with love

pictures in reverse chronological order

since i'm procrastinating doing my preparation for this essay on postmodernist fairy tales ANYWAY, i will blog.

so much has happened in my life the last four weeks. and surprisingly even to me, i've already changed, and i can't make up my mind whether i've changed for the better or for the worse.

this is not going to be a post about what i've done the last four weeks... i've done simply too much. to be brief (i'm beginning to learn the art of brevity, since i am in journalism, after all), i've taken part at the pathetic ryerson orientation week, gone on a boat cruise with residence people, made some floor friends who are just as outcasty as i am, emailed my parents minutes after smoking pot, made some jschool friends, attended the toronto film festival, explored queen street west, walked through chinatown, walked through kensington market, grabbed my first vice magazine, walked through the sketchy downtown areas of toronto while drunk, screamed at celebrities while on the fence by a red carpet arrival, shopped my ass off in forever 21, took my first steps ever into h&m, written two articles for my news reporting class, interviewed fifteen students for one assignment, gone to the globe and mail newspaper offices for a tour, seen muchmusic, seen the inside of masonic temple, gotten an autograph from mtv's paul the intern, explored the historical distillery district, and so much more.

when lara came over to see me this weekend, it totally opened up my eyes that i'd changed already. old friend + new context = fucking surreal. it's weird, really. i feel like i've changed, i've probably changed. university is not exactly what i thought it was going to be like. i thought i could be more myself here. i'm wrong: i've never been less individual in my whole life! i blend into groups and am not my own self. i learn to talk like everyone else, to yak like all the other journalism students (boy do they like to yak), shop like everyone else, care about celebrities like everyone else, and desire to eat the same way as everyone else. but the thing is, i'm not entirely happy with it inside. there is a secret happy-o-meter in the deep folds of my brain, and it's only at 80%, when i know i've had the capacity to be 110% happy. it seems like i've been terribly spoiled by my four best high school friends, who accepted me wholly. i could say anything to them and know that i'd be tolerated, just because we'd been friends for what seemed like forever.

the last thing i ever wanted to be was a generic university student. maybe i'm talking too early, i've been in university for four freaking weeks, it hasn't been forever. in two days, it will have been exactly one month since i've been living on university campus. isn't that creepy? lara and i agree that university makes you a less interesting person, a less unique person. i hope this situation changes later in the year(s), but at the moment that's how i (and lara) feel. i've experienced so much life in the streets of toronto, but i haven't found anyone i feel deeply attached to intellectually or emotionally or artistically, and this gives me the illusion that i'm living a very very mundane life, like i can never been wholly happy again.

when i hung out with lara roxy denise and dara in lara's kitchen, doing pointless things like cooking food and drinking tea and watching episodes of House MD, i was really happy. i haven't noticed how happy i was until now. you never know how things really are until you cease having that essential something. the way i miss the tall pine trees of vancouver. there is little nature on the streets here in toronto. i haven't fallen in love with toronto yet either, which was not what i expected at all. instead of falling in love with toronto, i've fallen in love with vancouver, a city i so despised for being (apparently) too small for my giant ego and ambition.

i dont really know what i'm trying to say. just reminding myself that i've changed into a more generic being. i'm not as cynical, i haven't even rolled my eyes in weeks. i haven't even said the word "hate" that much. that in itself is AMAZING. i've learned to talk about completely useless bullshit, the way adults do at cocktail parties. "how are you doing?" "oh, pretty good, what about you?" "fine, thanks. did you enjoy the lecture today?" -- i miss talking about completely random crap like chu noises in japanese anime, or the way i could wear a different-coloured chuck taylor on each foot, or the way milk mixes into tea in a marble of swirling colours, or the way eric makes ho-hum noises when he's coming up with excuses.

this is turning out to be longer than i thought. i do need to get back to my miserable English essay. i miss the way things were, but in that split moment, i'm wishing for better things to come. for the first time in my life, i'm enjoying the present and not always looking at the past or the future. i like what i'm doing now, but i still hope it will get much much more fantastic.

all the pictures i've EVER taken, without any deletions, are up on flickr. that includes EVERYTHING i've seen since i've been in toronto. the best pictures end up on my facebook albums, but do check them out mang.