Touched...for the very first time

After an indecisive round of where and what we would eat, we eventually settled down at a Chinese restaurant.

Maybe it was because we had an intense debate about success, happiness, and finding that invisible balance early in the morning, a light conversation was much needed between us.

[Insert a lot of laughter here and there between B and G in the conversation]

B: How was the spa?
G: It was weird.
B: What do you mean, weird?
G: I had to be naked.
B: Ah, you should be more comfortable with your own body.
G: Not when I have to be naked in front of somebody!
B: But you’re not completely naked. Don’t they let you wear your bra and undies?
G: I did wear my bra. She told me to take it off. The only thing I was allowed to wear was paper undies.
B: (begins laughing) Paper undies is not THAT uncomfortable.
G: It was embarrassing!!
B: So you’re telling me they rub the oil onto your whole body?
G: Yea….
B: (laughs hysterically) Including your boobies?
G: Yea….except the nipples
B: (laughs hysterically and rotates his fingers in the clockwise direction) Isn’t there a nipple cover thing?
G: There’s a sticker strapless bra, but those cover your boobs and not just nipples. Besides, removing sticker from your nipples would hurt!
B: Does this remind you of a certain song?
G: A song about boobs? No!
B: That kiss song…
G: By Katy Perry?
B: Yea! Except you should write “I got touched by a girl and I liked it…”
G: (Makes a disgruntled face at B)
B: You should write about it, haha
G: Then put a picture with my hands covering my boobs!!
B: Yea! Think about how everyone will learn from your experience.
G: Yea…my misery is their happiness…hmm
B: Haha you got molested! This is kinda like that scene from Friends where Chandler goes to Joey’s tailor and finds out the tailor has been molesting Joey all along
G: Oh yea, I know that scene!

[Conversation ends with a lot of loud laughter and another topic begins…]

Dreams

Source: Unionville, ON
Nikon D40: F/9, 42 mm, 1/160 sec., ISO-400

In light of this segment of thought, as seen in the picture above, and a debate I had with my best friend this morning, along with a series of events, I've been pondering about life in general: What do I want to derive out of it? Do I want anything badly enough to will myself in taking that first step? I'm happy but how do I get that reflected in my career? I'm not in my first-choice career (it's really my second choice) but it's practical and more economical in the sense that it'll get me to my other life goals, is that enough? If I decide to have a change of career at say when I'm 30, will I be motivated and be brave enough to cross that second boat?

What really got me started on all this thinking was when I walked towards the UTSG campus to meet with him, and I saw a lot of people focused and driven by their goals at the Bahen Centre. Then I was observing him thinking about his stuff, running around to get some minute stuff finished, and it got me reminiscing and reflecting.

Having my dreams so easily accessible in my head and vocalizing what I want is all fine and dandy, but I'm not motivated enough. I've stopped planning for what I want in life and so caught up in living the moment. All the plans that I had for myself ever since I was little just didn't materialize since I came to Canada. Sometimes I feel like all the things I've done and experienced were really out of luck, and a lot of things that I do want to do, somehow I get caught up in the emotions of life's drama and forget to focus on my dreams.

I got accepted into both U of T and York, out of sheer luck, considering I was so caught up in a family drama at the time and my grades reflected that issue. I went on to get a pretty prestigious job into a brokerage firm, which apparently is really hard to get into, all because a good-hearted First Vice President of the company liked the fact that I can speak a couple languages. I dated somebody after knowing him for only three months based only on the bonding factor that we've been through the same kind of things together, eventually fell in love with him and his family, talked and planned on creating a family together, then all that was wiped off because he decided that I wasn't good enough for him.

The fact is, I wasn't. At the time, I wasn't good enough of a person to tell him that even though I have many faults and am really stubborn to the point where I'm not willing to change, I was more than worthy enough of his honesty and respect. A year and a half ago, my happiness in life was linked to how proud my family is/will be of me, how well my friends treated me, how well am I loved to the point where the person I love wants to spend the rest of his life with me, how established of a person have I been to be able to give advice freely and to speak with conviction about life's struggles.

The self-motto I've created for myself since childhood was that I am who I am, I don't expect myself to be perfect, and anybody that expects me to even be close to perfect or ask me to change my bad habits can get the fuck out of my life. I was never so kind as to will myself to change to adapt to what other people wanted. Whatever they wanted of me, I had to be comfortable about it or learn it myself in order to go through with it. That was true in so far in that it only applied to my closest relationship, when my relationship with people got really close. That was my definition of loving myself: to be true to myself. But it was all linked and tied in with them.

It's only recently that I've learned to love and take care of myself without linking myself to people, not even my closest family, or friendships or any potential future romantic relationships can be a linking factor. It doesn't matter how long I've known them or well I've known them. I've slowly changed myself and taken myself out of a lot of things/relationships because I wanted to be first and foremost, be good to myself and surround myself with people who are good to me and encourage me to be me. I want to be fun and loving without being made fun of, I want to change the intricate pieces about myself on my own terms, and not because people around me wanted me to change or adapt, I want to step away from all my confusing relationships with people and be on my own. It's an exhilarating feeling to know that I've finally taken a step to be happy with myself (albeit a bit late) without all these other associations, and I can only hope that will have a spillover effect onto the other areas of my life: career, being motivated, focusing etc.

