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Christmas

Out of all my Christmas gatherings with friends, the one I look forward to the most is the one with my high school friends. Maybe because it's usually a weekend night, whereas gatherings with other friends are usually for lunches and weekday nights.

Maybe it's because we've all seen each other through the best and worst of times, maybe it's because we've grown up together so there's a certain level of purity between us. At the same time, this kind of friendship can be a double edge sword in the sense that we've only allowed a certain level of image to be seen with the other person. It can be hard to break through that mold especially if there are other avenues of ourselves that are drastic from the other.

Either way, for that couple of hours we were together, it was an awesome night for everyone. You can tell everyone had a great time because as soon as everyone got home, they were all looking to add each other on facebook. My news feed was flooded with notices on who became friends and a smile formed on my face.

Irrelevancy

Yowza! I woke up this morning at 5 AM (someone's text message woke me up) and thought yay, I'm going to start my day super early! So, I showered, packed my breakfast, packed my school notes (I study at the library during my lunch hour) and drove to the station.

As soon as I got to downtown, I stopped by Timmies to get my breakfast, and realized I left my wallet at home. Usually, it's in my bag but I had brought it out last night to go to McDonalds. Smart move!

So, now I am wallet-less, lunch-less, coffee-less and hoping there will be no ticket-checkers on the train or cops on the road tonight. My diet today will be Kashi cereal and chamomile tea haha.

In between full-time work and studying 3 courses, I think I can handle it in my head until I realize that I'm putting everyone and everything else in my life on the back burner. I forget to return my library books. I forget to pay my bills. I cancel with friends and move the date at a later time, only to cancel with them again. I may feel like seeing friends today so I book time with them. Only when the day comes, I feel like spending time in isolation.

It's always like this: when you want something in life, and you work for it, you get all these other usually-seemingly unimportant things creep up demanding your attention. It's frustrating, challenging and surprisingly, fun.

Anyway, I'll have to re-prioritize, re-organize and work harder.

It's a good day, nonetheless. Am slowly becoming a morning person.

haha, this is such a pointless entry - childish and irrelevant

October

As much as I love all the special people who had their birthdays this month, I must say thank God the celebration is finally over! I don't know if it's the age factor which leads to my lack of energy but I am gloriously exhausted from all the running about this month, especially for 5 of the 7 special birthdays. [I suppose the running about makes up for all the cakes I've had, but still...]

For the remaining of this month, I just have one more birthday to celebrate, one wedding reception, one hospital visit, one midterm, one assignment and then I can get back to myself. I suppose the motivating factor for this month was all the little things in life really, despite the very moody forecast.

I like working in downtown Toronto, probably loving it more and more. It's a different culture almost. People are dressed up, energetic, running about and just seemingly, have a goal everyday.

Despite everything, I still want to go back to Paris for December. Some days, I think about dropping everything here and moving there. Other days, I am more practical about it.

The zillion train of thoughts that run to my head, I often have to remind myself not to talk out loud about them, because they aren't censored very much. So, I apologize if you've had to try and understand my point of views this month, especially in our limited break time.

Mintz: My dinner with Sarah Polley - thestar.com

Mintz: My dinner with Sarah Polley - thestar.com

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Thought this was a relateable article and the writing was simplistic and endearing.

Happy Birthday Mom

October is a really busy month on the home front.

Usually when my parents come home at night, one of us opens the door to greet them. Tonight, no one did, out of exhaustion and laziness. I was taking a nap. My sister was studying for her midterms. My brother and my other sister were on the computer.

So my mom comes home, a little dejected that nobody surprised her with a cake on her birthday. My dad came home and went to check the fridge for the cake and laughed. (I heard him laugh even when I was upstairs) Still, he managed to say to my mom, "oh the kids didn't get a cake for you this year but it's okay." (My dad's always cooperative, when it comes to surprising my mom haha)

My mom, even more disheartened by this point, went to take a shower since she found out there was no cake, that I was sleeping, and the rest of us were 'too busy'. She took forever, until my little sister told us that she was ironing her clothes and watching TV in the grownup's room, which translates to her getting ready for bed. At this point, we all walk quietly up the stairs with the cake. My dad goes in first and comforts her some more. The rest of us follow and yell out, "Surprise!!" then proceed with a birthday song.

She then had this huge smile and I think she was moved because her voice was a little different. Then she told us how she thought nobody cared to celebrate with her on this one-special-day-of-the-year. Then we all had cake after 11 PM (which means all of it is retained in our butts), and ended the night with some pictures and some laughs.

Tonight's a good night. Good moments are hard to come by but they're much more memorable.

Happy Birthday Mom! When friends tell me horror stories about their mom, or how great their mothers are, I think none of them are as great or as strong or as successful as you are. You bug the living daylights out of all of us but I'm sure we all do well in returning that favor. I hope when you get a little bit more savvy with the world wide web, you'll read all this, smile and be proud of yourself that this little unit you've created with dad turned out to be an alright bunch, lots of improvement needed but alright.

Little sister with her little comments

[Just cuz I know you're going to read this]

Nelly - Jenn, are you studying?
Jenn - yup, I have a test coming up
Nelly - what?? why are you working harder than I am? That is not normal!

Ignition

Sometimes, these moments come at a random point, a name that sparks that hidden ignition, an expression or a child's innocent smile. So you contend with the uncertainty of when this ignition sparks and you think about dissipating the ignition once and for all.

Except, most of us don't know how to do that. So, most of us rather replace the original ignition with a new one. Until that new replacement comes, there is this waiting period. And nobody, nobody, likes to wait. Worse still, instead of attempting to be patient, we find crappy replacements for the time being.

In the end, we question how happy we are, we question how much worth it was. For those of us who did wait, we question if it was a good idea. So, would we, should we, have a black and white answer or a grey one?

Connection

Connection with people is such a flighty thing. It's short-lived. I wonder what keeps friendship between two people together? Should connection be naturally grown or should it be coerced into?

Two steps forward, one step back

Maybe online classes were a bad idea.

On top of about 50 page notes per course and average of 30 pages of textbook readings per week, I have like maybe over 20 messages to go through daily on the discussion board for each course. Each message is like a personalized long letter that I have to read in detail and respond accordingly.

Not to mention almost everybody has had some sort of experience with the industry, whether it be a published book, or a degree to that effect, or many a rejection slips. So, I have to be impressive in each response since I'm trying to step into the world of the elites.

haha, I don't think I'm used to full time work + part time school + designation titles. Although I must say this is probably the most challenging kind of fun I had in years, and that's really because I'm finally taking the first step. My mother was a bit skeptical about supporting me for my dream but I think I'll take what I can get.

Thanks Mark, Eugene, Salima, Rocellie and Andy for the encouragement! Especially Roce, who has encouraged me to do this almost 5 years ago! Always helps to have people in your life who give a little boost in order for you to jump. :)