Jennifer Knapp on Larry King Live

So Jennifer Knapp was on Larry King Live recently.  You can check out her entire interview on YouTube.  If you don't know who Jennifer Knapp is, I blogged about her a short while back - in essence, she's a Christian music artist who came out as a lesbian recently.

All in all, props to Jennifer Knapp for rocking the interview and to Larry King for pretty much mopping the floor with Bob the Pastor.  Try not to cringe when for some reason or another CNN decided to bring in Ted Haggard (ex-evangelical pastor who was caught having sex with a male gay prostitute) during the second part of this interview.  If anything, I think he eroded some of the credibility of the argument.  

I actually laughed out loud when Larry King asked Bob the Pastor "Did you make a choice for heterosexuality" and he answered "I did!".  Larry King goes on to ask, "How did you do that?... How did you know you like women?".  10 points for Larry King!

On a more academic side of things, what was interesting for me was when Jennifer  questioned the fundamental translations of certain Greek words - a language obviously not our own.  The Greek words that have been translated into English to mean homosexuality include words like "arsenokoitai", "malakoi" and "paiderasste" and indeed there has been rising debates on how to interpret these words, given their historical context, the etymology of words and so on and so forth.  These 3 different words were used in various verses in various contexts, yet today, it all translates into one word: homosexuality.  I'm no seminary scholar, but that raises questions and rightfully so and I'm glad she talked about it.  

All in all, I thought Jennifer summed it up perfectly when she asked Bob the Pastor:

"What separates that (the "sin" of homosexuality") out as so grievous to you that we have to sit here and have this  type of conversation?"  

Go watch the interview if you have some time.

On a more personal side of things, this whole Jennifer Knapp thing has absolutely blown me over.  It wasn't so long ago that I decided that faith was something I wanted to explore again.   Mid April swings around and suddenly my internal grapplings with faith and sexuality are suddenly up for public debate.  Not that they weren't before, but this is the first time a Christian music artist has openly come out.  The rhetoric and discussions very much remain the same, but putting a more public face to the debate, compounded by my own personal sensitivities have made it that much more momentous. for me at least.  A fellow MBA student asked me recently if I could choose, would I still choose to be gay.  Well, like Jennifer Knapp, I told him, I feel very blessed to be who I am and no I wouldn't change it.

Balance

This is a sculpture by Lila Higgins.  In case you think this was put together with glue or nails or anything like that, you would be very wrong.  This is the art of rock balancing.  Its truly amazing, literally impossible and quite honestly absolutely blows my mind.  

The key to rock balancing is finding that very very unique balance.  Each rock needs to be positioned in exactly the right way in relation to all the other rocks.  This obviously takes time and lots and lots of patience.  It is certainly not an art form that I would personally take up.  Chances are, in my restlessness, I would end up throwing these rocks at passersby.  

On that note, this brings me to my thought for today - balance or in my case, the lack thereof.  I was tempted to write an almost philosophical piece on the art of balancing and all that, but figured I shouldn't subject anyone to it.  I guess it should suffice to say that at least I know how important this idea of balance is and how crucial it is to develop it (as oppose to finding it... but again, I promised I wouldn't get all philosophical).

Yes, another day of walking along the tight rope of life...

Jennifer Knapp Comes Out

Do I hear a who's Jennifer Knapp?  Well maybe no one that you know.  Well, hell, its no one I know either.  So why do I care that she's come out?  I care because she's a Christian.  

From all I've read, Jennifer Knapp is probably as famous as Kelly Clarkson in the evangelical music world.  She is a grammy nominated artist who is also a multiple Dove Award winner (the Dove Awards are the grammys of the Gospel world).  According to the news article, she took a 7 year hiatus during which she underwent a midlife crisis that led her to examine her faith, sexuality and career.   In her interview with the Advocate, she says she dropped out of sight because she was a lesbian.  Today, she announced that her new album and the fact that she's coming out. 

She says this:

"I hope that the defiance does come across as humble.  If there's any frustration, it's trying to politely break the yoke of being asked to be something that I just can't be, and with all humility go: 'Just please be kind when you discover the truth.' It's kinda all you can do."

