UltraCrepidate

The sad morning

The dense fog hugged everything around me, dampening life as it blocked out my ability to sense the surrounding. Giving the day a hint of seriousness and sadness as if life itself was weeping. It’s strange that I am feeling at a loss. Especially so when it is for an object, but I can’t help it. When I thought about the fact that I will no longer see this car ever in my life again, I felt ashamed. I must be cruel for discarding it after it has rendered my family a decade and a half of service.

Its history

It’s had a good life though. Our family took care of it with all the money we can until I became the sole owner of it. Now that I think about it, I am the one who did the most damage to it in its life span. Having crashed it twice throughout its life time, damaging the tires and transmissios severely. It explains why I have so much problems in those areas near the end of its time.

Some statistics to remember it by: Toyota Camry V6 LE gray 1992

• Fuel economy: 17 mpg
• Automatic transmission
• Power window, power doors
• ABS
• Average cost of gas per month: $120
• Traveled 325,000 kilometers
• Onece side impact in Ottawa by a van
• Once rear ended in Ottawa by a van
• V6 engine (still in perfect condition)
• Fed it Premium gasoline all throughout its life except for the last 2 years when gas is above 1.00/liter
• Transmission completely changed when it’s 5 years old
• Air conditioner died from rust due to lack of use
• Tires replaced
• Rear caliper failed and replaced
• All the suspensions died
• Rear load balancer steel beam rusted completely
• Starter died (on the final day to be traded in)

It has been both a mentor and a great reliable ride for me… well as reliable as it liked. Now that I think about it, it has been reliable on occasions that were NOT critical. But I still have to admit that it was there with me on every steps of my life.

• When I was 16 and learning to drive
• The car that was used to transport me and my meager belongings to my dorm
• Drove my first date around in it
• Drove to my first dance competition in it.
• Had my first car accident in it

It did have a habit of failing at the most crucial moment too. A quirk in its personality that is part of its charm

• The hand break locked up on the day of my driver’s license test.
• The battery died when we were ready and packed to go to a competition
• The starter refused to do its job on the last day of its life when I was going to trade it in

Other than these worth mentioning events, it has provided me with reliable services especially during the harsh Canadian winter. Watching it slowly die in the past 2 years has been memorable. Now that it is gone these memories somehow provides me with warmth. I am glad that I get to drive it in its last two years of life. In dying slowly, it forced me to learn the principles of car maintenance and repair so that the next one won’t suffer as badly as it. The most important lesson that it taught me is the relationship between rust and its longevity. When I decided to junk it, its outward appearance is still pristine, however, the underside tells a different story.

The nail in the coffin is of course, the load balancer. Due to record snowfall for the past two years, it was constantly in touch with either snow or salty slush while parked. The compacted snow in the parking lot accelerated the process by grating off the layer of rust proofing material that’s supposed to protect all metals.

Thank you for the services you’ve rendered dear ol’ car. I will remember you.

November 06, 2008

Causalien out.

Today, I finally realized this fact. I do not love engineering. I mean, I am good at it, but I do not want to be in it.

The revelation came when I thought to myself while analyzing stocks: “Man I can do this all day, not get bored and feel like I have achieved something.”

This revelation is so big that these simple lines deserves a post by itself and is filed under Lifemark.

“Peeked at the watch, 30 minutes has already gone by so I just left.” ~Causalien on what he did after he got stood up

Reflection

My experience with cold calls shielded me from getting really down because of a failure. I am actually happy that I didn’t feel anything at all throughout all these events that’s supposed to put my ego on the line. Or perhaps I am still numb from the setbacks. Suffice to say that I didn’t feel anything when the possibility of being stood up becomes greater as time goes by. It further strengthened my belief that in the world of venture capitalist and angel investors a “yes” means a no and a “no” means a no while a “definitely yes” still means no. It’s never a yes until what both party agreed on is physically in front of you and you are holding it in your hand.

