Yearly Archives: 2004

In Return

It’s only the dri­vers who yield to pedes­tri­ans who deserve a quick­ened step across the lane. I take my time, some­times even walk slow­er, for the dri­vers who have no regard for the pedes­tri­ans.

Only patient peo­ple deserve patience in return.

Transit Inspiration

“Is Petersburg real­ly as you draw it?”

“I draw it as I see it”

—Onegin

When I woke up, it was just anoth­er day, and my room resumed its silence as I turned off my alarm in the dark­ness. When I got out­side, it was just anoth­er morn­ing, although the recent drop in tem­per­a­ture has frost­ed the grass and turned the pave­ment white.

When I got on the bus, the sky start­ed with a plain, ear­ly-morn­ing glow that seemed to stretch out in a tun­nel towards my des­ti­na­tion. As I trav­eled fur­ther east, the sky turned pink and red, and a per­fect­ly ver­ti­cal beam of cloud­less light shot out from below the hori­zon, let­ting me know that the sun was wak­ing up.

I watched the sun rise as the bus took me to work, watched the sky turn from grey to red to yel­low to white. I saw the heavy morn­ing fog snake through the trees of a forest­ed green golf course, and saw it recede, as if the earth had cho­sen to dis­play itself by lift­ing her downy veil.

There are days when I want to get off at every stop and take pic­tures of the grad­u­at­ing atmos­phere. When the ride is a jour­ney only expe­ri­enced by bus.

Meeting Of The Four Bosses: Japanese Village

Thumbnail: Japanese Village sake bottle

If wine were a liquor, it would taste like sake. The state­ment does­n’t real­ly make sense until one actu­al­ly tries a cup of the warm liq­uid, and I have to admit, I did­n’t believe Louise when she first said it.

Pat, Aaron, Trolley, and I, along with the respec­tive girls/girlfriends, Jen, Karen, Andrea, and Loo, went to the Japanese Village for some cel­e­bra­to­ry tep­pa­nya­ki. Pat found a new full-time devel­op­ment job, Trolley went from con­tract to full-time, and Aaron got an eight-month qual­i­ty assur­ance con­tract, all with­in the same month. Everyone man­aged to make it out on the same night, which is not an easy task among the eight in atten­dance.

The last time we met togeth­er like this was when I first got my job at the begin­ning of spring, when we went to a lit­tle restau­rant in Chinatown to cel­e­brate, sort of like the meet­ing of the heads of the four ter­ri­to­ries in Infernal Affairs 2. It was impor­tant that my three clos­est friends in the city could make it last time, and this time, it just so hap­pened that each one of them got new jobs.

Every main meal comes in six to sev­en cours­es with mush­room soup, sal­ad (con­sumed using chop­sticks), shrimp appe­tiz­ers, mixed veg­eta­bles, rice, and sprouts. I got the filet mignon, which is unlike any­thing I’ve ever tast­ed; ten­der enough to stick through with a chop­stick, but firm enough not to fall off. It’s so good, that I may sac­ri­fice the excite­ment of try­ing some­thing new the next time I go, for the savoury taste of their best cut beef.

Something that I des­per­ate­ly want to do again, but dif­fi­cult enough to accom­plish with every­one there, to make me appre­ci­ate the time when it comes.

On Friday The 31st

This morn­ing I woke up and my ana­logue watch told me it was the 31st. I did­n’t believe it.

I could have sworn that I put my October bus pass in the lit­tle com­part­ment of my bag where I keep my change, lens cloth, lip balm, stash, and pro­phy­lac­tics, but instead, I left it on the shelf in my room. This is the same bus pass that I bought sev­en days pri­or so that I would­n’t have to wait in inor­di­nate­ly long lines, and would­n’t for­get on the first of the month and shell out $2.60 in change.

So I end­ed up pay­ing the dri­ver any­way, not­ing the 10¢ increase since the last time I paid with change. Groggy, I make it to the stop just in time to catch my next bus, some­thing that nev­er hap­pens, but I let it go by any­way in favour of buy­ing a caramel cor­ret­to from Second Cup.

For the last two weeks I’ve been try­ing to ween myself off cof­fee. It’s sat­is­fy­ing to have some­thing warm and sweet (and caf­feinat­ed) to sip with a bagel in the morn­ing. I’ve recent­ly gone to the lighter orange pekoe (from two bags to one bag), and I’ve avoid­ed buy­ing cof­fee if I don’t feel the need for one.

But today is Friday.