Float on.

"We'll all float on all right..."

So, there went 2011.

2011 has been as crazy as it can be. I had a very good spring and a mediocre summer (dampened by the game that shan't be mentioned and the resulting shenanigans). And then everything just sort of spiraled downwards from then on. My last semester at SFU featured -- of all things -- a science class, and that fact alone was enough to strike down my year like a Messerschmitt in a dogfight. Starting mid-November, I've even been so caught up between school and work that it's left me gasping for sleep, let alone much else that even mildly resembled fun.

Nevertheless it has been interesting year -- not good, not bad, just... well, interesting. An eventful one for sure. To use the old, tired cliche, it's been a roller-coaster ride. Like a roller-coaster ride however, I seemed to have found myself back at where I started.

Oh sure, I found a job at Sport Chek and have done fairly well since (at least I hope so anyway... ahem). And yeah, I am officially finished at SFU as well so my 4-and-a-half-year campaign at Burnaby mountain / Harbour Centre / Surrey Central is officially over. What I found myself silently debating though, is what I managed to accomplish these couple years.

In the most simplistic terms, with work I get money. I get experience and a job title so I can put it in print to show other future possible employers how much of a winner (or a loser) I am. With school I get a piece of paper that verifies me as a student who sat / slept / facebooked through Communication and Political Science lectures for 4 and a half years. With that I can tell you in confidence who Theodor Adorno, Noam Chomsky or Antonio Gramsci are without consulting Wikipedia. They are, in fact, erm... Never mind.

But really, accomplishment?

What have I achieved the past couple years, let alone this year? I gained knowledge. I feel like I am a more knowledgeable, smarter person than I was 4 years ago (although the jury is still out on that one). At the end of the day -- or perhaps more appropriately, year -- it isn't accomplishment until I went out and did something with it. Right now, all I've done is securing a blank piece of paper to be printed with a thousand others before a ceremony six months from now.

And, because I am Asian, it'll probably be mocked mercilessly by my Asian relatives whose kids study at UBC.

There's no denying that upon finishing at SFU, it has left me feeling a bit empty. For one thing, I'll probably miss SFU alright. One of them is likely to manifest itself starting January 1, 2012, in the form of a U-Pass, which I am no longer allowed to carry.

The bottom line is though, knowledge isn't simply exhibited on a piece of paper. Experience even less so -- and considering my wealth of experience as a bus boy / camera salesman / bubble tea server / cashier, I can't even say that I have much in the first place. Both takes time to build. If you have it, people will know.

One of the dreaded questions when I was in University were something along the lines of: "What are you going to do after you graduate?" Well, to be frank, I don't have a clue. We're talking about a future that seemed so distant to me not so long ago, and one that I am now suddenly facing.

I know what I DON'T want to do. I don't want to go back to Hong Kong. I don't want to stay broke forever. I don't want to be alone all the time (which will be tough since I live alone... although my aunt is here so I may as well live alone). I don't want to be absolutely clueless about the future.

I guess it's one of my many quiet frustrations that's been irking me for a while now -- the future. These past couple years I haven't achieved much. That comes later, when I go out and skinny-dip into the real world of 9-5 jobs, saving up for stuff and getting my shit together. And now that I am out of University, the time is now to get out and actually do something.

With the future as unclear as it is now, however, I don't even know where to start. It is rather overwhelming. I guess that will be one of the reasons why 2011 has been a resounding meh for me: 2011 is like that moment when the teacher yells "time's up, pencils down." I'm that kid in class who is unsure about his answers on the scantron and desperately wants to change it. Oh well, too late. 2012 is coming.

Life, to me right now, seems more like a boat without its sails up. For now, I just go wherever the tides take me.

Lately I've been finding myself listening to this song a lot. It really is a fantastic song -- one that creeps up on you and stays inside your head. I've recently paid a lot more attention to their lyrics though, and really -- perhaps I am just worrying too much. You can't plan for everything anyway. People's who's got plans are schemers. And bad things happen to schemers.

Maybe, as Modest Mouse would put it -- life's okay, and we'll all float on all right.

Here's to 2012. Please take me somewhere good this time.

Ideally...

