Venture into the unknown. Never stop working. Always learn.
5 years ago, I tried to read “The Yale Shakespear” A huge book with all shakespearean play in its original text. I couldn't go through one sentence without looking at the dictionary.
Today, I read it again and I understand.
I cried. Didn't believe I'd reach this emotional level after I've been hardened so much through last year. This must be worst than what I've experienced my whole life to do this to me.
“God ordered me to visit my friend and my boss said no!”. This is the sum of my experience for this stage of my life. From today on, I will embark on a new one.
Wow. I am so mad. To a point that I can't feel anything.
It is very difficult, for my part, not to show off what I know.
Often, I have to stop myself from saying something and think about how others will hear from what I said. It is a hard training, to swallow my pride, my desire to be known and just content with being a nobody. It is hard to hide, when I know so much and can converse freely on way too many topics. People often came to a sudden realization that I know exactly what they are talking about.
I do however, enjoy what I've been learning from shutting up and just listening to people showing off their knowledge. Sometimes I really respect their broad range of knowledge, however, in the mean time, they are exposing their weakness.
The desire to be known and heard shows an insecure ineer self who is confused about the self that has come to be.
What I am interested though, are those who decided to keep to themselves. I always wonder when someone says “I don't do much on my freetime” or “i don't know, I like all of the styles, there really isn't any preferences.” I wonder if they are really that boring, or they are trying to hide something.
The Interviewer at where I work scares me. She is the only person at work who've managed to see through me and dug out all my secrets… Well, I was obliged to answer her questions, but she has to be good enough with conversation skills and intuitive enough to know that I am trying to hide something.
That alone is ok. Then there's the fact that she worked like there's no tomorrow.
The professionalism, the sharp mind and her ability to hide herself well. She's a well trained buisness woman. I am really turned on.
The problem with outsourcing comes from the fundamental mentality of North Americans. Overpaid for a crap job that doesn't deserve such high pay. Unions are created so that people can sit in their fat asses and be secured about their jobs.
The concept of hard working, toughing it out and discipline have completely dissappeared. While we complain about having worked for 12 hours with only 6 hours of sleep for a week, people in asia are doing that for the whole year.
Because the base job pay is relatively high compared to the other countries, it is then only reasonable to raise the pay for those jobs on the higher spectrum… making us, the north americans, unable to compete with the cost effectiveness of the asian countries.
Engineers here get paid for about $25 per hour while they work for $5 per hour overseas. If you are the CEO, what would you do?
Intensive trainings in ASL (American Sign Language). I find the spatial language rather fitting to my personality… If given a choice, I would want to grow up expressing myself in ASL.
It is a language of visualization, unbounded and takes the form of story telling. Short direct and involves so many body languages.
So…
What I've been trying to do for the last month. Every network, every activity, every friggin thing I tried to get that involves waiting for a reply…
Decided to give me a call, or email me back today.
Result?
Time conflicts.
JDS uniphase at $4.17 per share as a technological stock
Coca Cola at $38.98 per share an all time low for a 1 year rise-fall cycle as a bleu chip stock
Should I sell JDS and admit the loss in order to buy coke?
It'll be a 50% loss if I sell JDS at this moment.
Coke's rising cycle will go to $45 within a year… about a 10% net gain…
No, it is a bad decision, I will await JDS uniphase's random spike in share price.
Dancers rub silicon lubes onto the surface of their shoes so that the leather won't get ripped off during a high speed maneuver where the feet touch each other.
I wonder how many of us developed a leather shoe fetish because of this.
Ahhh this is cool.
Hi,
Now that I am finally established in Montreal and have settled down a bit. Can anyone suggest how I can go about learning how to learn massage lessons and become a pratician?
Also, I remember passing by a ceramic cafe on St-Denis and would like to know if there's more cafes like that. I prefer one where I can go in, buy some clay and just sit down and make something at the wheel.
If we have different personalities for each languages we speak due to the different efficiency and experience associated with the language. What then is dancing if the efficiency and experience is based on your whole existence.
Seeing an open level couple practice is like looking at your childhood playmate 20 years after you went your seperate ways. You can recognize certain features, but you don't believe that it is them.
Without the makeup, without the costume and take away all the feigned emotions. You get two normal people, struggling, fighting in pain. Torn between emotions.
The second wave of apartment hunting went better than my expectations. This time, I've decided to wear my black wool trench coat with a combination of my skater's baggy pants and white worn out sweater.
My trench coat creates a sense of seriousness and stability while the rest of what's not covered up by it conveys a past hint of student life… I am, afterall, going to live with students.
