Posts tagged with "friends"

Miss You

I’m not usu­al­ly some­one who miss­es things. I miss my cat when I’m away for a few days, and occa­sion­al­ly I get a bit wist­ful because I miss being in Hong Kong, but that’s about it.

I’d miss hang­ing out with my friends on a day-to-day basis if I had­n’t already accept­ed the fact that they have lives of their own. I’d miss liv­ing in the social, relaxed, joc­u­lar envi­ron­ment of res­i­dence if I did­n’t already under­stand that uni­ver­si­ty is a part of my life that’s over, and that I most like­ly won’t being going back (it cer­tain­ly helps to know that liv­ing in res­i­dence is nowhere as nice as liv­ing in a com­fort­able apart­ment or house).

What I do miss though, is hav­ing a girl­friend who mois­tur­izes my back in the win­ter, when parts of my skin get uncom­fort­ably dry and irri­tat­ing. There are spots I just can’t reach, like between the shoul­der blades. It’s also nice to have some­one with warm hands who can stop the win­ter morn­ing shock of cold lotion.

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.

Don't Be Brash (Cause Your Friends Will Suck, Just Like You)

When the char­ac­ter of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.

—Japanese Proverb

Ever meet some­one whose com­pa­ny was ques­tion­able at best, and think, “Why does this per­son hang out with these peo­ple?”

One may imme­di­ate­ly think of the “friends” in ques­tion, peo­ple who prove to be stu­pid, super­fi­cial, unpleas­ant at best. Ultimately, how­ev­er, the truth lies in the key per­son who keeps such com­pa­ny. The apho­risms have nev­er been more true.

In the case of ques­tion­able com­pa­ny, the answer is atten­tion. A per­son with a mot­ley crew of friends, each one unlike the next, and each one con­sis­tent in their lack of social skills, is most like­ly a per­son who is after atten­tion.

The rea­sons for this are as plen­ti­ful as they are var­ied. Some are only com­fort­able when they are around oth­ers. Others enjoy the feel­ing of being a per­son who knows every­one. And some are so sub­con­scious­ly inse­cure as to need such com­pa­ny to believe they’re of some val­ue. So, to under­stand the seem­ing­ly eclec­tic taste in peo­ple of the key per­son, one must look to his or her com­pa­ny.

And often that proves to be more reveal­ing than any­thing else.