Official Vacation, Goodbyes and Random Thoughts
I’m so excited, A and I will be heading to the Big Island of Hawaii to participate in the Queen Liliuokalani Canoe Competition. It spans 2 days over the long weekend: one day will be an 18 mile womens race followed by an 18 mile mens race, the second day will be a double hull 5 mile mixed race. We’ll be on the island for a total of 9 days, so there’s so much to do and see while we’re not racing! We have a huge pile of Hawaii books from the VPL and we’ve been pouring over them for weeks now!
This is just a warning to tell you all (even though this site never gets updated anymore) that I’ll be MIA for the most part while in Hawaii since I’ll hopefully be too busy stomping around the island, but a full recap will happen when I get back!
Some things to mention:
I went back to Toronto recently to attend the wedding of one of my fabulous highschool friends. She married her elementary school crush-turned-sweetheart in a beautiful ceremony and smashing reception. Plus, her same-day edit video had everyone gushing! Congratulations to you two, A and I are so blessed we could be a part of your special day! Check out their video here (created by the fabulous brains at Still Motion)! 
I also went to Wonderland for the first time since what I think was highschool, when James used to work there and we went on that semi-bungee ride that scared the bejezus out of me. This time we went with Herman and ML, two west-coasters who happened to be in the “east-coast” while I was back in Toronto (and jsey as well, I see that guy everywhere!). We went on the new Behemoth ride as soon as we got there (when gates opened) and we still had to line up for 90 minutes! And the ride was just stupid. Like I thought I was going to die stupid. I’m getting too old for this sort of stuff.
Another story for you: when I first moved to North York, my parents enrolled me into my elementary school because it had a day care program that opened later than all the other day care programs in the area. I was starting senior kindergarten. I had zero friends. And then, by some beautiful act of God, I made a friend. And I’ve known her ever since. We graduated from elementary school together, we graduated from highschool together, and somehow we still saw each other through the years we spent apart in university. After she finished her undergraduate program, she moved to Vancouver and began a Masters program in the city. And one year later, when I finished my own undergraduate program, I moved out here as well. Mich introduced me to buying local groceries, supporting small local shops, the exhilarating joy of wall-climbing, “the drive”, and has been my Vancouver go-to person since I first set foot in this city. She came dress shopping with me every time I asked her to, and sat patiently and reasoned with me when my brain was too flustered to think. We even were able to get me to try on ridiculous “I can’t afford this dress in this lifetime” wedding gowns just for fun! And now Mich will be leaving me to pursue a passion of hers back in Ontario. She leaves so soon, and I know I don’t see her as often as I could, but I will most certainly miss her.
Last thought for the day (I think): I walk from the skytrain station to my office on most days via the bike path that runs beside the train line. If anyone knows the area, they’ll know that the train line sits about 25′ up off the ground (or could be more, I’m bad with measurements) and the path is about a 10 minute leisurely stroll. On my way to work this morning, I counted 44 dead bees on my side of the walkway (so the North side of the path) and 1 still-alive-but-won’t-make-it bee. Ever since I noticed a large number of dead or dying bees on the path I tend to watch the ground to ensure I don’t step on any that might still have a chance of living. I’m extremely curious as to why there are so many bees that fall along here, and my only theory is that they get into the crossfire of a skytrain and get knocked over onto this path to die. Isn’t this strange? Has anyone else noticed this?
PS. I tried to ride the bus to bypass my 10 minute leisurely stroll (I know, super lazy) and the busdriver told me that, despite the fact that the bus picks up in zone 1, and will make one more stop in zone 1 before going into zone 2, I will have to pay 2 zone fare. Is that fair? What if I wanted to get off at the first stop before it goes into zone 2 (which isn’t the case, I get off at the next one which is RIGHT at the border, come on!). I don’t see the 19 bus charging for 2 zones when they pick up downtown, even though it ends up at Metrotown. Bah.
cout >> hello world.
It seems the longer I stay away from blogging the less I have to talk about when I get back. While my website was out of commission for a few days, I had a lot of things that I made mental notes of in my head to share with you all, but days passed and when the site was finally fixed (not by me, so it must have bee by clo, thanks!) and I sat down to write down all the post-its that was floating in my memory, it just never seemed to flow out into stories that went anywhere. So every time I tried to write a post, I only got as far as two or three sentences and then scrapped the whole thing.
One thing I really wanted to mention was the fact that a coworker of mine had passed away recently. He was only 26 and took his own life, and hearing the news made me extremely sad. It makes me sad to think that we’re all wrapped up in our own bubbles and you don’t notice it but someone might be struggling. He passed away over the Victoria day long weekend, and around the same time I was at a dinner with mutual coworkers celebrating someone’s birthday. It’s painful to think about it even now, and when I do my heart aches for his family. It was so hard to be at his funeral and hear his mother crying at the loss of her boy. He was a good man, and I hope he’s in a happier place now.
