my life series; an uncool fool

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

hopeful

uncool fool
x 1:50 PM x

news

It's depressing to read the news, watch the news nowadays.

Seemed like nothing reported was hopeful and worth looking forward to. Man...it's only the beginning of the year. Natural disasters; serious crimes; conflicts and violence; One after another.

It felt uneasy to just sit in our comfort zone and read the newspaper as if it's just far from our business. Maybe it's no longer far anymore.

Safety threatened; rights and freedom compromised.

Where is the better world that were promised to us? Or...maybe it was never a promise before.

What is happening?!

Suddenly i was thinking about the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Entropy of a system.
Tendency to go to disorder- somebody said that to me once....hmm........

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I like guangliang's new song Shao Nian. I wonder whether chiew had heard it. She's crazy about him. But seriously, i think she will loove this song.

Shao nian--a past where we can never go back to......

Came back for a few days for the break. Even during the cny break, everyone's asking me when am i graduating. For goodness sake, i'm already feeling the urgency to stand up on my own feet, work and fend for my own life. Now i realised how hard it is to continue the quest of unfulfilled dreams under social pressure. it's ok...i have motivation for my new found passion now. I'm trying hard, inching closer to my lil' objectives to reach my dream. Not easy...but it definitely beats having no dreams :)

Can somebody gimme some inspiration now?!?! It's hard to initiate something new, something innovative.....I'm not a perfectionist...

but i want an idea which i can be confident of, something which i can expand and explore further, something which is of novelty, something which can inspire and motivates me more......

yea, so maybe that is not good enought yet. let's see.

Not wiling to settle down for something less better.

uncool fool
x 1:30 PM x

Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Pardon me, some reminiscence again

I was browsing thru my lappie when i discovered some of my entries which were jotted down in words doc during my last few days in canada. All of a sudden, it reminded me of how much i missed canada and how i felt when i was leaving toronto, then vancouver. Some of the entries were not completed....but i guess the start of each blog is enough for me to recollect the fond memories and emotions.

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26th December, Toronto, -15, snow

It’s snowy again. Aunty Ally was commenting how lucky we were, cuz it’s not often that they get white Christmas. The amount of snow is accumulating in Toronto. Along the streets, piles and heaps of snow cleared from the road formed a barrier between the pavements and the roads. It’s so hard to walk on the pavement. So many times that I stepped into the slushy snow piles only to get my shoes and pants wet…urgh! Cold feet and wet pants in cold winter. The slushy muddy streets and the brown dirty snow pile along the pavement became so contrasting with the clear glass classy high end fashion stores along Yonge street and Eaton Centre. Toronto downtown ain’t that beautiful with all that. Ugly side of snow.

It’s boxing day today. Start of a week of post-Christmas crazy reductions and sales. Boxing week is so sadistic. Did they purposely make it on the day after Christmas so that people who already shopped for the Christmas gifts just had to bear with the higher price they gotta make to be in time to deliver the Christmas gifts to their love ones. Oh well, doesnt really matter to me.

We left home at around 9.30am for Square One. Square One is this huge mall located in Mississauga. It’s supposed to be the 2nd largest mall in Canada. Well….yea, there’s a lot of shops and the mall is huge in Canadian terms. I still think Asia has the best and biggest malls. Some of the shops really have good offers on Boxing day. Like Roots, Grass and me, our all time favourite Canadian brand. They offered 40% discounts off all items in their store. 50% off all items in Espirit; 40% off Tommy Hilfiger; 25-50% off all Guess items; nearly all the shoe outlets have sales offer like buy 1 get 1 free or 50% discount for all shoes in the store. Gap has discounts and sales items while American Eagle Outfitters offer reductions for all their jeans and hoodies. These shops had all the crazy shoppers swarming in. All the fitting rooms and all the cashiers had long endless queue. Everyone in the mall was holding big bags of shopping victories. It’s even crazier for shops like Tommy Hilfiger and Guess. The queue, just to get into the shop is looooooong. Most of the stores had boxers and security guards standing by the entrance. Some stores only opened a section of the entrance…people were just swarming in and out like nobody’s business. The clothes on the shelves were all turned up and down. Yea….looked like everyone’s out of their house on boxing day to shop. I mean, it’s so cold in Toronto, the best activity away from home would be shopping!

It was our last day in Toronto, last day in Ontario. Leaving with the 7pm flight to Vancouver. The day to say goodbye to Grass. We attempted to stay awake last night to talk but we were just simply too tired. I kept dozing off at 3am up to a point I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. What’s wrong with us, grass! What happened to our stamina of staying up in the night, talking till 5 in the morning….haha.

We got back to Uncle George’s house at around 4pm. The front porch was all covered with new thick layer of snow again. Grass and I shoveled the snow away while Jin took pictures of us. One of my recent close encounter with snow…….maybe the last one in the near future.

