being a girl...

sometimes does not have its merits.

do not get me wrong. i love the fact that i'm the most pampered member of my family aside from sydney the guinea pig princess. i love getting to dress up for no reason. i love make up and girl talk over coffee, shoes and bags and everything nice with sugar and spice.

but i don't enjoy my female status once a month. when my best friend comes for a visit. she makes me a grumpy, irritable and perpetually hungry person. she messes with my blood sugar and gives me a bit of a hard time dealing with the small, but noticeable and annoying swings. she makes me crave chocolate, ice cream and potato chips. she makes me tired and lazy, and i don't want to go to the gym.

this time round it's made worse by the fact that i want to go on a trip to kuala lumpur with my friends, to help out another church run a children's programme for their church retreat. my parents issued me this ultimatum of sorts - that i can't go if another girl doesn't go. because currently if i go, i'll have three guys as my companions.

i should right now let you know that i live in asia and i am asian. and we function rather differently when it comes to family and culture. i may not have m uentioned that most of us live with our parents until we get married, and that family ties are typically very close. hence my need to ask my parents if i can go away for a little while with a bunch of friends. my girlfriends too, do face similar problems with their parents. and it's just the nature of my culture, which is something i respect, but which frustrates me at times.

i'm just feeling rather frustrated at this point in time, because hello, it's my twenty-first year on earth, and i'm old enough to take care of myself. on one hand i want to respect and honour my parents, but on the other, i want to be more independent. not that i am not, because i live with them but more or less do most things on my own, but from my perspective, perhaps they could loosen up a little. at the same time, i did complain to a friend over msn messenger about this and she says that at least my parents care. that i cannot deny.

on the other hand, i do understand why they want me to have a female companion. it's more or less due to the fact that there is safety in numbers, and that when we go out of the hotel to roam around, it's safer to have someone of the same gender with me when i use public restrooms and stuff. kuala lumpur is not exactly the safest place in the universe, and i understand that. it's also because i don't know anyone from the other church, and it would be easier to sort out our rooming issues.

in any case i have to head to bed right now because my grandmother was hospitalized again for a bleeding stomach ulcer and my aunt and i have to go see her tomorrow. and because my monthly best friend has arrived and is giving my abdominals a heck of a hard time. so goodnight, and i hope things will be better.