The facts

I met Surjit at the mall while typing on my Asus eeePC laptop while waiting for my mechanic to change car’s rear wheel mechanisms ($590). He seems generally interested in my small and ultra portable laptop so we chatted. He turns out to be one of my big boss’s classmate in Engineering. With that, we talked even more and the conversation veered into starting my own company and some of the ideas I have. By then, his wife came by having finished with her medical exams and they got ready to leave. So, not wanting to miss any opportunity, I asked for his card. I knew that he was probably just passing time, getting some ego boosts while waiting, but the final comment he dropped encouraged me to go to the next steps. He said: “Call me.”

“What the fuck am I doing? What if I sound stupid? What if he thinks I am stupid? What if my friends find out of this shameful moment? Am I annoying if I call him now? Why would he want to talk to a nobody like me? What am I going to talk about? My ideas are not fully developed yet. What if he laughs at my naive idea? What if he rejects me and tells me I am worthless? What if I start stuttering again? Am I going to say something that makes me sound stupid? Will my mind be blank when I need ideas?” ~Causalien

Two days later, I called and setup a lunch between us at an expensive restaurant across the street. I also promised that I would call him the morning of, to confirm the meeting. Which is why, today I got suspicious when I couldn’t reach him on his cell phone in the morning and get his voice message when I attempt to call his home. The facts are there. Everything seemed so positive until today I even excused myself out of an important in house training to meet him just so that I can tell myself that I’ve done all I can. I waited and waited, indifferent of the prime computation my subconscious spewed out from all the facts. I don’t care either way. This is just another step to get through, I will learn from it no matter what the outcome is.

What I benefited from this

I noticed that I have more confidence in calling up strangers now, a side effect of my current job. It is also better than having things bite me in the behind when it doesn’t go according to plan. At least for this, I only wasted 30 minutes.

The second thing I noticed is that I should trust my gut feeling more. Right away I have this feeling that something is not right. Looking deeper, I noticed it’s because that everything I ever earned up till this point in my life, I had to fight long and hard for it. This is simply too easy.

The third benefit is that I get to sit down and look at my long list of ideas accumulated since year 2000 and filtered through them. Some of them are already in place and some are just outright ridiculous. I managed to narrow it down to 8 ideas in the end. Four that are more mature and four that are wild and unknown. I also took some time to evaluate how their financial modal should be and marked out their potential competitors and niches. And finally, some time to practice pitching it to people.

If 2006 was the year of change, then 2007 is the year of maturity. I have gained a general direction in life as well as the confidence in achieving the objectives I set for myself. Gone are the sense of loss which usually accompanies the search for a purpose in life.

Goals

I pretty much failed all the new year resolution I’ve set for myself, but a lot of it can be blamed on my naïveté and a general lack of purpose with which I set them. The goal I set for 2008 will be more purposeful and realistic using the knowledges that I have gained about myself and my supposed limits. I am abiding by my established limit in order to charge up on energy reserves until the time when a raison d’être comes to me and I deem it to be worthy of my devotion. I will then, burn myself out like I did when I joined a startup to get it.

Finances

My net worth is in shambles as this year sees the collapse of US financial system. It just happens to be my rookie year in investing. Same bad luck as graduating engineering only to come face to face with the tech bubble. A general observation I made on my own life is that I can always assume the worst outcome on any luck based event. I don’t believe in superstition, but I do believe in management of luck. I should start expecting the worst on my first tries and plan my strategies accordingly. I started the year expecting at most 10% growth of my portfolio. Yet I surprised myself when I reached that goal half way through. So the second half the year sees me adjusting my portfolio into a more aggressive one. I now plan on a 3 year 30% growth and invest with stocks that has that potential.

Some good news on my financial front. It seems to me that my analysis was correct and I have bought in a year where real estate properties saw a 10% growth and is projected to have another 3.8% growth next year. It is slowing down but is not going to die. Last I checked, unless you are a first time home buyer, a 20% down is still necessary for a new house and the bank’s credit check process is still solid enough to drive me to the brink of craziness. I can actually afford this place without needing to take in an extra flat mate to help pay the rent. Very non-frugal of me. How long will my analysis remain correct? I don’t know, but it certainly won’t encounter the same mess as in the US for the near 3 year.