Not a lot of things have gone the way I wanted lately. For one, technology has a vendetta toward me lately it seems -- things have gone wrong with my laptop, my headphones and a game I forked over 60 bucks for. School's started and classes have been less than steller, to be honest. I finally escaped from a long dreadful semester of statistics, only to find myself emerging into a class that talks about geometry and trigonometry. I've spent a lot more time being alone at home as of late and as a result, my mind wanders off in all directions and brings back an avalanche of stupid thoughts. I have a bad tendency to over-think at times, and there are only so many comedy shows on YouTube to distract myself with before I become possessed by the curse of my own mind again.

Yes, I've been down lately.

It's usually times like this when I find myself wondering about the ideals vs. reality -- the what-ifs; if-nots; wouldn't-it-be-great-if... blah blah blah. "If" could be such a powerful word precisely because it brings you to a world that doesn't exist. If things went the way you wanted. If only. Reality is often more disappointing, isn't it? Recently I found myself thinking about an alternate universe where, Simon, a 22-year-old in Vancouver, lives in a world where things goes his way just a little more.

"If only..."

In an ideal world, my headphones wouldn't be so flimsy that it breaks whenever I pull the cord.

In an ideal world, the hinge of my laptop screen wouldn't be so flimsy either.

In an ideal world, the sales person wouldn't lie to me by saying that the laptop came with international warranty when it actually applies in Asia only. Now I have a laptop that would disintegrate if I bring it out and HP Canada wouldn't fix it. And the warranty is expiring in 3 days.

In an ideal world, NHL 12 won't be the most overpriced, glitchy and laggy piece of horse manure that I've ever played. And I would actually enjoy playing it right now.

In an ideal world, the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future and the portal from Being John Malkovich exist so I could go back to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final -- where I'd wait until the final 15 minutes, hack into Tim Thomas's head and force him to let in 5 goals just before the game is over.

In an ideal world, I'd be driving a Volkswagen Golf GTI or an E30 M3.

In an ideal world, I would have longer fingers so I can play chords properly instead of having the guitar sitting in the corner of the closet for years now.

(Actually I wish I wouldn't be so shit at music in general...)

In an ideal world, I would write and speak much better English than I could now. I've always envied the likes of Stephen Fry and Aaron Sorkin -- who always seem to have the ability to play with words so effortlessly and taking language into a true art form.

In an ideal world, I wish I'd come to Canada sooner. My 17-year stay in Hong Kong was 10 years too long.

In an ideal world, university wouldn't be such a creativity-killer. I wish I could enjoy writing again.

In an ideal world, high school in Hong Kong wouldn't be such a confidence-killer either.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't have recurring nightmares about studying in Hong Kong because of a broken education system.

In an ideal world, I would've preferred if that same broken education system didn't drive my friend Bernard to suicide at the age of 15.

In an ideal world, my relatives would stop nagging me about moving back to Hong Kong. It isn't going to happen.

In an ideal world, I would stop being jealous of other people's happiness.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't be still trapped in a relationship that ended over 4 years ago.

In an ideal world, it'd be more "Happy Together" that reminds me of you, rather than "Two Weeks in Hawaii".

In an ideal world, we'd be living on the same continent.

In an ideal world, the sight of you two together on facebook wouldn't crush me like a freight train.

In an ideal world, I should've manned up and said what needed to be said when I saw you last year. I lost courage and words escaped me.

In an ideal world, you wouldn't come crying to me everytime he breaks your heart only to go off again when he does superficial things to cheer you up.

In an ideal world, I would be able to move on and be happy for other people.

In an ideal world, things wouldn't be so hard.

In an ideal world, I would stop wondering about these things.

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In this night I need to call you,
but all our lines are blown
If only you knew how empty I feel
Maybe then you're lonely too
And it's tearing through you like a puncture wound
Maybe no one knows what to do
When we know we're alone
In a temporary home
Maybe we'll realize
That's a blessing in disguise
A blessing in disguise

Well don't you know the sound of anger
Brings a dark result
And every insult is like a lightening bolt
So go home now oh yeah you do not have one
To some guy that you don't know
And make a baby
That won't change my problem though

I spent the last three years setting myself
On fire for you, I spent the last three years
Never knowing if what you say is true
And it will be this way til one of us dies
Is that a blessing in disguise?
It's a blessing in disguise?

