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...

I have come to realize that it is not technically true that I am incapable of spontaneous artistic creativity. I used to think that this was true. Like how I am completely incapable of finishing any song that I start writing. The scraps of "intros" and "choruses" that I have written and thrown out could probably fill its own recycling bin. This also explains why I could never write poetry. Spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility is rather impossible if you can't harness any of the aforementioned emotions.

At the same time, I can't stand working within a system that tells me what to do and how to do it. Because I always feel like a. everything I do is simply a rehash of some sort, and b. that I am consistently stifled by idiotic and unoriginal parameters. Not only that, anyone who knows me knows that I get bored very easily by uninteresting things. And it's very hard to be interesting if there are rules and step-by-step instructions.

But I had a moment last weekend. See, I went up to Hamilton for Tracy's birthday and I was struck by the word magnets on her refrigerator. You know the ones where you have words printed on pieces of magnet that you can then rearrange as you see fit... yeah, those. Well, I suppose I was interested to see what would happen if I tried my luck with putting something together with the words provided. I don't quite know how long I was at it for but when I stepped back... say 10 minutes later, I felt quite satisfied with the poem I had produced. And it was at that moment that I concluded that I need parameters in order to harness any kind of artistic production I might hope to acheive... but they must be strict parameters without being stifling - like the magnets on the refrigerator. Strict parameters because my word choice was limited but not stifling because I was free to arrange those words in any way I chose. In other words, I need limits with what I can use, but no limits on how to use them.

It would never work the other way around for me - to have no limits with what I can use but with a limit on how to use them. Writing a haiku is a good example of this. I am probably the only person in the world who hates writing haikus (widely considered the "easiest" type of poetry). Because in a haiku, you can use any words you want, but you *must* fit them into a certain selection of syllables - the combination of have complete word choice freedom coupled with a restriction on how to arrange these words is a sign of creative impotence where I am concerned.

I don't really like the 2 inbetween ones either but I can manage to grin and bear them - to have limits with what I can use and how to use them (basically any kind of methodology), or to have no limits on what I can use and how to use them (basically complete freedom).

So there you have it... another look into the Jon Wong psyche as he parses out exactly why things are the way they are in his life.

You can write my place
Out of the life you make
And all the things that mattered
When you knew my face
Cross off all the ways I failed you
'Cause I failed you
But I'm still in your blood
You're still in my blood

A time when all our mistakes
Made sense, you needed it
A time when all the lying
Sympathized with sin
All this sabotage and blame
Well, I can take it
'Cause I just want you back
I just want you back

Temporary battles
Can take up half your life
How you dig your bed
Will it help you sleep at night?
Forgiveness like a blanket
That you want to forget
But you still crumble at my name
You still crumble at my name

A time when all our mistakes
Made sense, you needed it
A time when all the lying
Sympathized with sin
All this sabotage and blame
Well, I can take it
'Cause I just want you back
I just want you back
-- Bitches in Tokyo

Alright, I know you're not all into yo-yoing like I am but I want to use an example that I think demonstrates why people say I'm a good teacher. You all know how a yo-yo works - the string is wound around the center of an axle and we throw it down and it spins. Sleeping yo-yos stay the bottom of your string because they are not tied to the axle; merely wound around it. Got it?

Ok, so someone asked if string length will affect sleep time (the length of time a yo-yo will remain sleeping at the end of a string before it stops spinning). One person answered that technically, a longer string will mean a shorter sleep time because once you throw a yo-yo, it will accelerate to its maximum velocity almost instantly and then it will begin to decelerate as soon as it leaves your hand because it will begin to lose energy. So a longer string will mean that by the time the yo-yo reaches the end of the string, you've used up sleep time due to the time it took for the yo-yo to get down there. This person stated that it's like kicking a soccer ball. The ball starts slowing down as soon as it leaves your foot. Right? Here's my response/argument:

"Strictly speaking, this is true. However, it's a flawed calculation because throwing a yo-yo does not impart the same type of kinetic energy as kicking a ball. It is true in the case of kicking a ball that the ball will start to decelerate as soon as it leaves the foot. This is because the energy we transfer from our foot (or the swing of our foot) onto the ball is transfered at 1 point: when we contact the ball. After we kick the ball, no other force is being applied on the ball except drag and friction (forces that go against the ball, not with it)

However, the spin of a yo-yo is not dependent on a single moment of energy transfer. Yo-yos spin because the string is unwinding around an axle. Therefore, energy is constantly being imparted onto the yo-yo throughout the entire unwinding process and not just at the moment that the yo-yo is released. However, a yo-yo WILL reach terminal velocity at some point. This point is when the yo-yo reaches a distance that is halfway down the string. That a yo-yo spins fastest halfway down the string has actually been scientifically proven... I'm just explaining why.