Projects

My site has grown past my expectation in terms of what I wanted it to be. I also acquired a new skill as well as gaining insight in tuning my own body’s schedule when I went through the Triphasic Sleep experiment. I can now go through a day with as little sleep as 3 hours and perform my duties with the same sharpness as if I had a full night’s sleep. Grogginess, is a human concept. Believing in it is a gate that limits your own level of wakefulness. In reality, once the internal gate limiting my conscious control of sleep is opened, I found that consciousness the distribution of energies to different part of your self. You can direct all effort into feeling awake and make you feel refreshed, but that takes energy away from say, analysis. It’s an old concept often discussed in Chinese martial art, except they deal mostly with the physical. What I’ve been talking about is the manipulation of consciousness. It is not, however, a license to ignore sleep all together. The experimental observation is that wakefulness has properties like a battery. You can deplete it, but it must be charged up afterwards.

Conclusions

It’s a good year. I am more and more comfortable with the idea of spending money to get my projects going. I think part of the reason why most of my projects didn’t get completed was because I was too frugal. Then again, I didn’t have these projects in motion at the beginning of the year either. I definitely need to work on my goals, especially the part where I want to get my six pack. The personal goal front seems to be my biggest failure. Finance wise, I am fine, only $7,000 away from equality of assets vs liabilities although most of my stocks tanked.

Being assigned as the Linux product specialist and wanting to permanently establish my mobile life is just the tipping factor required to jump start my inevitable work-life integration. The fact that they both evolves around Linux at the same instance in time blurred the gap to a point that escapes my notice. For years before this, there was always a factor that separated work and life. Either it was the high costs of engineering equipments or the difference of platforms the projects uses. Because of these, when I work on my website or program at home, I can alway make a distinction that this is not work.

So when I woke up in front of my monitor at 3AM in the morning looking at the Linux bash shell, I asked myself what I had been working on before I fell asleep.

Linux

But was it for work or myself? I couldn’t tell. Nor could I make a clear cut work efficiency decision like I did before, when I ignored everything else to chase after some strange error message I encountered at work. It didn’t take long from then till I eventually started doing work at home and testing server configurations for my home at work. The thirst for knowledge drives me on each day until I exhaust myself to a point where I can’t keep my eyes open.

Lethe sleeps on my lap in hopes that I’d pay her more attention.

People at work can’t believe I did it. What kind of a loser works till 2AM at home for work? I can see that question in the jaw dropping expression they gave me. I just can and I finally started enjoying it because I don’t want to separate life and work anymore. Once you crossed the line, there’s no more turning back to when it was just two separate events.

A long term consequence of blogging that I wanted to achieve is that of a consolidation of my different realities and identities. I hope, through the publishing of my deepest reflections and admittance to my own flaws, that some type of acceptance of myself, good or bad, can be gained with the help of public disclosure.

This weekend, I added a link to this blog from facebook without any fanfare and marked the final stage of bridging the discrepancies between my pen name “Causalien” and my Canadian name “Peter”. It was a small change, perhaps insignificant to others, but definitely earth shattering for me.

The bridge between my clique, my social contacts, my engineering colleagues and my dancing circle are now one and the same. No more secrets and no more hiding. I am now truth reincarnated and responsible for everything I say/write.

It’s not a big change or anything in my habit. Not that I’ve been lying or delusional in my past posts. The fantasy has been brought down slowly over the year to be integrated with the reality. It the fact that finally, whatever I say on this blog, is exactly what I feel in reality. I am also, not ashamed of it one bit.

Alexandra will be the first person in my circle of friends to have a baby. Being a single mom with no family in Canada to fall back to, her future seems very uncertain. This is the reason that the bunch of us immigrants who are better positioned in life decided to throw this baby shower for her. At least she won’t have to worry about buying all the tools that the baby need. Nordia reunited for a final get together before everyone heads off to chase after their own dreams.

The shots are time lapsed every 5 minutes. The event started from 10AM in the morning and ended at 4AM the next day for me. It’s a day of firsts, so it’s only fair that I present it as my first video production. Done with the simple windows movie maker.

