poet

She once asked me 
the name of my 
favourite poet 
and I replied

God

She laughed 
and played along 
and asked me 
which one of his 
works was my 
absolute favourite

I said it was 
the one 
where he 
wrote her 
into existence

http://www.navk.ca/

a letter to myself a year ago

Hey, it's the last day of 2013. If I remember correctly, you are on a mission to finish watching FRIENDS before the winter break ends. You did finish, I’ll have you know, with time to spare. 

A lot of things are going to happen in 2013, more than you can imagine. 

--

You will struggle at times with your relationship with your dad. It will come haunt you like it always has, and it will change both you and him. But you will get through it, and you will be ok. 

You will be able to meet up with an old friend to talk about life and the future. You will appreciate her in your life much much more, even though you barely talk to each other. But that doesn't really matter because you can pick it up wherever you have last left off. 

A beloved friend of yours will lose someone dear to him. It will happen so suddenly that it leaves you with a void that seems to freeze time itself. But he will be strong, and you will take that as a reality check, a reminder to testify to love whenever you can. 

You will slowly start to redefine "friends" and "perfectness." You will find out more friends have drifted from you, either because maybe they made better friends, or you were never really friends with them to begin with, and you are still trying to figure out what they thought of your friendships. But let them be redefined, because in a way it ends up doing you some good, so let it happen. Get past the confusion and hurt, you can do it. 

You will get a Surface Pro and it will carry you through work and classes more effectively than you had imagined (don't get too excited now!)

Waves of stressful anxiety with research labs will crowd your thoughts for some time, but you will get two internship interviews. You will nail both of them and get accepted to an amazing summer research internship and have a great time. It will also point you in a direction that suits your interest more than you know. And you will work your ass off for a number that you still dread its power over you, but you will keep going, whatever it takes.

You will also make something with your heart and hands that you thought you’re proud of, but it will become one of the worst mistakes you have ever made in your life. It will be you subconsciously trying to hold onto hope almost physically, but it will not only fail but you will also lose something that means terribly much to you. 

…but it’s okay, because you will learn from it… oh boy, do you learn from it. It will teach you what it really means to let go, to truly let go. Whatever you do, please...let the lesson change you for the better, and don’t let it bring you down. 

You will make a friend who will become your best friend, and please, you have to make sure that you don't let this one go, ever. I'm warning you, if you mess this up somehow I will build a time machine myself and come beat you up. 

An event is going to shake both you and the world like no other ever has. Someone sick in the heart will bring bombs to the Boston Marathon and hurt so many innocent people. It will hit home, literally, and again it will act as a reminder to show compassion to those around you. Let it speak. 

You’ll find yourself starting over, a new blog, that is, because you realize that something had changed you. You’ll ask yourself why it still bothers you, and if you miss anything. But you will realize that you don’t anymore, because you are no longer that person, and you can finally leave it all behind.

You will also learn that sometimes it is really hard to know how much something can hurt someone, and maybe, to an extent, if a lie can prevent someone hurting but hurts you some instead, think carefully before you do anything. I know you, you'd rather be truthful, but maybe sometimes it is better to lie if the lie will only hurt you, and all you have to do then is to slowly heal from it. 

You are going to get an apartment for the first time, with a sick monitor setup in the living room, and you will have the chance to learn the arts of cooking. You will love it, I tell you, so let the interest live on, and don't be lazy now! 

You will also go to your first concert, and it’s Yellowcard ‘s Ocean Avenue Acoustic Tour, too. It will change your life, and you will love them even more. Not only that but you will also meet your pen pal from England. Maybe it is the best time to meet and talk, but made it will make the experience so much more worth it.

It might not be clear or easy to tell, but you still make a few very good friends, friends who--I believe--keep you in their thoughts from time to time, and to a very large extent, they will keep you going. Their short company, small talks, and the little thoughts…they all count, more than you realize.

You will find confusion, a lot of it, because you struggle to be yourself or not. You won’t be able to decide whether you want to fight for hope, because you don’t know if it’s worth the fight. You will end up giving up because you will break again, but not as bad this time, maybe because you will convince yourself that you don’t have much to lose.

Heh, and with a little luck (and impulse, really), you are able to play Pokemon again, and bring back a childhood joy that you never thought you could experience again. 

All the most important part is...you will slowly learn how to live with the scars, and how to make peace with them. It was never your fault, and you don't have to get rid of them. They can stay in the box, and you don't have to face them again because you are not the same person anymore. You are better and stronger, and all you have to do now is carry on. 

...you will also learn that hope can sometimes bring you down, so you have to choose the right kind of hope to keep going. 

2013 will be hell of a roller coaster ride, my friend, but you will survive and learn so much. 

