declines and says that Okja should go home with her. This is no surprise. As mentioned earlier, Mija's goal is simple: get the pig and go home! But the Korean dude, K, mistranslates this on purpose and claims that she allows it.

On the other side, Lucy Mirando is pissed that the pig escaped in the first place. Their company would definitely suffer, so it is decided that they fly Mija to New York to see Okja in order to pretend that they actually care about her and her pig. They want to save the company from this PR disaster. Mija has not much of a choice but to go along with both the ALF and Mirando's plans. Even though none of this was surprising, it really irked me to see that all these adults were taking advantage of a young girl's wishes.

Mija and Okja are to meet on stage at a parade organised by Mirando - basically a huge marketing campaign. All hell breaks loose when the ALF reveals their presence by showing everyone a video of Oka being tortured. The members of the ALF try to help recapture Okja but most of them are arrested, except Jay and K. Thankfully, Jay insists on helping Mija and they drive to the slaughterhouse. It is a huge place and we immediately see a huge number of super-pigs kept in fences. Mija and the other two guys search for Okja desperately.

The scariest part of the movie is when Mija, in her search, realises that Okja is in the line of pigs headed up the ramp into the slaughterhouse. She goes in and sees meat hanging from above and blood dripping to the floor. Most of us don't wanna see how our food is being processed. We don't wanna know if it was genetically modified. Like what Nancy Mirando said when she took over from her twin sister Lucy: if it's cheap, they'll eat it. 

Thankfully, the person who is about to kill Okja stops when Mija shows up with a photograph of her and her pig. But Nancy appears too, all Cruella-De-Vil like, with her henchmen holding Jay and K back. She still intends to slaughter the pig because it is her property. Mija only convinces her to let Okja go when she buys Oka using the golden pig that her grandfather had given her as a present. Ugh. Typical.

The walk out of the slaughterhouse is basically the saddest part of the movie. Before this scene, there were plenty of jokes and funny moments in the movie. We met larger-than-life, comical characters like Lucy and Dr Johnny Wilcox (who both seem to have serious mental health issues by the way) and hilarious ALF members, including that one guy who doesn't eat much because he doesn't want to leave a carbon footprint on earth. It is clear that the director is making fun of vegans, animal rights activists, and greedy capitalists who take things to the extreme.

Mija walking Okja out of the slaughterhouse should be considered a victory. She finally got what she wanted. But it is not a victory at all and this was where I started crying. And no, I didn't just tear up. I cried until my nose was red. As she was escorted out, the other pigs were crying out in fear and in pain as they continued the killings. And unlike in other kid-friendly movies where the animals all get busted out of their cages and set free (see Rio 2011), this movie is way more realistic and that doesn't happen even if the evil villains seem one-dimensional and cartoon-ish. 

This scene is made sadder when two pigs, clearly a mother pig and a father pig, push their baby pig towards Okja to save it from its doom. Okja keeps the little one in her mouth and they somehow manage to smuggle the extra pig all the way back to South Korea. The ending may seem like a happy one since Okja is reunited with Mija and they are seen hanging out in the countryside again with the piglet. Yet it is anything but. Mija has been exposed to the cruel world out there but does not have the power to change things. Everything goes on as usual. 

I think having Mija as the young and innocent protagonist makes a lot of sense. Most of us can relate to the love she has for Okja, maybe because we are animal lovers and we have pets of our own. And most of us, at the back of our minds, know that animals are abused but we can't do much about it either. All we can do is to protect our own.

Mother (2009)

This movie is much, much darker than Okja. We are introduced to the main characters: a mother who lives with her intellectually-disabled son. It is never really specified what disability Do-joon has, but he is called a "retard" and an "idiot" throughout the movie, which gets him all riled up. He seems like an innocent boy who is simply slow and forgetful. He listens to his mom but is having a bit of a rebellious teenage phase. They are poor but they get by in their small neighbourhood. But then, a murder takes place and he's blamed for it, so his mother investigates and tries to clear his name.

