Watashi wa…

The above sentence is Japanese for “I am…” (that explanation is meant for my non-anime literate friends.) I must say, beforehand, that no amount of words will be able to do justice to yours truly’s character.

Rather than write “The Story Of My Life” like Hellen Keller did, I’d prefer to explain about myself as well as I can through this write-up page. I’d say the best way to know me, however, is to talk to me (online). That being IF you can get past my heavy MSN filtering (I’m paranoid!)

Care to read on?

In a nutshell…

a.k.a: Ariane Kinoshita
d.o.b: July 21, 1992
gender: If the name didn’t make it obvious, go slap yourself. Seriously.
location/hometown: Selangor, Malaysia (surprised that I’m not American/British/Canadian?)
occupation(s): High school student, editorial board member (editor + graphic designer), full-time sibling babysitter (yes, that included. I will charge you if you want that service though.)
ethnicity: Malaysian-Born Chinese (MBC)
years active (webdesign): 2 years (since May 2005)
For more information (i.e: physical appearance, personality, likes/dislikes), I suggest you carry on reading, as below is a more…in-depth “analysis” of yours truly.

Name

In short: Ariane. In full: Ariane Kinoshita. With my dork twin Mako, I’m Shuiko Suzuhara. So call me Ariane or Shuiko, but Ariane is preferred. My name doesn’t mean anything - not that I know of. But coincidentally, if you Googled it up, you’d find “Ariane rockets” and “Ariane satelites”. NO, I am not obsessed with space - and neither are my parents. I don’t know how that name came around xD

Misspellings of my name are common (and I’m picky about those). On forums, on blogs, on other sites…you name it, THEY have it. Like “Arine”, “Arene”, or even “Arina”! Ari-dono or Ari-chan is okay; however, PLEASE - do NOT call me Arin, Arine, Arina or any other name you can think of to tweak Ariane (unless I tell you upfront that I’m okay with it.) Thanks a lot.

General

Contrary to the fact that my name sounds Japanese, I’m actually Malaysian born and bred. In case you don’t know where that is, it’s located in South East Asia. Near Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and a few others.

Okay. Back on track - I was born on the 21st of July, 1992. Please do the math to find out my age. I’m still living in Selangor to this day. I don’t intend on moving…until I’m grown up. ^^ Yeah, I’d love a jet-backpack someday and fries with that.

I’m of Chinese origin - in Malaysia, we have many different races; Malay, Indian, Chinese, Kadazan, Iban and many other smaller groups. @_@ But both my parents are Chinese, so that makes me pure Chinese, blood-wise.

Lingua Franca!

I’m actually multilingual. Although I’m Chinese, as a baby, I was English-educated (which was a big problem when I went to Chinese school later!). In Malaysia, we have a lot of people who speak English with their slang like “whateverlah!” (with all the “lah”s and the “hah”s behind every single sentence. Yikes.) Thank goodness that my mum brought me up without the slang, which commonly leads to people thinking that I’m from USA/UK/Canada or so. To which, I must say again - No, I’m not.

So in my childhood years, I was a real “banana”. Yellow-skinned outside, though rather “white” inside (meaning you don’t speak any Asian languages.) Thankfully, through school and my relatives, I picked up Mandarin and Malay (Malay is our country’s national language - you can find a similar language in Indonesia.) In addition, both my parents come from families which use the Hokkien dialect (it’s a Chinese dialect) as their mother-tongue. Hence the reason why I speak it, albeit very broken. =D

Through “exploiting” my self-learning abilities (the very way I learnt webdesign as well), I picked up a good bit of Japanese. My parents have been very supportive of my learning and even got me one of those self-learning language kits for my birthday. While I can’t string together a good paragraph, I can more or less make out the rough meaning of some sentences.

So, yes. I “speak” a total of 5 languages, 3 of which I am fluent in.

Family

My dad came from Northen Malaysia - Penang, the food haven ^^. My mum came from Southern Malaysia - Melaka, the historical city. Both met in Selangor, which is in-between (it’s really in the center of Malaysia.) We’re still residing here today, even though I plan on going globe-trotting some fine day. (Any of my online friends wish to allow me to crash at their place? =D)

I have only one brother - no sisters - but I’m thankful that he’s here. I’d hate to be an only child. But still…the two of us are trouble enough - I guess that’s why mum didn’t want another kid. *hahar.*

Appearance

I’m the typical Asian girl with features unique to my ethnicity - you know, the usual dark hair, dark eyes, yellowish-tan (haha) skin. Now while one look at me will tell you I’m Asian, there are some rather different things about my features compared to other Asians. You see, both my hair and eyes are not considered black or even brownish-black, but they’re dark chocolate (not because of sun exposure, but due to a natural lack of melanin.) My hair is usually around 2 feet long, which is somewhat half my height (as you’ll find out later, I’m a “midget”. xD) Oh, and I wear glasses all the time because of a reading addiction as a kid which killed my eyesight. (Darn!)

