2008.3.18
LIFE IN GUAM
Before I begin this rant I'll just say that I know my highschool experience in Guam isn't anywhere near as bad as it could've been. But before I moved to Guam back in 02' i was living in Japan. I know, that's the ultimate nerd dream - I went to high school in Japan. Unfortunately I was just a spoiled brat growing up. No matter where I went I always complained. Even though there's several people out there who'd give an arm or a leg just to be able to experience living in Japan for a year at the least, I was still a whiny bitch even though I had the rare opportunity to live there for four years and three months.
How I got to live there you ask? Well one of the parental figures is a military veteran. Blah blah blah they managed to get a GS job on a navy base and we moved to Japan. (If anyone is curious how to get a GS job to live in Japan, don't ask because I don't know.) We weren't in the Navy so at first we had to move somewhere outside of the base. (For anyone who doesn't know what it's like to be on a military base or whatnot, it's pretty much just like a small American town behind gates. There's the commissary that serves as your grocery store, a BX/PX/NEX or whatever that's like a wal-mart or K-mart, and then there's the shopette which is pretty much like a Kwik-E-Mart or some shit. Then there's schools there where the military kids go, pretty much meaning that I went to an English speaking school when I lived in Japan because I went to the highschool on the Navy bases.) Later on we had the opportunity to move on base but we stayed outside.
And let me just get into a mini-rant about how awesome my location was. Just a couple blocks down the street there was a used manga/video game/CD/DVD/VHS shop. In Japan used shops there are different because you can pretty much buy plenty of used items like new. Not to mention there was a family that ran a liquor store right across the corner from my house so that couldn't be anymore awesome. Yet I took all that for granted.
Anyway highschool in Japan was the perfect school to go to. It was small (only about 200 or 300 students at the most...and that's ALL of 7th-12th grade!) and from what I remember the school was decently funded. I attended school there from seventh grade up until the second quarter of eleventh grade. There were a lot of small things I took for granted. For one thing the cafeteria actually served real Japanese food periodically and there wasn't just one thing on the lunch menu. Of course I never ate there since the school was open campus, I went off campus to eat. But I never knew how much I'd take that for granted at my new high school in Guam.
Not only that I had so much angst for apparently no reason at all. I was pretty much the Chris Sardenia/Reiji Kandori of the school. The cool loner people wanted to be friends with but were too intimidated to talk to. I missed that reputation greatly once I moved to Guam.
Since I don't really want to recall on the bad memories of Guam right now I'll just paste a post I made back in 06' about my stay in Guam (I was still living there at the time I made the following post.)
Guam: (2002-2006) I've learned you have to be careful what you wish for. Since I was a kid I always wanted to live in a country with Asian people. Of course, there's Asians in Japan but they aren't like normal AzNs. For example they're not like Filipinos who feel they must all group themselves together for no damn reason and repeatedly insult "white people" even though all they do is copy their music. (Now before anyone gets deeply offended I'm not saying all Filipinos are the same.) Well here, I finally got what I wanted. And Guam was definitely the wake up call. It was kind of like me whining about the faults in Suikoden 3 only to be bitchslapped in the face with a "HAHA" when I played Suikoden 4.
Highschool: By far this experience will always stick out to me. Let me talk about the school first. It's located in the middle of the island so both the Navy and Military base kids could go to the same HS so it was an hour bus ride away. Imagine walking out the door every 6:00AM and not coming home until 3:00PM. That fucking sucked. The HS is also located on a hill. It was also not first intended to be a HS, it was formerly some military building. Great. It was a closed campus unlike my school in Japan so you had to stay INSIDE the school at all hours. Even lunch. The school was by all means ghetto. Cracked walls, foul stenches, dirty bathrooms, I really took my school in Japan for granted. At times we didn't get homework because there weren't enough books for everyone, this school was terribly funded. They were so fucking cheap that the senior trip was a trip to the fucking Navy base beach. Excellent. How is that completely unexciting? Well when I lived in Guam I lived on the Air Force base. But I visited the Navy base every weekend. That's how unexciting it was. Especially since my school in Japan...they went off ISLAND for school trips. They went to places like Australia and Hawaii (one of the senior classes even visited Guam). I was so pissed off that I didn't even bother to attend.
