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My first tears of 2010 fell today...

R.I.P. grandma.

I feel... for the first time in a while... very lonely... her passing has triggered a lot of forgotten emotions... because at this moment, it seems like there's no one I can turn to. No one to hug. No one to tell me it's okay. No one to to just be here.

Who was she? I didn't care to know her while she was with me... and now she's gone. and now I regret so much.

What timing.

A few hours from now, enough time will pass and I will be normal again. Please pray for my family. thanks...

naked man alert

My sleeping patterns have not been so wonky since university days; sleeping at dusk, waking up after lunch, taking naps randomly throughout the day, getting up only to pee and then go back to bed. So now it's almost 3am and I get this exhilarating idea to write about 2009 while in the washroom... and here I am – on blogspot. (Btw, the washroom seems to be the vicinity with my highest volume of great epiphanies and life-changing convictions.)

After a little time of reflection, I'm reminded that I am a person with minimal memories. It would make sense if the doctor dropped me at birth seeing how there's a slight malfunction in my neocortex. I have one word for that doctor: lawsuit.

Nevertheless, I now have to look to other sources for what happened to me in this past year... so this pointless blog entry is basically saying: stay tuned for another post about Julie's perhaps-not-so-memorable 2009 year! ... hum... that's not a convincing way to bring back my readers...

Let's go the media route and do the whole “sex sells” thing by putting up a lovely picture and say in big bold letters:

In my next blog entry, THE SENSORS WILL BE REMOVED!! As I'm sure you're all curious to see this man's beautiful... eyes...

define "bad"

In case you didn't hear – I had a bad day today... it stemmed also from a not-so-good night seeing how I stupidly broke my buddy's ear piece and I was feeling pretty stupid.

Basically, I was good up until 2:45pm. My colleague asked me to help him bring the decorations back from our company Christmas party back to the office. He got stuck doing some volunteering w/ the Care Committee as there were last minute cancels. Thus I agreed.

To make a long story short, after loading the company car from the banquet hall – literally 2 min on the road, I get pulled over for speeding. 81 in a 60. My first speeding ticket. I've only ever had 2 tickets in my life, this was number 2.

Anyway, we get back to the office and as I squat down slowly to put the fragile glass centrepieces on the ground, I rip my pants. Oh yes, the kind of rip that goes straight up the croch and out the back. Yes, make fun of me, I had a good laugh too.

Being the smart girl I am, I took my white cardigan and tied it around my waist. Just like we did back in the highschool days. What I didn't know was that I had cut my hand on something... and I end up getting blood all over it. Good news is that it wasn't cotton, so the blood stain came out well. Yay.

Seeing how the day was sucking, I decided to make myself feel better by putting up the Christmas tree at home. Prior to this day, I was pretty set on not putting it up at all. Anyway, I needed some Christmas songs to brighten the spirit... I got the dust off my old radio, flipped the power button and *silence*... my radio was broken. Got the laptop out, turned on the online radio and it was smooth sailing...

until I test out the Christmas lights... and half of the white ones didn't work. With what was left of these white lights, not half the tree could've been covered. What's a Christmas tree w/out lights? Just a Christmas tree w/out lights, but I was determined to get some glowing action. I pulled out the tacky colourful dollar-store-bought lights from decades ago and tested them... success! There were 5 strands of these colourful lights, just enough to make it look full.

For the past few years, our tree was this sleek, red and silver-themed work of art. The lights were all white and everything on it was from Ikea (therefore, it must be cheap and contemporary)... now with these tiny colourful it-will-burn-your-hand lights, the tree looks like it did back in my elementary school days...

I kinda like it. =)

Bliss not of ignorance

On a scale of 1 to 10, I think I'm a 9... you know, in terms of happiness with life, that is.

More recently, I've been thinking about why that is. Sure, I can cop-out the Christian answer and say, “It's 'cause I know Jesus and He loves me... that's why I'm happy!” ... but really, there's gotta be more to it than that, right? Other Christians should be just as stoked about life too! Unfortunately, from what I've heard, that's not always the case. So what makes me different?

It's come to my attention that I have abnormally low expectations on people. Boyfriends, family members, mentors, teachers/profs, friends, small group... it doesn't phase me too much when things don't work out.

“Water under the bridge! Life moves on! Live & learn,” exclaims Julie!

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? ... I don't know.

PROS

• The volume of disappointments have definitely decreased.
• I'm not upset for extended periods of time.
• Dwelling on things doesn't happen often.
• When people exceed these expectations, I'm super happy! It's like a bonus!
• There aren't too many people on my “bad side.”
• I'm generally not easily offended.
• Good sleep all the time.

CONS

• The impression that I don't care is frequent.
• People are often offended when they figure out how low my expectations are on them.
• My memory is shot. (Because I don't dwell, I forget quickly – almost like cramming for an exam)
• Problems repeat themselves recurrently since I don't remember it happened.

