Posts in category "Daily Life"

A Weekend With Pita

Pita was over for the week­end. He had a com­pe­ti­tion in the city, in both Standard and Latin, and need­ed a place to crash. He tells me that he’s at the point where he’s stuck between achiev­ing a high­er lev­el and pri­or­i­tiz­ing the sport as a recre­ation, espe­cial­ly after com­ing back emp­ty-hand­ed this week­end when he won two golds at the last com­pe­ti­tion. 25 is get­ting old for a com­pet­i­tive dancer, and his instruc­tor, who’s the same age as him, is already the Canadian cham­pi­on.

I have an inter­est­ing rela­tion­ship with Pita. He was the first per­son I met when I moved to this city, shar­ing a room on the 15th floor of a res­i­den­cy. Similar inter­ests and intel­lects meant that we got along much bet­ter than the oth­er pairs of frosh room­mates, most of whom got stuck with the crazy, the irra­tional, and the dis­gust­ing. We went sep­a­rate ways the next year, but moved into an apart­ment togeth­er for the fol­low­ing two years. After part­ing ways as room­mates, when he moved 12000 kilo­me­tres to the place he was born, before com­ing back to this coun­try, we did­n’t speak to each oth­er for more than eigh­teen months.

Now, when­ev­er I see him, when­ev­er he’s in town vis­it­ing old friends or par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­pe­ti­tions, we can greet each oth­er with­out for­mal­i­ties and just pick up where we left off. It’s on odd state between acquain­tance and friend­ship. We share our­selves, and what we’ve learned and how we’ve changed since last see­ing each oth­er, but nev­er keep in touch oth­er­wise. We also give each oth­er per­spec­tive. He often speaks as if he’s ask­ing for advice or guid­ance, with­out actu­al­ly ask­ing. I offer my point of view, which he always inter­prets in a dif­fer­ent way than intend­ed, and this keeps me on my toes.

Back Into The Game

After a ten month hia­tus, I’m back into my reg­u­lar table ten­nis rou­tine again. I start­ed out extreme­ly rusty, feel­ing as if I was learn­ing how to play again, but now I’m almost at the lev­el that I end­ed with. It feels like it’s advan­ta­geous to take a step back from play­ing so that I can for­get all my bad habits while remem­ber­ing all the the­o­ry, because I can tell exact­ly what I need to change to improve now. I wish I could say the same for my golf game when I get out on the cours­es every spring.

My bout with gas­troen­teri­tis left me with a small­er appetite and ema­ci­at­ed frame. The sud­den weight loss — bring­ing my weight pre­car­i­ous­ly close to 100 lbs. — has been rather notice­able; my sweaters are bag­gy, my rings slip off my fin­gers, and I’ve lost two notch­es on my belt. Most peo­ple strug­gle to lose weight, I strug­gle to gain it and stay above 120. Table ten­nis is one of the best things I can do to fix this. After every ses­sion, I’m rav­en­ous­ly hun­gry, and this usu­al­ly con­tin­ues through to the day after.

Table ten­nis is also one of the only sports that I enjoy enough to not have to drag my ass out every time, which is def­i­nite­ly an advan­tage when the venue is an hour away. Unfortunately, my sched­ule on Tuesdays and Thursdays now con­sists of:

  1. wak­ing up at six thir­ty in the morn­ing
  2. going to work for eight and a half hours
  3. com­ing home and sleep­ing for half an hour
  4. eat­ing a din­ner which I’ve pre­pared ear­li­er in the week (with no time to cook)
  5. trav­el­ling to the gym
  6. play­ing for two hours
  7. trav­el­ling home
  8. show­er­ing and falling asleep by mid­night

There are no breaks in between, which means that I have to watch the clock dur­ing almost every­thing that I do. It’s a com­plete rush from start to fin­ish. The upside is that when I’m at the gym, work­ing on bet­ter short-ball con­trol, or try­ing to achieve a back­hand smash, I can for­get every­thing else, which is some­thing that does­n’t hap­pen for me eas­i­ly.

Winter Has Come

Thumbnail: Cat snowprints

Thumbnail: Cozy comforts

Cats are always curi­ous in the snow. As they sniff, the touch of their noses melt the snowflakes, and their tongues come out to lick away the mois­ture. They cau­tious­ly walk into it and inspect their paws, won­der­ing how they sud­den­ly became wet.

As for me, I’m com­fort­able at home with a warm drink and the glow of my mon­i­tors. The week has me burned out nowa­days, and the week­ends have become the only time for me to relax, the only time I can enjoy the sun­light dur­ing the short­ened win­ter days. You can always rec­og­nize a win­ter sky by its pale­ness, caus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly bright days and orange nights.

Christmas will be here soon. Vacation and trips home and fam­i­ly and the spir­it of the sea­son. Fall has come and gone. How does the time pass so quick­ly? Did I imag­ine I’d be here, at this stage in life, a year ago? Not at all.

I nev­er real­ized how much I missed the win­ter, until the snow start­ed falling.

Birthday

I received a birth­day reminder two days ago in the form of a card from my par­ents (a Richard Scarry-esque draw­ing of a crowd of cats, cell-phones to their ears, with the line inside, “Can you hear me meow?”). I had most­ly for­got­ten, although it came to mind about a month ago, and the thought remained dor­mant until Pat brought it up today.

During the week I made plans to meet Pat and Jen for dim sum, not know­ing that they secret­ly invit­ed Aaron and Karen as well, and that it was real­ly to take me out for my birth­day. Afterwards, we came back here to play some Donkey Konga and Mario Party. As sim­ple as it may seem to sit around play­ing games with a bunch of friends, it’s rare to find a day that our sched­ules match. It’s even more rare to hang out with a group of peo­ple I can total­ly relax with and just have a good time, let alone be able to indulge in the plea­sure of a bunch of addic­tive par­ty games with them. These are real friends, peo­ple who remind me how good it is to laugh, and help me real­ize that I don’t do it near­ly enough any­more.

On a day that I ask for noth­ing, I was giv­en every­thing that I could have want­ed.

Introduction: Lacey

Thumbnail: Lacey hides

Thumbnail: Lacey scratches

Thumbnail: Lacey naps

Aaron and Karen adopt­ed anoth­er cat, and named her Lacey. She’s a tiny thing, with downy white hair and ears like satel­lite dish­es. So far she’s a bit shy, as Chaos fol­lows her around often, but I think she’ll get used to it.

Until Lacey came along, I would have nev­er sus­pect­ed how much the cats look like their own­ers, but the resem­blance, as dif­fi­cult as it was to put my fin­ger on at first, is strik­ing. Chaos is the near­ly over­weight cat who some­times has a goofy look on his face like he’s say­ing “WHATSGOINGONOVERHEREGUYS??”, and Lacey is much small­er with big ears and del­i­cate fea­tures.