25 Random Things About Me

1. My closet and dressers are organized by categories (T-Shirt, Blouse, Dress, Pants, etc.), then by sub-categories (Sleeveless, Shortsleeve, Longsleeve, etc.), then by colour from light to dark. This started when I was a child - ask my sister, I even did hers back then! Though only one of the very few things I'm anal about, this gives away that I am kind of a freak.

2. I can't live without: Books (everything from the embarassing Twilight series to Victorian novels to the newest fiction and non), Music (anything and everything, from Bach's cello concertos and Arvo Part piano pieces; mellow classic jazz and nu-jazz; indietronic and house; to mostly things in the 'Rock' family as in Classic, Folk, New Prog, Post-punk - am currently listening to Patrick Watson, Muse, Sigur Ros, Doves...the list goes on), Movies (just not any stupid Jim Carrey ones), a Camera (to capture those easily-forgotten candid moments in life), and great Food and Wine (to share with friends or with me, myself and I).

A close second would be Love, Friends, and Family - just kidding. Who needs friends?? ;-)

3. I have an incurable dislike towards all insects, reptiles, or mostly anything that is smaller than a dog and not in pretty colours like butterflies (and by 'smaller' I mean anything smaller than Macy - sorry to Chihuahua lovers out there).

4. I can't understand what is so difficult about differentiating among "their, they're, and there", or between "its and it's", "you're, and your", etc. Get it right, people!!

5. I plan big things, but always leave the details to the last minute, in my attempt to balance the organized/flying-by-seat-of-pant persona I try to portray. It drives my 'planner' friends crazy. Time to get me some new friends (just kidding!).

6. When I was little, after I was done playing with my Barbie dolls (all 20+ of them which I shared with my sis), I would put them back into their original boxes. I still have them all somewhere in my parents' storage. Saved for whom, I'm not really sure. But that kid is going to have an insane collection of dolls, complete with all their matching pairs of shoes. (see #1 - I think there might be a connection there)

7. When I was young and was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answers varied (but never different) from the following: teacher, interior designer, architect, psychiatrist. Glad to know that I have fulfilled a small aspect of each of them in my real career (respectively: train staff, creative field, numbers, and...managing people).

8. I am fascinated by psychoanalysis. I blame it on my over-active analytical mind.

9. I was caught climbing back into the classroom through a window with a few other girls in grade school, and our principal made us climb in and out of it 100 times, with her standing there counting aloud.

10. I have always wished that I had dimples. On my cheeks. The face, that is.

11. When I was in elementary school, all my report cards consistently had similar comments along the lines of "[I was] a good student, but if only [I weren't] as disruptive to other students in the class". I think the teachers mixed me up with some other kid.

12. I turn on the TV when I'm at home, just so I can have sounds in the background. I'm not sure why I wouldn't just turn on my ipod player instead - I think the human voices talking has something to do with it.

13. My favourite colour, ever since I was a child, is cobalt blue (bright blue). It is the only constant "favourite" thing I've ever had in my life, while everything else changes with time (food, drink, flower, books, shows, movies, etc.).

14. I can twist my tongue in such a weird way, it kind of freaks people out. Ask me to show you (but save the dirty comments).

15. I have an inexplicable preference of orange-coloured jelly-like sweets over all other colours (e.g. ju-jubes, gummy bears, starbursts, sour kids, ...), that I pick them all out first and eat them. I may actually throw out, or if you are lucky, give away all the other colours (unless you also like the orange ones, in which case I will have to arm-wrestle you. ps: I am tougher than I look).

16. If I read a book part-way and don't like it, I skip to the last chapter and read the end to find out whether I want to continue reading it. I have only done it a few times; nevertheless, admittedly I have. So there.

17. I wear my emotions on my sleeves. It is my downfall. But I'd like to think that it is also the cause of my thoughtfulness. Except for those times I am being blunt.

18. I am a good swimmer; but in the ocean, I develop an irrational fear of drowning whenever I am snorkeling more than 50ft away from the shores, except when I'm on a surfboard (but try snorkeling with a surfboard - it's sort of counter-productive).

19. If I could live somewhere outside of Vancouver, my choices would be New York City, San Fransisco, and London. Of course right now, not the last one - given the current global financial state.

20. I hate doing laundry so much, I actually used to buy new underwear whenever I ran out of clean ones. Now I can go on for probably 2 months without doing laundry, and not using a guy's solution to turn them inside out instead (and that's not counting the days I can technically go commando)!

21. I have about 25 different colours of Havaianas flip flops. I would purposely wear a colour that is completely different from my outfit - just so no one actually knows I probably can match it perfectly and thinks that I am a freak. (Do not even attempt to speculate/comment/question)

22. I have recently discovered a newfound relaxation place at a Korean bath house. There is something liberating about walking around being completely in the nude and enjoying the saunas with a bunch of also-nude strangers.

23. Dark hair and Blue eyes are my vice.

24. I have spent nearly a third of my life working for the same company. Sad, but true...I still haven't decided whether that's a good or a bad thing.

25. I have been in several serious relationships, and have been in love once. I mean really in love, in the I-cant-live-without-you-I-wanna-be-a-better-person-because-of-you kind of way. That was when I learned that decisions in life shouldn't always be made with the heart but also with the head; that love is not something that happens to you, but something you do; and that you can, after all, live without someone.

happiness

In my journey for the entire of the year past, through my trainwreck of a personal life barely non-existent, and without time to reflect, I tried to figure out what would make me happy. Having a job I hated, which took up 90% of my time, and caused mental, physical, and emotional anguish, I truly believed that once it was over, things would become clearer; I would be able to focus on what it really was I wanted, and I would become, once again, blissfully happy - a moment which last occurrence I cannot seem to recall. I believed that my unhappiness stemmed from something that had been a big and important part of my life for my entire adulthood.

Once the storm did finally calm, and I was able to eliminate lack of personal time as the root cause of such evil, at the tail end of the year, after a few trials and errors during the year, I found something really great. At the time, though I had this gut feeling of how much potential it could have, things were uncertain, and at the very end of it all, I learned that I couldn't have it after all. My upcoming time away, I had hoped, was going to clear my head from all of it. Perhaps it was not at all what I thought I felt; I justified the feeling as something that happened to be the first great thing I had stumbled upon after such an exhausting year.

Time away made it easy to adjust once I came back. Only two weeks have passed, and I want to give it time. But as I lay here realizing what this all means, I am finally admitting to myself, that I am not.

An Excerpt

"For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you are saying until you're faced with a real "never again." Ultimately you always have the illusion that you're in control of what's happening; nothing seems definitive....And I think that even a few seconds before dying, "never again" would still just be empty words. But when someone that you love dies...well, I can tell you that you really feel what it means and it really really hurts. It's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black. I fell alone, and sick, my heart aches and every movement seems to require a colossal effort.

...Thinking back on it, this evening, with my heart and my stomach all like jelly, I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.

Yes, that's it, an always within never.

...Because from now on, ...I'll be searching for those moments of always within never.

Beauty, in this world."

- The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery)