Something To Muse Over

As if I don't do enough of that these days. I checked my "thoughts" tab and I have 17 of those pesky things. Talking about various things that quite honestly just repeat themselves over and over again. I have no more original thoughts, just trite sayings repackaged in shiny word wrapping.

I would be sure I am boring people, but I only have five people who read my blog, so there is not much of a problem there. And I missed the disjointed way of expressing my thoughts, because it was so easy to digress forgivingly and hide my thoughts behind beautified words and phrases.

. . .

Stella first transferred to our school in grade nine, and our first impression of her was "bookworm and computer geek." She was the girl who read in all of her classes, going through a book every three days.

I was the girl who read while walking down the halls, narrowly avoiding trees and lamp posts and the tangy metal lockers painted brown-green-blue. Who volunteered at the school library in part so she could get new books before everyone else saw them.

Maybe we were destined to be friends.

Or maybe we were only friends because we sat next to each other in BTT, and I was the only girl in the class aside from her who knew how to code a website.

On the bus ride to Niagara Falls she, horrendously bus-sick, slept on my shoulder, and I wondered, what happened to Nora? Since when had I stopped sharing everything with Nora and hung out with Stella instead? Nora, who was as close to a best friend as I had ever had. Stella, who I now walked home with for lunch every single day.

The week we got back the principal's office called for Nora. She went and did not come back for the day. Later on she told me the principal accused her of changing her (and a lot of other people's) grades in our science teacher's grade-book.

"Do they think that, even if I did change it, I would be so stupid as to give myself a really high grade?"

That was what she said. She thought another friend of hers was responsible.

But I remembered doubting her, even though I would have trusted her just a year ago. And I wondered how that had happened. How I had come to realize she was not all that innocent.

. . .

The first time I went back I met up with Clover and JJ. We watched movies at Clover's house and played some Wii game. Then we walked through the dark roads near Finch and Vic Park to JJ's house. Her parents were still awake, anxious, because she had called nearly an hour ago and forgot to call later.

As for my parents, well, they had no idea I was walking outside at midnight.

There are a lot of things my parents did not know about me. A lot more things they still do not know about me. Late-night excursions outside was only one of them.

But for some reason nearly all of these things involve night-time.

I may have a too-deep love for the night. It is, after all, where my dreams flourish. Entangled. Silvery-black. I have written about dreams, and written about night, and I must have written about hiding things from my parents.

So when we stayed up until three in the morning, watching silly dramas that made no sense and trying hard not to sleep, I should not have felt odd. Not at all.

Not nostalgia. I do not know what that means anymore.

. . .

I can feel it in my throat, first. A tingling feeling that trickles down to my stomach. I refuse to believe it is my heart. It strikes when I am at my house, or else when I am with a friend, or else when I am at a party. It is perhaps envy, I think, but that cannot be so when I am alone. It should not be nostalgia, as I am wont to believe, because how can you be nostalgic in your own home?

House, I mean. How can you be nostalgic in your own house?

But the tingling, breath-taking feeling lingers. It starts to hurt to breathe. I am longing for something, I realize. Desperately longing for something that is not quite there. I am reminded of it alone, or else with friends, or else with strangers. It is there when I laugh. It is there when I cry.

Undefinable. Yet ever present.

I think I want something tangible, because I am too materialistic to want something intangible. I want something I can touch, something I can hold. Something that does not ring in my ears as laughter does. Something that smells sweeter than the crumpled shirt by my bed.

I want it so badly I cannot breathe. I can only want. I let it fall down my throat, and when it passes I am normal again, only left with a faint maybe I should.

Maybe I should. But what is it that I should?

I call it nostalgia, even though it cannot be nostalgia, because how can you be nostalgic when you are still in your own house?

Such a ridiculous notion.

. . .

I still talk to Stella sometimes. She is the same. Bookworm. Computer geek. School-hater. A little bit paranoid. Very much so adorably hilarious. I think that is why we all loved her.

