I spent dinner with my cousin. I haven’t spent time with her for a long time. We have the same second name and the same temperament. She’s an introvert, just like me.

My cousin is twenty-four and already has one baby. She’s unmarried but she’s still friendly with her daughter’s father. We talked for two hours over dinner. After that, I dropped her off to her house. She invited me into her house and I lingered for another two hours.

I played with her daughter. I also played with my other niece and nephew. I had a fun time with the kids.

My cousin kept asking me when I’m getting married. I used to be affected by such questions but it’s been asked of me so often that I no longer get offended when people tell me how old I am.

I don’t care anymore if I marry or not. I’m not in a hurry to marry. If I find the right man, I will marry. But if I don’t find the right guy, I won’t marry. I’m also considering becoming a single mother. But I’m tired of thinking about the future. I’m sure that the future will take care of itself. So, I’m no longer sad that at twenty-eight, I’m still single. I don’t care what other people think. The thing is, I haven’t found a guy to marry.

 But right now, I don’t want to marry. But who knows what the future brings?

My student didn’t prepare for his morning class so we spent an hour and a half getting to know each other. I asked him to make me listen to the kind of music he listens to. He made me listen to two songs. One was a slow Korean song and the second, a fast song with English lines. I liked the slow Korean song better. I then made him listen to Ray Lamontagne and Amos Lee. It was part of his education.

” Amos Lee used to be an English teacher. He left his teaching career to pursue a music career.”

” Oh really?” I don’t know if he was interested or disinterested in the music I played. But at least, I’m trying to educate him. He only listens to Korean pop music so I educated him about the meaning of hip hop, rhythm and blues and pop music.

” But soul music is different. The songwriters usually write about things that they know. Or the things that happened to them, ” I explained.

” Are you sure? People lie.” He had a point but I stood my ground.

” Yes, I’m sure. Soul singers, well, they’re different from pop singers. They write about what they feel and what they know. Sometimes, they write about what happened to them. “

I mentioned my preference for romantic music.

” You believe in a prince charming riding a white horse coming for you? All girls do.”

” I don’t believe in a Prince Charming.”

“  I believe in a princess riding her white horse. She’ll call out my name and take me to her big palace, ” he joked.

My student is wacky and funny.  His jokes are funny as well but it’s the innocent comments or innocent things that he does that makes me laugh.

Today he wore really short shorts. And I mean, the kind Richard Simmons would wear. When I first saw him wearing his short shorts, I tried not to laugh. When my friend pointed out his short shorts, he became self-conscious and changed into another shorts. At that point, I started laughing uncontrollably. I had tried to stop myself from laughing but after two hours, I couldn’t hold it in. I laughed and laughed for several minutes. Of course, he didn’t understand why I was laughing. He called his short shorts as ‘marathon pants’ but I pointed out that pants aren’t short.

” You’re wearing shorts. Pants are longer than shorts.”

” But that’s what they call it. They call it marathon pants.” He looked comfortable wearing his short shorts. I didn’t want to argue with him.

I spent one hour fitting my old clothes. I was pleasantly surprised when my old clothes started to fit me again. Some of these clothes, I haven’t worn for almost three years. In the last two or three years, I probably gained fifteen to twenty five pounds. I just kept the clothes as a way for me to be motivated to trim down.

I’ve been going to the gym for almost two years now. I go to the gym regularly and work out for 1 to 2 hours. I never lost a single pound. I’ve tried dieting as well but it never seemed to work. My metabolism has become sluggish. When I consulted my doctor, she discovered that I have a thyroid problem which explains why my metabolism is so slow. Three weeks ago, she prescribed a hormone replacement. Luckily enough, I responded to the medication. I don’t want to jinx anything but I think my weight is back to normal.

I have no idea how much weight I lost. I didn’t weigh myself. I’m sort of superstitious when it comes to weighing myself. I’m afraid that if I weigh myself, I might jinx this weight loss thing. This is a good thing. And I don’t want to mess with a good thing.

I looked at my face in the mirror and realized how plain I look. My hair is black, my nose slightly upturned and my lips slightly pouty. I don’t consider myself attractive. I never have. I often wonder why people would say to me that they think I’m pretty or beautiful. When I look at the mirror, I see a person with very plain features. I’m not pretty at all. Far from it. In fact, I think I’m ugly.

 I have the worst hair in the entire world. My hair is straight and it likes to remain straight no matter what I do. Whenever I keep my hair up with a hair clip, it somehow manages to untangle itself. My hair has a life of its own. It’s straight as a rod. And it’s pretty hard to control it. Sometimes, I just want to set fire to my hair. I just hate how untamed it is.

I hate how my skin looks. It’s yellow and brown. I’m yellow brown but mostly yellow. I have an unhealthy complexion. When you look at me, you won’t ever think I’m healthy-looking. I look like I have hepatitis.

And need I mention my mouth, my hips, me legs, my feet and my cellulites??? I could go on and on. There are just so many things to complain about.

My main concern isn’t really my looks. I’m more concerned about the fact that I feel like a walking corpse. I’m starting to feel dead inside again. I’m bored with my life and I’m tired of my life. I somehow forget about my dilemma when I’m with my student.

 My student makes me laugh. He’s such a clown. I think it’s his gift to make people laugh. He should do it for a living. He was clowning around this morning. He was sleepy so he pretended to be sick. I found some of his antics amusing. He’s such a joy to watch. He’s like a little child.

But everytime our classes end, I turn back into my old sullen self. In fact, when I go home, I get sad. All I want to do is to cry when I’m at home. I feel so repressed and so inhibited here. I just feel like a prisoner.

It’s a good thing I met my student. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has managed to save my life more than once.