Our journey often brings us back to where we started, to show us that where we started is actually the end of the journey that we’ve always wanted. The only difference lies in the fact that we’ve gained the ability to see what we want to see because of the journey. While writing a previous entry, I felt a bit of a surprise at how it didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.

This is when I realized that I have created a 3rd filter in order to facilitate the lifestyle I want to have. It can be seen as an answer to my 1st and 2nd filters in terms of the why. The third filter is to ensure the most diverse life experience possible. This, actually eliminates the need to constantly prove and make sure that I am better in terms of any particular skills. Making losing as good as winning and changes a lot of my previous positions on life because they are irrelevant.

I wish you can feel what I feel.

Part of the series Environment upgrade

Today, I bought my first house from owner Genviève St-Jean at the price of $179500 cdn. Bid down from the original offer of $189000

I didn’t even get to finish my to do list before two colleagues lined up outside my cubicle this morning. I do not enjoy having my flow interrupted yet it’s been happening increasingly lately.

A quick check in my client folders on the current issues I keep track of, I counted a total of 38 folders. My inbox in the morning welcomed me with 17 new emails over the course of the night… none of them junk.

When a customer called to lecture me on proper business conduct to ensure customer satisfaction, I agreed and apologized. My thinking is this: get their money, what is the outcome they want and if the outcome is worth the time/money invested.

About a year ago, I remember thinking that I can never be like this. Looking back, I understand exactly the knowledges that I’ve gained which caused the shift in thinking. To sum it up nicely à la Warren Buffet style: “Act like an owner.”

There are two primary filters that are in effect within me. The first one is the constant calculation of return on cost & value over time. The second is the understanding of the outcome that people are seeking with each sentence they speak. (It’s annoying to arrive at a gain/loss price whenever I think about something, but it does make things easier most of the time)
But why would I want to benefit my employer by thinking for them and acting out of their best interest? My response is, why not? For me, it is a great training in decision making process. I am getting paid to learn and experiment. Of course, when time comes to choose between my own development as a person and benefiting my employer, we all know that my thirst to experience will trump everything else.
More and more, I see myself stepping through all these characters that I swore I can or will never be. Am I descending into hell? Or is this actually evolutionary progress? Either way, I have no regret.

“Hi”

“Hi” *grins.

That is one of the many possible ways to start the quest to get a free movie ticket. Like the way I do business, I like to attack front and center and get what I want despite showing my intention clearly. Only then, can I know that the victory is complete and my patient attempt has something to do with the outcome of the battle.

“Can I have that 2 for 1 special pretty please? But only for one person.”

“I am sorry, but you have to be couple with another person to do this.”

*Giving her the the sick puppy look: “Are you sure there’s no other way?”
“Which movie are you watching?”

“Manufactured landscape.”

“Well, if there is another person watching that in line you can pair up with that person.”

*Friend eyeballing me with disbelief adding to the pressure.

*Me towards the line behind me: “Is any of you single and would like to share a ticket?”

*Everyone murmurs: “no, no sorry buddy.”

*The cashier to me, pointing to a stranger: ” Hey, you two are watching the same movie, and he’s got a prepaid pass too, you can even watch it for free!”

And that’s how I talked my way in.

I am not a cheap person, nor do I practice this regularly as a greasy smooth talker. I just wanted to know if I can if I tried. The result of this is a combination based on luck as well as the combination of being super nice and a determination to harass everyone in line to achieve my original intention. I am lucky because the cashier who was kind enough to handle me is a cute girl and I have no problem being nice to her and interact in a pleasant way. I didn’t try to manipulate her, rather, I simply tried to get the outcome I wanted. At any point, any of the people involved can just say no, but they didn’t.

This is a perfect case where the environment is setup for a favorable outcome and I just need to reach for it. Now that I’ve pushed the envelop this far, I wonder what the next step should be.

I was going to write some philosophy meandering, but that was trumped by what happened today.