She took onto me because I was slightly more computer-literate than everyone else. Not by much. And because I put up with her rants. In return I learned about the precarious situation I was placing my computers into (the ever-present and ever-imminent bot-net threat), why I should play whatever game it was that she was interested in at the time, and someone to walk home with for lunch.

Where she would complain about vegetables.

And we would both agree that we liked potatoes.

She is the first person I talk to when I am going through my list of Canadian friends. And the one who always responds.

But I have not seen her in years.

I always think I am about to lose her. So close. One of these days she will just be a name, and I will stare at it and never muster up the courage to talk to her again. One of these days I will forget the Toronto skyline, forget the summer bright nights and the TTC through Vic Park-Finch-Don Mills. Where Fairview is. The newly renovated Fairview, all huge and glamorous and confusing.

The feeling in my throat is back again.

It's Been A While

Since I've written anything. I have been busy with a lot things, such as college applications (most obviously), but also homework and general procrastination. Very, very busy, so much so that I missed the last day to post in October and must now start in November.

What a tragedy.

Anyway, since I have fuzzy memory I will recount things in reverse order. Bear with me as we travel back in warped time.

Tuesday, Nov. 2nd:


Election day! Which means three things: a) no school tomorrow; b) going over to Tea's house to bake donuts with Yuma; and c) checking out how accurate Nate Silver's predictions are. Excitement levels in that order. My mom had no idea there was no school tomorrow, so I wonder what would have happened if I went out at 6:50 and walked to the library and spent my day there? Oh well, she knows now, so that's not possible.

Also, I am very excited to see how baked donuts will look like. And taste like, too. I am so glad I subscribed to, uh... around 109293874 food blogs while I was working on my college essays (i.e. procrastinating), because I would never have found the recipe without it.

Then, of course, actual election results! That, too, is exciting, but I guess it's not as exciting as listening to PM-wannabes dissing each other in French and gluing their hands into their pockets. But I suppose that is a purely Canadian thing.

Monday, Nov. 1st:


ED/EA applications are due today, and guess what? I don't have to worry about them, because I finished them! Yay! Other than that, the day went by fairly boringly. Oh, right, I fell asleep in French today, which was bad, because I was in the middle of a listening test. Luckily, I got through the first trial effectively, and I couldn't understand most of it anyway, so I guess a second listen-through wouldn't have helped much.

But I told my partner-in-crime-in-the-business-of-staying-up-late that I should probably set a bedtime, and he suggested, "11pm?"

Then I told him that I fell asleep in class, so he immediately changed it to 9pm.

Haha. As if. I barely get any work done before 9pm. But I do need to get to bed earlier, and preferably not spend half an hour trying to say "goodbye" in Welsh. Or Portuguese. Or Macedonian. Anyway, now we've set it at around 10-11pmish, which is a good time, I suppose. If only I can remember that, along with the fact that I need to bring lunch money (and money I owe Tea).

Also, NaNoWriMo is starting today! Anyone interested in starting a full-fledged novel (or, really, does anyone have the time to do that)?

Sunday, Oct. 31st:


Halloween! My parents and I went out to buy a printer/fax/scanner/copier/whatever-else-is-there machine. We went to Best Buy, and once there, my mom told me, "Can you look for some whiteout?"

"Mom, we're at Best Buy. Why would there be whiteout here?"

"Why not?" My mom said. "I'm sure they have some."

No, mom, they don't. I asked the guy at the front desk anyway, and he said he has never seen whiteout in the store. Ever.

Then I went to check out the iPads, and started playing Plants vs. Zombies, which is my favorite game of all iPad games. My dad came over and checked out the MacBook Pro to the side. I must say, I'm not a fan. Seriously, Apple. You were great a couple years ago with all those really colorful computers, but these days you're all white and black and silver. So monochrome. Even shuffles have color. Why not laptops?

Anyway, we also checked out several Sony laptops, and we wanted to see a few Lenovo ones too, but Best Buy didn't have any. Oh well. I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon, if only because I'm really, really tired of all the white (yeah, this laptop's white too) and I want to be able to bring it in to school to work on stuff.

