Your Love Style is Pragma

You believe love is logical - or at least it should be You've thought a lot about what you want from someone And to say you have a checklist would be an understatement You may even have a plan for how you will fall in love All you've got to do is meet the perfect person!

It's really not fair.

Why do men get to have the previlage of drink themselves silly ranting about history and politics while their wives all sit there, crossing their fingers under the table that chanting silently "please don't make a complete ass of of yourself this time!"?

I was at a dinner party last night...not my favourite kind I must admit. I learned a bunch of interesting things about Chinese politics.

Here's a little excerpt (from what I can remember)

"So the father and son (I'll spare you the names) were of opposing political parties. The father was a communist and the son was of the Nationalist party and they each tried to convince other that their party was superior."

"Oh yes, and they had a clash. The father shot the son in the leg. The son then blinded his father by his chopsticks (I'm assuming they were having a meal?)"

"No, that's not true. The father lost his eye in a battle. He received a bullet and it had to be removed without anesthetics. The doctor had to take out his eye ball."

"Yes, the doctor was a Frenchman and he was very impressed by how his patient withstood the pain."

"No, the doctor was German."

"Right, German."

Who knows, it might come handy when I get plastered and need to share some amusing facts. I was offered a beer, but my parents cordially refused it for me. The bottle was opened, the hostess then attempted to give me a teacup (teacup!?) full (what's that in pints? 1/12?). Then the host waved her off, grabbed the bottle from her and placed in front of me. Dad then said "have some and whatever you can't finish I'll have".

Excuuuuuuuuuse me!

It's just ONE bottle of beer (with a meal!). Why is it that just because I'm a girl, I'm automatically assumed to have no interest or the ability to consume alcohol? I'm crossing my fingers that I won't become one of the pitiful wives sitting at the table with an awkward smile plastered on my face watching the men having fun. Actually, I say, screw tradition.

When I played some cards. Chinese euchre, called "find your friends". It's euchre on crack, I swear.

1. The entire deck is used including Jokers (count as trump)
2. Win tricks to earn points/keep other team from earning points (5, 10 and King are points)
3. you don't know who's on your team at the start and you have to find out based on your hand during the game, and because of that, each game you partner up with different players.

Interesting, no?

A new semester that is.

Been busy finishing a clay project this week. "Note to self: never attempt to carve feathers out of clay" Yes, I was stupid enough to attempt carving feathers out of clay...it worked out well...it just took me a very long time and left me with sore fingers. Pictures coming soon.

Asides from that, I'm supposed to be studying for the MCAT, writing up a lab for Organic Chem, getting O-week events together for the Bio-Med students' association, getting ideas for the Human Biology & Nutritional Sciences Symposium, sewing my costume for Anime North (this is the most hopeless task), and figuring out S-Plus for my 4th year research course.

And you wonder why I don't have time to earn money working?

I'm in a reflective mood today. It's my birthday, I feel old. I've been alive and kicking for 22 years. Soon, I'll have to lie about my age and one day I'll wake up, look at the face in the mirror and scream "wrinkles??!! I need a botox injection!" But for time being, I'm going to wear sunscreen and pretend that I'll never get old.

I think I've come a long way. I'm a lot happier now than I was five years ago. Unfortunately, I still don't know what I want. Actually, let me rephrase that: I know exactly what I want; I want too much, and I have to decide what I would give up.

I want a meaningful career. I don't want to think of a job as work only from 9am-5pm, I want to integrate it as a part of who I am. It's MY job. I want a job that pays well, a job that is in demand, a job that makes a difference, a job that offers variety, a job that gives me satisfaction, a job that allows me to travel and see more of what this world is about. This is why I gave up pursuing art as a career. I love art, and I'll never stop making more art. I don't think I'll be happy as a professional artist. I don't want a life without financial security. I don't want to work alone all the time. I don't really care about fame; I make art because I want to. Aside from art, I've also considered business, but currently I'm giving my best shot to get into Med School. For the longest time, I couldn't find enough reasons to pursue Medicine. Let's see, I can't recall a single moment in my childhood where I wanted to be a doctor. I remember watching a documentary on separating Siamese twins and being really disturbed. I watched 30 minutes of the movie "Outbreak" and it gave me nightmares for a month. The good thing with me is that I don't faint at the sight of blood. Actually, I don't think it's possible for a girl to faint at the sight of blood because there's this thing called a period. How would a girl go through life if she faints every time she goes to the bathroom when she's menstruating?! This is truly, a weakness of the opposite sex.
I'm happy to announce that I've gotten over my fear of Medicine. My program of study has conditioned me such that I can look at bloody, mingled pieces of flesh with interest. I remember getting my blood drawn for the first time to test for H. pylori. I was nervous, but I didn't faint. I was excited, marveling at the gorgeous dark red fluid that came out of my arm to the syringe. Oh and, I can finally enjoy the show ER. Now all I have to do is waste this entire summer studying my ass off for the MCAT, fill out tones of paper work and pray that the Med school admin people like the sound of my name.