The result is good. There are two places I like and both of them would like to have me. I want the one with a huge kitchen, but he has alot of people asking for the apartment so I'll have to wait. But either way, I can get the second one.
So… that means I'll be moving out by next week. Phew. Phase #4 of changing country is finally done… 5 months.
Next phase, romance.
“I am only asking you to think about the future. In 10 years, or 20 years after you've retired from dancing, will you regret it?”
50/50 percent chance. But if I don't go all out for it now. For sure I will, I had a taste of that for a year, and it doesn't feel good.
As a challenge to explain it, I did it without knowing the background of the person, nor that of the author.
Then I read other's explaination.
It strike me somewhere as I sensed a similarity somewhere between all the explainations. I then framed my mind in the joking persona that I used to answer it. Reframed it with my dancer's mind. Then something from my recent knowledge of the alternative lifestyle hit me.
The strange cohesion between time, expectation and the stunning truth of waiting for an unexpected uncontrolled event.
It is beautiful. I learnt something today.
“I didn't realize how much people look up to me in the clique of dancesport till I observed a person's facial expression change from sour to pure joy.” ~Peter Su
The clerk asked for where I got the coupon card, then realizing that it is easier to get an answer by looking at the back of it, she continued to flip it around and find out where it originated: Studio 2720… the ultimate in dancesport in Canada. Where teachers come to learn and top competitors practice.
I asked for a 7 1/2 extra wide modern shoe with glossy leather. To an outsider, these small informations means jack: coupon from studio 2720 and the style of shoes. To us in the know, it means I am competing at the top level of dancesport in modern. There's only about 100 of us in Canada out of the million of people. There's only 100 of us because we have to walk through all the sorrows and loneliness to come to the top. Out of the 100 of us, only 50 actively competing while the rest struggle to find a partner.
It is then she know she can talk normally, without having to explain any of the terms to me. Terms such as latin, modern, standard, pivot, frame, coucaracha… dancesport.
I have to keep in mind that people worship those on the top for their spirit and determination and from what they must go through to reach the top.
Rejection…
Which is the ultimate lure. Ever since we are small, we've been brought up with this idea where if one works hard enough, one will get what one work hard for. However, it is not the way with anything human related.
The most important thing I am learning from my recent adventures in Montreal society is that the only way to not let it affect you is to laugh at it and continue on.
But it's hard on my self esteem, when everyone around me is already established, while I am still getting around being rejected by everyone. I need to have these annoying little life things settled first so I can work on more important aspect of my life and chase after interesting projects I want to do.
All women should read “The rule” and do the exact opposite. It is fucking annoying.
After reading “The loving Dominant”, I realize that… well, a perfect dominant.
Still, I cannot believe that the norm of the population doesn't share the same understanding about them. What the book talks about feels so natural, so inherent in us… So absurd to know that others doesn't understand it.
I had no idea that this is so hard to be understood by the majority. I thought it is a psychology trick of the book to try and turn everyone into a Dominant in BDSM relationshisp by stating the obvious fact about a human as a trait of BDSM dominants… But are these really obvious traits of human?
FUCK! So many questions and no one to ask.
I wonder if the current goth costume is created because the old goth thinking were very similar to that of BDSM and alot of the old goth participate in BDSM, thus creating the “goth” style of dressing up by fucked up people who does nothing but copy others without knowing the meaning.
For a while, I've been doubting my way of thinking. The way of acting that I consider natural for myself. I was slowly accepting the fact that maybe I need to change and accept the norm of the society. That I am just a freak in my way of thinking and acting and no one will ever understand it.
Then… someone showed me today that there's a whole world out there with the same mindset.
Then throughout this conversation, I suddenly understand why I was frantically looking. People understand me when I tell them about things, but they don't live it. You can tell in their eyes when they are just putting that comment on the back burner without it triggering anything in them. Some remote memory, or understanding. For ages, I've been searching for that understanding of my efforts. For someone who've done the same to acknowledge…
Then I watched “shall we dance” It hit me harder this time than when I first watched the japanese version because it is the life that I live and the problems I think about everyday. It's something that normal people who doesn't have this lifestyle will not understand completely… and that's what I want.
In the movie, there was this one line that hit me “Marriage, is not passion, but a witness to each other's life. Because what are we to others? That they'd care about our life? In marriage, you stand witness to the great events of the other, the boring ones, the mundane ones and the bad ones.”
“Rumba, is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire. You need to feel her up, like you are going to fuck her in bed passionately. Passionately love her and caress her as the woman you love. Then drop her and make her regret ever dumping you.” ~Jennifer Lopez
YEAH PISSED! I hate being understood. Then it shows I am not a freak and I have to seek out others like me.
