Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

"When they started counting down
I could not believe, that you were fast asleep
And I felt like those flashing lights
On the ocean floor, at the liquor store
It's not the type of secret that you want to keep too long
Look for me but I'll be gone"
-- Alcohol

I've grown to like doing my monthly play-by-play year in review thing. As always, I always see my years starting in September but..........

Janurary
I head to MAC for a few days where we search fruitlessly for non-existent classrooms and watch the Canadian junior hockey team win their championship among other things. I return to Queen's and pretty much spend every waking moment not doing work in the Doorbell Room. I go haggis hunting, almost out on a double-date and stay up all night talking, all with Rachel Manson. In a conversation about hot chocolate, Rachel also says the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.

February
Grant makes his first trip to Queen's and wreaks havoc, which includes me signing up for facebook and copious amounts of Danish cookie eating. Asif disappears for a few days and the floor talks incessantly about me and Rachel, driving me to the brink of insanity. Return for reading week, which culminates with first wine and cheese party at Elaine's.

March
Grant makes second trip to Queen's and has his debale with Courtney Plankton. Jessica McAdam protests that her room is not an airplane and we decide that it looks more like a submarine... spawning numerous submarine-related talks and poetry writing in the future months. Researched and wrote my entire history paper (the 1 essay we for the entire year) in a day. Courtney and I watch March of the Penguins while Rachel discovers a new way of playing Minesweeper that changes her life. CEO and Corporate Hoes party comes and goes with Rachel's birthday.

April
At 2 minutes and 3 seconds past 1 on the morning of April 4th, the time and date read 01:02:03, 04/05/06. During the exam period, I watch copious amounts of movies and old Spider-man episodes. The "mild-spooning incident" occurs, which sends people into some sort of panic. Or something. I finish first year university at Queen's.

May
Return to Markham and engage in 2 weeks of practice teaching. During my second week, we evacuate the school due to a bomb threat. Wine and cheese part 2 occurs, after which we agree on false story about contracting AIDS. I change my MSN name to "pwned by AIDS" and scare the life out of several friends... thus prompting me to change it back.

June
Return to Ashton Meadows to do more volunteer teaching. Also paint my room and the Bright Eyes debacle occurs. I embark upon my global gallivant/world tour and land in Melbourne to find it freaking cold and without truly adequate winter clothing. Melbourne is of jovial fun, and I do some inane things like wait 2 hours in the damp/rainy/cold weather just to watch a throng of baby penguins cross the beach. I also visit Sovereign Hill and the Ballarat gold mines where I befriend my coach driver and romp around the zoo with free roaming kangaroos, koalas, emus, and strange looking birds. I also met several wombats and get personally acquainted with a non-violent wombat, whose only violent act was driving my tour guide's car into a brick wall.

July
I end my tenure in Melbourne after buying many souvenirs and learning important skills like folding plastic bags into triangles and how to pack one's suitcase for optimal carrying capacity, and move onto Malaysia. Instead of being freezing cold like in Melbourne, Malaysia is sweltering hot. I spend many weeks in Malaysia, relaxing and enjoying the simpler pleasures of life. I discover that my dad has friends in Malaysia! I scare myself silly thinking about what a possibly scary scenario regarding the break between songs and screaming.

August
I end my tenure in Malaysia after jogging and mountain climbing every day, and move onto Singapore. Went to a comically large family dinner and found that the girls in my family are comically good looking. I conclude that as a male, I got shafted. I go restaurant hopping and experiece many exotic foods. Also see Qiuwei on my last day in Singapore. Return to Canada. See many friends. Omair refers to David as an "ignorant fool" for calling Guyanese people "Guyanans". It is a riot. I also conclude that the wooing proces would be much easier if we were able to spontaneous break out into song with a mysterious orchestra playing in the background.

September
I return to Queen's. Homecoming is the first weekend back and is an amazing experience. Courtney, in a drunken stupor spews out the unforgettable phrase: "Jameson, you're a reasonable man... take me to Aberdeen". It only serves to enhance my opinion of her. Debauchery occurs in my house.

October
I conclude that Linda has become the single most important person in my life on campus. Return home for Thanksgiving and discover that "Abooty" works at Winners. When we discover from Andrew that due to this wedding being a Czech wedding, only family members are allowed, Grant thumps his chest affirmatively with both hands before spreading his arms open, proclaiming, "But Andrew... we're family!" I discover that my Shakespeare prof eloped. I go on numerous romps around Kingston.

November
I miss my first class ever. I discover that my Shakespeare prof knows my name despite me rarely speaking in class. I fall off the trampoline of life and get back on after talking with Linda and the International Night of Mayhem. I attend my last 8:30 class of the year.

December
Decide to make a Christmas stocking instead of a Christmas basket for the Doorbell Room. It is a success nonetheless. I conclude that Courtney Plankton has very unique fingers. I know that sounds inexcusably creepy but it's true. Finish exams notoriously early and enjoy a good Christmas break, complete with a romp around downtown with Rachel Manson and a Wongstock family Christmas. Also, while out at Jack Astors with the Jon Wong Experience, I manage to walk into a revolving door... lengthwise. Grant cuts his throat with cruton. I see Karen Au! It is the 8th time... soon, I will need more than the fingers on my 2 hands to count the number of times I've seen her.