I should think that the best string length to achieve the maximum amount of sleep time will be the one you can transfer the most energy upon... which technically would be a longer string. So as far as my understanding goes, the longer the string, the longer the sleep time... UNTIL the string length gets to a point where it starts to affect the mechanics of your throw. Once it gets so long that you have to alter your throwing mechanics to compensate for not hitting the yo-yo on the floor, you won't be able to impart as much energy as you would with optimal throwing mechanics so the yo-yo would then start slowing down."

END

Alright, so raise your hand if it sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I haven't taken physics past a grade 11 level. My response is based on my theoretically understanding of how it SHOULD work based on my life experience regarding everything that is remotely related to "yo-yo throwing". I don't know if I'm right. I think I'm right but I wouldn't be able to prove it to you. And that's what a lot of teaching is. You won't always know the answer to everything but you should be able to make a pretty good educated guess simply based on life experiences. I just have to remember to qualify everything I say with "that's my take on the matter".

Something happened in and around 2002 or 2003 (I can't quite remember which exact year) that, when I really think about it, actually makes me a little sad. That was when schools and people in society in general started really implementing and getting into the "no touch" policy that anyone who's had any experience with schools these past years must have heard about or come into contact with.

The "no touch" policy, for those of you who dwell in caves (or simply those of you who aren't teachers or camp counsellors) is basically exactly what it sounds like. For the most part, we are encouraged not to touch each other (intimately or casually) in any way because it has become incredibly easy to misconstrue any kind of contact as assault (normal or sexual). This of course, all came to a head a few years back when our society underwent an inexplicable and sudden increase in rapists and child molesters...

Of course, that hasn't really happened. Idiocy and hypersensitivity play a greater role in all this than any actual indication of increase in our assault rate. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. And I'm not saying that the fears are unfounded. I just think it's really sad that all this has evolved into what I call the "well you never know" attitude that seems to be spreading across our society. Not that I can blame people. When it comes to your kids, I actually do agree that usually, it's better to err on the side of caution (only because I'm pretty sure that would be my automatic reaction for my own kids). But what I really want to emphasize here is why I consider this to be a real tragedy... not because we have developed this sort of attitute but rather because we have gotten to a point where such an attitude is actually a justifiable fear and not just a result of overprotective paranoia.

See, the thing that gets lost in all of this; all this being careful of physical contact, not just towards the younger generation but between peers/friends (you didn't think this "no touch" policy was confined to just teachers/camp counsellors vs. students/campers did you?), is one very fundamental truth to human interaction - the importance of touch. It's something we very often forget but to be able to touch someone is paramount (more so than you would realize) to building trust and comfort. To be able to reassure someone - to make them feel safe, protected, loved - you can't do this without touch. You really can't. All we can do is try our best to simulate this kind of intimacy using words or actions.

Think about this for a minute. You're having a really bad day; you're upset; you're frightened; you're insecure. You come across someone who cares about you. This person hangs out with you; talks to you about whatever it is that's eating at you; provides you with companionship for the entire afternoon. The whole freaking afternoon. Got all that? Ok, now you come across someone else who cares about you. This person gathers you in his/her arms and holds you there for 2 minutes.

Who made you feel better?

Unless you're frigid (or possess some strange aversion to being touched...) you're going to feel better in someone's arms for 2 minutes compared to spending an entire afternoon with that same person "talking". Now, it doesn't last as long... after all, we're talking 2 minutes vs. 4 hours but the point is that human touch is just... so important to conveying that sense of caring that it's really impossible to do without it. Certainly, the campers noticed it a few years back when they suddenly weren't allowed to jump on us. And this is partly why it's so easy for people to love and grow attached to someone like Rachel Manson for instance. This is a girl who (on a peer-to-peer level at least) has no problems utilizing touch to convey her feelings. Take that away and god, people in society as whole just got a lot more frigid.

Ah, the pity of it all...