Next, the people. First I'll start off with the teachers. They were by far the most unprofessional shits I've come across in my life. I never thought that it was ethical for a teacher to insult their very own students. Well I got insulted a lot. Most of the time it was about me being poor. Funny, that's the last thing any person in their right mind thinks about me. Let me compare this to my situation in Japan, some kids wouldn't talk to me because they thought I was a spoiled rich kid. Well in Guam many got that impression because my teeth were fucked. I recall in this business class I took the teacher decided to start out the lecture with an indirect insult to me. Now this was a buisness class the following question sure as hell had nothing to do with business. She asked: "So do you guys brush your teeth three times a day? Everyday? Raise your hands!" And after asking those questions she stared at me throughout the whole fucking time. I didn't bother raising my hand because I was left in a "WTF" state. Rather than getting to know why, everyone made their own assumptions. In actuality the reason why they were left unfixed is because no dentist I came across in Japan had the confidence that they'd actually be able to fix it. That was one of the only good outcomes of staying in Guam, I finally got my teeth fixed. Anyway, if it wasn't that, there were many "implications" that I was retarded. For the first time in my life several people actually accused me of being mentally retarded. Seriously.
I'm not exactly a morning person so I was pretty quiet the majority of the time. While in every other school I've been to everyone knew that I was a quiet person, they didn't think that was a defect on my intelligence or anything. And jesus christ I'm Asian, aren't we known for being intelligent and having small penises! Oh wait, I'm a woman the latter has nothing to do with me. I remember one of my English teachers in Japan took the time to tell the other students in the class that even though I'm quiet I was one of the most intelligent people in the whole school. I was like "NOE SHi3T!" though I wondered why he felt the need to make an announcement about that. But after coming to Guam I learned that there's actually people out there born without common sense.
Now as a kid I always wanted Asian teachers. Fuck, I got my wish. The biggest dick there was the Filipino P.E/Health teacher. He always made comments about how ugly I was. Directly, in front of the whole class. I was even egged on to cry when he gave me the millionth insult about how ugly I was once. Well when I went to school I normally was dressed from head to toe. I don't exactly like being hit on by those MTV rap fags. So what better way to get them to fuck off by making them think I'm a flat chested shit. Well I'll always remember this one day that Health teacher gave me my daily insult. The whole class got out of the classroom and we waited by the bleachers for the bell to ring. I went to the bathroom and put my hair down and took my token leather jacket off. The fucker thought I was a new kid (a completely different person) and wondered why he never saw me in his class before. Worst off he started hitting on me and told me comments about how "beautiful" I was. Yeah, I love superficial dumbasses that don't use their brains.
The students? Seeing how idiotic the teachers were, I don't even feel like explaining how stupid the kids were. Let's just say for girls it was cool to have miscarriages. While normally the cool kids have sex, no, you've gotta be an idiot and do it all the way here, child included. The boys seemed to have a thing for unattractive overweight women (who lack personalities btw) because of their "big tits." Wow. Just wow. While not to sound like a snob or anything, at every other school I've been to I was never labeled as the fugly shit. Well, I sure found out what it was like to be in those people's shoes here. I was used as the last resort date for dances, even to prom. Fuck, I was looking forward to wearing a modern style Victorian gown to prom too. But since the last thing I appreciate is being looked down on, I didn't even bother attending. >_>;; I recall getting an art award and not one single fucker in the audience bothered to applaud. It's pretty safe to say I wasn't exactly a liked character. The fuckers behind the yearbook photoshopped my face and body to be wider for my senior picture, they darkened my skin along with it too. They also edited all these pictures in the yearbook to make me look like an idiot. And I paid 60 dollars for that shit. Worst off the most ugliest unnoticeable girls thought I was lesbian over them. How bout' fuck no. I've met the most dickless boys here too. I was left to fight all my battles alone. I remember there was this one kid who always sang songs about how much he loved me while strumming on that guitar of his. Love conquers all so fuck yes he'd be there to defend me right? Fuck no, when these MTV rap kids started throwing shit at me for no reason he stood there and looked at me as if he didn't know me. Well, I'm glad I never took him serious or else that would've broken me.