For most of the film, we are led to believe that Do-joon is innocent. He was drunk when he followed the girl down that empty path and he did not mean to harm her in any way. With this notion of innocence firmly attached in our minds, we root for Do-joon's mother as she conducts her own investigation. At first the mother (and therefore the audience) thinks that the murder was committed by his friend, Jin-tae, who is a bad influence. When she's wrong, she gets a lawyer (an asshole whom she fires later), asks other women about the dead girl (Moon Ah-jung) when she gives them acupuncture, and bribes kids with coins for information as well.

We continue rooting for the mother when she and Jin-tae aggressively question some asshole punks about Ah-jung, who sounded like the village slut because she had sex with many guys and took compromising pictures of them, which she keeps in her precious phone. The boys were out looking for the phone but no one knows where it is. We root for her when she shows the pictures to Do-joon who's in jail, and he finally remembers an old guy whom he saw in the abandoned building who might be the murderer. Then, the movie reaches its climax when the mother enters the old dude's house, pretending to be someone from a charitable organisation who gives free acupuncture services.

This is when the plot twist happens. I did not see it coming at all, which is why I found it so brilliant: the old junk collector (or garung kuni) was hoping that acupuncture would allow him to forget a traumatising scene that he had witnessed. He unwittingly tells the mother what he had seen the night of the murder. The girl, creeped out by Do-joon, throws a rock in his direction and it lands at his feet. She calls him a retard. He throws the rock back and he hits her in the head. She bleeds. He carries her up to the roof and leaves her there to die.

The mother is shocked to learn that her son is actually a murderer. She says that Do-joon might be released, so the old man picks up the phone in order to tell the police what he had witnessed. But it's too late: he gets clobbered to death with a large metal tool and his house gets burned down. The mother has become a murderer. Her goal and intention is still to save her son and get him out of jail, but there is a huge difference between getting an innocent man off death row, and letting a murderer get out of jail scot-free.

As a result of this scene, the audience has to re-evaluate the way they perceive this mother. Looking back, I realise that I was completely wrong about her. We actually don't know much about the mother. Sure, we know what she does for a living and that she sleeps next to her son at night, but apart from that, we don't know who she really is. We don't even know her name!

It can be inferred that the mother is actually someone who is or used to be mentally ill and once had suicidal thoughts. This is evident when it is revealed that she once tried to poison Do-joon and herself with insecticide when he was five. When Do-joon confronts her about it, she goes completely off the rails and screams. She asks if she's allowed to perform acupuncture on him to make him forget about the incident, but obviously she can't. This makes me think that she was responsible for Do-joon's intellectual disability. It is unclear whether or not he was born with a disability, but consuming insecticide might have made it worse. And mum's acupuncture method might have made him the forgetful person he is as well.

Another major theme in the movie is the idea that society and the systems in place have failed us. At first, you'd think that the system has failed because the police had Do-joon, someone with an intellectual disability, sign a confession for a crime he didn't commit because he later told his mother that he didn't do it. However, at the end, the system did fail because Do-joon, the murderer is released and the police captured someone called Crazy JP, who was mentioned by some kids the mother questioned earlier and said to be Ah-jung's boyfriend who escaped from a sanatorium. They arrested him as they found her blood on his shirt or something. Crazy JP said she had a nose bleed, and we know that this is probably true because in a flashback, they showed Ah-jung and her friend entering a printing shop for some photos and when she had a nose bleed, her friend was like, "Not again!"

Apart from the police failing to catch the right criminal, lawyers are seen as jerks who have no time to sit down for a chat but have all the time in the world to drink and have fun with hostesses at a seedy karaoke place. The old junk collector was an asshole too: he told the mother about the murder that he had witnessed but he did not rush to Ah-jung's aid when Do-joon, the creepy drunk dude, was following her. He left out the actual reason why he was in the abandoned house in the first place: to meet Ah-jung and have sex with her like they had planned, which was why his picture was in her phone and why he had brought rice for her as payment. He could have prevented a murder or called an ambulance in time! 