Today marked the first time that a head hunter initiated contact with me as an attempt to get qualified people to work for them. It is interesting to note that the exchange was very honest and filled with truth. What truth?

I am in a comfortable seat. I am in the position of power. I can choose depending on whether or not your offer goes well with my goal in life.

Part of the series of Environment upgrade

There was a time when I lived with nothing but hand me down stuffs and enjoyed everything but the comfort of material possessions that’d make my life easier. Till today, I still have the same bed frame, same mattress, same cook pot and same PC speakers for the past 5 years.

Tier 1

After I got my current job, I went on a shopping frenzy to upgrade my life a bit in order to be able to do more. These are the items purchased.

All in one printer.

7 dress shirts for work and threw away the old ones and all the hand downs from brothers/parents.

Motorola Ming multipurpose phone

Dell 20″ widescreen

Used car

Electric saw
Drill
Altera FPGA

Microwave

Freezer

That’s about it. As I often said to people: “I have little needs” and you can see that these are the basic essentials to go to work, do any sort of basic household repairs as well as basic things related to computers.
Tier 2

As my ambitions grew and the things that I want to do grew along, I realize that the upgrade to the next tier has to happen together with the purchase of several devices.

New computer (from parts): $700

Creative X-mod product research: $59.99

USB Mug warmer for my daily hot tea addiction at work: $12.99

Picoo palm sized helicopter to play with my cat: $49.99

Intuos Wacom Tab For my drawing needs: $369.95

SpaceNavigator PE for 3d modeling and animation: $59

ATI Radeon x800 GTO 256MB PCI Express To support my would be multi monitor setup. $61

Dell 20″ widescreen LCD x2 For triple monitor setup. $500

Guitar hero 2 For my dream that was never there: $79

Wii: $250

Wow, only $2000. I am cheap. I think I might just upgrade my current life with all these sooner than I thought. These are related to computer/entertainment upgrade. Since I can’t have more without moving out to a house first.

Tier 3

Plasma HDTV: $2000

PS3: $700

Dish wasaher: ???

Dryer: ???

Washer: ???

Stove oven: ???

Fridge: ???

House: ???

Sofa:???
Pool: ???

Foozball table: ???

Lethe is the most aggressive cat out of the lot of them. With long black fur identifying her as the harbringer of bad luck I am sure that we’d get along fine. The mother, as if sensing what’s about to happen, came back from outside and gaver her daughter the final full body licking. As if to prepare the bride to be married off.

I am not used to be needed by another. Lethe’s very vocal about getting attention on the ride home and when I ignored her completely, she just perch on my shoulder to watch the road ahead.

It is strange to have something that you know will stay with you for a long time to interact with. It almost feels like an extension of yourself. Even if I am wasting my time doing nothing, she’s learning something new and will later teach me. It seems that I will feel more peaceful when there’s no plan for a weekend.

Bruises scratches, cuts, new passport and a new “used” car later. I collapsed on the familar sofa that has been with the familly for 16 years, enjoying my one last sip of coffee surrounded by the familliar faces of this once full house. Without the furnitures it feels empty and devoid of life. Without the people it just feels dead.

Somehow everything seems to conclude this weekend as if readying itself for the new life ahead. Passport, driver’s license, car, houses. All changed ownership and addresses. I feel like my identity is changing. Gone are the rustic life of a traditional chinese familly. In its place, a modern story of hearbreaks and joys. “Scared?” I challenged myself as I spiralled into the fuzziness of sleep. Only the knowledge that every farewell brings new possibilty kept my heart anchored. Today is a day of rememberance, I will shed tears for it later.

Bye Mom, bye Dad.

Matrox called and made an offer. I accepted and partied with my roomates on a silly Monday night. I have a grin on my face that is embarrassingly obvious and no matter how hard I try I can’t hide if it means the death of me.

Wow.

3 years I’ve been trying to get into the field of engineering in Canada. I started out with cold calls to engineering companies to get past the secretary, get past the admin assistant and talk to some managers. That was fun for a while until I got nowhere near the RD field that I want. It’s usually companies with some relationship to High tech R&D but in sales or legal domain that agrees to meet me. The real RD companies aren’t really impressed by me. At least talking to them give me the confidence that I can do this, I can cold call people I don’t know and get that 15 minutes I needed to meet the important people.