And I tell myself what we're living for
And say rejoice evermore
Till one of us dies

Well I confess that so far happiness
Eludes me in my life
You better hurry up if it's ever to be mine
Better hurry up now if we're ever going to find
What we're living for
If it's not you anymore
I'll learn to sing
Evermore
Rejoice evermore

Third Eye Blind - Dao of St. Paul.

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 2.

Day 2: Your Least Favourite Song: Fergie - Fergalicious. (2006)



My oh my. Where do I begin.

Yesterday it took me about 10 minutes to figure out which song is my current favourite. This one though? Oh, I don't know, about a minute?

This is what's wrong with popular culture -- the lack of substance, a music video that make my eyes bleed, the absurdity of the lyrics, the lack of skills all around. Listening to this song gives me a brain hemorrhage -- and frankly Fergalicious isn't even remotely the worst out there. It's close, but it's not the worst. Fergalicious is just hilariously bad. So bad that it makes Video on Trial's review that much more awesome.

Listening to this song is like listening to the sound of a truckload of kittens crashing into an orphanage. It's an insult to my ears. It's evil. It's what the Third Reich would come up with. But hey, the good news is there are much worse out there.

There are just some that is so bad that it is no longer entertaining to laugh at it. Songs that are so bad -- so bad that it's just utterly putrid that one can't even get worked up about it anymore but to totally give up any hopes on humanity. Songs like this; or this; or this -- all of them so engineered you'd be surprised if the artists don't have an electronic voice box in their bloody throats. Fair enough, I've had a loathing for this new-age pop / hip-hop nonsense for a while now, so I am willing to admit that I am biased. Seriously though, whatever happened to the old-style hip hop that was all about social injustice and empowerment? As they say now, hip hop is now all about bitches and hoes. Nothing more than a corporate sell-out.

Not to mention that stuff like autotune will continue to destroy music until it becomes something like an apocalyptic ruin.

Sigh, what has this world come to?

Runner up: Crazy Frog - Axel F. (2005) It's just so horrible. Nothing annoys the bejesus out of me more than this crap.

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April 1 - your favorite song: Death Cab For Cutie - Grapevine Fires.
April 2 - your least favorite song: Fergie - Fergalicious.
April 3 - a song that makes you happy

30-Day Song Challenge: Day 1.

Yes, I have succumbed to the devil.

I am never really that big on doing anything that probably no one really cares about -- like those online quizzes and what not. After all, it's not like I don't have enough on plate already, why should I spend half an hour doing a quiz that doesn't serve anything other than being an adrenaline shot for my ego?

But you know, my good friend (and worst enemy) Sonia Mak is doing this on Facebook and she was trying to persuade me into doing this, and I thought: Why not? It's not like I don't have 2 presentations and an essay coming up next week; another two the following week; and a final by the end of this month anyway... But then, the whole point of this is about music -- which is something I definitely love (and unfortunately very talentless in).

... And I really want to go back to blogging again. Really, this shouldn't take me too long to write.

So starting today until April 30, here's my 30 songs that... do something to me. Just read the bloody list at the bottom.

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Day 1: Your Favourite Song: Death Cab For Cutie - Grapevine Fires. (2008)



It's not just this song, really. Death Cab For Cutie has always been a very underrated band -- considering how deep and melodic a lot of their songs really are. In the age of auto-tune and the soulless, top-40 bullcrap (more on that tomorrow) that most mainstream artists make these days, you've really got to respect what DCFC represents -- the rawness and simplicity of their music that is not adulterated by digitization. The Narrow Stairs album in 2008 was a particularly brilliant one (and sadly, one that I only discovered late last year); and Grapevine Fires is one of the finest songs in it.

Sure enough, the music video itself is a tad eccentric -- but it certainly meshes well with their style. The sadness, the incredible imagery, and the profound helplessness in the face of tragedy -- all coupled together in this song. At the end, if all else fails and nothing could be done, sometimes the only thing we can really do in is to sit back and hope for the best. No matter what, life goes on and everything will eventually be all right.

And the news reports
On the radio said it was getting worse
As the ocean air fanned the flames
But I couldn't think
Of anywhere I would've rather been
To watch it all burn away
Burn away

This song -- for now anyway -- is my favourite song.