For people who don't see why this is a big deal, let me tell me now, it is.  Not just for me personally, but quite honestly for the larger Christian community.  According to Reuters, there is no other publicly open lesbian gospel singer.  But more than a being the lone representative in the Christian world, what's more amazing is how she's reconciled her faith with her sexuality.  She's moved from thinking that you HAD to exchange one for the other to seeing that the two really aren't in opposition.  Coming out is in itself an uphill battle, and that's not even taking an entire religious worldview into consideration.  

On Christians who would likely oppose and boycott her music, she says: “I’m quite comfortable to live with parts of myself that don’t make sense to you,” 


I know with all my heart that Jennifer Knapp is not an anomaly.  Faith and sexuality aren't dichotomous or mutually exclusive.  There is little need to throw scripture across the room.  Either side would do this just as well and we all know that.  Let's really keep in mind what's really important - real people in all their real differences, in all their real similarities - real living breathing feeling people.   

Thank you Jennifer Knapp.

My Second Coming Out Story

I have for the longest time identified myself as agnostic.  Essentially for me, it means believing a a being bigger than I am in a very non-commital fashion and especially not any religious institution's conception of this being.  Here's a quick webster definition: 

You might be surprised to find out that I pretty much grew up conservative and religious.  I remember spending most of my teen years at church, and when I say most of my teen years, I mean that literally.  Saturdays, Sundays, sometimes even Mondays and Tuesdays and we all know there are only 7 days in a week.   A lot of my serious social relationships and formative view and values were developed then - unquestioned and fervently held to.

in college, everything changed for me.  I was slowly coming into myself, both in terms of my views of the world and as a gay person.  I started questioning my very religious world - what it meant,  how it came to be, where it was going.  Essentially, as I grew intellectually, my conservative religious world views couldn't keep up and I couldn't hold on to those old beliefs anymore because they no longer made sense to me.  Walking away from them was really hard for me because I was walking away from a world and relationships I had grown up with.

Its probably been almost 10 years.  I am older now.  I have developed my own world views and yes, I am a gay person.  I'd never thought I would explore that world of religion again, and as hard as it is for me to say this, I want to explore it again, but this time, from a more perceptive point of view as opposed to how Anais Nin described it - a blind adoption.  And in case you're interested in her exact words, she said when we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. 

You're probably wondering why, or perhaps you're not, but I'll tell you anyway.  My road to getting employed has been quite simply an emotional disaster.  I started out great, but somehow fell behind everyone else.  Everything felt beyond my control and I was constantly questioning if I had made the right choices.  The overwhelming emotional toll was something I wasn't prepared for.  Being here alone also meant sometimes I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it.  Every close person I had was in time zone on the flip side of the world. 

In perhaps what was desperation, I started thinking about God and faith.  Having someone to talk to felt great, having someone to literally hand all this over to brought relief.  But more than that, somehow things started to change and fall so neatly into place.  People I had linked up with previously miraculously suddenly responded to me which helped me get the interview to begin with.  For some reason I was reading my coursework descriptions for the upcoming semester and had at the interview specific questions relating to them.  The timing of this and so much more was literally to a tee.  What made everything seem so much more incredulous was the how fast everything was going and still how everything I needed just fell into place at a very specific right time.  Now out of the blue I'm the one with best job with the best company.  

The cynic in me brushes this off as coincidence.  But another part of me wonders if this as the work of someone bigger than me perhaps.  Maybe its my religious upbringing that's talking, maybe its colored glasses I'm looking through but it is driving me to a direction I'd never thought I'd want to explore or think about again.  And while this is hardly a life and death story, the emotions are real, the heartaches are real, the amazement is real and the joy is real.  It is pushing me to "come out" in a different way.  I came out once as a gay person, now I feel like I'm coming out again, albeit as someone quite different.  

To Transcend Reality By Imagination

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. 