Lastly, society has failed to look out for those who live on the margins. The mother visits Crazy JP and cries out of guilt when she realises that he has no family to look out for him. The system simply swapped someone out with an intellectual disability for another, since it's easy to pin the blame on them. The police concluded that Crazy JP tried to rape Ah-jung because didn't believe that Ah-jung would have consensual sex with him either. It is also clear that the mother is poor but resourceful enough to get enough money for the lawyer, and to pay Jin-tae to help with her investigation. Ah-jung's family lived on the margins too. Ah-jung had to take care of her grandmother, who was described as a "crazy old lady who walked around with rice wine". This also explains why she was known as the "rice cake girl" because she sold her body for rice and brought it home for her grandmother. Instead of helping her family out, society (or in this case men) sexually abused her, which is probably why she kept pictures of them for her own protection. 

Both families lack a father figure as well, which puts them at a disadvantage since we live in a patriarchal society. Do-joon's masculinity is also questioned by Ah-jung, and Do-joon seems rather hung up on the fact that he has not had sex with a girl before.

A scene that was rather strange was when Do-joon went back home to sleep next to his mother, but he placed a hand on her boob and she didn't mind. It was a scene pretty early on and I didn't think much about it but I found it weird. After the movie, I realise that this symbolises their unhealthy relationship. When the mother went off the rails, she screamed, "I was going to kill both of us! You and me are one!" 

This is an incredibly unhealthy way of thinking. You are your own person. Some parents think that what their child does reflects who they are. Sure, sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't. But you can't always be responsible for them and protect them forever. In this case, perhaps the mother did teach her son to be violent. She has violent tendencies of her own and her son exhibits those tendencies too. Whenever someone calls him a "retard", he lunges at them and lashes out. He even killed Ah-jung for saying that. When he gets beaten up in jail, she tells him off and he retorts that she was the one who told him to hit people if they bullied him. However, two wrongs don't make a right. He should've realised that name-calling shouldn't warrant attention, but his overprotective mother might have prevented him from learning this lesson earlier in life.

The mother's actions could also be interpreted as self-serving. Perhaps when Do-joon was diagnosed with a disability, people in their small town said that it might be heredity and thus she might have also been labelled as a "retard". She doesn't want an additional stigma: to be seen as the mother of a retard AND a murderer. She doesn't want to others to think that she had not taught him well. She tells everyone that her son wouldn't hurt a fly, because that is also how she wants society to see her: as an innocent old lady who wouldn't harm others. But when the idealistic image that she has of her son is shattered, she couldn't handle the truth and in that moment, decided to stoop to his level and also become a murderer - because they are one. It is an extremely unhealthy symbiotic relationship, and others have pointed out that this is similar to Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho.

Later, Do-joon gets out of jail and his friends pick him up. They stop by the junk collector's blackened and burnt house to see if they'll find anything interesting. Do-joon finds his mother's acupuncture kit and returns it to her. Understandably, she is shocked to see her charred metal box because it is evidence that she was there. Do-joon tells her to "be careful" and I think he doesn't realise that the phrase could mean two things. It could be an innocent reminder to be careful and not leave your stuff lying around, or could be an insidious way of saying that he suspects she killed the old man and she should be careful not to leave evidence behind. Ultimately, it sounds like the former, but the mother still freaks out.

The importance of one's memory features in the film heavily. The characters in the film want to forget about the bad things that have happened as mentioned earlier through the use of acupuncture. But Do-joon's mother has to press her son to remember what he had done the night of the murder. This is a problem right from the start, when his friend kicked down a car's side mirror but claims that Do-joon did it. Do-joon didn't deny it and so his mother had to compensate for the damage caused to the car. In the film, we also see Do-joon walking around drunk but the scene cuts back to how he got home and fell asleep, implying that he had forgotten what had happened in between.

When Do-joon got out of jail and returned home to eat with his mother, he said that perhaps the killer left the body on the roof so that everyone in town would be able to see her and get help. He says this so innocently and doesn't realise that he's justifying his own actions. This was what the police were baffled about as well. But Do-joon doesn't remember committing the crime just like how it took him years for him to remember about his mother poisoning him. These traumatic episodes are blocked out by his brain.