The past 3 days, I've walked every streets on the plateau, in an attempt to finding the perfect apartment.
For apartment hunting, I decided to wear a thin skinny sweater with a dress pants to give an hint of seriousness with a laid back metrosexual impression. With a black messenger bag and coffee mug in hand. I clearly send out the signal of what I am as a person.
I know what's going on, I am a good professional and I am serious about the rent. The coffee mug and a messenger bag helps the students relate to me more as they can recognize the coffee addiction you get from cramming overnight.
All in all, I think I impressed a few people. One land lord said to a tenant:”I like this one, you going to take him?”
Bored as I am while extracting all the music from cds and putting it onto my mp3 player so I can play them during practice I decided to write a journal entry.
I scrolled through pictures on lavalife to waste some time and enjoy some good looking women.
Then I came upon this particular one… It's not one of those perfect face, but one with a small flaw in the perfection. At first, I gave it a 7 and just scrolled right through, but somehow, something captivated me and I keep thinking about it while browsing others… I mean, it's not a perfect face!!!
So I went back and read her profile… that was bad. It captivated me.
Then I looked very closely at her picture to try and find out why it attracted my eyes in the first place.
A small part of her feature, resembles that of a girl I know back in Taiwan.
She's 29.
Being too handy at doing anything has an extreme bad side effect. People around you start throwing stuff at you that they don't understand and expect you to figure it out for them and teach them how to do things.
Excuse me, but waste your own time to figure things out.
Gotta go watch The Terminal at the dollar cinema. Can't miss that chance.
Skin rubbing against skin with our sweaty bodies firmly pressed together, we felt the firm and soft parts of each other. Scents of our hormones co-mingled, forming a new drug that entices our sexual desires.
Yeah well, that's only a few minutes of the glory. For the rest of the time, you are just trying to scramble for time and money in order to book lessons with teachers.
This is a piece I scribbled down during a transitional flight between countries… between time zones.
Silent replies to enthusiastic greetings
Night that drags on
and the silence that consumes all…
even darkness turns stark by corrosion of yawning faces
When one chases the fine line of time,
meanings disapear as you stand between worlds.
Brains slow to a thoughtless banter
and thus begins your existence as a zombie.
Thoughtless, murky dreams.
Memories exist, but without emotions
Yes, when we are tired… emotions ceases.
Reading it is like watching myself committing some stupid act while under the heavy effect of alcohol.
I just discovered Iron Chef on Food network. (drools)
It's been 6 years since I've had a TV readilly available to me… I feel like glueing to the TV with so much information to absorb.
Sunday: Install door for fence.
Sunday: Wedding 6pm
Sunday: Call Manon to arrange lesson
Monday: Meh.
Tuesday: 1:30pm go see apartment
Tuesday: Possible lesson/practice at 5:30pm
Wednesday: Create bank account, visa, check.
Wednesday: Practice 9~11am
Thursday: Possible lesson/practice at 5:30pm
Friday: Meh.
Saturday: Mett Jeff at black tomato in Ottawa at noon
Saturday: Meet at Movie theater around 7 pm to promote Shall we dance.
I wish… there's a way to stick a post to the top all the time. It's annoying having to type a special post for my weekly scheduling.
Over the course of the chaos, I have forgotten the new meaning of my life. After I've abandoned the past. Now, I am picking it up again.
I will love and give unconditionally.
Watching a couple in Champ level on a competition day is quite the sight. Sleeping in till noon and then eating donuts and coffee that'll last them for a whole day. “You have to be hungry when you compete, it'll give you that oomph and lighten your weight to move faster” is the motto.
I was the helper for the day since I am not competing. After their sorry ass breakfast, they then proceeded to putting on makeups, which lasted for 3 hours. For the men, it is easy. Foundation on all the skin that shows. A layer of hair gel, and another layer of gel called “glue”, then 2 layers of hair shine.
After that is done, it is then everyone's task to help the lady prepare. James does the packing after he did his makeup while I run around getting all the tools needed Luda needed for putting on makeups.
Since the woman shows more skin, she has to put on foundations on all her body. That is done with the help of James while she does her facial makeup and hair. The makeup has to be extremely contrasting. With fake eyelashes 5 cm long and bright red fake nails. After that is done, you still have to painfully glue rhinestones onto her already shiny hair. (with the whole treatment of gel, glue, shiner and hairspray etc). Today, they are a bit rushed so there's no time to do some fancy hairdo with glue. A simple net that wraps hair into a bun is enough. A faux-bun is added ontop of the real one to make it look bigger and rounder.