I think this is a new function but I thought it was a little odd. So I've been using this new facebook layout for awhile now and I just noticed today... say I'm on Courtney's profile for example (and I deliberately choose Courtney because she's one of the few people whose page I've not actually crept today... yeah, today was a little slow. So sue me). There's this thing you can click that reads "Suggest Friends for Courtney".

So now we are not only responsible for adding people and accepting their befriending efforts, we are also apparently responsible for ensuring that other people befriend each other if we think they should.

I wonder if facebook knows this might revolutionize the world of "blind dating" as we know it. It's really quite incredible what a social network like this can do. Yeah, ridicule my notion of blind dating NOW but give it a few years. It would not surprise me in the least if people actually did start setting other people up by "suggesting" friends to them.

Please people, High School Musical did not "rip off" Grease. You can't rip something off without claiming it to be your own and High School Musical was always billed as Grease reshot in a modern day setting.

It's odd. I have suddenly become aware of the fact that I no longer use "haha" in any of my MSN conversations or facebook wallposts. If something's actually really funny, I'll say something like "that's really funny" (because I don't use "lol") but somewhere along the line, I got out of the need to insert "haha" at random intervals to hammer in how I'm not taking something seriously or if I'm being sarcastic (and in the process, really noticed it when other people use "haha" in non-funny situations). Because we all know that nobody's actually laughing when they type "haha" anywhere. It's always just been one of these subtle, social quirks we did to make sure that the person we're talking to knows that we're not being serious or that what we're saying is supposed to be light-hearted. Somehow, I just... stopped. I might have just started assuming that people know me well enough to know when I'm being sarcastic (which is basically all the time) or I've stopped being embarassed about things that I really am serious about and don't feel the need to give people the false impression that they don't have to take what I'm saying seriously (when I really actually want them to). I hope that makes sense.

Dear lord, this is what self-reflection does to you. You notice stuff like THIS....

You know what's a funny word?

"Editing"

See, this is one of those things that explains why I (English major) sometimes I can't spell things to save my life. I mean sure, words like "enough" that could phonetically spelt "enuf" are easy. You just memorize their particular quirks. But "editing"? Shouldn't this word be spelt "editting"? And see, if you wrote "editting," it doesn't really look wrong the way "enuf" would look wrong. Something to think about.

Also, I got a rare chance to meet a girl who plays badminton today. By "plays badminton" I mean, "plays badminton well". I don't know why they're such rare people when guys who play badminton well are... not a dime a dozen but at least common enough that you'll probably see 2 or 3 at every drop-in or community club you go. Girls play the game very gracefully. It's a treat to watch if you're used to seeing guys muscle their way through the sport. It's like they have "kill" on their minds whenever they step onto the court.

On the whole trust first, not doubt first philosophy, no one said you're never going to get burned by living on such a principle.

Oh and I would just like to note (I know, horrible moment for an aside but relating to the topic) that for all the "living on principles" thing I have going, if I had to choose between Rachel Dawes and a man that could save the city from rampant corruption, something tells me I'd have chosen Rachel Dawes. So much for living on principles.

Anyhow, back to the topic. The problem with living your life believing in the best of everything, including love, the world, and the inherent goodness in people (which is really what trusting first really boils down to) is that you tend to get burned all the time. Yup, that's the ironic truth of all this. Again, this all comes back to one really pretty basic thing that for some reason, everyone seems to forget: we are human. There are like 2 universal truths that govern humanity - stupidity (which I won't go into) and mistakes. And really, I would like to think that there's a third universal truth too that (one would think) goes hand in hand with mistakes. And that's forgiveness.

People make mistakes. They're part of life and people will learn from them (believe it or not, it is usually a question of how long it takes for us to learn from our mistakes more so than it is a question of whether we learn from them at all). The question, then, is why sometimes we find it so hard to forgive others. I'm not talking about small things (these are important too but people seem to have an easier time doing this). Sure, let's say a friend forgets to bring dessert to a dinner. We forgive them for that small, insignificant offence because it isn't that important. It's usually things that *are* important that sometimes causes us to forget that forgiveness is just as important in those situations as well. I would go into a whole cheating on a significant other spiel if I could somehow parse it out without sounding like I endorse cheating. But seeing as how I can't...