At the end, when the mother boards a bus that is meant take parents out on a trip and relax, she decided to use acupuncture to forget the bad stuff and joins the middle-aged ladies who are dancing in the bus. The film starts with the mother dancing in the field and ends with her dancing in the bus. It is supposed to be a happy dance or maybe even a victory dance. A dance of freedom. But since the audience knows the truth, watching her dance is unsettling.

The film is meant to be dark and disturbing. It can be argued that everything the mother does (poisoning her son, killing a man etc) is all for the sake of her child. She will go to great lengths just to ensure that her son is safely out of jail, whether he committed the crime or not. Do you agree with her methods? Would you do the same if you were in her shoes? Would you clean up after your child's mess like the mother did when she tried to cover up the Do-joon's pee on the floor?

Personally, I wouldn't. I think that the right thing to do would be to bring her own child to justice. You have to let go. You can't protect your child forever. Let him bear the responsibility of his actions, whatever they may be. But then again, I'm no mother, so what do I know? 

5 Reasons Why I Hated PE Lessons

I posted a poll on IG stories and most of you wanted me to blog about why I hated PE lessons so here you go!

1. Male PE Teachers

Looking back, I realise that none of my PE teachers were females. All of them were males! When I was younger I didn't know about gender inequality and didn't realise how many girls are discouraged from sport etc etc, and so I didn't think much about the fact that there aren't many female PE teachers. But now it makes sense. I can only remember one female PE teacher who taught us netball, but she wasn't actually my teacher. She was just conducting a session for us so that we could get our badge (I was in St. John).

And okay, not all of the male PE teachers were bad. In primary school, my favourite teacher was my English teacher who was my PE teacher too. And he allowed us to choose what we wanted to do and he even tried to teach us baseball, which I think all of us sucked at but at least it was something new.

I can only recall 4 PE teachers I've had, and all of them were totally different. There's one who was an awesome teacher (whom I just mentioned in the previous paragraph), and one who was friendly and encouraging. But then there's one who pretty much was just there to do his job and did everything by the book, and then there's one whom I hate and think should not have graduated from NIE in the first place. (See this post)

Male PE teachers also have a bad reputation for being perverts. Just look at the way Coach Carr was depicted in Mean Girls.

But that's not my experience and not the reason why I dislike male PE teachers.

For me, the main reason is basically how awkward it is to tell them that you're on your period. As an awkward teenage girl, how are you supposed to tell your male PE teacher about that? What do you say?

"Erm, sir, I can't do PE today because I just got my period last night and it's a super heavy flow and I have cramps that make me want to curl up and die? If this was the sixth day of my period I would take part in the activities, but I really can't today. It is just so disgusting to bleed and sweat in a large pad, and it's not like we have any time to shower after that."

Thankfully we obviously did not have to go into such detail and we would just say that we have our periods rather briefly and they'd leave us alone. But you can just tell from the looks of some teachers that they are completely judging us and don't believe us 100% that we have their periods because there's no way for them to check. Which is why it is so damn awkward!

This also leads me to my next reason.


2. Anxiety

I always felt anxious and nervous whenever there was a PE lesson coming up. And when I feel anxious, my stomach gets queasy. Like Chidi, from The Good Place.

Anyway, normally, PE lessons take place in the early morning or in the late afternoon.

I think I am a little lactose intolerant or something, but I didn't know this back then. My mother would make me drink some milo before going to school and this would give me a stomachache. I'd end up in the toilet in the morning. If I was lucky, I'd have the urge to go before morning assembly. Sometimes it was after morning assembly and before first period. Once, I had to stop singing the national anthem mid-way and just GO. It was embarrassing.

So sometimes, I might miss the first part of the PE lesson, and when I return from the washroom, the teacher would look at me like I was trying to skip the lesson.

