The Final Gift

The Writers' Guild holds a monthly contest where members can submit their writing based on a given theme; after which they are reviewed by 3 peer judges. Afterwords, the winner and runner up will both have their work published and featured on the official UBC Writiers' Guild site. For my 2nd submission, I was fortunate enough to be runner up of the January 2018 contest; the theme of which was "hope." Based on the classic myth of Pandora's Box, I had initially wanted to play around with the idea of hope being an ambiguous gift, with Athena arguing for its potential for good and Hermes arguing the opposite. I remember working feverishly on this piece (while in class!) to meet the deadline, but alas I had to cut it short due to the time constraints and the contest's word count limit. I'm still very pleased with the outcome, but someday I'd like to expand the ending to what I originally had in mind.

https://ubcwritersguild.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/january-contest-hope-runner-up/#more-58

Quill in My Hand

 I had the privilege of sharing this piece with my writing group during a dinner/reading party. The main theme I wanted to address was an obstacle I think many writers have trouble overcoming, myself included. A lot of times we feel like there's a story or message inside of us that we want to get out, but we're so fearful of an imperfect delivery that we never begin to put words on the page at all. I usually prefer writing fiction than poetry, but felt that the latter was a better medium for this occasion. Imperfect as it was, my group seemed to have enjoyed it, I hope you do as well.

A thousand half-ideas, through my mind they race.

The parchment lays bare, an empty canvas staring at my face.

Quill in my hand, I ready myself.

Dip it in ink, then on to the page.

Steady now, slowly move your hand.

The words must be perfect, you understand.

But the quill hovers in place,

Refusing to fill in the empty space.

From its tip the ink begins to fall,

Dripping down and staining the canvas wall.

A dark puddle soon forms,

Unsightly, unpleasant, imperfect.

I toss out the ruined page and prepare another,

This time there will be no mistakes.

 

Quill in my hand, I ready myself.

Dip it in ink, then on to the page.

Steady now, slowly move your hand.

The words need to be perfect, you have to understand.

But the hand still freezes and the puddle still forms.

The process is repeated several more times,

Each no more successful than the last.

And with every attempt the quill seemed to grow in weight

Making it harder and harder to hold it straight.

Oh, quill in my hand, why have you forsaken me?

Quill in my hand, when did you get so heavy?

At last I set it down to rest.

 

Finger on my hand, I steady myself.

Dip it in ink, then on to the page.

Steady now, just move your hand.

The words are messy, crude, unrefined.

The words are on the page, and they are mine.

Sarah

Seems like I have a habit of forgetting to write down my prompts at the time. Whatever it was, I think the writing turned out pretty nice, like a little horror story prologue (I'm a sucker for horror movies)

This is so stupid thought Toby.

Sure, he was the one who hit the ball through the window, but why couldn’t they just ring the doorbell and ask for it back? He could even apologize. But then again, they were just teenagers, aren’t teenagers supposed to do dumb things like this?

“Stupid” he repeated under his breath.

Having successfully climbed the fence, he now found himself in the neighbor’s backyard. Save the moon, there was little else that illuminated his surroundings.

“Agh goddamnit, didn’t even think of bringing a flashlight! Stupid! Stupid!”

It took him much longer than he would have liked, but he finally found the broken window. He tried to peer inside, but it was too dark to see anything. Fortunately, the hole was large and close enough to the lock that he could reach in and open it. After a minute of cautious fumbling, he heard a click.

“There we go.”

Very slowly, he swung open the window and eased himself inside the house. Blinking a few times, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark before resuming his search.

“Come on, where is it? It couldn’t have rolled that far…”

He tried to picture the trajectory in his mind and, after 23 steps, he found the ball resting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes!”

He quickly bent down and retrieved it, holding it tight as if it might try to escape.

Okay he thought. Now I just gotta get of here and-

“What are you doing here?”

“Arghomygod!!” Toby half-screamed. Looking up, he found himself face to face with a little girl.

Whew, it was just the neighbor’s creepy adopted daughter.

