Yearly Archives: 2009

Surrounding Myself With Great People

It’s hard for me to hang out with peo­ple with same bad habits as I have (or have had).

Habits like:

  • over­re­act­ing
  • wor­ry­ing
  • ana­lyz­ing or think­ing too much
  • being judg­men­tal
  • get­ting emo­tion­al­ly involved in arguments/discussions
  • putting val­ue in mate­r­i­al things
  • being impa­tient
  • get­ting too com­pet­i­tive

I always try to improve and refuse to accept these things in myself, so it’s hard for me to accept them in oth­ers. I’m also afraid that spend­ing too much time with them would make me com­pla­cent, as I’d start to believe that these things are accept­able because oth­er peo­ple are okay with it.

That’s why I sur­round myself with peo­ple who are bet­ter than me.

Saying Goodbye to Frederic and Misun

Akio punches

Thumbnail: Dad
Thumbnail: Akio in the garbage
Thumbnail: Boys in trouble
Thumbnail: Akio in the garbage
Thumbnail: Miric on lap

They’re in France now, and I feel like a part of me is miss­ing. I know they aren’t gone for­ev­er, but they’re so far away that I can’t just dri­ve over to their house on a whim to talk any­more. They were peo­ple who real­ly under­stood me, who intro­duced me to so much of the world, who inspired me, who gave me con­fi­dence.

Before get­ting on the bus to Montreal, Frédéric told me that we’ll go on lots of adven­tures togeth­er. I hope it’s soon­er rather than lat­er.

Amnesiac Epiphanies

It seems like every week­end I make plans, because I think “I haven’t seen this per­son in a while and I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to hang out with them again.” But it does­n’t seem to stop, because there’s always anoth­er per­son to see, anoth­er thing to do, and by the time I’ve caught up with the last friend, it’s been months since I saw the first friend again.

This is the first week­end that I’ve had free. I just played Black and White 2 for five hours, and it feels good, con­sid­er­ing that I haven’t real­ly played a game in a while, let alone be able to lose myself in one. It’s like I don’t get a chance to relax for more than 45 min­utes at a time before I’m off doing some­thing else.

A lot of my old­er co-work­ers tell me they don’t even have time to relax on the week­ends. It’s one of those things that comes with hav­ing kids, hav­ing a house, hav­ing a full-time job. Is this what being an adult is about? Not that I mind; for a while now, I’ve want­ed to be this busy so I could for­get about things, to move on.

And then, I real­ized that I have.

Feather Fountain Pen

Feather fountain pen

Pat and Jen bought me this feath­er foun­tain pen set from their hon­ey­moon to Europe. It comes from an Italian sculp­ture store, Fabris Giuliana in Venice, Italy.

Feather fountain pen writing

The nib is super fine; I don’t think I’ve ever owned a foun­tain pen with such a small nib, which is per­fect, because I tend to have small hand­writ­ing. You can’t even tell which direc­tion the stroke is going. So far it writes a lit­tle rough and scratchy, but with enough use, the nib will break in to my writ­ing style.

I’ve always enjoyed writ­ing. Not just the con­cept of putting ideas into more a tan­gi­ble medi­um, but the act of writ­ing itself, whether it’s on a key­board by night, or flow­ing lines on a sheet of paper.

Summer House Show with Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously

House show invitation, featuring Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously

Update: Sign up for the Facebook event!

Attention Ottawa peo­ple! I’m hav­ing an indie music con­cert at my house this sum­mer1. That’s right, it’ll be an inti­mate night of folk and rap songs with Shane Watt and Jesse Dangerously. Remember these two from the con­cert I went to ear­li­er this year, where this awe­some and impromp­tu col­lab­o­ra­tion hap­pened:

You also may have read about Jesse in an Ottawa Citizen arti­cle last month, or seen Shane per­form­ing with Krista Muir over the last few years. Well, I want­ed to see both these artists per­form again, so I invit­ed them to my house. Not only will it be a night of authen­tic music (with anoth­er col­lab­o­ra­tion, I’ve been told!), but there will be free ice cream, and you’ll get to meet my cat, with whom you’ll fall in love2. Shane has also hint­ed that he might bring a spe­cial guest for the night. So come and meet the musi­cians, sup­port local Canadian tal­ent, and have a fan­tas­tic time.

  1. Click the pic­ture above to down­load the invi­ta­tion. [↩]
  2. No, you can­not take her home. [↩]