It was soon time to go. Uncle George sent us to Toronto Pearson International Airport. Mississauga was 20 minutes away from the airport. Grass came along to send us off. We had a big big hug before saying farewell. Well, will be the next summer when I see her. I realized how much I will miss her when I go back to Singapore. So many things that we shared during the days in Western. Pictures, music, chill out time, studying time, our long chats, our ‘dates’, our binging session, the good times in my room……It’ll take sometime to get used to not having someone in the hostel who’ll be able to do stuff together with. In fact, I was already missing her on the flight. Our Toronto trip was fun, and it was wonderful staying in Uncle George’s place, it was interesting to hang out with the whole family as well….but somehow, I feel that we didn get to spend too much time together. Many distractions I guess. Well, somehow I expected us to have more of our usual hangout together. Just like how I wished that I could spend more time with vera before I leave. Well, things happened, and I guess I just gotta leave them the way that they should be.

I was on the flight waiting for the plane to take off, waiting for the lights to be turned off. I was just in my own thoughts. I miss the days in Western. I wished time could go slower. Goodbye vera, goodbye grass. Thinking of them, a sense of emptiness and loneliness surged to my thoughts. I’ll be in beautiful Vancouver, enjoying nice weather and great time; I’ll be home soon, enjoying good food. But I kept wishing they were around.

And I thought to myself: Tonight, I said goodbye to Ontario.

27th December; Vancouver; 7 degrees celcius, sunny

The licence plate of all cars in Vancouver has this slogan: Beautiful British Columbia. Located in the province of British Columbia, West Coast of Canada, Vancouver boasts of a beautiful nature and landscape, surrounded by the mountains and the seas.

4th January 2005.
Location: Hotel Excel, Narita, Japan

My flight leaving Canada was at 2.20pm in Vancouver Airport, 3rd January 2005. Was supposed to fly on the 5th. Decided to fly back two days earlier. The only person who knows that I’ll be reaching earlier was Bingbro. He’s supposed to come fetch me from the airport.

I finally gotta leave Canada. 4 months of exciting experiences, beautiful memories and fun hangouts with friends here had to come to an end. It was a beautiful day. It had been really beautiful for the past few days. Vancouver is sending me off with the blue skies, snow-capped mountains and its lush greenery so that I’ll come back again. It’s too beautiful a place for only a week stay. I will come back again. Summer in Vancouver. One day, I shall.

Hugged goodbye to uncle peter and aunty joyce. It had been really enjoyable staying with them. Felt bad too cuz we were out most of the time, and we always miss them, cuz they went to bed early. Didn really have time to bond with them. Finally on Saturday and Sunday, we got to spend time together. They are really cool and interesting people I realized. It was nice talking to aunty Joyce cuz she’s just so funny and cool. Uncle peter actually has a very good sense of humor too. Their 4 kiddos are simple cute and loveable. Especially Tate, who’s only 5 years old…he has an amazing imagination. I thought to myself, one day, when i see this kid again, he'll already be a young energetic teenager

Goodbye vancouver, goodbye toronto. This time, i'm really leaving. It's not a nightmare anymore, it's bloody true that i'm flying home. I'll miss canada, i'll miss london and all the ppl who'd been thru this amazing passage with me. Thanks for sharing this beautiful memory with me.

Note: Due to some technical problems and airspace permit fault by aircanada, our flight from vancouver to seoul stopped over at narita, japan for a night. Had a yummy japanese breakfast and caught a glimpse of the 1st sunrise in japan.

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I realised that unknowingly, i tend to mention a lot about canada whenever i have the opportunity. While on msn with one of my friend, he suddenly asked: You seemed to like canada a lot, what's that about canada which u love so much?

A whole long list came to my mind.

The nature, the culture, my lovely friends over there and the experiences i had there.

I like the way how greetings and smiles were everywhere, to anyone, even a stranger. I love the laid back life there without too much of complaints and kiasuism. I like the emphasis on enjoying quality life. I love the way how ppl are always courteous and considerate to one another, how ppl don't mind sacrificing one minute of their life to give way to some others who had been patiently waiting for ages. I like it how ppl appreciate every lil' thing. I love the way how ppl can just lie down, relax on the grass and soak up in the sun. I miss chilling in pubs, enjoying live music and good chatting with some close friends.

Ultimately, it's about give and take. What u're willing to give, and what u choose to take. There, they're willing to give some time, to share a smile, and to take a more laid back attitude for a better way of enjoying life.

Yes, it's about culture. It's something like how we see, for example, shanghai from singapore. Despite the modernity and the progress in the hard infrastructure, there are still a lot lacking in the ppl. They need to improve, need to be more civilised. The culture of the society needs to keep up with the development pace.

In canadian terms, i would say the same for a lot of asian countries. I'm not referring to the compromise of values and principles, but rather the grooming of the society as a whole to be more civilised, to be a better place to live in.

I was flying from vancouver to korea on aircanada, then from korea to KL on korean air. I still vividly remembered when our flight from korea touched down in KLIA, how everyone was frantically standing up and getting their luggage from the overhead bin despite advice from the crew. Jin and I were not sitting right at the end of the aircraft, but we were the last to leave the plane. Simply becuz no one would bear wasting 5 seconds of their life to give way and let us pass through. Simply no one could bear being the last to get out. I was struck with this 'cultural shock'. With a sneer, i told jin, welcome back to Asia.....

uncool fool
x 12:43 AM x