And I didn't just end up in the washroom in the morning. Sometimes, after running for a while, I would feel like going to the washroom as well. And again, when I returned, the teacher would look at me in a judgemental way. But I had no choice right? Did they expect me to poop my pants? Nobody told me that there was such a thing as "runner's stomach". (Just thinking about all of this gives me anxiety wtf)

And obviously, when there's PE, it means that we have to bring our PE attire.

If you knew me when I was in school, you'd know that I'm the kind of student who would avoid getting into trouble. But there's a good reason why I felt anxious about PE lessons to the point that by the time I was in JC, I would sometimes "accidentally" forget to bring my PE attire so that I could just sit the lesson out.

Every PE lesson can be anxiety-inducing and traumatising because it can feel as if every single person in the vicinity is watching your every move. It's not just your classmates, but also other classes nearby having PE, other people walking around the school compound, and other students having lessons upstairs might also look down at you to see what you're doing.

To make matters worse, there are things such as height and weight measurements and NAPFA tests that we have to go through. You basically need to get your weight measured in front of the entire class! I was underweight or had borderline acceptable weight most of the time and I was already feeling anxious. Can you imagine how horrible it is for people who have weight issues?

NAPFA tests are the worst. The class is usually only split into two, girls and boys, because of the different expectations based on gender. But there's only one PE teacher recording all the scores. So basically when you're carrying out the exercises, at least half of the class is watching you because they have nothing else to do. Then if you fail, everybody knows. It's not like your grade is on a piece of paper and you can hide it.

Anyway, this brings me to...


3. NAPFA Tests

Why were annual NAPFA tests even necessary? I just found out that now, students only have to take the NAPFA test once in two years. That's much better, but it still remains a pointless exercise for everyone involved.

Maybe there was a point in making us do these six things, but it was never communicated to us. In the article above, they explained why these exercises will help soldiers to be strong. But what about students and everyday civilians? I tried to rationalise it in my brain but I simply couldn't figure it out.

"Okay, I have to do a standing broad jump. Maybe this would be useful to me in future when I come across river rapids and I have to jump from one rock to another. But if that happened, couldn't I just jump in a more natural way instead of putting my feet together and swinging my arms stupidly? And in the first place, why would I even go to this river if I didn't have a raft and there wasn't a bridge? That's just poor planning isn't it?"

Would soldiers actually do this when they encounter "low walls, drains and ditches"?

There are many things we learn in school that we don't actually need in future, such as advanced trigonometry. The NAPFA test is similar to that. You'd think that we'd learn to keep fit during PE lessons and have fun while we're at it, but nope. NAPFA tests made us stressed out! I don't think that your fitness level is supposed to be partially measured by sitting in a contraption, strapping your legs down and pushing a piece of metal as far as you can. The final number at the end doesn't prove that you're fit at all.

I mean sure, the sit-and-reach test shows that you're flexible, but that's not the same thing as being fit right? And besides, do I really need the ability to touch my toes?

When I was in primary school, I was pretty much good at everything except sit-ups. I scored well at all the stations, including the inclined pull ups. But I just couldn't do sit-ups! It was frustrating because it was supposed to be the easiest station of all and everyone else could do it. I felt humiliated because I couldn't do it. I would have gotten a gold or silver if I could.

Sometimes, I would somehow manage to scrape by. Another method was to cheat. I would tell the person holding down my legs to add a few extra sit-ups to my score even if I didn't do it. As far as I can recall, I was caught cheating twice. The teacher in secondary school made me redo my sit ups in front of him and I think I passed because he left me alone after that. I can't remember. But in JC I still couldn't pass and my PE teacher told me that it was important to do sit ups so that I would be able to sit up on my own when I was older.

First of all, that piece of information didn't help me in any way because he did not actually tell me how I could go about getting better at it, if I should practise doing sit ups every single day, or if I was doing anything wrongly. Secondly, if what he said was to motivate me to practise harder, it didn't work at all. Sure, everyone wanted to do well in primary school at first. But by the time we got to JC, most of us girls didn't care whether we passed the test or not. It was more important to the guys since they were going for National Service.