Things like these make you take a step back from your every day life and really evaluate what’s happening. People I know are suffering enough to take their own life, and I’m crying over capacity issues at a wedding venue? I feel like I shouldn’t be making a big stink about wedding things considering how other people are having much larger and more real problems than me, and yet every day I fret about wedding details, even the smallest things. On the grand scale, this should be nowhere near the top of my list of living my life to the fullest. It makes me wonder about the whole act of weddings and all of these social implications tied to them. The world is a strange place, and it’s making me become a strange person.
Impending Doom!
So for some reason, I signed up for a half marathon happening this weekend. I had said early on in the year that I would want to do it, and went running every Sunday morning, but while in Hong Kong (not running and eating a boatload of food) I got an e-mail from Steph saying that sign up for the half marathon is now at $90 so you might as well sign up since you missed all the cheaper rates and in my fear of the price going up even higher (which it never did, drats!) I threw my name in with the rest of the runners (including the other girl with the exact same name as me but who’s arriving from California which probably means she’s a lot better than me. But that’s okay, cuz then I can pretend that her time is really my time!).
Now the half marathon is in two days and I’ve only been able to run 12k (and very poorly too). After my amazing Sun Run personal best of 57:53, I thought I was the shit! And so I didn’t do ANYTHING for the next week and a half. Until yesterday when I decided I should probably try and do something more than 10k since a half is 21… and Steph and I decided to run around her neighbourhood. Steph lives in an area called Little Mountain. But what it really should be called is Little Mountain and its 5000 children because there were hills all over the place. I swear we went up a hill, turned the corner and went up another hill, turned a corner and went down for five steps only to go up a huge incline. I felt like I was in some bizarre neighbourhood designed by Escher. And as a status update today, my thighs are really really sore.
So I’ve been looking at wedding details, and trying to be very serious with how I make my decisions: is it worth the money? What does the cost include? Will old people like it? Is it a practical decision? I’ve been trying to figure out what I want on this big important day of mine, and I honestly haven’t a clue. It’s like, where was I when everyone else was making those childhood dreams of a princess wedding? I blame my brother and his hogging the remote control so that I ended up watching a lot of GI Joe and He-Man. How much expectation is there from old people how the food is, how the location is, how the service is, how pretty it is, how traditional it is? I’m going crazy! And old people have one opinion, but young people have other opinions and even though everyone says it doesn’t matter because it’s supposed to be about the bride and groom, I have a feeling in my gut these sorts of things will always be talked about after the fact. It’s hard to try and please people, and even harder to try and please myself when I don’t know what I want.
Is it stupid to think that I’m trying too hard to please people? I could’ve sworn this whole planning for your wedding thing was supposed to go more enjoyably than this.
Family trips work as such.
You see relatives. And they say “wow, you look… so much… bigger. When is your wedding?”
You see your parents. And they say “why are your arms so huge? Have you picked a wedding date yet?”
You see your brother. And he says “gimme twenty bucks.”
You see your friends. And they’re awesome.
All in all, my trip back to Hong Kong was really fun, if not really tiring. I regret not convincing A enough to come back with me, since I had to bear the hounding of wedding-related issues by myself. If only he came and met all those relatives, then he’d realize how many people there are on my side of the family! HK Carmie would understand!
My highlights include Hong Kong Disneyland with Clo, the awesome wedding of my cousin Carrie to Leonard at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Serena’s one-night stay at the Langham which I got to mooch, Carmie’s appearance at our family dinner (she’s now the part of the family), and dinner with Rendy. It was so great to see family and friends again and be on vacation mode, it was like summer break. I completely forgot what that felt like, to wake up when I wanted, to go out and do stuff when I wanted, to not have to sit in an office waiting for the hours to tick away, to stay out til late, to hug my parents every day. I should take vacations more often.
On a side note, people in Hong Kong (even when working for a reputable global employer), work stupid hours til 7pm (on a good day), and Saturdays as well. When I told Petula that we get off work at 3pm on a Friday if we have nothing to do her jaw dropped to the floor. It was weird.
I got back on Saturday. Today is Wednesday. I’m still jetlagged. And thus this post has no substance what-so-ever. But now that every family member on the face of the planet has nagged me about my wedding and when it is and where it is and whether they’re coming with their children and their children’s children, I have vowed to bust my ass and get started with planning. Let the games begin!
Out of Office.
Thanks for your visit!
I will be on vacation from March 20th to April 6th inclusive to visit family and friends in Hong Kong with limited access to web browsing and e-mail.
For issues regarding wedding-related posts, please visit glamourthis, fabulously broke, or ten thousand only.
For issues regarding random links, please visit del.icio.us or xkcd. Issues on interesting topics can be directed to TED or surfthechannel.
And for all other issues, facebook will be able to answer your questions.
Thank you! I’ll reply to comments upon my return.
tetleytee
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