“Hey there…” Toby started. He tried to think of some excuse for him being there, but his mind came up blank. So instead, he changed tactics.

“Hi, my name’s Toby. What’s yours?”

The little girl stared at him with pretentious black, dead eyes.

“I have many names. But you can call me Sarah.”

That’s a weird response he thought, but decided to let it slide.

“Okay then…Nice to meet you Sarah.”

The Monochrome Man

I forgot what the prompt for this was, but the concept is simple enough: A man who used to live vivaciously, full of joy and laughter, until some unknown tragedy struck and stole all the color from his life. Another unfinished piece, but I hope you enjoy it in all its shortness.

On the hill lives the Monochrome Man,

The one who sees the world a different way,

In black and white and shades of gray.

His complexion matches his vision,

A dull affair with not a shade of color,

Some would even say he looked a bit sour.

Every day he would go into town,

To tend to his shop, the only paint store around.

He never spoke unless spoken to,

and limited his responses to a word or two.

He went about his day like a man broken and bent,

A dark cloud loomed above him wherever he went.

Children feared him,

Grown ups avoided him.

He ate, slept, and spent his days alone.

But he wasn’t always like that, you see.

The older folks remember a time

When he was a man smiling, happy and carefree.

Rainy Day

Prompt: choose 6 adjectives to describe yourself, then write a character based on the antonyms of those adjectives; these were mine:

1.  Shy
2. Introverted
3. Short-tempered
4. Imaginative
5. Indecisive
6. Philosophical

Antonyms

1. Outgoing
2. Extroverted
3. Patient
4. Pedestrian
5. Confident
6. Analytical

I should’ve known from the sky this morning that it was going to rain today, hence the umbrella. What I didn’t anticipate was the ridiculous downpour that it had turned into by mid-afternoon. It is now precisely 5:30pm and the rain shows no signs of stopping. Luckily I’m a patient man, and have nowhere else to rush off to for the remainder of the day. “That’s fine, keep raining. I can do this all day.” I told the rainclouds as I looked up with a half smile on my face.

“Hey don’t jinx it idiot! Are you trying to piss off the sky?”

That’s my best friend Harry. He’s a little more…superstitious than I am. In fact, he and I are quite the opposite in a number of ways. But when you’ve been friends with a guy for 20 years, you learn to embrace the differences.

Indecisive Dave

I can't remember what the prompt was for this piece, but I do remember that I based it on one of my many personal flaws; and magnified to a comically ridiculous level.

Indecisive Dave, that’s what his friends calls him. In fact, that’s what everyone calls him, just not to his face, but he knew anyway. He hated the nickname, but he had given up on trying to defend himself; and frankly, it really was a fitting one for him. Ever since he was a little boy, Dave had been tiptoeing between life’s choices, whether they be potentially life-changing or so insignificant that it would be a waste to spend even a single second thinking about them. Because of this, his friends and family have learned to tailor their time with him into a strictly structured routine. But even so, the most mundane of choices challenged Indecisive Dave. Going into the same restaurant, presented with the same menu, it would still take Dave an ungodly amount of time to decide on what to eat.

Dusty Windows

Prompt: 4 words from a random word generator. Ocean, doorway, march, yellow. Couldn't quite fit all of them into the piece, but 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Yellow sunlight filters through dusty windows,

Soft and warm to the touch, almost inviting.

Yet I remain in my sanctuary, my prison, my bed.

Eyes still closed, my mind imagines what lies beyond those windows,

My only doorway to the outside world.

A vast expanse of ocean, perhaps,

Its waves crashing and retreating in an endless dance.

Or maybe it is a forest that awaits,

Filled with the quiet chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves.

But I hear no chirps, no rustle, no crashing waves.

Of course, I knew perfectly well what is out there, all along.

Nothing.

There is nothing.

Were I to open my eyes now and stare out those tempting, taunting windows,

I would find only the void staring back.