Anais Nin

I have a wild and vivid imagination.  When I was a child, I had for the longest time, an imaginary friend called Edward.  Edward was green, he had horns of sort and generally hailed from another planet.  I'm sure the planet had a name but I don't remember it.  What I do remember was how vivid and real Edward was to me.  I drew pictures of Edward (which remarkably stayed the same through the years), I talked out loud to Edward, I played with Edward and for a long time, he was my best friend.  Yes my parents were very concerned but I didn't have a truckload of friends as a kid.  My brother was 6 years older than me, and wouldn't caught dead playing with his dorky little sister.  I was terribly shy and quite small and all that meant I didn't make friends very easily.  So Edward became that best friend I needed.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm reminded of Anais Nin's famous quote on imagination.  I don't tell a lot people this in case they think I'm crazy, but I sometimes, in fact quite often, still talk to myself.  I imagine myself in situations I want to be in and just let my mind wander - how I would react, what I would say, how I would feel and for that brief few minutes, to really live in reality of that imagined moment.  Crazy as it sounds, sometimes in the midst of feeling everything is going wrong around you, those few minutes bring with it joy, contentment and sometimes, even a renewed sense of optimism.  To indeed, as Anais Nin so eloquently said, transcend reality by imagination.

I wait for news and in my deepest heart, pray imagination does turn into reality.  

Portions are Growing Bigger!

Got this article off a friend's facebook, apparently the LA times recently reported research have shown that Last Supper Helpings have Grown.  

While most people are probably inclined to brush this off as yet another example of scholars having way too much time on their hands, the sociologist in me is actually genuinely excited about this!  

Over the course of the millennium, the Wansinks found that the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus' followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%. 

As entree portions rose, so too did the size of the plates -- by 65.6%.

The apostles depicted during the Middle Ages appear to be the ascetics they are said to have been. But by 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, the party was more lavishly fed. Almost a century later, the Mannerist painter Jacobo Tintoretto piled the food on the apostles' plates still higher.

I mean seriously isn't amazing how society and its norms pervade every single aspect of what we understand, yes even our historical understandings of the world?  We look at history always through colored glasses tainted by all we already know, by all we assume and by all we hope.  Even supposed unchanging things like the the image of the Last Supper bears the marks of all that we are today.  No, I'm not advocating that this change somehow invalidates anything, but rather, its important to recognize change even in things that we assume don't or won't.  The old adage is true:  The only constant is change.   

Curious

We have lots of professors at the business school but we all have our favorites.  Mine happens to be one of the awesome-est professors we have.  She's super smart (she finished her PhD in 4 years!  Beat that!), she's very very well spoken, I love her little Southern accent (not heavy but in a good sort of way), she's very charismatic, plus she has perfectly french manicured nails (I notice fingers a lot for some reason) and really pretty blue eyes.  

So imagine my delight when someone in class told me that she might be gay.  She does give off a certain vibe I admit and coupled with suspect facebook pictures... fodder for the rumor mill.  Some people think she definitely is gay, others aren't sure, and well for me, I don't know for sure but I am hoping she does bat for my team.  

I'm actually very conscious, and this probably because I tend over-think things in general, on how I react to news like that.  To say I'm not intrigued or curious would be a big fat lie, but outwardly when my classmates talk to me about it, I do try to maintain an air of "uh huh... yeah so" kind of attitude.  I consciously do this because I'm on the same side of the fence.  People around me know I'm gay and the whole "oh wow, she's gay????" kind of conversations that I'm sure go on aren't conversations I would personally like to hear about me.  So I think its important for me to not have, at least publicly, double standards.  I won't feed the rumor mill, I won't engage in speculations, I won't act surprised or gossip because as curious as I am, and I'm probably more curious than most, I feel like I need to behave differently from my straighter classmates as an example of how I want to be treated.

Perhaps I do over-think things, perhaps no one even notices my reactions, but I notice them and isn't that the most important part?  So while I can't say this to my classmates, I will say it here, OMG she might be gay!!  I am excited, I am intrigued and I wish knew for sure.  And yes, I did check out her facebook page.  Can you blame me?  :)

Why Am I a Worry Wart?

Why can't I stop worrying?  What is wrong with me?  Why does my heart constantly feel like its about to beat out of my chest?  

A huge part of me has always been a worry-wart.  Since I was a kid, I remember having these palpitations whenever I worry, my heart beats so fast, so heavily that I feel like its almost better if it had just been ripped out my my chest.  And as far as I can remember, this feeling has overcome me for everything - from little things to the big things in life I can't control.  

I remember standing at in line during assembly at school feeling this way because I'd forgotten to do my homework or bring a book.  No big deal right?  Perhaps.  But boy did I worry.  And imagine how many times a year this feeling overcame me.  I wasn't a great student so way too many times.

