Background Noise

It's one of the hardest things in the world to get over not liking what you see when you look in the mirror. You can tell yourself that none of this matters and that you're giving in to impossible worldly standards but it's sometimes a hard thing to remember when you look around see the people who look a certain way with the things you want and the opportunities that you know you'll never get a chance at.

But the dangerous part is when you start using that as an excuse. It's simply not enough that that stops you from trying. At least if you make the attempt you have an excuse.

So, when does enough becomes enough? When does enough attempts, enough rejection and humiliation tell you that it's time to just accept your place in the world? Are you foolish to keep going or will your resilience pay off?

I just wish for once, I could get through a week without some sort of existential crisis.

***

Totoro

I used to write a lot more than I do now. I loved spinning these absolutely impossible tales and creating characters, people and relationships and telling a story with them. Some of them were very mundane, but I loved creating circumstances and being able to control their outcome. Everybody would say what I wanted to say, and conflicts might arise but at least in the end I would know they worked out the way I wanted to. People who deserved it always got their comeuppance.

I don't know why I stopped. I think once I got older the judgments became harsher and I just become discouraged. When you get older, the expectations grow and the bar gets set higher. You don't have the excuse of not knowing any better for being ridiculous anymore.

***

I have this Totoro keychain that I absolutely love. It is of the large grey Totoro on a leaf, with a mini leaf covering his head like he did in that scene in the rain at the bus-stop. He's sitting there with one of the soot fairies. Unfortunately, I lost it and it's made me really sad.

Here's the thing, some of my fondest memories with my dad involve Totoro. I remember watching it with him for the first time. I had no idea what was going on but I loved it. The cat bus, the furry creatures, the absolutely adorable-ness of it all. I made my dad watch it every weekend with me, even though I bet he was bored to tears. He would always sit there and even if he would fall asleep he would always make sure that he was at least there with me. Even in the years after when we went back to Taiwan, every weekend it would be the same time. He was probably dead sick of this tale of fuzzy creatures and faraway lands but he knew it was important to me.

If it was possible for a do-over, I know I'd try to get it right this time. Not to change anything but to at least tell myself to have more perspective and to learn to appreciate what we had to begin with. Maybe then this feeling of disappointment wouldn't be so overwhelming.

9 Crimes

Damien Rice

There's never enough time.

When the coffee machine is churning its gears and going as fast as its little legs will go, each drip seems to be getting smaller and smaller. And you need the coffee you NEED the coffee.

My housemates threw me, Cindy and Jax a nice little belated birthday party yesterday which coincided with the NHL All-Star game so it really was multi-functional. None of us suspected it simply because our birthdays were about a month ago. So in reality, they picked the perfect date! Although when you arrive home and am barred from exiting your room until instructed, you start putting things together. Not to mention when there are ominous messages left for you on your fridge to be home by 7:30 p.m.

Things start to make sense. Slowly but surely. I like to fake naiveity if only simply because I want to encourage people to be more honest. There's too much subtext, too many expectations and caution that honesty will only get you into trouble.

Actually, sometimes it does.

It hasn't just hit me but with all of this talk of interviews and internships, and graduation, the fact that I don't know

where I'm going or will end up is becoming more and more apparent. We always change our minds about what we want to be, what makes them think that that will change one we enter university? I know what I want, but it might not be what I need. But why can't those two things be one and the same?

My housemate always says that we should take comfort in the fact that God has a plan for us, but I've realized that even over the last couple of years, where I've really felt close to God that I still have no idea what he's trying to tell me. There just seems to be a great disconnect that perhaps his plan for me won't manifest itself until much later in life, but it clashes with my general sense of discomfort.

Perhaps this is just a lesson in patience.

I'm beginning to think that my New Year's resolution of only one cup of coffee per day is doomed to fail. And it's only the third day of the new year.

Not only is it stupid enough that my school decides "Hey, people don't like celebrating the holidays, let's start school on the 3rd!" I also have the pleasure of having my first class at 8:30 in the morning. Of course unless you want me homicidal for the class [somehow that might not be a good idea for a Religious Studies class], you best be hooking me up to a caffeine drip.

Thank goodness for the Tim Horton's in my lecture building. One large cup of coffee is still only one cup, isn't it?

Really, it's more of a promise to my mother rather than a resolution. Somehow, I don't think she helped the situation with her decision to give me a coffee machine for Christmas. It does come with a toaster oven though.

There was another Vox. But then that other Vox got moved to Blogger. And then there was this Vox. Hello.

This will be a lot less hockey related, probably more life-related. However, due to the infrequency that I update my actual journal, I don't know if this one will see much action either. Even though Jordi's brilliant idea was for me to use this journal to post my horrible emo poetry, somehow for the safety of the general public I probably shouldn't do that.

We'll see, we'll see.

What is one of your addictions?
Submitted by Paperheart.

Pringles. The sour cream and onion kind.
They say you can't eat just one of Lays but it's Pringles for me. Once I start it's just impossible to stop!
Actually that kind of goes for all junk food...hmm...I may need to rethink this.