As I type these bullet points, I can't help but feel like this is a very selfish way to live... at the same time, I simply can't help it! Why get hopes up when so many people are just going to disappoint? What happened to commitment and integrity and just blatant honesty?! Humans – myself included – are simply not reliable these days. I'm so pessimistic when it comes to finding a reliable friend, I make me sick. If you have a truly reliable friend; hold onto 'em for dear life because he/she is an endangered specie! Man, how depressing this whole entry is... please someone, prove me wrong! Shut me up!

I guess this is why I'm happy being a Christian – God is the unchanging, unconditionally loving, always present, unfailing, genuinely caring Lord of Everything... and He proved it by giving us His Son Jesus. Thank you, YHWH.

sperm + egg

About 10 hours ago, Theo Gah Bo Tang was born.

He is the offspring of the couple who were the first in my age group to get married and the first to have a child together. Alex and Elly – you guys still amaze me to this day. Congratulations!! =)

As much as I hate to admit this, Theo also makes me feel like I'm getting old. I'm starting to wonder how my eggs are gonna hold out and whether or not a few of them will ever be “hitched”. Am I ever going to have kids? Will he/she be healthy? Am I going to be a good mom?

You're probably thinking I'm too young to be thinking about these things... but I can't help but wonder what my future holds. We humans do fear the unknown. It gives me the shivers to think there is a chance that myself or my husband will be infertile. (I don't believe in jinxing, if you haven't noticed.) I mean, sure, it's not a first date kinda question... but would it be too harsh to say it may affect the longevity of the relationship?

I can just imagine the conversation now...

"BTW *insert name here*, I know we've only been on a few dates... but let's be honest, we don't want to be wasting each others' time if we're not “the One” for each other, right? So I need to know if your boys are workin'. You know, if things work out and we wanna have kids... you DO want to have kids right? How many? What gender(s)? Have you thought of names yet? Anyway, have you gotten this sorta thing checked out? No? What do you mean you're only ___ years old – that's old enough to get this checked! .......... Hey - wait a minute - where you going?! I'm not done!! I HAVE A FEW MORE QUESTIONS!!!" (End Scene)

Man, that's so not sexy.

I'll think about this later.

grandma

At around 2:30pm today, my mom calls my cell at work and says,

Mom – Julie... you're not going anywhere tonight... are you? *sniffs

me – well, I was going to go to volleyball like I do every Friday night. Why? What's up?

Mom – your poa-poa is in the hospital... I want you to go visit her with me...

It's been a while since I felt my heart break like that... a literal sense of something gripping your chest to the point where breathing normally seems to be a little more difficult. My mom doesn't cry in public, so I know when she's sniffing, it's serious. My poa-poa is my grandma on mom's side. She and gong-gong (grandpa) pretty much raised my siblings and I from birth to the end of elementary school back in East York. I love my poa-poa... she says I'm her favourite. =)

Mom had mentioned to me yesterday briefly that poa-poa fell outside, but she assured me that said it wasn't serious. When I went to the hospital today, she seemed okay. My aunt was there and had been there overnight as requested by the patient. I could see in her blood-shot eyes that she was tired and had cried some time before we got to the hospital.

Apparently, my grandma went through a couple hours of an extreme headache that caused her to feel nauseated, made the room spin and the walls seemed to want to crash down onto her. According to my aunt, she was yelling things like it was going to be her last day alive, that the heavens will have to take her life and that she can't stand the suffering here. It was after this incident that she called my mom and thus, mom called me.

While we were there, poa-poa seemed to be doing well: semi-energetic and talkative. She laughed at my jokes and nodded in approval when I told her my work softball team were the champions, it made me happy. =) (I thought this was a funny pic of her - taken probably 7-8 years ago, but she looks the same)

As the 4 of us were talking, the topic of boyfriend came up (go figure). She knew someone from HK who just finished grad school in Toronto and she wanted me to meet him and blah blah blah. I couldn't be too sarcastic with her, so I basically made it come down to: Is he taller than me? Knowing he was from HK, I sorta knew the answer already. HA – dodged the bullet; he was shorter than I! Then they started talking about so-and-so's son that's single or that family friend that is looking for a daughter-in-law, or that guy who is quite handsome, etc etc.

I couldn't escape.

Eventually, I changed the topic... but really... sigh... must it always go back to Single Aging Julie needs a husband? =/

The drive home was quite pleasant. All my childhood memories came back... I remember the days when I was a fat kid who tortured bugs in the backyard all day, walked around Taylor Creek Park with the family, played with rocks and Ninja Turtle figurines... I remember when poa-poa would pick me up from school and everyday I would ask her to buy pizza from Diamond Pizza for me. She did twice of the millions of times I asked. It killed my bro and sis when she said I was such a good child and that they should be as nice as me. Suckers. Little did she know though...

Anyway, it was a good visit. She will be there for a few more days, I think.

For those who believe in God, please pray for her... for those who don't, please pray also as I think God will hear you too. =) Thanks

Goodbye Mr. Perfect

Back to anti-relationship mode.

... what was I thinking?! o_O