I remember feeling the this way during my earlier years of taking exams.  I have since grown accustomed to them and they no longer rattle me as much these days.  

I remember sometimes just sitting around worrying about my mom when she gets a bad cough.  She smokes and I worry about more serious ramifications.  This same feeling washes over me and I can't shake it off for days.

Today, I sit at my desk, trying to make sense of John Deere's activity based accounting systems and feeling the same way.  I'm waiting for a particular response from a particular someone and though I won't get an answer till next week, my heart already feels overwhelmed.  

Please send me peace of mind.  

Alkaff Mansion

According to the Straits Times, the Alkaff Mansion is up for tender.  This is basically one of Singapore's pre-World War buildings that was the home of one of the richest Arab families in Singapore.  Long story short, it was restored by the Tourism Authority and was as far as I could remember the venue of a very posh and very very expensive restaurant.  

I remember this place well because my folks brought me here for dinner once, when I was probably 10 or so.  And what I remember about it was how unhappy I was going there.  I wanted to eat something else (fast food perhaps??)  and somehow Dutch-Indonesian food wasn't exactly my cuppa tea.  I threw a tantrum and insisted we didn't go.  Thank goodness for me, my parents took me there anyway.  They even got some violinist to serenade me while I was eating cos I was pouting all the way (yes, I was very spoilt as a child...).   Turned out, the place was awesome.  Even though I was a tad too young to enjoy the amazing architecture or the very fine cuisine, I remember still having a really good time.  I even remember wow-ing at the bathroom cos this was a long time ago, and fancy open concept bathrooms weren't quite the rage yet.  Even the toilet paper (and again bear in the mind that this was a loooong time ago) was super fancy - embossed, super thick, very pretty and just generally the best damn toilet paper money could buy then.  I remember never having seen such fancy toilet paper before (no... Singapore isn't some third world country where we don't use toilet paper, just think about the type of toilet paper of 80s, not quite Charmin...) and I actually took a piece back home.  (I was 10, get over it)  Since my virgin trip to the mansion, I've probably gone there a couple more times on dates but they definitely weren't as memorable.  In fact, I don't even remember who I went there.  Poor smucks, spent 200 bucks for nothing eh?

Anyway, the Alkaff Mansion holds near and dear memories for me - it reminds about the little things we take for granted today that looked so much more amazing when we were children.  Maybe I need to look through those glasses again to appreciate everything around me.  It also reminds me of how spoilt I was as a child and how my folks in all their generosity continued to love me in spite of it all.   

Here are some pictures on the mansion... awesome isn't it?

It Never Rains, It Freaking Pours

Precious

I just watched Precious and just had to write about it.  

Precious, directed by openly gay director Lee Daniels and based on the novel Push by Sapphire, is the story of a 16 year old girl from Harlem whose life was one impossible hurdle after another.  Impregnated by her father for the second time, she is kicked out of school and made to attend an alternative school.  It is here that she meets lesbian teacher Blu Rain and a bunch of girls who are similarly working towards their GED.

The film was utterly relentless, one scene pushing the envelope of the next and you begin to wonder if there's any light at the end of the tunnel.  Without spoiling it for anyone, there is, but its not tied up with a nice little bow, its real and even as the film ends, you're left wondering how things are going to turn out.

Its been a long time since I've been so moved by a film and mind you the last show I caught was The Blind Side.  Watching it made me so uncomfortable in my skin that I found myself having to look away so many times.  But if there's one thing I took away from the film was the power of women supporting other women and all that we can accomplish if we just support each other.  

The Facebook of Reunions

So guess who has a high school class reunion coming up?  Moi.  March 13.  Apparently quite a couple of people from my old class (people I honestly don't even remember!) are going to be there.  Oh well.

I'm not one for big fat reunions.  I don't quite enjoy the small talk and the questions.  I like reunions when its people I actually care to meet again, people who have been part of my life in some significant way but somehow I've lost touched with.  Not one of these big fat reunions where everyone's just trying to compare lives.  Maybe its because I'm cynical.  