I hate making choices. One unfortunate thing about the freedom I'm offered here in Western society is that I have to take responsibility for the choices I make. Wouldn't it be easier if I don't have to think so hard about what to do and have someone else decide whether to turn left or turn right? That way, if the choice turns out to be a crappy one, I'll just blame and curse that individual instead of taking the blame myself. I remember a poster in the basement of my high school library, featuring Snoopy on a bike, with the caption "each one of us is a 15 geared bicyc...most of us have gears we never use". Well, my problem is that I've tried out too many of my 15 gears and I don't know which gear to stay on.

I want a life that offers a lot of freedom and independence. I'm not a family person. I'm just not. I don't ever recall ever wanting a brother or sister and I remember being absolutely devastated when my parents announced that I'll be losing my only child status. I've learned to deal with my family...because it's my family, I have no say in who my parents and relatives are. The word "family", for me, has always been plagued with obligations and responsibility. I felt like such a burden to my parents. They are so easily irritated whenever I asked for something. Getting my own Driver's license was such a relief because Mom almost always complained about the hassle of sending me to piano lessons. I knew it's because she's working very hard and under a lot of stress. Yet I felt as though it was my fault that life was hard, that I was too much work to raise. It didn't make sense to me why people would have a family and curse about how much work it is thus making life more miserable. And I thought, wouldn't it make more sense to not have a family and not dealing with such a huge responsibility? If having a family doesn't make a person happy, then that person is better off not having one. If the choice has already being made to have a family, then the individual should stand by that choice and learn to deal with the negative aspects of it. I know my parents and a lot of other people see getting married and having kids as a mandatory stage of life, and that's probably why they feel it's something they have to commit to. I don't see it that way. I'm out to make myself happy, so if getting married and having kids doesn't make me happy, then I won't bother.

I've been through some hardtimes. I remember during the most confusing time of my life as a teenager, I was yearning to connect with other people but I was always alone. The most miserable summers of my life, Mom was pregnant with my brother, I was forced to stay at home and do extra math homework while putting up with her mood swings. I was so confused and miserable and angry. "Why me? Why must I suffer like this", I used to think. My only two options were to accept loneliness and deal with it, or give in and commit suicide. It was that bad. Looking back, I couldn't believe the sad mental state I was in. I became ashamed of my family situation. We were struggling financially, so I couldn't ask for anything that I really wanted. Whatever that was "cool", I couldn't have. I never went out to see movies because I thought they were too expensive. Not once did I ever buy anything from the vending machine in school, no matter how hungry I felt. I never invited anyone over; I never had any sleepovers. And of course, I never got invited to hang out with people either. My parents were (and still are) totally anal about telephone conversations over 15 minutes long, so I rarely ever talked to anyone on the phone.

All emotional trauma leave scars. Going through those tough times made me stronger, but because I've gotten so used to being alone and dealing with loneliness, it became my way of life. I've gotten really good at occupying myself so I won't ever have a moment of spare time to think about how lonely I am. Often, I prefer being by myself rather than being surrounded by people. Somehow, it's only when I'm alone that I can let out a breath of relief and truly be myself. I was afraid that people might judge me and think that I'm not normal.

Now I know. I know that I'm not normal, and pretending to be normal doesn't remedy anything. I'm a strange person. I doodle on my textbooks and notebooks, I have a bad habit of talking to myself, I have a weird obsession of angels, I still go back to my high school to do art projects, I read the Financial section of the Globe & Mail on a regular basis, I don't want my own family...

And I'm done feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I’m unlucky. I'm very lucky. I'm perfectly formed, I'm capable of thinking for myself, I've met some amazing people, and I have the opportunity to pursue what ever I like in this life.

So I say to the world: this is who I am, so deal with it. If you don't like me then it's your loss.

Went to TO yesterday. In style of course...good ol school bus. It was my highschool's annual art trip to the AGO/OCAD, or in other words, the cheapest way to get to TO and back. At the AGO, I saw the Massive Change exhibit...one hour was not enough time. There was so much information to absorb, to make you think, and to interact with.

One of the most interesting displays was a diagram called "The Tree of Life" in which the designer/artist constructed the evolutionary tree in a circle. From far away it looked like a mechanical or computing device but upon close examination, it had little to do with technology. I just loved it.

