When giving thanks is really giving reasons to give thanks.

And that was this year's Thanksgiving, here and gone again.

In my first year of university three years ago, I remember going to a friend's apartment for an awkward gathering, awkward because nobody really knew anybody else that well in October of their first year of university. Then in the past two years, I went to another friend's where she hosted scrumptious Thanksgiving dinners for a few friends, two years consecutively. Now that she's graduated, this year, I was invited to another friend's place for a nice chicken dinner, and I baked a cake to bring for dessert. I'm very, very grateful that I've been able to spend all four Thanksgivings of my university life having good food with good company.

It's not hard to count my blessings. I'm thankful for a lot of things, and very often too. Of course, like all people, there are some things I'm sure I take for granted without realizing, but generally, I feel that knowing when to be grateful for what I have is not one of my weaknesses.

But sometimes, I also feel that it's become a sort of ritual thinking for myself. It's like convincing myself that my life is worth living, that there are things I have that some people in this world don't have, that there is some kind of higher value in my quality of life that puts it above the lowest possible.

But I hate it. In counting my blessings, I also unintentionally compare my life to other people's, and whether it's better or worse than whatever I compare it to, it's just as bad. If it is better, I am comforted by the thought that there are people suffering worse things out there. If it is worse, I am bitter about the fact that life is, indeed, unfair and that I have the short end of the stick. Either way, they are horrible thoughts.

I can be thankful-- and I am truly thankful for these things-- for being alive, having a family, having friends, having access to some amount of money, being able to receive an education. Many people have these-- although I suppose that shouldn't be a factor in whether or not I need to be thankful for these things. But on the other hand, if I were to go into a little more detail, I would say that I am alive while constantly struggling with existentialism, that I have a family of a dying mother, an absent father, two caring but elderly grandparents and the rest hovering somewhere between 'acquaintances' and 'strangers'; friends that can only ever be friends at most and can never fill in as family, money that I have access to, yes, but not money that is mine while I continue to sink deeper into debt, and lastly, I only wish I had a higher intelligence so I could receive an education free of charge.

Yes, I've heard the phrase "There are people in this world who don't have even that!" many times, and yes, that is very true. But like a friend said to me before, it's like a person who's lost one arm, and a person who's lost both arms. Yes, the person who has both arms missing is probably in more pain in comparison, but that doesn't cancel out the fact that the person with one arm gone is also in pain.

Well, I had decided long ago that the only reasonable thing to do in any case was to just make the most out of what I have. It doesn't matter if it's unfair, or that some people have much more available to them or were born with advantages and into better circumstances; this is what I have, and that's that, so make do with it. And feeling the frustration of one seeing someone else with clear advantages over oneself, I can only imagine what it must feel to be someone looking at me and feeling the same way. At least I should do what that someone looking at me would wish they could do if they had what I had, which may not be much to me but so much more to that someone else.

This is also one of the reasons why I am personally so against suicide, or abortion, even. So many opportunities at life willfully wasted, while so many people struggle to grasp the same thing but to no avail. It makes me so sad. But that is another matter.

All in all, I think Thanksgiving is generally a wonderful time of the year, despite the fact that people should really get into the habit of giving thanks all the time and not just once a year. I suppose it doesn't have as big of a meaning to me for this reason (which I guess is a good thing?), but it does give an excuse to have dinner parties that create that warm and fuzzy feeling for me as we gather around the dinner table. The challenge for me then, I guess, is to someday be able to give thanks without that other negative side, to be able to count my blessings and truly think of them as blessings in themselves and not in relation to anything else.

I'll work on it.

And in case anyone is wondering, the picture at the top of this entry isn't related to anything mentioned in this post. I just thought it was pretty and decided to include it. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

What is with bamboo?

I was having lunch with a friend at one of the school cafeterias this morning, and what do you know? Bamboo chopsticks. Well, aren't they fancy.

The "eco" in eco-friendly definitely doesn't stand for economically.

These days, it seems like if it isn't "eco-friendly", it's not cool. "Earth-friendly beauty" in terms of make-up is a total paradox in my opinion. They really try, don't they?

Living the student life.

I had spent a week or two dedicated to getting some writing done every night, but I've been finding it more and more difficult to set aside a chunk of time to just sit and be creative. Acting as the president this year for the departmental association of East Asian Studies at McGill has given me a lot more miscellaneous tasks to get done-- emails to send, meetings to attend, events to organize-- and by the end of the day, I'm just exhausted to the point that I don't want to do anything but sit and... well, do nothing. But yes, this is basically all just one huge excuse for not having been productive in my writing as I would have liked to be, as usual.

In any case, aside from dealing with school-related activities and going to class, what I've been doing lately can basically be summarized by the following images.




Basically, a decent amount of calories. But on a more serious note, I suppose I've just been trying to distract myself with a bunch of things that I've been hoping would serve as forms of therapeutic activities, in one way or another. Socializing, having a few drinks, baking, doing some brainless reading... it's been quite enjoyable so far, although I'm not quite sure if it's really achieved anything. Probably not.

