Being a BRAT

I love writing.

There’s a godlike rush in being able to transfer your thoughts from mind to paper.  It’s one of the reasons I became a blogger in the first place. Also, I always wanted to see the word Vagina right next to my name. Tee hee.

[In retrospect, they probably shouldn’t let me out into the real world with a license to publish when I grow up]

I may suck at it...but at least I try. I really do. So this year, I decided to go what-the-hell with the whole thing and sign up for BRATs camp. 

BRATs (Stands for Bright Roving Annoying Teenagers, doncha know) is a journalism workshop where you have to submit an essay for evaluation before they (They, meaning the head honkos on top) decide whether you're good enough.

"Through this program, Malaysian youths 16-19 get to participate in a journalism workshop, learning the basics of newswriting and editing. Once the workshop has been completed, these youths officially become members of the BRATs, which allows them to write for the monthly Ole Brats supplement, participate in community service and youth projects, and gain exposure to a lot of issues and experiences. (While entrance to the initial workshops is limited to those aged 16-19, those in the BRATs program tend to be BRATs for life; they’re still open to participate in BRATs activities or write for BRATs if they want.) "

But even writing up my essay was a messy, sucky endeavor because if you knew anything about me, you'd know how self conscious I  am about my prose. Oh no, not blogging, that's a different issue entirely. Get me to debate, rant, bitch, sure man I'm all up for it. But I've never been one to take writing seriously.

I've never joined a contest, wrote for the paper, that sorta thing, nope, nada, nuh uh. That'd be like raising our relationship to a whole new level, writing and I. I'm not sure I could take that sort of commitment. What if I'm not accepted? What if they thought it sucked eggs?? What then???

So hey, it's a bit too late for that now. I wrote it. I sent it. I spent twelve hours beating myself up. That's all water under the bridge now. I was meant to write about myself, but instead I wrote about my childhood when I should be writing about my likes, my dislikes, the stuff that EVERY EFFING PERSON wrote about.

Everyone except me. Shit.

But to quote the immortal words of P!nk, f*%k that. After the four stages of denial, I went back and read my submission and hell, it's not so bad. I might even be considered. Gosh, I sure hope I am.

So well, yeah. Enough procrastinating. Here's my submission for BRATs.

~xXx~

Me, talk about myself? Oh boy, where to begin.


Well to get a solid understanding of where and who I am today, I should probably provide a shadow of my past at the least. Now for a life story, conception’s usually a good place to start but this time I should probably just skip straight to birth. I was born ­in Penang on a blustery afternoon in 1994 after ten agonizing hours of labor. That right there folks, is one serious accomplishment for the twenty-something Malay literature teacher that was soon to be my mom. Imagine spending the past 600 minutes experiencing the worst case of constipation-slash-food-poisoning you could ever imagine, in a public hospital shielded by only the flimsiest of puke colored curtains, with your legs spread apart by two metal footholds of doom and having the doctor measure you every intermitting ten minutes.


Still, I’m glad she didn’t choose the easy way out. Because if she did and decided to adopt an African orphan, I probably wouldn’t be here typing what I am today. So, congrats mom, it’s a girl.


Said girl went on to become a princess, a novelist, a dreamer, a book thief, a journalist and finally settled on becoming a nun. Almost a week after my mom popped me out of her womb, we flew to America the beautiful, land of the free where I spent most of my childhood contemplating many things – usually death – but didn’t know how to put them into words just yet, so I approached my mother (Already proven to be a woman of many capabilities, achievements and a heart of solid gold) with this predicament and a simple request: teach me how to Grown Up Speak. What ensued was beyond my control. After that fateful day (or night, I can’t recall) I was ordered to sit in front of the living room computer every night and type something, anything, and as long as I was happy with what I produced, I could leave. At least until the next night. And the next. And the next.


This went on for about a year or two where my humble compositions steadily stacked up like a socialite’s credit card bills, me typing a poem or two every night and proudly handing the printed version to my mother who without fail, would exclaim and hold it to the sun (or moon) like an exalted hundred year old artifact.  At the same time, I was introduced to the magical world of reading. I read horror stories, action novels, Marvel comics and generally any form of literature I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter what kind as long as it had words. Some stories stayed in my memory bank to this very day, while others were better off not being read at all. But it hardly mattered, because the idea of someone behind these black and white bundles of joy was exhilarating, I felt an intimacy with the author unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Someone was out there, behind their computer screen and they decided to let me, Clarissa Say, not just know what was on my mind but delve into the deepest corners of their imagination. Wow.


I fell in love with Stephen King’s idea of the macabre and Amy tan’s compassion. Anne Frank became my best friend throughout grade school and when I moved back to Malaysia, Tash Aw sent my sights hurtling back to a completely different era of Japanese occupation and British colonization. I learned from Da Chen how to notice every detail around me. The colors of the sky in the morning whilst I waited for my bus; a person’s expression of joy, irritation, anger, lust…the wonder never ends.


So all in all, this seems a pretty apt essay for a journalism workshop (You call it workshop, I call it camp) though it might be a bit snarky, a tad too frivolous and maybe a wee bit vague, but that’s just me. There’s a lot more I haven’t written but seriously, me? Fit it all in here? I’m not trying to give anyone a brain embolism.

~xXx~

Ta da.