In another room, the designers drew connections between common household items to advances in military technology. For example: the air pump and basic principle of kinetic energy employed in the making of a supersoaker watergun was also used in military weapons (I wish I remember what kind of a rifle it was specifically). IN the next room,there were displays of ethical debates on GMOs (genetically modified organisms), stem cell research, etc and the public can vote pro/con on the issues. There was an overwhelming negative response on GMOS, probably because they had a model of a featherless chicken as an example. Featherless chickens are ideal because...hey, no feather...no plucking necessary! A featherless bird looked rather unattractive I must say. Could you imagine a farm full of featherless chickens? Scary.

The exhibit also showed us the future. Biodegradable baby blankets, alternate energy solutions, corn based take away containers, fleece jacket made of recycled pop bottles, potato based take away containers (apparently, if only 3% of restaurants in the US switched to this type of take away container, then 120, 000 cubic metres of landfill space can be saved, which is equivalent to the amount of trash produced by New York for five days, impressive no?)

The exhibit was exciting, refreshing, provocative, and inspiring. It gave me a lot of optimism for the future.

After I got back from TO, my friend Jing took me out to see "A Lot Like Love". Apparently, it was the best choice out of all that's playing right now. Both of us don't have enough brain power to last a serious movie like "The Intepreter" (and that's beside the fact that Jing is not a fan of Nicole Kidman)

"A Lot Like Love" is quite refreshing as a chickflick because the way in which the story was told was different...yet, there were enough funny, warm, fuzzy, happy, sappy moments that still qualified the film as a chickflick. It wasn't a film where two drop-dead-gorgeous people with to-die-for bodies meet, fall in love in five days and live happily ever after. It's a movie that is moving at the pace of today's society. I can personally relate to the characters, their thoughts and their struggles...and that's quite something. And of course, bonus marks to this film because "Look What You've Done" by JET was one of the songs in it.

Maybe I'm just too tired and that's why I thought the movie was good.

And I couldn't figure out why I'm such a klutz yesterday. I fell off the bus when we arrived at TO. One moment I was on the last step down, the nest moment I was sitting on the last step wondering what the hell happened. And then later on, I managed to smack my jaw with Jing's car door. I don't know how I did that either but it hurts. Then after I got home, I caught my ankle at the door. SO after a fun filled day, I went to bed with a sore hip, jaw, and ankle.

Finally, I got sick. And I got very sick almost overnight. I love how my immune system fails me sometimes. In actual fact, I'm not THAT sick. Usually when I get sick, I'm also stuck in the middle of midterms, papers, labs, and a million other things. In this case however, I can actually do nothing all day and not feel guilty (well, I still feel guilty because lying bed for an entire day and accomplishing nothing means wasting a day and that's a day I'll never get back).

It's so great...being sick and to have no obligation to actually get out of bed...well, I did get out of bed because of this thing called hunger (and there's no use getting my parents to bring food up to me...I'm not THAT much of a spoiled brat). Yesterday was the worst, I couldn't do anything, just drag my feet around. No energy, so I can't even look at the computer screen for more than half an hour. Tried to read the novel Christa lent me, but again, that seems to be an impossible task too. So I went to bed. Apparently I managed to fall asleep, because I was in the middle of a nice telephone conversation with the hot TA in my Economics class then my dad's voice came out of no where telling to come down for supper. Great timing Dad!

The only problem of taking the liberty to be sick when you're actually sick...is Mom. I got one of her lectures again. "Don't know what to do with you! Why are you so weak? When I was your age, I was as healthy as a horse. Told you to exercise! Told you not to stay up til midnight. Early to bed and early rise, that's how it's supposed to work. Staying up doesn't help productivity. You are an adult now, you should know this." You get the idea. And I've learnt my lesson trying to talk back to her, so I just ate my bowl of noodles, slurping quietly, thinking of some far off happy place (without her there of course). Honestly, she is the only thing I fear in this world. I hate her lectures, I can repeat them word for word. And I've thought of being openly disobedient...except that she's really in poor health and spirit and I rather not kill her. I don't need to live with the guilt of contributing to the death of my mother. She really doesn't know how to let go, she really doesn't know how to make herself happy. I mean, two years ago, I bought her a spa package for Mother's Day. I'm sure she wanted it because I remember her talking in jealously how the girls at work go to the spa on a regular basis. Mom is almost twice their age, and she's never been to the spa. So I gave her the opportunity. Mom was impressed, but it's so special that she treasured it...and never used it! I kept on asking her if sh's used up her gift certificate but she just said that she's too busy, and that she's waiting for a special occasion to use it. To this date, the certificate is still sitting in her drawer. Two years! The certificate is already expired. What do I have to do, hold a gun to her head and say "now, make yourself happy?"