The Coyote's Howl

The prompt for this very, very short piece was to find the photo of the day for our birthday month on the National Geographic website and write about that, and I really loved the image that corresponded with mine:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/best-of-photo-of-the-day/2017/july/

The site requires you to subscribe before you can see anything, but I figure I'll save everyone the trouble so here it is. The photo is titled The Coyote's Howl and is credited to Glenn M.



Before I actually started writing on this I did some quick Googling and learned that coyotes can be either social or solitary animals and can form loose temporary packs with other unrelated coyotes as well as being part of a more basic family unit, which I found very interesting:

The coyote’s breath materialized in a puff of white mist in the morning air. As it had happened before, and as it was bound to happen again, the creature found itself alone. It would be incorrect to say that it was lonely, for it felt no urgent need for the company of his fellow wolves from winters past. He would eventually find a new pack, as he always did. And so, at present, he felt content to lay still in the morning light.

Story Time

So...it's been another long break since the last post. But no more apologies! Let's just get back into the writing.

So it is now near the end of 2019, and I am happy to say that I've been a UBC DAP graduate for the past 5 months! Needless to say it's been a long, long road fraught with trials and tribulations and copious amounts of undue stress; but I finally made it to the other side! Better still, I've found my first full-time job and have been working for just over a month now. It's nothing exciting, just an accounting assistant doing data entry with some extra steps, but it's a start. Anyhow, the focus of this post is not on my work life, but on something a little closer to my personal interests.

A little more than halfway through my DAP program, I started looking into the various student clubs that were available to me at UBC. Part of it I think was to make up for the fact that I never joined any during my high school days, but mostly it was to find something I actually had an interest in; something that could serve as an escape from my life at that point. And soon enough, I found myself joining the AMS Writers' Guild as one of its newest members. Aside from giving me some much needed scheduled time in exercising my creative writing, the guild also finally brought me together with some lovely people who shared my love of writing; it was a place where I truly felt like I belong in a way that I never did before. Through this experience I was able to make some wonderful friends and expose myself to many forms and styles of writing that expanded my horizons.

Our meetings usually ran for 2 hours. For the first hour everyone would write on prompts provided by those who ran the meeting, and then we would all share our work afterwards by reading them out loud. The prompts varied each time and could be a piece of dialogue or a scenario or even an image or picture, but whatever it was it never failed to jump start our meeting and get our creative juices flowing. In the second hour we would have a choice of continuing with our prompt writings or working on our own writing projects or assignments. Thanks my time at the guild I've written quite a collection of incomplete short works and I thought this would be a good place to share them, beginning with this: Senior Danger

Prompt: “No sir, I am not underestimating the kidnappers. YOU are underestimating my grandmother.” (for some reason I turned the kidnapping into a home invasion scenario, oh well)

Kane was keeping his eye on her, just like he was told to do.

Stupid. He thought.

This was so unnecessary, the old hag looked to be in her 70s. Even if she wasn’t all tied up, it’s not like she could fight her way out. From the looks of it, she could barely go to the bathroom by herself. And why was he the one on guard duty? He was smarter than Dave, their so-called ‘leader’, and definitely more capable than Jay; that bumbling idiot.

A wheezing sound interrupted his thoughts. It started out soft, then steadily grew into a full-blown whistle.

“What the hell is that noise?!”

“Haven’t you ever made tea before?” Asked the old woman.

“That’s my jasmine tea in the kettle. You’d better go turn off the stove, before it’s ruined.” She said with a hint of irritation.

“Shut up! Who cares about your damn tea!”

But Kane went and turned off the stove anyway. Not to save her precious tea, but to stop the whistling noise. And it didn’t take a genius to know what would happen if he didn’t.

Stupid bitch, what makes her think she can order him around?!

He rounded the corner from the kitchen back to the living room; and found himself alone. Directly in front of him was an empty chair, where the old woman had been a few moments ago. It wasn’t just the woman that had disappeared. The rope that they had used to bind her was nowhere in sight as well.

“What the fuck?! Where’d you go, you old bitch?!”

His voice echoed throughout the house, but received no reply. Kane was suddenly very aware of the silence that had replaced his yelling.

