more of an update...

well....this afternoon i headed out to see an old friend of mine who i knew since we were what...6 years old? =) haha it was weird...not that she was weird. nono...she's still as cool as ever! but...wow...i think i realized just how much i have changed since i was younger. namely, a whole bunch of my friends from different skools became one big group of friends that i had throughout highskool. oddly enough, despite me being a loner and a freaky-kid, they still got my back (er....i think?). i've been talking to a couple of them in the past few weeks but everything really hit home today hanging out with me good friend, ori. had a great time with ori though --- always enjoyed her company. the weird thing was that...we were surrounded by high skool kids. were we ever like that? wow....we've just changed. and i've certainly changed. my viewpoints. my conversation topics. my thoughts. my clothes (definitely more grungey today and definitely different from say grade 10. don't get me wrong...i was never into anything revealing or tres chic or whatnot...but...i'm just...different). how i react. what i say. i'm ... different. and i'm not sure if it's in a good way or a bad way either. *deep contemplative sigh*

it's 6:46am. i've been awake for a little over an hour now. and you know what? dawn is just...beautiful. i've been watching a bird hop around the tree outside my window. the sun is coming up so that there's a golden cascade down half my street with the rest of it in a deep, pastel blue. wow. when was the last time i was able to be up at this time and not be grogey from lack of sleep or hyped off second wind? (and yes, i know i got about 3.5 hours of sleep tonight ;))

but i've also just been thinking about things people have said. i've been thinking about that whole who-i-am deal that everyone tries to figure out at some point in their lives --- it happens to me every couple days. sad story is that i have no idea. so who am i? bah. maybe you guys can tell me since anyone who has this url has probably known me at some walk of life and/or are just surfing in for an interesting read. don't worry --- this isn't a game of trivial pursuit. there are no prizes. there are no penalties. it's just one odd kid with a lot on her mind recently.....so here goes.

nursery skool: got in a fight with some kid about the swing set. do i know the kid? no. but i'm really sorry for biting him --- hey, i was 2 years old!

elementary skool: was always picked on. even my brother can't believe what a loser i was at that time. and well, maybe that's a really good thing that came out of it, the fact that from everything i've done wrong, i've been able to make him a slightly better person. he's great on his own, mind you. but i look at him and think 'wow. if only i were like that at that age....' i was stuck up and arrogant as i'm sure people can attest to. luckily, i did find some people who were kind enough to be my friends and have put up with me to this very day.

middle/high skool: started off quite arrogant and stuck-up still.....(i obviously wasn't a fast learner, eh?). i started going through this phase of my life when i said that i didn't need anyone and they didn't need me and tried to convince myself that that was just dandy. and at that point....i started getting some good friends to prove me wrong. as i progressed through the years, my friendships were shared with a larger number of people and had i not switched skools, i know that a huge part of who i am and the friends that have endured me, would not be the same. i knew that i would always always appreciate the people in my life from PCA, BSS, SCS, Branksome, Crescent, UCC, HTS, BVG, EH, Havergal, Shad, and others from mutual friends or various events in various places. I know that these people are in a league all their own. i have no idea why they hung out with me or invited me to parties or threw me little birthday bashes or talk to me on the phone for hours on end or share their lives with me in some way. it's so amazing how people let you in sometimes....either that or it's all a ploy! =)

university/work experience: i have 2 more years to go (0T4 + PEY) and i'm already looking back because a lot of us started saying our good-byes recently. why? most of us will not be seeing each other again in the next 16 months and, who knows what happens in a time frame like that. PEY/Skule/Skoll is separating us all and things will just be different from here on in. i know i started university almost the same way as i started high skool --- thinking i would really like to fit in ...somewhere. i remember feeling so lost at first (yes, it might have added to the fact that res didn't have internet up yet). i remember telling rich on the first day that i wanted to be nsci --- why? because i was the only person from any skool i knew that decided to walk into u(t) comp eng; everyone else was life sci or nsci! i didn't know anyone and spent my share of being stressed, alone, and highly competitive since i just didn't know what it would take for me to make it through the next 4 years (99% of this time was also spent on the internet. and yes, i do remember handing out AOL 500 hour accounts to people when the res T1 went down). due to an interesting circumstance, i met some of the good guy friends i have now. surprisingly enough, several attempts at me trying to be social as well as introductions from mutual friends, furnished me with a good and diverse group of friends. i'd like to call them mine but hey, why degrade them like that? oh, and btw, i am no longer highly competitive but rather, beg each person i know to let me pass.

relationships: for everyone who knows me, relationships are pretty non-existent in my life. ...why? i think at some point in my life in high skool, i just decided to stick to my work, which may be one reason i've always cared so much about grades. i've always told people that that's all i got. although now, i'm less driven and obviously lacking in academic performance, i still give myself a hard time when my academic life deteriorates. but really, i've always said that regardless, my career comes first --- this still stands. and the sad thing is, you'll still feel that little part of you that's not filled in as if you're working towards the wrong goal. a lot of the time, you feel so so so alone despite the hundreds of people you know. someone once changed my mind about things. and given an immense amount of inexperience and mine own precious stupidity, i know i didn't quite fill in the gaps for his life either. in the past month, i've gone through a huge range of thoughts and emotions and recognitions and revelations to ponder over ad infinitum. there are still a lot of decisions i have to make without full assurance that the choice is mine. it's odd that so many things have changed in my life in this regard. people i've talked to have brought this to the extent of marriage conversations --- a topic i don't even think i would be ready to discuss for another er...50 years? was talking to this friend on friday though....she had just graduated and wrote her blurb on her fiance which none of us knew about (afaik, it was just her bf!). she said she wasn't officially engaged but knew she had definitely found the one. i remember being exceedingly happy for her...but also a bit surprised because she was the first person i had gone to skool with and knew well who had this kind of certainty. i can't remember where i was before all this started....nor do i know where i'll be when all this ends. i'm actually really lost on this right now....

putting things into perspective: i started this blog at 6:40ish AM on Saturday (May 3) and it is currently 7:34pm on Sunday (May 4)...I've been posting and editing the whole time when i can. I spent a fair amount of today feeling exceedingly exhausted and thus, unconscious on my bed. But yesterday started to hit home a bit as it was the first time i've ever had to call 911 for someone i really really loved. i'll tell you, it's SO bloody frustrating when you're stuck in traffic, you don't know if the ambulance made it to the right place, you don't know if the person is conscious or whatnot, and you were told by emergency response not to call to keep the line open. *sigh* honestly, the only thing you can do in a time like that is pray. so i did. and i was relieved that we finally made it to my grandparents' place -- ambulance in front. gurney at door. 2 paramedics dressed for SARS prevention and a grandpa who had taken a nasty fall but was still lucid and conscious and refusing to go to the hospital. *sigh* so we stayed there for a bit to make sure he was okay. it's hard to tell a man who schedules naps every afternoon that it's best not to sleep for 12 hours just to make sure there's no concussion. =) but he was good and we went to visit again today. *sigh* my grandparents are the strongest people i've ever known in my life. i.e. my grandpa's 90 years old and still driving around doing his shibang. my grandma's 89, still doesn't really need help walking, likes to go shopping, eat out, reads newspapers and books to try and learn english more, and has an amazingly sharp mind that will be used to shoot you down at a whim. *sigh* honestly? i've started to become really really afraid of growing old......but if i can be a little like them at that age then hey -- might not be so bad, huh?

nevertheless, i'm afraid. in this state of weltschmerz. i don't think i'm ready for the real world quite yet.

2 cents?