A good year in review. A lot of ups and down but ultimately, what can you expect when life's a trampoline?

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found the Christmas tree.

My life has descended to blogging and booking face on Christmas Eve...

Actually, it's not that bad. The family friends we normally see on Christmas Eve, we saw yesterday because one of the families is unavailable tonight.

I should go look for that blue Christmas tree Grant may or may not have hallucinated about.

I just watched the modern remake of When A Stranger Calls. It's a modern remake of an old horror movie... and it's rated PG. Usually, this is the quintessential recipe for horror movie disaster. In this case, it was better than a disaster. I've not seen the original (can't find it), but I thought it was alright. Now mind you, it's PG rated but the beauty about When A Stranger Calls is that you don't see anything. I think I've had this discussion before.

Christmas preparation is all done. Now all that's left is to make it happen.

"I don't think I really look like anyone"
"You don't even look like you!"
-- Rachel Manson, Jon Wong (in reference to her facebook picture... which really doesn't look much like her)

Break from Christmas shindig to post about the highlights of a good day of gallivanting about downtown Toronto with one Rachel Manson. Actually, I was supposed to be Christmas shopping but Rachel, having learned that I don't know the geography of downtown Toronto, took me on a giant circular tour of the entire city block, which included going to a sketchy looking underground dim sum restaurant for lunch!

Get this... she ordered everything. I had NO idea what to do in a dim sum restaurant and there she was, ordering food from a chinese restaurant. I just ate whatever she ordered (dim sum allows you to pick off someone else's plate). Somehow, this makes me feel slightly insecure about my asian background (though I'm not from Hong-Kong and I swear, I've never seen anyone eat dim sum in Singapore so that perhaps is my excuse). But man, I was out-asianed by this white (British) girl... at least I look like my facebook picture.

And it's true about the picture. The more I look at it, the less it looks like her. We had this bizarre conversation about how she could arguably look slightly like Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, but not really like either since she couldn't even manage to look like herself.

At the end of the tour, we ended up right back at Dundas Square and the Eaton's Centre and spent 15 minutes watching a sidewalk artist chalk a picture into the concrete. Neither of us spoke for the entire 15 minutes... we literally just stood there in silence, watching a masterpiece unfold before us (this guy was pretty good... I saw some deplorable chalk drawings elsewhere). We parted ways with Rachel telling me that the particular shade of yellow of the TTC station walls looked exactly like infant vomit. I spent the last few hours (more like 1 hour) of the afternoon looking for a garlic press... which I couldn't find! In the entire Eaton's Centre! What the hell?!

Anyhow... yeah...

Jon Wong is done!!!!!

Excited!

"I keep finding myself humming these tunes and not knowing the words. And then suddenly the words come to me, but they are such strange words... like one time, I was walking down the street, and I started singing, "scrotum, it keeps your testes in...""
-- Anonymous

Anonymous to protect the innocent because I don't know this person overtly well (though we are mutually acquainted). But I was laughing so hard at this...

In other news, my last exam is tomorrow and then hopefully... I don't know what to hope from that point on. I suppose I can start doing all the holiday stuff in Markham for my parents.

I've come to realize that it's getting harder and harder not to grow up or grow apart from the Christmas spirit. You know, when you were a kid, Christmas was like the greatest thing ever; practically the one time of the year you always looked forward to. I realized when I woke up on Christmas morning last year (I actually slept in on Christmas morning last year... how bizarre is that), that I think I've made the transition from seeing Christmas as a child to seeing Christmas as an adult. How sad...

Forget December, it won't be better,
Than I remember it before.
And this month only, will be so lonely
And not to homey anymore

Bleh, what's up with Windows Media Player 11. In an effort to imitate something or another, the new Media Player has a white background and black text... which burns the eyes. Was there something wrong with black background and green text? God, it's disgusting.

Dammit! So anyone who's ever spoken to me about naming future kids knows that I want to name my kid something common-ish and recognizable, but not super common. Well, I had concluded that if the kid was a girl, I'd name her Alexis cause you know, I don't know many people named Alexis and I don't think it's that common of a name.

Of course, I forgot to take into account the changing tides. See, in 1987, the year *I* was born, Alexis was 113th on the list of most common names. So obviously, *I'm* not going to know a whole lotta people named Alexis. But since then, Alexis has jumped from popularity rank 113 to 13! It's jumped 100 names in 18 years. What the hell?!

So, my friend has this posted on facebook:

"Favorite Books: All things Shakespeare... beyond that, I'm illiterate"

That struck me as strangely clever.

This of course, is the same person who wrote "If you discount all my imperfections, I'm a pretty perfect person"

Romping is key

So, I've told people before that my parents are strangely liberal-minded. How so? My mother penned the following line to me in her last email:

"I think adults are sometimes too concious about making their house "look" good. That's why God says we need to listen to kids."

I have no idea if God actually says that, and it's an odd reference considering my mother isn't really devoutly religious, but you get the point. That comment was made in reference to her intention of getting an air-hockey table and deciding on where to put it, but being conscious that it may or may not be an eyesore.