(Wow, this is a super long entry. My next entry will be about getting touched by a girl, in all the unexpected places, and uh, it was quite an experience, to say the least. Details to be shared, not so willingly, but I figure if Mark had such a good laugh out of it, I might as well give it away. Laughter is really a great medication and you can't overdose from it.)

Big and small toys

There's too much excitement going on in my house right now. I can't concentrate haha. My dad thinks he has to practice driving in it for a bit so he can get used to it. So I drove everyone around the neighborhood, my siblings were in their pajamas, and everyone's making so many comments. All this excitement is not good for me since I'm attempting to study. My family's really cute haha.

I found a lot of friends for Shane: lens hood, 4 filters and a new screen protector. And they all came to see him today!!

Wayyyy too many distractions right now haha. Right now, I think my siblings are spending the night in the car.

I'm feeling super blessed lately. My mom's been making/packing my lunch everyday of this week to alleviate me from the stress. My dad's been making all these jokes and trying to motivate me in life. This happens particularly on the mornings he drives me to the GO and asks how I'm doing. My siblings and I have been getting along rather well for the past little while, bonding over the silliest topics. My best friend is driving me to the exam, thereby optimizing my studying/cramming time. Another friend and her boyfriend cooks lunch for me every week, thereby cutting my cost of buying lunch. I'm all smiles nowadays haha.

More or less

I think there are way too many financial analysts making partly educated guesses, giving away too many differentiated opinions that it's throwing the financial market off to an even bigger tangent than it is. As much right as investors have to be panicked about the current state of the market, I think the exaggerated difference of opinions from analysts creates an unnecessary investment hostility for not only the institutional clients, but creates a spillover effect onto the general public investors, furthering the "damage" on the economic market.

Also, all this mergers and buyouts of banks by a major bank makes it a super scary world, in terms of financial institutional control. It'll just be Bank of America and Citigroup who will become major banks of U.S.A., which means that there'll be less competition against the "smaller" banks (whatever small bank that is able to survive this turbulent times), and eventually, they will either team up or be bought out by the other, which I believe, the general public (especially the national citizens) and the government will suffer for, due to incurred fees (furthering their bank profit) and financial control of their domestic market (the chartered banks having more control of the market than the national government bank).
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I've been loving this song! Enjoy!

Perfect Sundays

I love having my Sundays to myself. Perhaps the weekdays and weeknights get so busy that I look forward to spending some time in solitude. I almost never book any outing with friends on Sunday. I also love starting out my Sunday with a cup of coffee and blogging.

Nikon D40: 26 mm, F/4.2, 1/50 sec., ISO-400.

As busy as it was in the past week, I had the luxury of seeing a good friend from University after a year and a half. It felt really good to be around an old friend. Thanks Rebecca!

I also got a postcard from Mr. Eric this week! That was surprising because I didn't expect one so soon. I think towards this year end, I'm going to fill a section of the wall in my room and call it the "postcard wall". When I was shuffling through my bookshelf the other day, I found a few postcards from some friends. Re-reading them put a smile on my face, especially when they fill out every space of the postcard with their experiences.

Yesterday, I did something new in my life and it felt liberating and almost "grown up". I have Mark to thank for all the input and listening to all the relaying of the indecisiveness. I also have Eugene to thank for being there with me and my family. And Salima for always being there for me in every step, from the researching to the excitement to the actual finish.

I also love finding out new things about some of my friends. Just this week alone, I found two other friends who are into photography. I'm looking forward to many-a-photography escapades with them. I also love spending time with people one-on-one now as opposed to a group. There are so many things that I learn about them that I never had the fortune to know when we're in a group setting. Sometimes I think I'm continually surprised by them, that if there's anything surprising about me that they don't know of. Oh, the surprise elements of friendship.

I've also been making a list of places to travel (in no particular order): Vancouver, Thailand, China (incl. Taiwan and HK), Australia, Singapore, San Francisco, Italy, Buenos Aires, Peru, Tanzania, Mauritius, Sweden....

Vacation

Edit: Dang!! I'm getting way too excited about Paris when I look through the research. I'm going to be so dazzled with the architecture and the artistic city....

I concur with a sentence in one of Emily's entry about how planning for Europe is fun, but when the actual trip comes along, it doesn't seem as fun anymore. I completely agree with that because I've planned many smaller events and the time that lead up to it is all fun, but then I forget to truly enjoy myself for the actual day.

So, I'm hoping that with all these smaller things that I have to do before Europe will distract me enough from being excited about the trip. I learned that I want to be surprised, continuously. I don't like everything being planned to a 'T' and think a little room of spontaneity adds the zest to a vacation. I learned that I much prefer sightseeing than a city with lots of shopping, per-se. I'm drawn to the history and the culture of a country rather than what's available.

Next year for my Canadian trip, I think I'll go to Mont Tremblant; for my smaller week-long trip, I'll visit either San Francisco or Vancouver; and for my big trip, I'm divided between Thailand and China/HK/Taiwan. Thailand never quite made it to my top 10 of places to go but after hearing someone talk about the culture and the art, I started getting drawn to it. Haha, partly why I'm so much more drawn to it is because I keep thinking Shane will get many great pictures from there.