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...

Alright, done undergrad. Now to work on my informal writing piece until I find employment. Also, I can plan my week of being a tourist! With Ted, Christian, and other non-Torontonians assembling in Toronto, we can do touristy things that I, as a local, never get to do! Like climb the CN Tower!

Also, I should probably make sure that housing 3 more people for a few days won't be an issue for my parents. Maybe we really should stay that one night at Niagara Falls. Besides, the falls are gorgeous at night. They really are.

April 25th - Get home
April 26th - ?
April 27th - Downtown Toronto (pending weather)
April 28th - Downtown Toronto (if it rains on the 27th...)
April 29th - ? during the day. The rest of the crew arrive in the evening; rest of the crew = Christian, Alan, and Linda I think...
April 30th - We journey forth to Niagara Falls
May 1st - We return from Niagara Falls (assuming we stay the night), freshen up, then head to a barbecue I hear we're all invited to.
May 2nd - I haven't quite figured out if everyone's leaving this day or if we're doing something like going to the zoo... and then everyone's leaving... or if we're doing something and nobody leaves until May 3rd.

At some point, we're also apparently going to the Science Centre (Ted has informed me that this needs to be accomplished).

Manuscripts.

This occurred to me as I decided that I am probably going to change my ending (yet again), compounded with the fact that I've already re-written the beginning of my writing piece twice. In this day and age, MANUSCRIPTS are no longer used! I mean, when I change the ending, no one will ever see what it used to be originally because Microsoft Word allows you to just delete the stuff you didn't want and start anew. Not like the old days when you'd keep your old ending and wrote you new one on an entirely different piece of paper.

That's so sad! Maybe I should print off my original versions before I delete them and write new ones.

I have come to realize something about watching films from the 70s and 80s. Unless it is explicitly part of the film, romantic side-plots/undertones are rarely ever flushed out. It is slightly different, I think, when you see films in the late 90s and into this decade. Nowadays (and this possibly due to an actual increase in film length), directors will find ways to resolve or otherwise give romantic side-plots adequate screen time, even if it's a romantic side-plot in an adventure film or sports film or whatever. In older films; they just tend to be introduced and they might reappear here and there to start off certain scenes or used as filler and I think we're meant to understand that the romantic side-plot goes where the main plot goes.

I would know. I pay attention to this stuff. The fact is, people got kissed less often in films from the 70s and 80s. And I can't say I disapprove entirely.

Whoa! Crazy new trend on facebook! Notes that are photo centered!!!!!! I've been seeing these pop up all over my newsfeed these last few days.

Facebook ad:

Why are you such a CONTROL FREAK?

(Picture of a Nazi)

Maybe it runs in the family!

Meet your ancestors at ancestry.ca


Seriously?! This is marketing?

It is possibly the nicest day of the year today and I am stuck inside studying for my exams tomorrow and Friday.

Julia broke the spine on the Stephen King novel I lent her. Gah...

Pearl can't play badminton (due to her shoulder). And I was trying to convince her she should continue coming to badminton anyway. And this is how I mapped it out:

Premise 1 - She wants to see me
Premise 2 - She considers playing badminton together a form of socializing
Premise 3 - She used to play on her Nintendo DS in between games

Conclusion - She should continue coming to badminton but switch her DS playing so that she plays DS during the times when I'm on court and then socialize with me between games. If we assume I'd normally rotate on every other game, we'd divide the time spent at the gym into halves. So...

Normally (for her):
One half - playing DS
Second half - playing badminton

New plan:
One half - playing DS
Second half - socializing

Note that the "playing DS" part remains the same. And that's assuming I rotate every other game. Let's say it's busy and I only play 1 game out of 3 rotations. Then (for her)...

Normally:
1 third - playing badminton
2 thirds - playing DS

New plan:
1 third - playing DS
2 thirds - socializing

So really, if it happens to be busy, she'd actually be socializing with me MORE than she used to. Where is the fault in this plan?! Instead she doesn't want to come to badminton entirely but wants to hang out on some other day of the week. Absurd!

Apparently, I am the only Asian badminton player in existence who does not own white pants. Apparently, they are standard badminton apparel. Mayhaps I will conform and get myself a pair. Or mayhaps not since I find white to be an atrocious pants color.

That is all.

People! Stop inviting me to join dinky groups or some stupid event whose cause I do not support or care about! I am seriously considering removing people from my friends list as they reach a quota of stupid invites.

IMDB'd Emma Watson to double-check that she is, indeed, the age I believed her to be. Born April 15th, 1990. So she'll be 19 in... 5 days? Closer to our age than some of the first years on my floor.

Also had this to say about choosing a great marriage over a great Hollywood career:

"What is success when you don't have anybody to love?"

Indeed Miss Watson. The real question is, would she choose a great marriage over being a great wizard?

Exciting news!

I just discovered that while the label inside my boxers used to say "Change Daily," somewhere along the line, they decided to go with a more user-friendly "Everyday Fun!". It gets the message across without being controlling. Apparently, this is a valid concern in the boxer manufacturing industry.

I have never formally thought about this but Christian brought it up. Attractive actresses! I was originally halfway through posting this as a comment on his blog but thought perhaps it was too narcissistic.

Top 5 attractive actresses (moral worth notwithstanding):

Jessica Alba
Katie Holmes
Martha MacIssac
Vanessa Anne Hudgens
Mandy Moore

I don't think Natalie Portman would crack my top 10...