3hrs seems painfully short, but it'll have to do for now. We parted around 3pm to head to the competition with boxes of makeup and shitload of cloth on hangers. 2 different costumes for 2 different latin competitions. 2 coat to keep warm, competition shoes, dress shoes, normal formal dress etc.
The rest of the makeup has to be applied at the comp. Varying depending on how bright the lightings are and what colors are the lime lights.
This is just the few hours before they go on to the floor to compete… If I feel like it, I'll try to write down the intricate social structures at a competion like this… Not only do you have to be a good dancer, but you also has to be a good beautician and an aewsome politician to win.
For a long time, I've debated on whether a constant changing environement is better for a person or a stable familiar environement is favorable for the development of a person's character.
Then a conclusion strike me hard today, as I looked upon the question from a different angle. A 3rd option that comes in a form of a new question which preempts everything.
Parents are a big factor in whether or not their offsprings intergrate into the society they live in. Hence, a familly that moves around alot to experience different culture, will not help much if the familly values and behavior doesn't favor an open mind to others.
The parents themselves have to first integrate themselves into the society, so the child can learn, through watching, how they do it and mimic… What most 1st generation immigrants failed to do is to try and socialize with the locals they live with. Instead, they stay within the circle of fellow countrymen who also immigrated.
It is an humiliating and humbling experience to be a nobody after you've wielded power and respect in the country you ditched. It is the wanting and the ease of finding that familiarity and respect again that forced the immigrants to stay within their own circle of immigrated friends. Afterall, it is only human nature. The laziness to start over again.
Understanding this, I am more immune to the effect of the familly life that I have with my parents now. However, it is eating away at my spirit I find my drive to go out there and look for chaos slowly fading. It is in the daily behavior of my parents. With their never decreasing demand for honour, pity, care and housework to occupy my free time. Free time that I need to build my networks and be amongst people my age… my kind. Their final attempt to leash me down, unconscious, yet clearly felt.
Fix fences, vaccum carpet, mop the floor, clean the car. AHHHH!!!
No. I have to be thankful, that I have a roof over my head right after I moved to a new country.
SOrry folks, my daily rant. There's just too much to do.
Tentative schedule after speaking with Sarah, my ex-partner and now new dance partner.
Monday: Cardio training 9am~11am
Tuesday: Latin lesson 7pm~8pm
Wednesday: Lesson review 9am~11am
Thursday: Lesson review 7pm~8pm
Friday: Self practices 9am~11am
Saturday: Competition routine practices morning~night
Heh, now I just have a big problem. I do shift work so I can't take lessonns at night. Bravo.
The voice on the other side of the phone surprised me…I thought it was a woman I know from Taiwan calling… but one thing doesn't seem to make sense because she's speaking English.
What was she? Oh, how do I explain a strong woman like her… Nostalgic scent of Flower by Chanel still lingers in some of my shirts. The past year was filled with so much adventures, so much emotions and so much hard work. But people here just refer to me as “the guy who just moved back from Taiwan.” As if, it explains everything. As if being in Taiwan for a year, made me the amazing dancer. As if being in Taiwan for a whole year made me resiliant to being treated as slave.
To them, the stories on the road doesn't matter. What they want to know and what they want to hear is only the end result of that journey. To me, every moment of that journey is filled with bitter sweetness. I find myself missing my comrades. I find myself longing to see them again.
It's like coming back home into peacefulness, from an Indiana like adventure and having to reintegrate my wild animal self to the steady pace of society.
Volunteering at The Old Brewery Mission today, I was talking to this student from the state about music, being poor and how $1 for a meal at the Brewery cost less than anything we can prepare ourselves. It even beats Spaghetti and Sauce. We were having a blast exchanging experience about how to get by with no money, when all of a sudden, he mentioned his mini IPOD and how cheap they are at $200 per unit.
In my mind right then, I screamed.
So I calculated my expenses and here they are going to be per month:
Rent: $600 utilities included
Food: $200
Dance Lessons: $200
Dance practices: $80
Bus pass: $70
Phone + internet: $70
$1220
2ND CUP will give me 40 hr per week at about $7.40
$1184
Nordia will give me 37 hr per week at about $12.50
$1850
Seems pretty obvious which one I should take… OH wait hold on. Gotta deduct the taxes… FUCK!
After tax deduction I get 1535 for Nordia and 1000 for 2nd Cup.
I need to find an apartment that's less than $500. Ugh… need roomates.