This can’t be happening. She was just here a few seconds ago. What am I supposed to tell the guys? The old tart just up and vanished on my watch? No, that’s impossible. I have to find her!

His heightened awareness made him even more restless, but he forced himself to stay still. He held his breath, listening for any kind of noise other than his heartbeat, which was beginning to pick up speed. Kane stayed that way for about half a minute, until he finally let out his breath in frustration.

This isn’t working, I need to go find her. She couldn’t have gone far. He reasoned.

Slowly, and as quietly as he could, he ascended the short set of stairs leading up to the second floor of the house.

A 'Loveless' Valentine

Hello to all you lovebirds and lonely hearts out there. As you all know, today is Valentine's Day, a day that many of us have mixed feelings about. I've actually made a post about this specific holiday a few years back and what I said in there still holds true for me, so check that out here if you like.

Anyhow, this year's Valentine's Day has remained largely unchanged from prior years, in that I am still single. Except, for the first time in my life, I'm actually okay with that. If you've read my previous post you might be thinking "wait a minute, back then you already said you liked being single!" To be more precise, I was actually making the case that being of single status isn't necessarily all bad. And to be honest, I think I was trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince any potential readers at the time. I still meant what I said back then, and I was definitely grateful for the other kinds of love I had in my life, but being the helpless romantic that I was, it still felt like something was missing. For the next few years, I let Valentine's Day come and go without getting too wrapped up about its significance; but in the back of my mind I was still actively waiting to find that special someone.

This year for whatever reason, I'm learning to just accept that I'm single, and probably will be for a while. It's quite a liberating feeling, really. No more anxiously waiting and wondering if I'll ever find someone. No more bitterness every time that I don't. I'm embracing my singleness and enjoying it to the fullest! This doesn't mean that I've given up on finding a nice girl somewhere down the line; I've simply stopped waiting. Happy Valentine's Day.

Life In Limbo

From the very start I had had reservations about my enrollment in the DAP program at UBC, and about my future career path in accounting. It had been years since I studied a mathematically inclined subject. Throughout my undergraduate career I had deliberately distanced myself from the realm of business and science and focused my efforts on the arts because I knew my own strengths and weaknesses, and tried to tailor my studies toward the former. To be fair I was perfectly competent with most subjects in high school, regardless of their nature. But with math and the sciences, I felt like I was nearing my limit even back in senior year. And so returning to the world of numbers after such a long time was quite a jarring experience.

In my own mind, I had intended the DAP program to be a placeholder; something to keep me busy while I searched for my true calling, or even just a better alternative. I figured, if worse comes to worse, at least I'd still have accounting to fall back on. With this mentality in my head, I went through the early stages of the program putting in the same amount of effort as I did with my undergraduate studies. But as it turned out, the subject and intensity of the courses were harder than I had ever anticipated; much harder. Before I knew it, I was falling behind on even the lower level courses, and long story short, by the time the 3rd semester rolled around, my performance was so poor that I no longer met the minimum requirements to stay in the program. There was, however, a way for me to appeal the decision by submitting a formal letter. This letter, aside from giving me a chance to continue in DAP, was also a chance for me to sit back and seriously consider if this was the right program for me. At the time, I already had a pretty good feeling that this discipline was not a natural fit for me; but personal doubts and fears clouded my judgement, and made me second-guess myself. In the end, I convinced myself and the DAP office that if I really put in the effort and fully applied myself then there will be a marked improvement in my grades. And so, I dove back into the world of accounting head-first; determined not to let history repeat itself...

One Last Hurrah

After 5 and a half months of serving popcorn and watching free movies, I finally had to say goodbye to my first real work family. The reason being because I was going to the UK to visit my brother, where he was teaching at the time, and we wanted to have one last hurrah before our new lives as accounting students. So for the next few weeks we embarked on a mini-Europe tour which included Lake Garda (largest lake in Italy), Venice, Verona (home of the tragic Romeo & Juliet), Brussels, and even Amsterdam! Each location had their own unique charm but all were scenic beyond description.