It’s my father’s and close friend’s birthday today. For the entire afternoon, I was feeling depressed. I kept thinking about my impending twenty-ninth birthday which is five months from now. I always get depressed at this time of the year because I’m reminded about how old I am. And when I start thinking about my age, I start thinking about the things that I did in the past. And usually, when I start thinking about my past, I start thinking about the mistakes that I did in the past. That’s when I start to regret. And when I start to regret, I feel sad.

 As usual, my father had his birthday dinner at his favorite restaurant. The food was okay and the company was okay. I managed to have a decent conversation with a cousin. I stopped talking to her a long time ago, but now, we’re civil with each other. I talk to her, she talks to me. I’m still wary of her. When I talk to her, I keep seeing an image of a knife running through my back.

My paranoia isn’t unfounded. My cousin has a habit of backstabbing people. And she was really nasty to people. I hope she has changed though.  But I just know that we can never ever be friends again. Because I feel that I can never really trust her.

I tried to try all the foods that were served. I’m full but I’m a bit disappointed. Every month or so, we always eat at this restaurant. I want to try something new. My taste buds want to be stimulated again. I’m tired of eating the same thing over and over again. At this point, I even want to try eating insects. That’s how bored I am.

\

Whenever I think about my past and the mistakes I did in the past, I just get so depressed. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’ve made so many bad choices. Sometimes, I just want to end my life because of this deep sadness and frustration.

I feel like such a loser. I’ve never done anything right in my life. I made bad choices. I made friends with the wrong kind of people. I fell in love with the wrong guy. I took the wrong college course. I did so many stupid things that most of the time I wish I could just erase everything I did after high school. I want to start over.

I have this romantic notion that if I end my life, maybe I’ll find myself in a place where I won’t have to think about the bad choices that I made. I just feel so trapped in this existence. I just don’t want to live with my mistakes. I’m tired of living with my mistakes. I’m tired of having to regret my bad choices. I’m tired of living.

I’m not always like this. There are times when I’m optimistic about my future. I don’t always wallow in my own sadness. I think about the possibilities and the wonderful things that could still happen to me. I know that I’m on the right track but there are just times that I veer off course.

Life is like walking the tightrope. You have to keep your balance at all times. If you don’t, you could fall. But the good thing about living is that if you fall down, you can always climb back and try again.

I think that sometimes I’m invisible. Sometimes people don’t know that I’m there when I’m there. That’s really depressing because this kind of thing usually happens to me when I don’t want to be invisible. And on occasions that I just want to fade into the background, I’m highly visible. It’s depressing as well because much as I want to hide, I can’t. I’m a big woman and when I don’t want to be noticed, I get noticed.

Last night, I saw a group of people I recognized. I thought they were calling out my name. When I approached them they were surprised. They didn’t see me coming. They were calling out the name of the girl beside me. A girl that they also knew. When they recognized me, they asked me what I was doing there. It was so depressing because I’m a big woman and they didn’t see me coming. Instead, they saw the other woman whom they also knew.

 I think my state of visibility and invisibility has a lot to do with my self-esteem. When I’m feeling worthless, that’s when I start to disappear. When  my mood gets better, that’s when people really notice me.

I tend to sulk when I’m feeling low. But when I’m feeling confident and great about myself, I get noticed.

Last night, as I was crossing the street. A guy driving his car stopped in front of me. He opened his window. I thought I knew him so I peered inside his car. When I looked at his face, he didn’t look familiar. I was weirded out. He probably thought I was a hooker or something which didn’t make me feel good.

I spent eleven years in an all-girl’s Catholic school. I don’t think I fit the ‘prostitute’ profile. But I really felt bad because I think that the guy wanted me to hop inside his car. Do I really look that cheap?????

I didn’t expect that I’d like the new tv show, Kyle XY so much. It just sucks you right in the moment you start watching it. It has a lot to do with the main character named Kyle.

Kyle is a young teenager who appears out of nowhere. He has no memories of his past. He has no idea where he came from. He even has no idea how to be human. He is like a child trapped in a teenager’s body. He is experiencing everything for the first time. He starts out with no idea about hunger, desire, sleep and hurt but as he spends more and more time with his new family, he slowly learns how to be human.

The process is slow and sometimes even painful. He falls in love with a girl named Amanda and learns the concept of love and heartbreak.

I feel so protective of Kyle’s character. I have this desire to snatch him from his adoptive family and take him to a better place. A place where he won’t ever get hurt. I know it’s only a tv show. It’s supposed to be make-believe but the character is so helpless that you just want to save him.

I think I can identify with Kyle. Just like Kyle, I too have a hard time learning how to be human. But unlike Kyle, I’ve been human for almost three decades. I can only imagine what he’s going through– trying to grow up fast and trying to make sense of a very confusing world.

Kyle is essentially just an infant trapped in a grown man’s body. Every sensation tha the feels is new and every thing that he does is an adventure.

 Kyle is played wonderfully by Matt Dallas.  It is primarily because of Matt that the show is so appealing. Matt’s face is just so expressive. There is some childish innocence to the way Matt moves and talks. Matt Dallas understands his character. He makes Kyle so fascinating to watch.

It would be interesting if the humans could remember what it was like to be an infant. It was probably a terrefying and overwhelming experience. I wonder how we managed to cope. The world was one strange and alien place. Everything was new and everything was strange. We adults take life for granted. We’ve grown accustomed to life and living that we’ve forgotten the wonders of how it feels to be alive.

I think I understand now why Kyle appeals to me. Kyle reminds me of how I used to be. I think back to the first time that I opened my eyes and saw light. How strange and how wonderful it might have felt.

Here’s a link to the show: http://abcfamily.go.com/kylexy/