Runner up: Third Eye Blind - Semi-charmed Life. (1997)
(simply because Third Eye Blind is the best band ever and I've always loved this song since high school)

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April 1 - your favorite song: Death Cab For Cutie - Grapevine Fires.
April 2 - your least favorite song
April 3 - a song that makes you happy
April 4 - a song that makes you sad
April 5 - a song that reminds you of someone
April 6 - a song that reminds you of somewhere
April 7 - a song that reminds you of a certain event
April 8 - a song that you know all the words to
April 9 - a song that you can dance to
April 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep
April 11 - a song from your favorite band
April 12 - a song from a band you hate
April 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure
April 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love
April 15 - a song that describes you
April 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate
April 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio
April 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio
April 19 - a song from your favorite album
April 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry
April 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy
April 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad
April 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding
April 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral
April 25 - a song that makes you laugh
April 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument
April 27 - a song that you wish you could play
April 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty
April 29 - a song from your childhood
April 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

There's no "i" in Christmas... Oh wait.

So... This trip went well.

I think Hong Kong holds a grudge against all the technological things I have. No joke. In the span of two months, one of the lenses for my camera went bust, my iPhone stolen, my external hard drive (along with some files and photos) was rendered useless after a harmless (or so I thought) drop, and just today -- on Christmas day no less -- my iPod got corrupted and died.

For the first time ever in a couple of years, I am i-less -- free of any Apple products.

Riding on the bus would not be the same again. Taking a walk on the street would not be the same again. Hell, being in my bedroom would not be the same again. There is no music to my ears. And this is only the first day -- imagine what it'd be like in Vancouver, where people actually have to wait for buses that never seems to come. In the words of Colonel Kurtz, "the horror... the horror..."

Thinking about it now, it's rather staggering how Apple has managed to conquer my daily life. Although the same can be said about music in general -- without the sheer volume of the iPod, it's quite unlikely that I would be listening to most of the songs I listen to today. (and if you're wondering, it mostly consists of boring old tunes nobody listens to ever again -- who in the hell at the age of 21 would listen to Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles or Édith Piaf for petessakes?)

How has this happened? Nobody even seems to remember how it was like back when iPods were Walkmans; back when people used to have to lug albums of CDs around everytime they wanted to change from Backstreet Boys to N'Sync (those were the days...) The cassettes, the mixed-tapes... Remember that laughable / pathetic attempt Sony did less than 10 years ago with the MD player? No? Well probably because the MD player was SO PATHETIC.

Then along came the iPod, which provided became the solution to all the inconveniences of the previous technologies, all wrapped in a body with the user-friendliness that puts Volkswagen to shame. Like the black hole, the iPod has sucked us all in and there's no getting out. Once you're in, you're hooked.

You have to give it to Apple -- they have managed to change the way people listen to music with this music player. This music player that changed the way I listen to music. This music player that expanded my taste in music. This music player that provided me so much entertainment every time I was on the road. And this BLOODY MUSIC PLAYER THAT STOPPED WORKING BECAUSE THE CABLE GOT KNOCKED OFF MY LAPTOP WHEN IT WAS PLAYING THE ROLLING STONES**. [expletive deleted] HELL [expletive deleted][expletive deleted]DAMN [expletive deleted] IPODS THAT DON'T WORK FOR [expletive deleted][expletive deleted] *&%^*(*@!(&&%$!.

Okay, calm down...

At the end of the day (or this year, perhaps more appropriately), when I come to my senses again and become less murderous than I am right now, I am very likely to return to the remedy, the poison, the evil spell -- or, to put it in one word, the pharmakon that is the Apple iPod.

When I do, it will be a long and painful process for me to re-download the 3200 songs that went KIA along with my iPod. If I can remember half the artists in the first place. Plus all the sorting and the organizing.

Man, I am dreading this already.

**"You can't always get what you want". Coincidence much?

PS:Another update coming in a couple days -- before I leave Hong Kong back home to Vancouver!
PPS: Merry Christmas everyone.

Fall Apart/Start Again

"Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life. And why the fuck are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it. I don't have any bloody use for it."
- Brian Cox as Robert McKee in Adaptation.


I used to love writing.