For the Italian portion of our trip, we had joined a tour group which, to our surprise, mainly consisted of middle-aged or older individuals. They were all a lovely bunch to be with, of course, but the age difference made it difficult to find common ground in conversation. Fortunately, there were also a pair of lovely sisters who happened to be near our age, and we quickly bonded during our trip. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together almost every day and basically stuck together for the majority of the tour, and I came to see them as the little sisters I never had. Unfortunately, the tour had to end eventually, but it was fun while it lasted, and we still keep in touch on Facebook.

After returning from Europe, we still had one last adventure to look forward to: Hawaii. That's right, my family spent the last week of August in the virtual paradise of Waikiki! It was just as you'd imagine it, but better. Endless sunshine, friendly locals, and great food every day; we were in heaven. Of course, we weren't just there to enjoy the scenery. We explored a local zoo, visited the historic site of Pearl Harbor, and surfed til we were sore all over. We also fell from our surfboards a good number of times, so much so that we spent more time falling than actually surfing......it still counts.

Alas, September came too soon, as always, and my brother and I found ourselves back in academia. I was older and wiser, and I steeled myself as we entered this new chapter of our lives......

New Job, New Life

In my very last post from 2015, I'd talked about how I had just got myself a part-time job and also enrolled myself for further education. Having just reread that post, I realize just how much time has gone by since then......I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Now my writing's a bit rusty, so please bear with me. To begin with, I'd actually started my new job in February of that year. And since the diploma of accounting program (DAP for short) that I had signed up for wouldn't begin until September, I had half a year to settle into my life as a part-time theater worker. Prior to this my resume had consisted mostly of odd jobs for 1-2 day events and only 1 other real part-time job to speak of. This was due in part to me wishing to focus on my studies, but mostly because I was just reluctant to take up employment. The other part-time job I mentioned had only lasted a mere four months, officially because my availability was limited due to my course schedule at the time. But somehow I had a feeling it was due to my inadequacies as a sales person; I just wasn't engaging enough. So when I first started this new job, I was afraid that my withdrawn nature would cost me again. Turns out, my worries were quite unnecessary.

Life as a theater cast member was, for the most part, a pretty pleasant one. Everyone was welcoming and friendly from the get-go (even the managers!), and before I knew it I had formed some great new friendships. As someone who's both shy and introverted, I've always had trouble with making a good first impression, and also making conversation in general. So I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered the people that I worked with actually liked me for just being me; I never had to go out of my way to act more social and force idle chit chat. As a recent graduate, I was one of the older members of the work family, the majority of which consisted of high school and undergraduate students. But given my Asian looks and short stature, most of my coworkers automatically assumed I was around their age, and I wasn't about to needlessly correct their assumption. Of course, the shocking truth eventually came out and everyone reacted accordingly. That is, with initial disbelief and then acceptance.

The not so good part of the job was, as you've probably guessed, the nature of the work itself. When I first applied for the job, I had pictured myself printing, handing out, and/or ripping tickets, the usual work associated with a movie theater. What I had neglected to consider, however, were the other aspects of the industry, such as manning the concession counters or the cleaning of theater houses. Ultimately, I ended up in the concession division for my entire stay there, except for this one instance when I took part in some theater cleaning in the dark during an unexpected power outage. Let me tell you, concession duty is greasy, sweaty work. I've never paid much attention to their operations before as I wasn't a big fan of theater food, but after working there for months, I now have a much better appreciation of what goes on behind the counter. Besides having to handle buttery popcorn, the occasional grumpy guest, and the general rush of trying to help guests in long lineups as fast as possible, concession workers are also the ones who have the latest closing shifts. The clean up work at the end is especially long and tedious, and can make a shift that normally ends at 12:30am to end almost at 1:00am.

The guests themselves were usually a good-natured bunch. One of my managers once told me that people come to the movies to have a good time, so they tend to be in a good mood and are more forgiving than customers in other industries. This theory made sense to me and, after months of experience, I can safely conclude that it's true. All in all, I quite enjoyed my new temporary life, and it gave me hope that things were starting to look up.