Larisa Oleynik
Anna Paquin
Jena Malone
Emmanuelle Chriqui
Sophia Bush

Nope. As much as I love Natalie Portman. But then again, Christina Ricci and Keira Knightley wouldn't make it either. Interesting though... Natalie Portman, Christina Ricci, and Keira Knightley are probably my favorite 3 actresses to see in films. I just don't find them comically attractive. And I'm pretty sure Emma Watson would be up there somewhere if it weren't for the fact that I keep thinking she's 11 years old (which she was in Philosopher's Stone).

Oh yes, and speaking of Mandy Moore (who might not crack my top 10 if I saw her now... her A Walk To Remember self would though). It reminds me of a hilarious conversation I once had at the dinner table with my parents (of all people!).

"Didn't you used to really like that girl from... A Walk To Remember?" - Mom
"Mandy Moore?" - Jon Wong
"Yeah, that's right" - Dad
"Yeah, she was really pretty..." - Jon Wong
(Pause in the conversation)
"... she's gotten kinda fat hasn't she?" - Dad

The one and only time I've spat food out of my mouth around my family.

I wonder...

Again, horrific timing to start a post because I'm tired and should try to sleep regularly during exams (<-- ha! Like that's happening...).

Anyway. I was thinking about what it'd be like to be leaving Queen's this year. I mean, I'm graduating and all but with Ed, I'll be back next year so it's a little different. In fact, it's a little weird. It's like my mind can't make up its mind (<-- ha!) as to how I'm supposed to behave/feel/live these last weeks. I mean, a lot of my friends are graduating (certainly, my nearest and dearest friends are) and I'm gonna be on West Campus next year and classes are going to be very different. So in that sense, this really is the "end" of... I guess you could say the "undergrad system". I really should be basking in the finality of it all except that being next here for Ed. means that it's hard for me to think of this as my final year. It's going to be weird, coming back to the exact same familiar place but doing completely different things. The closest thing I can conjure up to compare it to would be the beginning of this year school year... moving back into the residence I'm familiar with and the cafeteria I'm familiar with... but in a completely different environment. But that's not really the same.

In a lot of ways, I wish I could feel the surrealism that I think I would feel if this really were the end of my tenure at Queen's. And I don't think I'll feel it next year because I'm convinced that one year isn't enough for me to develop a whole new attachment. It's almost like I'm phasing myself out of Queen's. First it's my friends and the undergrad system, then it's the school itself.

Actually, I thought of an example that's almost 100% analogous with my current situation. 2 summers ago, when I worked at Kennybrook, I was offered additional wages to stay at camp for an additional week after the regular camp session for "Camp Haze" which is like a week-long camp for a completely different set of kids (consisting of various "hazing" rituals that the States are wont to do). I turned it down mainly because I was going to visit Courtney in DC but I remember thinking to myself on the morning that we all left, how glad I was at that moment that I had an excuse not to do Camp Haze. I mean, it's not like the extra money wouldn't have been nice but on that particular morning, when the kids were all packed up and putting their stuff into buses and saying goodbye to their counselors, I remembered thinking to myself how hard it would have been to be a counselor who agreed to stay for Camp Haze. I'm sure it wouldn't have lasted beyond that day, just as how I'm sure this feeling I'm having won't last beyond this month, but on that day... to be one of the few counselors to not board those buses... man, that must have been tough. Or at least, it would have been tough for me. It's like everyone's leaving you, but it's not because it's your home, it's because you've got more to do. It's like you're forced to feel sad twice... but it's a kind of half-sadness both times. There's nothing whole; nothing complete about the sadness on either occasions.

"Camp Haze" does not really involve hazing rituals.

I'm the kind of person who thrives on all or nothing situations. A lot of times, it's what motivates me to do things. And I feel like a lot of people would agree. Clone High does a great parody of "prom" where they have numerous "proms" throughout the year as a spoof on how films with a highschool backdrop always seem to center on proms. But it's a common trope because it really is the epitome of the "one last chance" mentality. The epicness of all or nothing situations invigorates us and I think that most people are only held back from taking chances because they're afraid of what might happen should they fail (with some failing in a more epic fashion than others). And really, a lot of the times, we thank the lord that it's not always up to US to create these all or nothing situations. I mean, graduation is pretty much thrust upon us whether we like it or not (unless we forget to "apply to graduate"... to my Queen's friends, I hope you all did this) and since it automatically sets up a big change in our lives, it becomes very conducive to people taking great chances in hopes of great success but with the risk of great failure as well. And we could all use a little kick every now and then eh? (<-- first time I have ever used this term in a non-satirical fashion).

So obviously, I find this pseudo-end-of-undergrad rather annoying. Not that I can think of any kind of epic risk I have been holding back due to my fear of failure. I took my epic risk at the beginning of the year (and oh man was it an epic failure...). But um... the point I am trying to get at here is that I hope that this end of undergrad (for those of you who are graduating) gives you all the require kick in the gonads to take the chances you've been afraid of taking. I mean, this is it you know. We're all starting on a new chapter in our lives after this year. So before we turn the page, let's write an ending worth looking back upon.

Bored! Making random list. Tribute to themed parties.

CEOs and Corporate Hoes
International Night of Mayhem
Risky Business
Pirates, Ninjas, and Cowboys
Beauty School Dropout
Superheroes and Villains
When I Grow Up

It amazes me to realize this but with my final music project not due until well into the exam period, plus the fact that I have a final exam means that despite today being the last day of music class I'll have in undergrad, I haven't completed 50% of the course work.

That's... ridiculous!