The only person that made sense in the whole damn school was my geometry teacher. His personality was much like Onizuka from GTO. I really admired that guy and I'd like to find a guy like him someday. What I admired most is that he wasn't some kind of superficial shit like the health teacher I mentioned earlier. Being the same shit that had to take Algebra 1 three times in a row, it's safe to say I wasn't good with math. I really liked him and wanted to get good grades, but math just isn't my strong point. Thanks to him and seeing how hard my dumbass tried (well he figured since I was a decent artist I'll survive being dumb in math) he gave me a passing score which allowed me to graduate. I was actually supposed to fail that class, whoo - saved. I still recall that moment when I was under the impression I wasn't going to graduate simply because of that class. When he showed me my passing score (a D-, the lowest passing grade) I was overwhelmed and kept saying "THANK GOD THANK GOD!" not that I'm religious or anything, but I was just using that as an expression. He was offended and repeatedly said "Who should you be thanking? Not God!" He seemed like he wanted a hug when he told me he passed me but I'm stupid in that area. Well I gave him a hug after graduation ceremony and my high school experience there was so sad that was probably the only good time I had there. Me hugging my ridculously hot geometry teacher.
After highschool was fine. Just extremely boring. But yes, by far Guam has got to be the place where I've met the most idiotic people in my life. I'd like to know how my health is but even the hospitals here are like high school. I went to get a check up once and filled in that I'm feeling pains in certain areas (normally I just lie, but now I really wanted to know) and the doctors treated me like I was an idiot for filling them in. As said before I finally got my teeth fixed. Well few of you have seen me in r/l (and yeah notice how I never take any pictures with teeth showing) so you're lucky you don't know how atrocious my teeth looked. I'm glad that they're finally fixed but going to my appointments sure sucked. The dental places here are much like a barber shop/beauty salon. The people talk to each other while they're fixing their patient's teeth. And normally they got so damn caught up in their conversations that it sometimes took hours to get my teeth fixed when my appointments could've been as short as fifteen minutes. No instead I had to sit there with my mouth open with these fucking Asians get into bitch rants about how someone's car sucks while fixing my teeth. And just like how everything else in Guam is unprofessional, they'd periodically make fun of their patients. I recall this one doctor making fun of this "white girl" to me. He said "white girl" in such a disgusted tone. I didn't join in on making fun of her because that was just fucked up.
*While it is great I got my teeth fixed, it should've been done in a much shorter time period to get them straight. I ended up going to the dentist for two years for a procedure that was only supposed to take a year. But like most shady 3rd world shit they kept fucking around until all my dental insurance was gone. I didn't actually get my teeth completely straightened out until 2007. I've only seen my new dentists here in the states for about only five appointments or so and they got them fixed in no time. Not to mention they didn't charge me for every fucking thing they looked at. Nor is the facility like a barber shop, everyone gets their own room to treat their patients.
I don't think I've ever been to any place as high maintenance as Guam. I've seen boys that claimed that they were manly yet plucked their eyebrows. I have nothing against metrosexuals. But DO NOT get into a conversation with me about how fucking manly you are when you pluck your eyebrows and shave your legs. I've met the ugliest guys here by far, inside and out. Nothing is like having guys bitch at you for not getting pedicures like they do. OMG. No. And I never saw the significance in plucking eyebrows. Personally, prior to coming to Guam i never did so because I was fine with my eyebrows. While I think Namie Amuro's looks great, I thought mine were too and didn't feel like fucking with it. It really pissed me off when this one sexually unappealing girl who claimed to be my friend said: "If I don't pluck my eyebrows they look like Mika's!" She said that right in my face and yet claimed to be my friend. Well my guess as to why people in Guam are so damn high maintenance? Well they don't really have much to work with since pretty much everyone here looks average and unnoticeable. I could get into so many racist comments right now, but most of you probably know what direction I'm heading to anyway. :D My view on men has been raped thanks to Guam. Anyone who has interest in becoming my feature beau, don't pluck your eyebrows and get pedicures. Ew. I'll never understand this Asian phenomenon called "feet fetish."