What about me?
Why do people even write “About Me’s”? There is only so much you can say about a person in 9521 pages, and even less within a few paragraphs. So, why bother? A decade ago, I loved writing mini autobiographies. For some reason, the girls at my school – a single-sex primary school in Singapore – made a big deal out of bullet-pointed autobiographies. We would swap what we called “autograph books,” and fill out each other’s pages. It was pretty much a standardized format: name, address, phone number, birthday, astrological sign, favourite music / celebrity / food / colours / movies etc. etc., a long list of hates, and, finally, a few words for the owner of the book. I took great pride in designing my profiles with multicoloured glitter pens, and stuck to the format like a nerd. When I left St. Stephen’s Girls’ College in 2008, I did things a little differently. Like any graduate from the MySpace era, I was completely self-absorbed. I printed out 2R photos of myself in full-on punk hair and makeup, self-shot from a ridiculously high angle, emo-style. I wasn’t humble enough to simply distribute the products of my camera-whoring – no – I had printouts of my mini autobiography as well. No glitter pens this time – I kept things monotone, with the occasional splash of neon (like a good scenester), and everything –right down to “black coffee” under “Favourite Drink” (I hadn’t discovered gin yet) – had to show just how hardcore I was. I grew up ever so slightly when I got to Island School, and while “The Song of My Life” contained remnants of my teenage angst (“Hate My Life” by Theory of A Deadman – it’s really catchy, by the way), my “Words of Advice” went something like this: stop hating on the “locals,” because you’re nothing but aliens in our territory. While I doubt anyone paid attention to my advice, I still don’t know what I think of my legacy. On one hand, I’m glad I spoke my mind, but on the other hand, I sounded so bitter. And, “Hate My Life?” Really? And then, I went to University. I was recently asked to introduce myself in my first blog post on the newly-launched hKUDOS website. It sounded a lot like filling out the “About Me” section on Facebook, so, for a brief moment, I considered looking at my profile for inspiration. It then occurred to me that I had typed: Crazy about tarts. Coffee tarts, lemon tarts, egg tarts, chocolate tarts, mango tarts, cream cheese tarts, pear tarts, coffee egg tarts… Nope, not what I would consider to be useful information. Anyway, what do people need to know about me, really? There is only so much personal history I can post online, and it is only a matter of time before I stop being crazy about tarts. I guess what I should really be asking is, who cares? People change, information gets outmoded. If anyone cared enough, she, or he, would come back for more.
