Alaine’s entrance
Hello there!
I’m Alaine and I’m a TCK. (gosh, that sounds like an AA intro doesn’t it?)
I was born in Singapore to nomadic parents. My mother grew up in Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Australia and my father grew up in Jakarta, Singapore, London, and Boston. Apparently while my mother was pregnant with me, she was living/travelling in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York!
I grew up in Jakarta and Singapore with some summers spent in Australia or California. I attended Jakarta International School, Overseas Family School (in Singapore), and Singapore American School. I went to college in California; my first two years were spent at Pitzer College in Claremont,CA then I got bored with the suburban lifestyle and felt the need to transfer to a larger university so I transferred to UCLA for my junior and senior year. My senior thesis project was about Third Culture Kids. I produced a show at a local theater in LA that showcased a documentary film that involved other TCKs being interviewed followed by a 20 min. dance piece that details the issues that TCKs deal with (uprootedness, feeling w/out a home and homesick at the same time, losing touch with friends, coming to terms that we should savor the moment and remember all the experiences we had, memories revisited)
Upon graduation in ‘05, I decided to move to New York City to further my career in dance. I love being in the New York and I’ve met up with old TCK friends who’ve moved here (there’s a lot of us) as well as made a lot of new friends with equally interesting backgrounds.
The road hasn’t been easygoing for me emotionally, I constantly felt “lost” while I was in college b/c it felt like everything was transient. This transience is the very thing that held me back yet pushed me forward to continue making wonderful memories. Since I’ve been in New York, I’ve held many different jobs and performed with many different people, some continue with you and some are simply temporary. I feel most at “home” when I’m comfortable in my own skin and around those that love me and support me.
When people ask me, “where are you from?” or “where did you grow up?” I tend to analyze whom I talk to before replying because that question is like a multiple choice question on a test. A. California (last place I lived) B. New York (current residence) C. Long story, but if you’ve got time to listen then I will tell it. D. Everywhere.
There you have it. That’s my intro into this online group. I also have a livejournal TCK community I started so if you own a blog through lj then please join. http://community.livejournal.com/tck_world/
December 15th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Genki desu.
That’s pretty cool. I’m planning on visiting Japan in the summer next year. I just got a new passport so I need to fill up the pages - hehe.
Did you go to school in Japan? I almost went to ASIJ but didn’t end up moving to Japan.
(Is this spam?)
December 15th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
oh nice. Its nice to know that there are more TCK artists. I interviewed a TCK actor friend of mine in LA for my senior thesis in ‘05.
If there’s anything I can do to help out with the film, let me know.
If you have youtube, look for me, alaine83
(Is this spam?)
December 15th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Alaine, nope didn’t go there, but I had friends who did. Going on vacation next summer?
Oh and I hope you link to that TCK documentary you made, I’d love to see it!
(Is this spam?)
December 15th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Yea, I’m headed to Singapore and Hong Kong next week for vacation w/ my family and hopefully to Japan with my boyfriend and family in the summer.
I don’t have the TCK documentary uploaded onto youtube. Its still sitting in a mini-dv tape format in a pile. hehe… too busy these days to go through them. Someday I will do it. I do want to expand the show I did a couple years ago at some point. It was just a lot of work and draining me out that I have to leave it for a while. I had to cut out a lot of footage that I would’ve loved to have put into it the final product so it would be cool to go back and re-do that portion as well as expand the dance pieces.
(Is this spam?)