My parents are of different height, with dad on the lower end of the height range and mum taller than dad is by at least 2-3 inches. Last I checked, I stand at 5′2”-5′3” (roughly about Eva Longoria’s stature xD) - so I blame the bad gene on my dad. Yes, I’m SHORT. Not that I mind, though, I get a fair discount off my movie tickets.

I’m commonly labeled as a “fashion-ignorant” only just because I don’t primp myself madly like most of my peers. I’m what you’d call a “jeans/capri trousers and T-shirt” girl (no shorts!). And yes, I love my sneakers. =) True enough - I’m rather laid back with my sense of style. I don’t think there’s the need for me to fret about “what to wear” at my age just yet.

(All right, so my only exceptions for wearing skirts are when I have orchestra performances. But only that.)

The Love/hate relationship

Oh, before I continue, lemme dispel some wrong ideas - This section is about what I favour, and what I dislike. It is not about my exes or the like (I’ve never had any.) I fancy being celibate. Find someone else as your significant other.

Anyways…I enjoy life in general and its itty-bitty things, but I’ll start with the usual. I enjoy good food, good stories and great music. More specifically, anything that’s home cooked (food) or jazzy Jpop (although I love all sorts of music except for “screamo”, 50 Cent *haha* and heavy metal.) Even more in-depth - I like listening to UVERworld (okay, so they’re somewhat J-rock), TATE&MARKIE (”no thanks” to a peer’s influence, but I like them! =P), and some of Koda Kumi’s stuff.

Not only do I enjoy those kinds of music, I also like working on my own music skills - I take up both piano and violin and teach myself the harmonica. Ari finds fun in self-learning, which is why most of her crafting/designing skills are self-taught. Yes, I learnt webdesigning and webdevelopment by myself, as well as making handicrafts (specifically, polymer clay art.)

And hmm…I love reading. It’s an addiction that took root as a kid and it’s hard to kill. Like I mentioned in “Appearance”, it’s the thing that killed my eyes. =P I read all kinds of things from self-help books to sci-fi to step-by-step-guides to - er, science/medical encyclopedias! (I shy away from the smut and “gossip” magazines though.)

Material things aside, I love my family and friends for the fun and learning they bring. (Every incident/day is a new one to learn from.) I love smiles and laughter (and being crazy.) I like making things fun for myself, that’s why I love school though it has its “crap” days. (Well, I actually make my subject content silly so that it becomes interesting to go through with and remember.) I don’t have a specific subject I favour, though I’m doing well in English (my strongest forte), Science and Maths. Apparently, I’m an all-rounder, so to speak (which makes it hard for me to decide on a career path.) I love both Science and Arts subjects and can do all right in both.

I like getting along with friends and seeing others smile for the right reasons, because it makes me smile as well. I do try my best to make people laugh about things; however, I’ll gladly work a problem/woe a peer faces simply because I love to help.

Oh, I love thinking ahead and about “deep” stuff, hence why I also enjoy “deep” convos with friends. Those stimulating ones about the oddities of life and the whole world, learning to get along with a “troubled” friend/family member, and the like. Sadly, they’re rather rare to come by offline, let alone online. Still, I do get my dose of them online and I’m happy too.

I do have my fair share of pet peeves, which are more towards attitude than tangible objects. I don’t like it when people neglect the needs of others in the course of achieving their own goals - or even forget to give other people a thought. I dislike nagging (no, my parents don’t do that. They have other means and ways, and I’m not a spoiled brat), arrogance, excessive ignorance (although I WILL try to bring you up to speed with what I’m thinking), apathy (for the wrong reasons!) and self-centered people. Well, I guess that’s about it I can “detest” so far. =P

Personality

I got lazy of thinking about what to write here - so I took a test. It’s freakishly accurate @_@ They made a trait snapshot, which included (bolded ones are accurate, italic ones somewhat accurate) the descriptions:

messy, outgoing, open, self revealing, ambivalent about chaos, unpredictable, not good at saving money, social, likes large parties, likes to stand out, risk taker, quick to make friends, does not like to be alone, rash, fame seeking, sarcastic, craves attention, social chameleon, low self control, food lover, not rule conscious, weird, assertive, not a perfectionist, anti-authority, thrill seeker, vain, likes to fit in, reckless, emotionally sensitive, leisurely, trusting

Global Personality Test Results

Stability (53%) medium which suggests you average somewhere in between being calm and resilient and being anxious and reactive. Orderliness (36%) moderately low which suggests you are, at times, overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment. Extraversion (80%) high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

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