Sometimes, in moments of weakness; moments of insecurity; bad days; bad judgement; for any given reason, we do something we aren't proud of. We lie, we cheat, we hurt. And we have too much godamn pride to admit that we're wrong (at least, in the spur of the moment or in front of others). But how many of us are actually inherently bad people, unworthy of friendship, trust, love, or compassion. I can give you the answer right now: none. So why then, are we always so willing to leap to the conclusion that other people, in the follies and weakness of humanity, are any less worthy of forgiveness than we are when we falter? We all make mistakes right? And it's important to be able to forgive the mistakes of others if they are prepared to learn from them. And even if they aren't, it's unfair for us to penalize everyone else for one person's mistake. More than anything, it really and truly bothers me when I meet people who seem to be dead set on never allowing me to get close to them because someone else had come along before me and slammed their doors shut.

Forgiveness is tough. But we all know by now that nothing that's worth doing ever comes easy. And it's hard to forgive big mistakes with the same understanding that we forgive little mistakes, even if the perpetrator is willing to learn from them. But to say that we are never going to forgive someone for one "monumental" mistake is in and of itself... a mistake; and one that we sometimes forget to learn from. Relationships, friendships, family - they're all learning processes and sometimes we forget that too.

"When we learn to love those who have forgiven us for not forgiving them, we have learned to love ourselves"

Yah?

God people, how hard can it be to label your music correctly?!

It's incredible how capable I am at wasting a day away. I think about it...

Noon (approx) - wake up
1 PM - finish eating, probably check email/facebook, start reading
2/3 PM - probably get tired; nap
5:30/6 PM - wake up, start preparing dinner
7:30 PM - finish dinner, watch baseball game
10 PM - baseball game finished, retired to room for more facebook/wikipedia/idiocy
11 PM - watch film
1/2 AM - film finishes, start reading
3/4 AM - at some point, my eyes tire of my book, sleep

And this goes on like everyday except on the days when I replace the baseball game/film watching with socializing with friends. It's incredible...

We sat against an elm tree, looking across the lake. I only knew it was an elm tree cause I used to be huge into the "survival" stuff. You know, about how to live if you suddenly found yourself in the middle of nowhere. Hatchet, that novel study thing we did in grade 7/8 was what set me on my survival kick many years back and I learned about the different type of trees and what they were good for if you ever found yourself needing to build a shelter or anything. Amazing the kind of knowledge you retain that you can subconciously pull out of nowhere. So it was an elm tree. That I knew for sure.

So we sat under this elm tree and as I held her, I noticed the swirling patterns her dress made in the autumn leaves and how, save for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she hardly stirred. I didn't move either. It sounds silly but just being there, physically, sitting under this elm tree with her, made me feel like I had jumped on a trampoline, flew as high as I could, and by some miracle, found a way to stay there, at the top everything... where the whole world stopped. For me, this was heaven.

I must have said something; I wanted to convey this sense of beauty to the girl from whom this beauty radiated like music from an orchestral symphony. But suddenly, I realized that the quiet calm I had felt from her was gone. Instead, I felt her trembling. And as it rippled through my body, I noticed she was starting to cry.

"Hey hey, are you ok?"

As she closed her eyes, the tears came. A quiet stream that made its way down her cheek and when she looked at me, I felt the sadness start to creep in.

"It's too short. 18 days is just too short"

I put both my hands on her cheeks and smiled sadly.

"To spend my day with you; for us to do as we please; to live out these days in peace and joy, and in your arms, with your love... 18 days, I should consider myself to be very lucky"

She didn't say anything. And the tears kept falling... I couldn't make it go away. Finally, she seemed to grasp something. The tears stopped and she looked right at me.

"I promised you that no matter what happens, I'll always be there to look after you; that I'll always be with you, no matter what the cost; wherever you went, I'd follow..."

Suddenly, I got very scared. And I knew what was coming.

"If you die, I won't let you go alone"

And that was it. It floored me, even though I half-saw it coming. And I couldn't let it happen. Not for my sake. I didn't want her to die for me, I wanted her to live for me. I started telling her this; I told her how she had to go on living... for me, if nothing else. I tried to make her promise me she'd live on. She didn't say anything. It was important though, that I hear her promise me. It was the only way I could convince myself that she'd be ok. Still she said nothing. She only continued to look at me with those sad, watery eyes.

"You need to promise me this one thing! Why won't you promise me?"

Finally, she spoke. Her eyes were still fixed on me, looking through me, as if she were searching within me for the courage to make that promise. Still, she answered quietly:

"If I were the one who had 18 days, what would you do?"