I really did. Back in the high school days, I used to have a blog which I regularly updated for a couple of years, mostly about... well, from the typical teenage rant-slash-snobbery to absolutely nothing. Especially in grade 12 (back in 2006), I often had the urge to update my blog as I wanted to document my transition from a Honger to a Vancouverite. This was the age just before Facebook exploded -- when everyone's primary hang-out place were still blogs. It was the age when, back then, you write about something on xanga, and then you rally your friends over on MSN or ICQ or whatever-it-was to have them comment on it -- even if it was absolute shit. It hardly served any purpose.

At the same time though, it was fun. I had total control over what I wanted to write about, the style I wanted to apply to my post, without any time constraints. Sure, you probably don't give a toss about what I've been up to or what I have been thinking, but -- in the words of modern teenage girls -- "whatever". To me, writing was fun and stress-free and nowhere being academic... That is, until my writer's block came about. And University.

You see, with the exception of me graduating from high school and somehow miraculously making it into a decent (... somewhat) University, 2007 was a horrible year for me. I found myself consistently in a bad mood and somehow I no longer found the joy in writing. It got worse when I made it into University, where I was constantly spanked by my courses in order to cough up some decent material for my academic essays. I have been a Communications major and a Political Science minor for well over three years now, and when you have mountains of essays and presentations and midterms and take-home midterms every single bloody semester, writing is less of a pastime and becomes more like a work-out exercise. Sure I hear you say -- "exercise is good," -- but so is cod liver oil. Alas, I eventually stopped updating my blog, only very occasionally going back for a sloppy attempt to revive it.

Nevertheless, during the first year and a half of University I still had the satisfaction of finishing an essay. Gone were the days when I had the energy to polish up my essay and feel good about them before sending them out to make sure they're at least good enough for a B+. From second year on, I often find myself hastily researching the topic I have dreamed up two days before the deadline, then spend the night before the deadline vomiting and bleeding and coughing out the essay in the most unsatisfying fashion in a 24/7 coffee shop somewhere in Downtown. The goal was no longer to get a good mark, it was to finishing it in the first place -- considering how rushed a lot of my essays were in the past year or so, I may as well just typed "I don't give a flying fuck about this anymore" as my conclusion for the essays and click the submit button -- which was usually a few minutes before the deadline. I want my sleep, and this lame writing exercise is getting in the way.

Yet, and here is the most screwed-up part: I still got similar grades for my essays, if not better. Two of my most-hated essays in the summer actually turned out to be my best ones yet in terms of grades. I apologize if I seem like I am gloating (and I am not... okay maybe a little bit), but it seems like despite my difficulty in writing blog posts, I am still doing okay in the academic department. Still, writing became such a dreadful activity for me to the point that I am no longer sure if I want to still be a journalist anymore in the future. If I have so much trouble writing my own blog and in University, what happens if I have to do it as my career? Have my own expectations skyrocketed over the years and caused my dissatisfaction; or have I lost confidence in myself somehow? Maybe a bit of both.

From 2009 onwards, sitting me in front of a laptop to fill up an empty blog is like having me to sit through the Twilight saga -- I can't do it without flinching and moaning and ultimately diverting my attention somewhere else instead.

University life has become so woefully dull that there simply was nothing for me to write about -- which is ironic considering the amount of writing I usually do at school. I have been thinking about this a lot recently, why can't I write anymore? Then I remembered that scene in the movie Adaptation, where Charlie Kaufman (played marvelously by Nicholas Cage) was seeking help from the seminars of Robert McKee (played by Brian Cox), who responded with the quote above with the most fantastic rage. It was one of the most outrageously hilarious scenes in the movie, and yet it holds the truth -- it is simply impossible to have nothing to write about when there is so much going on in life. If you can't find those things, then maybe, just maybe, you really "don't know crap about life."

So, here I am with a fresh account, finishing a complete blog post for the first time since as long as I can remember. Has it been easy? Not really. This took me much longer than a blog is usually meant to be written. But hey, at least it is not painful. When I started this, I had the feeling that if I kept typing it will eventually take me somewhere. To you visitors, consider this new place a rather useless collection of my own thoughts on everything and nothing at all -- chances are, it'll probably be about movies, bands, tv-shows, video games, Stephen Fry, politics, cars, the Canucks, or anything else that strikes my mind in the most randomest moments.

To me, hopefully, with this much time in Hong Kong (with the absence of school), I can find my joy back in writing again.