Thirdly, I tried rationalising this piece of information in my head and it didn't make sense. When I want to sit upright, I can just use my hands to push myself up. Why must I cup the back of my ears with my hands and sit up?

And finally, I was already upset that I haven't been able to do sit ups for years. Getting me to stay behind and talking to me about sit ups, while everyone else gets to take part in other activities, is basically another way to humiliate me. Like I mentioned in the previous point, everyone else can see what you're doing during PE.

I think the worst thing my JC teacher did was to NOT record my 2.4km timing. I remember completing the run and feeling extremely relieved, because this meant that I could head off to the nearest toilet to relieve myself. But when I came back, he thought I had not completed the run. Wow. What a jerk. I sincerely hope that he is no longer in the teaching service.

The next point is something that could make me sound like an anti-feminist (which I'm not by the way) but here goes.


4. Gross Girls

This is linked to the fact that PE teachers are usually male. Due to this phenomenon, there are girls out there who have developed rather annoying tendencies.

If your male PE teacher is fit, young and his looks are above average, these girls generally end up behaving like fan girls at a concert.

Instead of screaming loudly like they would at a concert, they have to contain themselves and would instead let out high-pitched squeals.

Even if the male PE teacher is not so fit, young, or good-looking, some gross girls will still be extra friendly to said PE teacher in order to persuade them to select the activity of their choice.

As if this behaviour isn't disgusting enough, they also tend to wear booty shorts. Most people in Singapore generally wear FBT shorts when they exercise. And there is nothing wrong with this - as long as it isn't indecent exposure.

In case you're not a Singaporean and you've never heard of FBTs before, this is how they look like:

(Please note that the men's FBT shorts on the far right looks less sexy and even comes with pockets!)

Most girls wear FBTs and they look fine but Gross Girls™ do not wear FBTs properly. They pull up their (usually curved cut) FBT shorts such that it is above their waists, making sure that their butt cheeks are exposed. This is quite indecent considering the fact that we're in school. And since they are usually standing up and speaking to the PE teacher in front of everyone else, this means that while we are seated, some of us can ACTUALLY SEE what's underneath EVEN IF WE DO NOT WANT TO.

That is the main difference between regular girl and Gross Girl™.

For this reason, I have refused to wear FBTs. I wore Adidas shorts which looked like this:

(Wow, I can't find similar shorts like this on a female model on Google Images)

My friend wore something like this too and we were practically the only two people in school who did not wear FBTs during PE lessons.

Look, I'm all for people wearing whatever they want to, especially since rape victims are always blamed on police posters for dressing indecently when the blame should be put on the rapists.

But we are in school and the school teachers are always all up in your grill about your uniform isn't it? The point of wearing school uniform is to look professional, isn't it?

This is why I get singled out for folding my skirt above my knee, even when it is too long for me and I look simply ridiculous when the skirt is below my knee. And this is why I still get singled out even if I don't fold my skirt because I suddenly had a growth spurt, which kind of embarrassed the teacher because she realised that I didn't fold my skirt, it was of an appropriate length, and she picked on me for nothing. (It is also presumably why the discipline mistress told me off for wearing dangle earrings instead of studs, even though I had been wearing them under her nose for months because they were tiny! Also, we had to wear school socks!)

If schools are so strict about the lengths of our skirts, why are we allowed to wear FBT shorts during PE? The general rule for skirts is that it should only be four fingers above the knee. The longer the better. But for shorts? It only needs to be a few centimetres longer than your underwear, I guess. This is something I will never understand.


5. The Smell: Sweat, Dirt, Blood and Mud

I think this reason speaks for itself. During PE lessons, everyone stinks. After PE lessons, everyone has to go back to class and we all stink. People start spraying deodorants, which stink as well. If someone has their period and you have a sensitive nose, you can smell their period blood and it's stronger than ever because of their sweat. If you've been playing a game on the field, the classroom becomes muddy. Ugh.

Even the teachers hated coming into class when we just had PE. It's a gagfest, honestly.