How big a sister.

  I chuckled pretty hard when you showed me this picture. Maybe it's the buck-teeth-monkey-grin on my face. Maybe it's that yellow floor-rag of a T-shirt that I was wearing. Maybe it's the fact that I've outgrown you so much since I was 12. ( You mad, short-stuff? ) Or maybe it was the sweet taste of victory that came shortly after winning our bet. Oh sweet, sweet Magnum. Remember how I didn't even like nuts in my Magnums' back then? Classic Magnum was all the rage for me.

  But after staring at it for awhile, I realised it was probably none of those things that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Not the ice-cream. Not the familiar bugs-bunny teeth that I could drink soup with my teeth clenched. And sure as hell not that floor-rag of a shirt that's wiping up faecal remains back home. No, it was probably none of those long-forgotten things. It was you, zhe. The fact that everything else in that photo changed, but you sticked around.

  I know it's probably too little too late, but I'd like to apologize for how I made your younger days much harder than it should've been. First born's gotta always take the shit for the rest of the siblings, something I sorta picked up here in Germany.The way I whined and cried about everything. The way I bitched to mom about how you locked me out of your room with your teenage friends. And let's not forget how I air-guitared you all the way to the bathroom. No elaboration needed there.

  But, oh no, I didn't stop there did I? I had to go and mess up your teenage years as well. The way I slid across the living room floor butt-ass naked was more than enough to send your best-friends packing away in embarassment. Or how I was like the BIGGEST cock-block ever whenever you brought boys back home. Oh god, the more I think about it, the more I feel like slapping myself as a kid. I probably ruined a lot of plans you had.

  Not only was I a bane on your social-life, I think you had to bear the brunt of our family problems too. As the unappointed chief of our two-man sibling tribe, you probably cleared a lot of air with mom and dad about the do's and dont's to raising a teenager. You were the first. The first to hit puberty. The first to move out. The first to go to university. You were the toe in cold water before the icy plunge of childhood-raising. So when the time came for me to undergo the magic of puberty, they already roughly knew what to expect.

  Growing up, I never really had an answer to those :' Whose your role model? ' questions. I just settled for Steve Irwin whenever someone asked, cause he's all brave and shit. ( and he was actually really brave) But what's he ever taught me? The hidden dangers of stingrays? Well, it might be too late to answer those 'whose your idol' questions now, but I do have an answer. And I don't even need to look far, cause she's sitting right beside me in our little family tree.

  A writer, a musician, and more recently, a doctor. That's like the pinacle of our asian mentality! What everyone should be like. Damn, my sisters' actually a doctor now. How am I ever gonna match that? Way too ease off that inter-sibling expectation, zhe. Now I gotta be some PHD or something so Mom and Dad can look at us in the same room, haha. You're one whose so far up in society, and yet, so close to home. Who could make a better role-model?

  Other brothers probably buy expensive shoes or jewelry for their sisters' birthdays. Don't tell me you don't need those materialistic things, cause I know you like the bling-bling. But I'm just sitting here, 10000 kilometres away from home, typing on a keyboard for you. Another plain example of how I fail in the sibling-love category. I have still to match that PS2 you bought for me, someday I will, when I got the moolah. But for now, this will have to do.

  Happy Birthday zhe, kep rocking and stay awesome like you are. We'll see each other soon in Germany.

Lots of love,
Marcus