Saturday, Oct. 30th:


We (my parents and I) went to the border early this morning (read: we left at around midnight) to sort out our visas, once again. It was fairly successful, and I even finished a lot of my reading/listening homework. Very productive. Then we came back and went to a Chinese supermarket in West Hartford, where I discovered supermarket-porn.

Well, okay, not really porn, but they were selling the herbal version of Viagra, except they call it deer's tail, so I had no idea what it was, and when I looked at the pictures they showed people in very... fascinating positions.

Ahem. Yeah.

When I came home I worked on my Chicago app, and I finished very late into the night (around 9pm, I believe). But Cammie's birthday/Halloween party was today, so I went over and shared in the movie-watching (Moulin Rouge), gossip-sharing fun with everyone else there.

Where, yes, major stuff were revealed, but at least on this blog that is as far as I'll go with it.

And in the morning (which is technically the next day, but oh well) there was chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream! Yay!

Monday, Oct. 25th to Friday, Oct. 29th:


I don't remember what happened here, except for a haze of college apps and late-night chatting with Yuma and maybe other things, such as, oh, Clay repeatedly asking Yuma and me whether we were going to frisbee. I got the message on Wednesday, thank you very much. I didn't really need the reminders on Thursday and Friday as well. But I think I'm just snappy because I am so exhausted by college apps and not sleeping nearly enough.

But that is all I remember, and all I can recall right now. Time to do homework and maybe, maybe, catching up on some sleep.

Going, Going, Gone

I am leaving for Toronto tomorrow (a sufficiently large place that I feel, despite my general paranoia, confident in divulging this information to potential internet lurkers, which there are none anyway, but nonetheless). My mom and I are resolving passport issues (mainly hers). I will be resolving this issue in the future, right when I'm in the middle of my freshman year at college (which, according to the book I just read, is not a matter of if, but a matter of where), so it will be highly problematic and if I am not careful and/or lucky, I may have to resolve the impending illegal-status-problem during some oddly-timed exam.

Which will not be good. But I digress.

(Also, if I go to McGill, there will be no such problem, which is another plus, I suppose.)

I will probably be coming back a week later, if at all (well, I do hope to come back, but if I don't, someone tell Paperclip that I still owe them four textbooks, three of which are not under my name, plus an assortment of paperback books that are also not associated with me for some reason). This time will most likely be spent pseudo-prepping for bio/college/English/whatever else, and I will most likely be spending the pseudo-prepping time reacquainting with old friends.

I'm skeptical on internet access for the next week (or, for that matter, my amount of "free" time), so I won't be able to tell you in detail about my Penn-Swat-Princeton visit (or revisit, for Princeton), and how much I absolutely fell in love with Penn despite the rainstorm (walking into the Wharton building is rather awe-inspiring and breath-taking all at once, although the two often complement each other). Nor will I, for that matter, be able to keep up with blogs and comments (I'm sorry, Julie, I've been meaning to comment on your blog for a while now and I haven't found the chance yet), or my daily comic binge, which is rather sad, but I will deal with that (hopefully).

(I will also not be able to converse at length with Reese over his convictions that I should go to Swat, although he prefers Penn over Swat himself. That may or may not be a loss. I'm not sure.)

Most depressingly, I will probably miss the AP scores letter (I know I can call, but I'd rather not do that since it's way too suspenseful), delay my story until unknown times and depths, and not be able to vote on a senior girl shirt slogan/design. I will have to leave that to my (mostly) trustworthy fellow classmates.

Canadian Gold

First of all, I have to admit, I have a ranking system of patriotism.

It goes sort of like this:

1. If there is a Chinese team in a given competition, or if the Chinese are somehow related to a given event, I will automatically support them. Unless I personally disliked the people in the team. But usually I do not have such close relationships with them, so for the most part, the Chinese are automatically on the top of my cheering list.