I got the job. I am not excited about it, because it was like taking candy from a baby.
The typing test for 50 wpm typing speed was a breeze. My result was 70 wpm, limited by the speed of the speech. (Yestereday I took an online test and I had 80 wpm). There were only minor mistakes in what I type. Such as a capital I for internet and hyphen between realtime etc.
I did however surprise myself at the speed in which I can type. I remember struggling for even 50 wpm during college. What was funny though is the interview. I was a complete jerk during the interview. There's some kind of “they want me, but I have all these problems they'd have to deal with, but they still want me no matter what” going on.
The concrete mixture I used for the guiding post failed to settle and dryout. I think the ratio of sand to cement is wrong… Now I have to dig it up and redo everything. Shissen. How do I dig up concrete.
Instead of job hunting online today, I:
1- Dug a hole in the ground, mixed/poured cement and installed guide post.
2- Steamed and vaccumed the car, washed the exterior and wiped everything that needed wiping. Now I can drive people around with it.
3- Rearranged my room.
4- Increased my typing speed to 80 wpm.
ANd it's the first time I've ever done all these. Except for #3 of course.
Somehow, it felt like 3 months have passed when only 3 weeks has passed. As if, time is counted by the amount of body movement I performed, not the amount of thinking I've done.
Seems to me that Ipods are everywhere in Montreal. With their easy to recongnize white earphones, I see people walking around bopping their head to its music… They are students too. Students nowadays are just way too rich.
AHHHH!!!
Because we were dance partners before, it is ok for her to dump her current dance partner and dance with me, it will not give her a bad reputation. It will, however, give me a reputation of leading people on, if I decided not to dance with her, due to what she did.
This circle is very small and tightly knit. Everyone knows what everyone did. This guy, Francis for example, has a very bad reputation from what I heard… he's a guy, in precham, with every girl afraid of dancing with him. Probablly because he dumped too many partners before.
Saturday: Drive around Dorval and take down hi-tech company names
Saturday: Check out old montreal's hi-tech center new compuware.
Sunday: Call former classmates
Sunday: Send email to Oksana's contact at bank.
Monday: 1P.M. Nordia Typing speed test. Gabrielle
Monday: Befire 2PM Cafe Espresse interview #2
Monday: Call back Martin Daniel about phone translator jobs
Tuesday: Contact Dan from National Instruments and Sylvianne from Analog devices again.
Tuesday: Volunteer with EWB at Soupe Kitchen
Wednesday: night: Possible tryout in ballrrom with Danni Quilliam
Sunday: Wedding
So. I should finish online application for CAE, NI, CMC electronics, Teradyne, Gennum, Stryker, Analog Devices, future electronics, ati, matrox, omnitech labs, abbott, compuware, emploiquebec, superjob.net over the weekend.
I find it funny how I can walk into a restaurant asking for employment and get it right there. It surprises me and throws my schedule off guard. I was expecting interviews within the span of 2 weeks so I can have other options from other companies to consider.
Gabrielle mentioned that I have a very confident tone at the end of the interview. She likes that… Those endless nights of practices to lower my tone of voice really works !! But I think it has to do with the fact that I do not try to hide my intentions and I am not clinging that much to this opportunity. I told her directly that, I am looking into engineering jobs as well, but for the moment, this is what I get. However, I have to be careful when using that on guys as they will sense danger/challenged from someone more confident than them who are younger.
I've been trying to confirm a theory that I have on people for a while. But because I was in Taiwan, in a different culture, I could not really test that out as no one is used to the challenging confidence. Girls are shy and guys are wusses.
Here, I find, that the more you make them feel you don't care about them accepting the fact you hand them, the more they accomodate for your needs. Alot of time, I find myself saying: “What do you want?” “Ok, this is what I am going to do, so see you next time.”
And I get girls/guys trying to find jobs for me… and dance partners… I told a girl I am trying out with that I will give somone else a first choice before her and she started struggling to keep me to herself. You women.
It's too much. Or I am just probablly way over my head in lala land.
As we grow, we develop these rituals that prepares our mind for a big upcoming event. Everyone got their own way and mine is also unique to myself.
Unlike others, I would never even think once about the task to come. Thinking about it at the last minute, will only make it worst. If I am not prepared for it 5 minutes before, 5 minutes won't make much of a difference.
However, I would listen to linkin' park at very low volume. Faintly feeling the rush of emotions that flows through with each song. Teasing my mind at every corner to keep it active.
Then, once I aced it, or failed miserably at it, I would listen to it again, with the volume blasted at maximum without the output speaker level saturates.