Whose fingers on the keyboard

If all the world's a feature film, if presidents, great humanitarians and religious leaders are main characters, when the end credits roll you'd see my name, buried deep into the list, credited for playing "Extremely Melodramatic Girl", or something. If all the world's a movie, I'd not be important enough to have a proper character name, yet not quite as insignificant as to be lumped under the generic category that is labelled, very simple and ever so thoughtlessly, the "Extras".

And that, really, is me. Just a college kid dependent on her parents. A college kid who thinks the closer the exams are, the closer she is to post-exam celebrations. A college kid terrified of growing up. A college kid who hardly registers a blip in the Great Radar. And yet, despite my anonymity in the big world, this nameless, Extremely Melodramatic character has big, big dreams. Dreams of landing an amazing job, of spreading my influence and changing the world. Massive dreams of finally acquiring a proper character name when the end credits roll. (I also dream of meeting my soulmate, so if I don't make it, I can alternatively be credited as one-half of "Mr. and Mrs. Tan", or "Mr. and Mrs. Brown", or something.) Either way, not quite so nameless anymore.

The pursuit of big dreams obviously entails big-scale preparations, and in my case that comes in the form of a liberal arts education, in a land a gazillion miles away from home. A land where having oriental features means you must be from China, where the mention of the mighty durian elicits the same response - "A what?" In other words, to a typical Malaysian, a very SIGH-inducing punya land, but makes up for it by having many, many opportunities for sociology majors.

The pursuit of big dreams also requires tremendous support, good sources of which are my parents who have given up trying to convince me I'd make a good lawyer/business person, and wonderful friends whom I'm lucky to have met all along my journey through life.

Ya know, I actually don't quite like putting myself up and exposing myself so much for all the world to see loh. My Facebook profile, for example, is super empty, and I hardly upload photos. Self-exhibitionism makes me really uncomfortable. And therein lies the great irony - here I am, writing this in a site about me, me and me, and being completely willing to pay a yearly fee for a ".com" after my name. And that's how I operate - forever contradicting myself.

As far as being melodramatic goes, I will try to tone that down lah. Be a little more level-headed, a little less over-emo. But seriously, over-sentimentality and propensity for exaggeration are traits that are damn hard to get rid of. See first la.