DJOANNA

CHRISTY

Why use the picture of a cat above? That's because my sister talks, acts, and eats like a cat! Whenever she gets angry, she always produces a high-pitched voice with and accompanying "meow"-like sound. She acts like a cat since most of her gestures are inherently feline. That was probably one of the reasons why my parents nicknamed her Dainty. Lastly, she eats like a cat sinces she always nibbles her food in tiny little pieces. She also gets to be the last one to finish. When dining at restaurants, waiters have to literally wait for her to finish eating! A good example of this was when we went on a tour to Italy in 1987. All of us there at the table were finished except her. Then an Italian waiter who was standing by pointed his finger at her and asked my mom, "Finito?" My mom had to reply in her stammering, unrehearsed Italian, "No finito."

Nowadays, my sister likes to call herself Didi Cotton. Didi came from a cartoon character from the show Dexter's Laboratory. She's not fond of watching cartoons but she became familiar of this funny cartoon character who happens to be this annoying and irritating sister of a trying-hard-to-be-mad-scientist supernerd. She claims that this has parallelisms in real life! She claims that I'm the trying-hard-to-be-mad-scientist supernerd while she is my annoying sister. I do admit that there is truth behind what she says but only in the part that she is my irritating and annoying sister. I'm definitely NOT a supernerd. I definitely don't look like a stereotypical geek - scrawny & thin (I'm now slightly stocky), wears thick eyeglasses (I wear contact lenses), superior IQ (I'm just above average), plans to rule the world (I'll probably get to this later!)

So what about the surname Cotton? This seemingly brilliant concoction of her is just a show of her resourcefulness - using my parent's business name (Cotton World) and appending it to Didi. Don't be mislead by her if she claims to have an Irish antecedent - 'coz we don't have a single drop of Irish blood in us. It's just a product of her illusory imagination! But I think you wouldn't be misled anywayz since she looks very Chinese. She always dream of looking like a dark-haired, blue-eyed Irish girl (with a matching Enya song played whenever she appears suddenly from out of nowhere). She also has a taste for anything Irish - music, culture, geography, ..., and, you've guessed it, boys! She's a Boyzone, Tom Cruise, Backstreet Boys, Silverchair, Joshua Jackson, Bush, Ethan Hawke, Ben (I forgot his surname, but I know he starred in the movie Armaggedon) superfanatic! You might say that most of the people I've mention above are not Irish. Of course, but... she likes them because of their "Irish" looks. I wonder what does it take for a person to look Irish? She claims that the stereotypical Irish is a person having dark hair, blue or green eyes, and a darker-than-the-Scandinavian skin coloring. Of the few exceptions to this Irish rule are people like Leonardo diCaprio and Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys. She claims that Nick is the one and only blond guy whom she likes because of some unique qualities that she sees in him! I wonder what could that be. However, she violated this one-and-only-blond rule when she developed a crush on the character Dawson in Dawson's Creek, portrayed by a rather pale American of Dutch ancestry (Van de Beek is his surname). I guess my sister is just like any other girl when it comes to boys.

However, she's definitely not like other girls when it comes to other things. She dresses up like a boy (sneakers and jeans while in Church!), loves to watch sports shows (X Games & NBA are her faves), and aspires to be a boy (She always regrets that she became a girl!)

Wanting to become a boy is one thing and wanting to look more girlish is another. This might be ironic to some, but that's exactly what my sister has been doing for the past two years. She is so conscious of her weight that she does bicycle excercises 3 times a day! This, plus the fact that she eats only a little amount of meat made her look like a walking stick! My parents have been complaning about her physique and urging, if not forcing her to eat more meat and drink more milk. However, she still looks like Princess Bahlla in the animated movie Antz.

The other alter ego that my sister has is being a Mighty Duck. Guess you now know the reason why she likes Joshua Jackson.

On one of her bright sides, my sister is an excelent cook. Mmmm... I llike her dishes, especially her lasagna. Magnifico! She also trained by my mom to be responsible for some of the household chores - and she's doing it quite well. Planning the weekly menu and cleaning her own room are among the many things that she do. And to cap it all: despite the fact that she's irritating in a nagging way doesn't imply her aversion of myself. It's just probably her nature to do so (Yeh, and its her nature, too, to occasionally scold her elder brother, too!) Or it could be just her way of expressing her sisterly love to me... I love you too, sis.

 

JAN 1999