Living Vicariously : Criminal Minds / CSI

I should've been led down the correct path, following my love for crime-solving adventure and forensic-thriller reading materials since I graduated from my Enid Blytons. In fact, it took me a long while to expand my reading materials to cover other genres because I really do enjoy the suspense, the thrill and the crime-solving journey. Each blood-splatter pattern comes alive in my head.

As a kid, when asked what was my cita-cita, I would say "Police CID". A bit further down the road, "FBI" replaced "CID". And then, I don't know what happened, I got into advertising and events. Even in uni, I took an additional course in Criminal Psychology. I remembered the first day of lecture, I walked into the hall and was extremely intimidated by the fact that out of the hundreds of students, I was the only Asian. Talk about standing out. Nevertheless, I made it to each and every one of my lecture and tutorials and I devoured the textbooks within the first week, getting intimate with serial killers and case studies and all that mystery. I aced my course, and I had loved every minute of it.

But then, I still steered down the career path of being in the 'glam' ad world. Firstly, I was on scholarship to finish my BA in Communications and secondly, to switch totally to Criminal Justice would've required a whole different set of foundation. Time I had. Money, nada. So, the closest I got to doing anything BAU-like while in the midst of my ad career was studying Consumer Behaviour! :P

To say that I am a fan of the both Criminal Minds and CSI is understating it a little. I'm a huge, huge, huge fan. I'd like to think that had these series been on air back in the 80s and 90s, I would right now be staring into the eyes of a serial killer instead of a bridezilla. The only difference would be instead of asking "What gives you the thrill of the kill?", I would be asking "Why are you crying over menu selection??!" Hah!

Reality bites, though. I know my limitations and it all stops at analyzing people's character and behaviour. Ok, I do know that what's on TV is as exciting as it gets because I think in real life, crime-techs don't kick open doors and wield guns at a potentially armed-and-dangerous suspect. I also think in real-life, crime techs with long hair tie their hair back neatly too. And on TV, all the crime techs seem to be geniuses who remember their periodic table by heart. I'm not an idiot, but I enjoy my own fantasies.

First of all, I dislike science to begin with. I remembered when I was in Form 1 - the first year I was introduced to Science as a subject by itself, my Dad told my Mom this after a screaming session in trying to make me understand the "logic" behind a science concept (and I believed I was close to giving him a stroke when I kept arguing with some illogical argument based on nothing scientific) : "She just doesn't have it in her to do Science." My Dad was a Science & Math teacher. I believed him. From henceforth, he stopped torturing me with Science and I was left to my own devices. I still aced all my Science & Math subjects, mind you. I had extremely good memory. I memorized everything - including the bloody periodic table and mathematic formulas, etc. (My Dad still doesn't understand how I could've scored A1s for all my Science subjects).

Secondly, I'm afraid of the dark!! Can you imagine if I was in pursuit of a suspect who decides to hide in a house, which conveniently does not have power at said time and all I have to rely on was my standard-issue LED 7438 Lenser Torch?? I'd be shooting at the direction of every noise I hear, imagined or otherwise! And I doubt the outcome of that would be good. IA would be all over me!

An extension of being afraid of the dark, I am also afraid of things non-human. If I was assigned to a 419 at some creepy location - ESPECIALLY if it was after sunset hours, I might have to call in sick. And what about visits to the morgue? I wouldn't be able to share a space with a DB and I dunno, God forbid if I was left alone in the morgue. If the DB so much as twitches - which CAN happen because of so many various natural reasons (yea right, keep telling yourself that), I would die of a heart-attack. Then again, I think anybody would.

I am also squirmish about blood and body parts not being attached to a body. Whilst I don't faint at the sight of blood or lots of it, I don't think seeing a head without a body or a body without a head would sit well with me. I would imagine, just checking on a DB with a head that is totally bashed in and COD is blunt-forced trauma would be enough to make my dinner come out in the reverse. Ok, don't even have to go so far. A few months back, I had a nasty fall and from there, an infected wound the size of a tiny crater on my knee. I had to clean the wound myself and dress it with some antibiotic cream. Now, this is my own blood, my own yucky-goo stuff and still, when my finger went into that crater, my entire body became jelly-like. I'm pretty sure Detective Mac Taylor or SSA Agent Hotchner wouldn't be impressed with my jello-ed body.

Though, I would think that all the above is about 'getting-used-to' and going through sufficient training (surely they wouldn't allow some rookie who would shoot at 'ghosts' to run loose and protect civil society??!) and of course same goes for rattling off some scientific formulas to recover smudged prints from greasy surfaces. Therefore, it is actually not too late for me to do a career make-over. Right? I'll probably have to start from the bottom - like, I dunno, crime scene clean-up? OMG. More yucky-goo that does not belong to me. And maybe even an ear or a finger which the crime techs failed to see? But then again, I think there is hope for me in the BAU - as long as they keep me out of dark, creepy places and the morgue, I should be ok. It's never too late to dream and chase it ;)

But for now, I'd be happy living vicariously through drooling at Hotch's and Mac's perpetual frowns that make them look so super sexy and macho while they lead their respective teams into solving serial crimes and such. I've watched all seasons, all episodes repeatedly that I know the crimes by heart. Just this morning, MOH remarked that "We have watched this episode 6 times already!" - referring to CSY : NY 6 playing on AXN this morning while we had breakfast. I still hid the TV remote from him :P

It's my 45 minute of de-stressing fantasy for the day. Repeated or not, it reminds me that I still have dreams to chase after :)
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And just for fun - I did this CM personality test online and here's the result of it! Revelatory? Perhaps. Haha.

A tad too close to the truth for me too!!!