2. If, for whatever reason, there are no Chinese teams, but a Canadian team is present, I will cheer for the Canadian team, regardless of who the other people are. Unless, once again, I personally dislike the Canadian team members or I personally like the other team members, but that usually does not happen either.

3. If #1 and #2 are both not true, and there is a US team, I will cheer for the US team. With the exceptions as mentioned above.

So I suppose it goes without saying that I was cheering on the Canadian hockey team during the last game of the Olympics. I was elated when I saw the winning shot, by Sidney Crosby of all people (which was sort of expected), and that Canada had finally won the most important gold medal of this entire Winter Olympics. I am also glad I have not forgotten the lyrics to "O Canada" yet.

However, that alone would not constitute a blog post, at least not in my blog. Maybe on Sergio's blog. As it happened, because of Canada's hockey gold, two interesting phenomena occurred.

First, as I would like to point out rather obviously, I have a Facebook account. (No, really, anyone who reads this probably already knows, but whatever. I need to mention this to lead to the next part.) And I had such an account back when I was still in Canada, and it is still very much in use. Therefore, half (and I believe, the last time I counted, exactly half, although this might have changed what with Dino and Irving randomly adding me) of my friends on Facebook are Canadian, and half are American.

During the hockey game, some interesting wall posts resulted.

Random Guy: 1-0 Canada . Omg we better win...

Other Random Guy: 2-1 canada lets gooo!!!

Another Random Guy (right before 3rd period ends): NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Some Soph at Our School: holy shit usa!

Other Random Guy: Canada!!!!!!! Crosby!!!! Gold!!!

Melissa (finally, someone with a name): wtf they're not even a real country

Random Girl: OMGGG CROSBYY!!!! Woot! Hahaaa USA=suckers xD

Some Soph at Our School: one of the best games i've seen. good work USA.

Jun: Fuck Yeah CANADA!!!!

(*Jun's post was followed immediately by Irving's comment, "where do u live, again?")

This reminded me dearly of the wonderful experiences I've had in Canada, where there would be people who would deride the American people. I tried to persuade them otherwise, seeing as I have lived in the US before, and the two really are not that different, but alas, I failed.

And came right here to hear people deride Canadians.

Really, they're not all that different. Even in the ways they insult each other, of course tailored slightly to fit the context.

But I figured showing the reactions side by side would be interesting.

(Oh, and, in calc class today, Sonny and Dino asked me whether I had heard of curling. Because, apparently, it's huge in Canada. And when I said I had heard of it--not in Canada, but in the US, actually--he immediately assumed that I knew how to curl. Trust me, I am far better at chess than I am at curling, and to be honest, I have only won one game at chess, and that was because my opponent gave up since the game was taking too long.)

Hockey gold also places Canada with 14 gold medals, which brings up the next interesting piece, namely the number 14. I now firmly believe it is one of my lucky numbers.

To name but a few 14s that were more than nice, there was the 14 I got at NEML, which subsequently resulted in a fancy prize of $12.5 in giftcard money (they gave two for people who scored high enough to get $25 and so forth... which is probably what only math people could have even thought of) and a book filled with math problems.

There was the 14 questions I got right on the AMC.

Chinese New Year's this year was on February 14th. As was Valentine's Day, although I suppose that was not quite the "cheerful" holiday I had been not-so-expecting anyway.

I have 14 lower teeth.

Okay, the last one, albeit true, is totally unrelated. Regardless, those are a lot of 14s in my life, all related to positive things. So my theory on 14 being a lucky number of mine is not entirely untrue. In fact, it is very, very plausible, and perhaps I should host a special event on the 14th of every month as a continuing respect for this holy number.

Or, more beneficial to me and to the people at our school in general, I could use this as an excuse to postpone school starting time until 8:14am, because teachers would be much more miserable if we had to go to school at 7:14am, and the next alternative has to be 8:14am. If we could also get out at 2:14 pm, my life will be complete.

It's just like 11:11, except even better.

(My wishes for 11:11 never happens, anyway. Neither do my birthday wishes, although I suspect that may have something to do with the fact that my cakes do not have candles.)