Why would people head to a class reunion anyway?  These are the possible reasons I could think of:

1)  To see who got fat and ugly

2)  To network network network (sorry had to throw this bit in since its been drummed into my head by my career services office)

3)  To brag about how you invented post-its (yes god damn it I watched Romy and Michelle's high school reunion)

4)  If you've watched one too many Hollywood shows, to if you can hook up with some former crush (in my case since I studied in an all girl's school, this bit is a tad exciting for me!)

Anyway, I have a point to this list.  I don't need a reunion to find most of these things out, ok except for the part about hooking up with an old crush... I have freakin' facebook!  I mean seriously, I already know all I need to know, or even want to know about the people heading to this class reunion.  I've made my own judgements, come to my own conclusions and already feel like I've walked away with a heart filled with sentimental nostalgia.  See why I love technology?  

Who Cares what a 3 Year Old Wears??

So there's been a tad bit of hype on why Angelina is turning her daughter Shiloh into a boy and well most lesbian media has been abuzz with WTFs.  So I'd thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth.

So the girl wears boys clothes, carries a sword like the swashbuckling pirate she hopes to be one day, big fat freakin hairy deal.  So I'm going to cast my mind back to when I was a slightly smaller person, maybe when I was about 9 or so.  I remember I was a kid who absolutely hated wearing skirts.  I hated dresses, I hated ribbons.  I hated pink.  Anything representative of femininity in its socially constructed glory.  I like dressing like a boy then too - only jeans, sometimes the occasional bermudas (it was the early 90s) and lots of sneakers.  I remember I even wore a tie once, a ghastly one at that.  So sure I'll admit I was into the whole androgynous thing at one point, after all,  I grew up in an all girls school and well being a girly girl in that situation was totally frowned upon.  The most outstanding and drool-worthy girls in our school were athletes who were out there in the sun running, sweating, yelling - they weren't interested in skirts or dresses.  In fact, if the netball association then didn't require players to wear those culottes, most of them would have never seen the flip side of a skirt for years to come.  

Fast forward to 2010.  Do I wear bermudas still?  Yeah with a nice tank top and flip flops if the weather permits.  Might I add my favorite berms are in cameo colors?  Do I wear skirts and dresses?  Sure if the occasion calls for it.  Do I wear jewelry?  Totally.  I love pretty necklaces, I love wearing make up, I don't wear a lot of skirts/dresses only cos' I think they make me look shorter than I already am, but I wear pink, along with black and any other color,  So no one is interested in my wardrobe I get that.  Point is, who cares what you wore as a kid?  My parents let me wear whatever I wanted to, even that ghastly tie.  I think I turned out ok, some people may beg to differ, but today I'm your regular girl, sometimes girly, sometimes not.  The fact that I wore a tie, and I think it was to a cousin's wedding now that I think about it, might have steered you to imagine me as a some hard core butch with bounded breasts today.  Yew and no.  So just let the kid wear whatever she wants.  God only knows what she's going to turn out to be.  Add to this the fact that I have a girly ex classmate who's well called Andy or something today.  You just don't know and that's the wonder of it all aint it?

What Happens If...

I am the what happens if girl. I worry a lot about situations that haven't even happened but in my opinion, may in all likelihood happen, especially to me. This is not good for my heart cos at times like these, it just feel downright uncomfortable. I feel like my heart is beating on edge and I can't do anything to ease it. Try as I may not to think about things, try as I may to let it out by screaming fuck as loud as I can, try as I may to take it out on something by punching the wall, NOTHING helps. I just end up feeling antsy for days on end.  Its times like these I wish I was more American cos then I would have the number of my therapist handy.


*I'm sorry if this post doesn't make much sense to most people.  Its not something I want to talk about and no, talking about it will not help me.

The Extent of My Chinese New Year

This is the extent of Chinese New Year decorations here in my town...LITERALLY.  Peking Express thank you for doing your part in helping to celebrate Chinese New Year.

*Yawn*

Studying hard in the lab... and feeling very very very sleepy.  Oh mid terms whence will thou end?  I can't wait for Spring Break!  Oh better get some studying done, only an hour till my next class and I still have an insurmountable amount of readings to get through!  The walls of the MBA lab are starting to look like prison grills...