Carry on, my friend, and always testify. 

with a little luck

Imagine this:

You are walking down a busy street, hurrying to work, class, an interview, or a bus stop, trying to be punctual, maybe on the phone as well, figuring out what the rest of the week encompasses. You occasionally catch glimpse of the world around you, the people walking against the flow of the crowd, some just as busy, occupied, worried, determined, happy, or melancholy as you are. But you don't think about any of that, 'cause you need to look both ways before you cross this busy street to get to that building so you won't feel as terrible for missing that alarm this morning. You are so absorbed in fixing your morning that you didn't realize you dropped your umbrella. Someone picks it up, hands it to you, and it snaps you out of your little bubble as they say to you," you're gonna need this!" And you didn't even remember you had your umbrella with you.

Maybe you're in a library cramming months worth of material into your head so you have something to show off to yourself at the end of the month when you check the numbers that really shouldn't so much determine where you end up in the world. Convinced for a break, you look up from the screen to find the sleepy eyes, blank stares, and that stressed forehead rub from the other students. You say some encouraging words to yourself just as someone seems to have noticed your textbook and asks, "hey, are you in that class too? Do you know why the...," only to have you realize someone shares your confusion, and somehow it's not that bad after all because you're all trying to learn the same lessons.

The world has an interesting way of telling you certain things. Sometimes, it's a reminder, other times, a companion.

make peace

I came across this quote the other day: 

You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.

Iyanla Vanzant, Yesterday, I Cried

I think that last line hit me. It made me realize that I was going to burn those things because I couldn't deal with them. Because that represented my wound, and I wasn't able to make peace with it, so I sought the easy way out, and that was the make it all disappear--physically disappear. 

The ironic thing is, I don't even know if it'd work. I just want it to go away so badly that I wanted to literally incinerate it. 

But what I needed to do is to, like it says, remove the pain from all of it and make peace. 

To make peace

Give me strength..

sometimes

...you just need some positive things in your life

Sometimes you just need a light in your life that says, "it is all ok, just carry on"

Why is tonight so difficult

But then I keep doing this

At this rate I'm gonna end up killing myself

connected

I had this dream when I took a nap today after I got back from classes. After I woke up from it, I took my phone and jot down whatever I could remember.

For some reason it felt...real. I still can't quite shake off this feeling.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ocean avenue

Friday, Sept. 6th, Yellowcard had one of their concert tours at the House of Blues in Boston. I was lucky enough to attend with an old friend of mine. 

It was also my first concert, not to mention it was Yellowcard's. 

I basically left right after my class on Friday, and got to the House of Blues around 6pm. My friend Terry had arrived there just minutes before. 

The line wasn't very long when we got there, but it did pick up around 6:30pm ish. They had the fan split up into two lines, one VIP and another without VIP. 

Even though we're in the VIP line, this person came over to us and asked if we're over 21. We said yes and he told us we could go hang out and wait in their bar, instead of waiting outside in line. We, of course, jumped on the opportunity and went to get our two bracelets (I believe one's for the ticket and another for the bar). We stepped through the door into a dimmed hallway, and after a few turns, we arrived in the bar. 

It was a total change of atmosphere; there were a lot of couches, tables, seats, and it was not nearly as crowded as it was outside. We were on empty stomachs so we didn't get any alcohols, only water. Few other people got drinks, we thought it was exciting enough to even skip the line and wait inside in the bar, so we weren't too bummed about it. 

And then I met Charlotte, my pen pal from Sheffield, England!

We actually talked the day before the concert, trying to see if we can plan out how to meet up and work out the times and such. I was slightly bummed out when she told me she got into the VIP bar as I was still waiting in line, but when the guy came over to invite us in, I knew I can find her before the concert started! 

After few chats here and there, time passed fairly quickly and it was time to get situated. We had almost an hour to wait before the show actually started, so we kinda just stood there, took in the atmosphere, and had a few quick chats with the other fans. 

As 8 o'clock hit, the lights shifted their hue and intensity; bass boomed for the introduction of another artist, Geoff Rickly, who will start off the concert with a few pieces of his own. He was a pretty cool person and a rather laid back personality, but I feel like his songs are rather negative and dark. He was ok. 

A little before 9pm, with the closing of Rickly's performance, the staff came and further prepared the stage for the main course. It took them almost 20 mins, if I recall correctly, before the stage is ready. Fans were going crazy already at this point, and I couldn't imagine what they'd be once it begins. 

9pm. Ryan Key led his band out onto the stage from the right of the stage. Crowd went berserk. I was so excited to be there, to be not even 10 feet away from Yellowcard. 

They played the pieces from Ocean Avenue acoustic album in sequential order. I didn't know that they're going to do that, but I was glad they did because Back Home was an amazing song to end the album. The acoustic album ended with a 15 min ish break, and then continued the show with a full electric set of both new and old songs, with Ocean Avenue once again as the finale. 

Words cannot describe my experience, so I guess I will just post more pictures. 

honesty

I have always strived to be as honest to my friends as possible, even when my answer would not be the most ideal answer to deal with a situation.

But now...