Speaking of which, "brainless reading" is a horrible oxymoron. But I can assure you that it was quite true and very applicable in this case. I have never been one for reading chick lit-- in fact, I had only come across the term "chick lit" when I actually looked up what kind of genre these books would fall under. Out of the many books I've read in the past, I have only ever read approximately three "chick lit" novels in my life (excluding stuff like The Babysitters' Club when I was in elementary school, and even that could go under 'mystery'), but I was feeling particularly stressed one day, and so, picked up two of these chick lit novels from Indigo.

I'm not sure what to say. I've read another book by this 'Sophie Kinsella' (which, I read, turns out to be a pseudonym) before back in my high school days. I've never read The Confessions of a Shopaholic, but I had happened to pick up another one of her books called Can you Keep a Secret? at a book fair when I was on vacation in Asia one summer, and desperate for anything in the English language. Then, years later, I picked up this one called Remember Me? at the bookstore last week. And well... the two books are basically the same. Office ladies stuck in a junior position until, by some stroke of luck, they meet a multimillionaire and off goes this ridiculous romance where-- for some unfathomable reason-- a regular, base-salary office lady with (really) minimal intelligence would suddenly attract a social elite, thus given another opportunity at "a better life", half supported by this horrid excuse of a romantic relationship and the other half by the idea that the guy is, in fact, very rich.

I don't know, I just felt dumber and dumber the longer I read this book. Which, fortunately, didn't take very long at all. But I wonder how these kinds of books manage to have such a huge audience-- I mean, sure, it can be seen as a sort of fantasy relevant to the billions of women working in cramped offices in dull, urban landscapes everyday, but... really? I don't understand. I just remember myself hoping throughout the entire novel that the protagonist didn't actually reflect the psyche of an average woman in the 21st century. It's a little horrifying and, well, embarrassing.

Anyway, I'm now reading my second Kirino Natsuo novel, called Grotesque. I read her other novel, Out, quite a few years back and I liked it. I'm only about two chapters into this one so far, but it's probable that things are going to get more, er, grotesque soon and I'm pretty excited. Kirino is a thriller, murder-mystery novelist and, from reviews I've heard and the one other book I've read from her, I'm hoping she might do a decent job in this one too.

I'm rather glad that I'm not taking any English courses this semester for once. I'm only 3 credits away from completing my English program, so I just have one more course on American literature in the Winter semester; in the meantime, I'm free from English classes this semester. In the past two years, I had been taking mostly English courses and often felt horribly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of reading and writing-- which is to be expected of an English program, I understand, and I appreciated this, just that it gave me no time at all to read anything for leisure and not for class. So I'm hoping to use this year to get some work outside of school done, while I still can.

Should be fun!

Like a bottle tossed into the ocean.

Today, I received my first sympathy card.

Actually, I think it's a bit too early to receive one as my mother is still alive. But it struck me as something so strange and foreign, like it's hard to believe that it's truly meant for me. The formality doesn't seem quite appropriate yet for someone my age. Sympathy for who, me?

But then I remember, that when my mother does pass away, it won't matter how old or how ready I am to receive the entirety of being a mature member of society. I will have to do it regardless, because no one else will do it for me.

I suppose this may come as a surprise for anybody who may be reading this entry, but this summer has been so very stressful for me. It was so long and tiring, and because I had decided it would be even more tiring to share what I was experiencing with others, I had kept it to myself. To give a short summary, my mother was hospitalized for a few weeks in July and is now on palliative care at home. Basically, just over a month ago, we were told that my mother (who is suffering from heart and kidney disease which then entails many other dysfunctions within her body as a result) is incurable and has a life expectancy of approximately one year left. Putting the details of my mental state throughout the summer aside for another day, the summer progressed and is now coming to an end, with me getting ready to leave home again for my last year of university in Montreal.


Two friends and I went for a walk along the West Dyke Trail this afternoon. It was a splendid time of taking photos, climbing hills and chasing grasshoppers as we would have 10 years ago. But as our energy levels died down after a while and my friends were occupied with studying the many plants available for viewing at the public garden, I detached myself from them for a bit and turned around to look at the landscape behind us.

As I stood there staring across the field into the far distance, I suddenly felt a strong sense of loneliness, of a fear for the future that is appearing to be so forlorn and desolate; a life without my mother. The strong breeze, the rustling of dry grass, the bright but sunless sky that reached into neverending space... the sudden occurrence that the world is so vast and empty hit me so rapidly that I could only think of one thing: I am scared to be left alone in a world like this. At that moment, I felt as if I was frozen in a place where my past was but a faint flicker; the future seemed blank like the pitiless sky that-- unlike us-- will always exist, surpassing time and space, and I will be here and gone like a vapour in the wind.

You might think that I am a bit too young to think of these things, but keep in mind that having a dying mother at home and all... well, I can't help but be constantly wrapped in a cloud of slightly existentialistic melancholy. Life is so very short. Growing up with a single mother has made me an independent person-- indeed, probably much more independent than most girls my age-- but also extremely aware of my vulnerability as someone who will be completely on her own in this world without my mother.

Well, in any case, I still have some more time at school to decide what to do by myself from here on. But only so much time, and I will have to make my decisions soon. But you never know, many things can happen within a year's time. As even this short, summer season has proven.

Where will I go from here?