God Made Me Short, He Did Not Make Me Quiet

I will admit to you that I love Grey’s Anatomy.  Say what you want about Shonda Rhimes, I still think its one of the best shows on network tv.  Anyway, last week was down memory lane at good ol’ Seattle Grace where we caught a glimpse of the pre-attendee lives of some of the hospital’s best.  So blah blah blah, you don’t need a recap of the episode, but something struck me during the hospital’s ex-chief’s pep talk:

Webber: Surgery is a shark tank. Sharks have teeth. Make sure you're a shark, too, and not a minnow.
Bailey: Sir, are you referring to my height?
Webber: No, I'm not. God made you short. Who made you quiet?

Ok for the benefit of those who don’t watch the show, all you need to know is Webber is chief and Bailey is short, but whup ass of a surgeon.  Apparently she wasn’t always this way… hence the trip down memory lane.

I’m pretty much runt-sized myself.  And because of my size, most people mistake me for being kiddie or a pushover – neither of which I am or would like to be.  I am very opinionated and will bite your head off if I had too.  But this wasn’t always the case.  I was always the quiet shy kid who would never confront you cos it wasn’t “nice”.  I kind of became the person people expected someone of my height to be, because that was just so much easier.  It was a long time coming before I sort of grew into this person I am today.  As I slowly got tired of people patting my head, ignoring what I said and generally treating me like the kid I wasn’t, I knew that I was more than my size.  Yes, God made me short but he sure damn well didn’t make me quiet.  That was all me and if there’s anything I learnt in an MBA program in the US, is that you can’t be quiet.  If you want something, say it.  If you have an opinion, voice it.  If you don’t damn well agree, fight it out.  My height means I might have to try a little harder to be heard, I might have to do a little more to stand tall, but I am once again inspired to be bigger than the sum of my inches – God made me short, he didn’t make me quiet.   

Curling Curlers - How They Began

We're right smack in the midst of the 2010 Winter Olympics and being in the mid-west surrounded by feet of snow, you can't help but be inspired to catch a couple of events.  All this brings me to the game of curling.  Its a serious olympic sport, just look at their intensity as they brush the ice.  My question is how did they become curlers (I think this is what they're called...)?  Did they sit up at night as children dreaming to one day wield a broom-like instrument crazily brushing ice?  I wonder what they said when they were asked, what do you wanna do when you grow up?  I wanna scrub ice, I REALLY wanna scrub ice.  OR maybe, and here's my theory, they were tortured as children, much like Cinderella, made to clean and scrub basements day in and out.  Having harnessed no other marketable skill, they took to the sport of curling.  I can imagine talent scouts heading to poor neighborhoods hunting down these children to train them as the next *insert name of famous curler*.   Either that or they just use the janitors at the ice rink.  Either way.

But in spite of the ever increasing number of jokes about curling, its serious business.  Did you know there's an official curling calendar?  Did you know there's a nude curlers calendar too?  (mostly looks like hot women with brooms to me, but hey I'm not complaining, hot women, brooms or otherwise)  AND don't forget to subscribe to curling news and get it right to your door!

But seriously how did curling become an Olympic Sport while bowling still isn't?  (I'm partial towards bowling cos a friend of mine used to bowl professionally.)  Someone on the Olympic committee must have had serious issues as a kid.  And in case you have NO CLUE what the heck I'm talking about, watch this.  Yes curling rocks.

The Fight to Get Into Shape

Things haven't been all hunky dory around here and I find myself just tired, emotionally drained, full of self doubt, temperamental and all in all someone I don't want to be.  There's so much anxiety I need to work through and the best way I can think of is to get myself back into fighting shape.  Sure I've been running here and there, probably once or twice a week but this has hardly been enough for me to get into any real shape.  You see, most times, I'm pretty easy on myself.  On a good day, I could run for a good 30 minutes, on a bad day, I can hardly get past 5 and I let myself get away with that.  No more Cheryl, no more.  You are going to push through, work through this anxiety, slam dunk your way through this crap and get yourself into shape.  I'm sure its going to make me more focused, more centered and definitely less of an emotional basket case. 

So its off to the gym I go.

Dear Blogger

Dear Blogger,
If its one thing I like here, its being open about who I am.  Even in the mid west, people are open to me being gay.  No one raises and eyebrow, and even if they do, most do it in secret because no one would ever be caught dead being that "ass" that is homophobic.  Its different.  It feels different.  It doesn't change who I am, and even if its a facade, at least people care enough to pretend.