Yearly Archives: 2007

The Old Boys of '99: Providing Ignorance as Bliss

I decid­ed to pri­va­tize the pro­files in my “Old Boys of ‘99” series from now on. Much like this blog, the series was meant to be a sort of mem­oir, a way for me to rem­i­nisce about the past. A low-key deal.

One of my fel­low Old Boys found out, and it appears that word-of-mouth is spread­ing like wild-fire. Visits have increased con­sid­er­ably as links are being e‑mailed back and forth.

Funny that my hum­ble opin­ions and obser­va­tions have gen­er­at­ed such an inter­est.

I nev­er thought that I made any kind of impres­sion on any­one at Upper Canada College, or that any­one I went to school with would actu­al­ly care to see what I wrote. Evidence of this fact is that I only keep in touch with two peo­ple from those days in high-school.

This is a first for me. There were a few times that I con­sid­ered pass­word pro­tect­ing my posts, sim­ply because I thought cer­tain things would be too embar­rass­ing to admit or talk about, but I’ve always forced myself to be hon­est and open.

This series, on the oth­er hand, is where I’m hon­est about oth­er peo­ple. Some of them took offense to what they read in one entry. They lashed out at me, because they did­n’t like what was being said.

It’s hard for some to accept the truth.

They’d rather live in denial, or stay obliv­i­ous about what oth­er peo­ple think of them, and can only cov­er it up with anger. I’ve made the deci­sion that it’s best for them not to know.

Those who know me well will know the pass­word. Those who don’t may apply.

The Old Boys of '99 Series

  1. Introduction
  2. Another Perspective
  3. Seeto and Bunston
  4. Mungovan and King
  5. Providing Ignorance as Bliss
  6. My Perspective

A Change Of Tea

So I was­n’t being com­plete­ly hon­est when I said no more tea. I’d sim­ply switched from black to orange tea. Even that did­n’t work though, and a mild pan­ic attack had me down to even lighter, Chinese tea.

A warm, relax­ing mug can be rather addict­ing.

Thumbnail: Green tea
Thumbnail: Longjing
Thumbnail: Rose green tea
Thumbnail: Green tea mug
Thumbnail: Leaves macro

The great thing about tea is that it does­n’t just taste good, it serves a pur­pose. Cleanses the palette. Aids diges­tion. Combats the Yang of greasy foods with Yin. Green tea in the morn­ing serves to awak­en the sens­es. Longjing calms the mind at night.

The steep­ing process is beau­ti­ful. Green tea is espe­cial­ly prone to scorch­ing, so the water can’t be too hot, or the tea will turn bit­ter. Not hot enough, and the leaves won’t ful­ly release their flavour.

Note: Each frame of the video is a dif­fer­ent pho­to­graph, tak­en five sec­onds apart. About thir­ty min­utes in total.

To Eat And To Forgive

It’s Friday. Pizza day. At Louise’s house, the par­ents don’t feel like cook­ing, and the kids get a treat.

The slices are out. The sal­ad’s in the serv­ing bowl. Everyone has an accom­mo­dat­ing fork, nap­kin, and slice. I see Eric move a hand to his face in the cor­ner of my eye, and assume that he’s start­ed eat­ing.

As the guest, this means I’m allowed to eat too. I take a bite out of my slice, but before I can even chew, I real­ize that Eric was just scratch­ing his beard. With a smile on his face, he says “Don’t for­get about grace, Jeff”.

It’s a dou­ble wham­my.

Not only am I a rude guest, mis­tak­en­ly eat­ing first, but I’m a hea­then too, dis­re­spect­ful of their reli­gion.

It remind­ed me of some­thing that hap­pened when I was a teenag­er. Matt was over. Pizza night. As the guest, Matt got the first slice. He wait­ed while the rest were being hand­ed out, but my dad, with­out any sense of for­mal­i­ty, took a bite as soon as he had one. Neither of my par­ents noticed, but there was a star­tled look on Matt’s face. He quick­ly closed his eyes, held a fist to his face (not a clenched one, but as if hold­ing the beads of a Rosary), and said a prayer in his head.

I always imag­ined that it went, “ThankyouGodforthispizzaandformygracioushosts”, because he was done so quick­ly.

It made me won­der, what was in that look? What do those who ask thanks of their meal think of those who don’t? What do Christians think of those who don’t say grace? What do Muslims think of those who don’t fast? Are we unap­pre­cia­tive? Do we take our food for grant­ed?

Eric’s tone is kind though, not con­de­scend­ing or judg­men­tal, as if to say, “We only ask you to do this for the sake of our kids”.

Louise asks Sarah if she’d like to say grace. She sings a song that bears a strik­ing — excuse the pun — resem­blance to the melody of the Westminster quar­ters (along with chore­og­ra­phy).

Hark to the chimes (arms held upwards and open)
Come bow your head (hands togeth­er in prayer)
We thank thee lord (arms upward again)
For this good bread (hands togeth­er again)

But as a sev­en-year-old, Sarah does­n’t know the right words. She says “heart” instead of “hark”. “You” instead of “thee”.

No one men­tions it though. Not every­one is per­fect. One can be for­giv­en.

Even me, I hope.

Jealousy As Insecurity As Love

Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­i­ly put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­al­ly planned pret­ty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be hap­py with what­ev­er deci­sion you make, because I’m hap­py if you’re hap­py. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months lat­er. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co-MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the oth­er MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jeal­ousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has nev­er been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stant­ly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elat­ed and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ev­er he wants. There’s no rival­ry between Jason and me. As studi­er of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The log­ic has final­ly kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­ri­ty about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ing­ly end­less num­ber.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mal­ly want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­i­ty I’d take on glad­ly.

I’m scared that I made him feel oblig­ed, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-sec­ond.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Unfounded inse­cu­ri­ty. Jealousy with­out rea­son.

A feel­ing that over­whelms log­ic.