It's Been a While...

To those of you who have been following this blog for however long, I sincerely apologize for my prolonged absence. I'm probably just talking to myself at this point but I still need to say it. Believe me, this ridiculous hiatus was unwanted and unplanned, but even so I should have made some kind of post about it and I didn't, and for that I am sorry. There wasn't really any sort of big event that brought about this hiatus, rather it was just that my inspirations had slowly dried up, and my motivation to write along with them. I had intended this blog to be a place for fun and interesting ideas, and I just figured if I didn't have anything interesting to say, then I didn't have any content worth sharing on this blog. Of course, this unintentionally created a viscous cycle where the less I thought I had to write, the less writing I actually got done, and without any actual writing I lost even more inspiration and motivation to do so. It's taken me more than 2 years to break out of the cycle, but I finally did it! For how long I can't say for sure, because there's always the danger of falling back into a pattern of passivity, but I'm going to do my best and stick to it for as long as I can.

I was going to give a little summary of what's been going on in my life for the past 2 years, but I've got a final exam coming up soon, so I'll save that for the next post, which will probably be out sometime during the weekend.

Thank you for reading......it's good to be back.

The Peter Principle of Life

The Peter Principle is based on the idea that in the workplace an employee being considered for a promotion is evaluated based on his performance in his current role rather than on his qualifications for the new position. This results in employees being promoted only until they "rise to the level of their incompetence." That is, until they reach a position that is beyond their skills and/or qualifications.

After months of fruitless job-searching, it felt like I've reached my own level of incompetence in life: being stuck as an unemployed university graduate. It's not an entirely unfamiliar feeling, really. Throughout my life, whenever I was about to graduate from one "life stage" into another, a part of me would fear that perhaps I didn't deserve it; that maybe there's been some kind of mistake or oversight and that I've somehow just managed to slip through the cracks and was woefully ill-prepared for the next stage to come. Of course, it wasn't always this way. I remember a time way, waaayy back when I believed myself to be fully capable of facing life's challenges, just like everyone else. In fact, I had even harbored some hope and ambition that not only would I survive life, but I would excel in it. The kid me was ever confident that I could be a shining example of goodness and success for all to follow.

So yeah, I had a pretty positive outlook on life back then, but it didn't last long. Looking back, I think a large part of my optimism was due to a seriously erroneous notion I had when I was a kid: that school, and life in general, would progress at a more or less consistent rate. In other words, I thought that my level of learning and personal development would run parallel with the difficulty of the problems that I will be facing. Take math for example. When I was a child I was under the impression that by the time I began learning algebra, it would be as easy as when I was learning multiplication and division, or addition and subtraction before that. It sounds pretty stupid now, but I really used to think that our minds would be able to simplify the complexities of the world into child-like manageability by becoming more complex themselves. What I didn't realize until later was that life's complexities actually progressed in a more exponential manner, while our own development appears to be stuck on linear growth. The result is that while we may be able to navigate through life after childhood, the effort required to do so becomes increasingly taxing on our minds.

And so it was that I went through life living in fear that I would one day reach a point when the problems of my exponentially growing world would become too great for my linear growing mind to handle; the day that I reach my level of incompetence. With every new stage in life, I felt more and more certain that I wouldn't be able to make it through to the other side. It started to feel that way in high school, grew stronger when I entered university, and after my graduation the feeling became so strong it threatened to leave me paralyzed at an existential level; the feeling that I have no idea what I'm doing here with my life and that I'll never be competent enough to figure it out. We're all familiar with the saying "fake it til you make it," but so far it feels like I've been faking it all my life, like an actor perpetually stuck in rehearsal and never ready for the real thing.

But just as I was beginning to lose hope, a little something happened last month that changed my daily grind of job-searching: I got myself a part-time job at the local movie theatre. It may not sound like much, just a minimum wage position designed to give high schoolers and university students some extra income, but it's definitely better than sitting at home watching my days waste away; plus it does come with some pretty neat perks (free movies for this movie-lover? Yes please!). Of course, I've no intention of making this the final destination of my work life. Instead, it will serve as the first stop in what I hope to be a rich and rewarding journey to finding a career that holds true personal meaning to me. In addition, my brother and I have both been accepted into an accounting program beginning this fall, which we hope would help our prospects in the future. My brother and I have never shared a class together before, so this should prove to be a most interesting and unique experience for us; something I very much look forward to.