This was one of my most poignant thoughts during my Malaysia/Singapore zen-like state of blissful reflections. And it is that I have come to truly realize the difference between "knowing someone" and "knowing stuff about someone". They both have their good points so I don't aim to condemn either forms of knowledge but I would just like to point out that there *is* a remarkable difference between the two and it is a difference that is very easy to overlook.

Knowing stuff about someone can take many forms. It might be knowledge you gain simply through the fact that you spend a lot of time with someone. Right? Courtney, to take a simple example, knows a lot of stuff about me because I've spent a fair amount of time with her... and we talk a lot so naturally, factual information will come through and if she has paid any attention at all, Courtney can very reasonably make a claim to knowing a lot about me. She knows my teaching philosophies, my teaching strategies, my opinions on various films, my opinions on music, what I think about certain foods; she knows in perhaps greater detail than anyone else, everything that went on with Katie, she knows all about Dr. Morrison, she knows the full extent of the isolation I felt last year at camp, she knows about how Andrew Kott almost drove us into a cement pole... the list is endless. Indeed, Courtney is a veritable mine of Jon Wong related knowledge. And that simply comes from spending time with someone and being comfortable enough with each other to talk about whatever it is your mind happens to be thinking of at that time of that day.

Then there's knowing stuff about someone that takes the form of observational knowledge. This is stuff that Grant and I like to think we specialize in. Granting (<-- ha!) that we are interested in someone (and it doesn't even necessarily have to be romantic interest although being us, it usually is), we tend to be very good at noticing and pointing out the little things; the quirks. If a girl does certain things when she's in a particular mood, that's something we're bound to notice. If they nod their head in a certain way when they agree with something you say and want to look cool while doing it. If they have funny little habits... you get the picture. All these moods and mannerisms that in a way, define who you are, this is the kind of observational knowledge that I'm referring to here. Sometimes, I don't even know if this is some sort of God-given talent or if it's simply being obversational (arguably a God-given talent), or simply a result of caring enough about someone to notice. Sometimes I think it's got more to do with the fact that we tend to focus on ourselves and as a result, we only notice things about other people as it pertains to us and not as they pertain to that person in and of themself (<-- not a word).

Then there's this little branch of knowledge I refer to as "knowing someone" and this is something that I think is much much more rare than people think. Without getting too inner-psyche, metacognitive in this post (because what do *I* know about psychology. That is Karen's area of study. Mine is merely sociology), I think that knowing someone has to do with really understanding who they are. Not just about knowing what they do, how they do things, and what their opinions are on certain topics (because that's just knowledge), but really, and truly understanding why they do things and the thought process behind it (to some extent).

Here is an example I thought of during my period of reflection. Someone who knows stuff about me will be able to tell you what my favorite films are. I mean, with facebook and everything, that's become pretty easy but facebook aside, someone who knows a lot about me should still be able to tell you what my favorite films are. But I'm pretty confident in saying that that person wouldn't be able to definitively say why I like those films... and because of it, that person wouldn't be able to definitively say (with any accuracy greater than 50%) that I *would* like such and such film. Someone who doesn't know you won't be able to say anything about you that you yourself have not demonstrated or told them directly. "Knowing someone" takes a hell of a lot more than simply possessing factual/obversational knowledge about them. Part of it requires you to really understand the why behind them. Because everyone sees the world in a certain way and really, all the factual knowledge you gain about someone can generally be traced back to some underlying principle, underlying belief... some underlying truth about them that they apply to other facets of their life.

Knowing someone is challenging. In fact, many of us never get around to doing it. This is why the term "trust" was invented. It requires you to know one thing about someone; just one little thing - and that is that whatever this person does, he/she does with the right intentions. Because it's madness to assume that people will take the time and effort and be open-minded enough to truly know and understand one another. Madness because we are human beings after all and one could argue that while we're biologically compatible with "knowing stuff about someone," we're not biologically programmed to really "know" everyone we care about. So someone came along and said "hey, to make this easier on ourselves, we don't have to understand the reasons behind everything our friends/lovers/family do... we can just assume that whatever they do, they have their reasons for doing it and that they love us enough that they wouldn't harm us intentionally. Excellent. We'll call this 'trust'".

And that my friends, is my completely made up, bullshit story about how "trust" was invented. But the principle's there.