Post-graduate life may have started out as underwhelming and depressive, and it may continue to stay that way for a while yet; but now I am no longer trapped in the fear of reaching my level of incompetence, because I know now that it is up to me to define that level. The best is yet to come.

Multiple Selves

This one took a bit longer to publish than the others, but here it is, my third article for the Elite Daily.

http://elitedaily.com/life/many-multiple-selves/884442/

If you're so inclined, please share it with others, it would really help me me out. And if you feel like commenting, please comment on the article itself if you can. Thanks a bunch!

So This Is Christmas...

Well folks, it's that time of year again. Colorful lights fill up the night as friends and families everywhere celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and/or some of the other holidays around this time. They may have different names, but the one thing they all have in common is a celebration of togetherness.

I promised myself that I would make a post for Christmas day, and usually I don't like to make posts in which I cannot contribute any significant insights or otherwise interesting thoughts; but I guess this can be an exception. Honestly, I don't think I can tell you anything about the holiday spirit that you don't already know, so I think I'll just give a little snippet on how my own Christmas turned out this year.

Let's see here. On the down side it's been almost four months since I've begun my job hunt, but sad to say I still remain in the population of the unemployed. On the bright side, my family is here with me again, just like they have been every year. But unlike in years past, this reunion will be a fairly short one. Since my brother has found a teaching job in London, he is only here in Canada on a two week break. Likewise, my mother will return to Hong Kong after a month's time here. Two weeks really isn't a whole lot of time, and it'll be at least another 6 months before I see my mother again; 7 months for my brother. Because of this, I find myself cherishing our time together more so than in previous years. So my troubles may not be miles away; heck it's not even out of sight, but I'm having a merry little Christmas this year nonetheless because I've already got what matters most. I wish a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Observations on Love

Here's an article I've written about some things I've learned about love. For the record, I have felt and experienced love in my life, so the title isn't quite accurate...not sure why they went with that. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy!

http://elitedaily.com/dating/6-lessonsobservations-love-dating-virgin/823723/

(Please comment on the site itself if you can, thanks!)

Blog Hop

I really should have made this post two months back, my deepest apologies for the mega-delay. Anyhow, here it is, my little contribution to this Blog Hop!

First I'm supposed to answer this question: Why are you working on the project you are writing now? Why is it important? (to you, or to the world, or…)

Well technically there are several projects I'm working on, but most of them are just small-piece articles so I'll stick with my first original work: this blog. I started this blog in the hopes of refining my writing skills, create more exposure for my writing, and to share topics and thoughts of interest with the world. So far, I'd say things have been going pretty well. Thanks to a blog share group on LinkedIn, I've been able to share my blog with plenty of my fellow writers and bloggers while enjoying their literary works as well. The comments I've received have been very positive and encouraging, so I hope I'm doing at least something right! As for why I think it's important to me, it's probably because of my strong belief in the power of words. To create something from nothing, to convey meaning from such meaningless characters, I think, is a privilege that should be used to its fullest potential.

Next is the honorable mention of the lovely Robin. Many thanks for introducing me to this blog hop and for jump-starting the whole project! You can find her blog here: http://leave-the-frigging-marshmallows.blogspot.ca/

Finally, I'm going to nominate two delightful bloggers I've had the pleasure to meet to continue the blog hop:

Kelly Boyer Sagert is a freelance writer with a great sense of humor.
Chris Rose is a writer who also works as a translator. Naturally he's fascinated with language.

Go check out their blogs! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Existential Struggles

So recently I've become a contributing writer for the Elite Daily and I'm very excited to share my first article with everyone! Hope you enjoy it!

http://elitedaily.com/life/existential-struggles/795250/