My problem was, I wanted to get into pure RD. Missed out alot of chances because of that. What can I say? I was young, cocky and I had a dream that I didn’t know I didn’t want.

For a year or two, I’ve been applying for every Matrox job that got posted. Fred and I got to know each other around this time. Looking back at my storage, there must be 10 different Resumes/Cover Letters created for Matrox. I gave up several times, depressed at not even getting a reply, but Fred kept me going by updating me with new position possibilities when I am too weary to look, urging me to send in resume when my life is a mess and I am struggling to pay the rent. Thank you Fred I am so getting you a Mont Blanc.

A month ago I got a call for a position that I applied about a month earlier. I’ve already given up on that one and Matrox completely. Was recovering from the loss and scouting out companies elsewhere… they called, I grabbed on to the chance and harrassed them with phone calls. Played alot of phone tags, got depressed, jumped in joy, slumped in depression, jumped and slumped a few more time untill today.

This long hard struggle helped magnify the joy I am feeling. Suddenly, alot of things became irrelevant and alot of other things became important in my life. I can afford some of my superfluous pursuits and buy things that are actually of good quality so I don’t have to spend time fixing them all the time.

This gave confirmation to the last 8 years of my life.

Phone interview 15 minutes,
Interiview with HR, Expert, TM, 2 hours and a half
Interview with big boss, 30 minutes
Phone tags ~20
Amount of consecutive time the stupid grin is showing on my face: 12 hours and counting.

The woman’s voice trembled as she fought to take deeper breaths in order to hold back the tears. Overwhelmed with emotions it was all she can do to fight back the tears while telling the cold hearted tales of her husband. She still loved him otherwise it woldn’t hurt her so much. She wanted divorce, so she doesn’t have to live in this painful cauldron of torture created by knowing the truth. She tried to fight back the tears because she still wanted her son to see her as a strong mother and not as a woman in need of comfort. It is the nature of their relationship.

It hurts to know that one loves another when you are the one who’s been there for the person every step of the way. It hurts to know that what you’ve built can be destroyed in one instant.

What can the son do but listen? Does he offer to help them move as they’ve sold the house? No, that’d be too awkward. Does he hate the dad for loving another? How can he? Are people supposed to hate their dad for that? Did mother treat his dad badly? How long is everyone going to pretend that nothing is happening?

I don’t want to deal with this.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to write this later when I can better reflect logically my thoughts and compose sentences that make sense or to do it now while the emotion flows through me freely. After a short discussion with her, we’ve officially split the partnership.

The music I am listening for this moment is System of a down. Thanks to Micci for this, at least not the stupid evanescence songs I listen to last time that just make me sink even more. It’s so loud that I feel bad for the people living beneath me. But so what fuck them. It’s 4 pm so they can take my middle finger.

For all my independent life, I’ve danced. I’ve always struggled for money and living on a fine edge of poeverty. Living pay check by pay check to pay for the tailsuit the 60$ dance lesson per week and expensive shoes. For half of that, I spent it with her.

We sat down at Timmies and talked about it. It’s a nice discussion we talked about our future and our problems. I realized that this is probablly what we are missing. Social time out where we can learn about each other, instead of the stressful practices that have to be dealt with. But it’s all too late now, too much bitterness created from things that’s been done. I cannot forgive her for those, even though I try to, because the damage has already been done. It’s not like I didn’t try to get these time outs together to improve the relationship, but after being refused 3 times I get the point.

Maybe she eventually realized that she’s going to lose alot. I heard alot of positive things from my teachers and I guess she just realized what she’s going to be missing from what they told her, but then again, I am going over my head. Anyway, I’ve always felt the need to be superior to others by dancing and that’s probablly the main reason I danced. That and the fact that dancing removes the language barrier so i can fully express myself. But I no longer need to feel superior.

I also can’t take her attitude anymore… This has been an interesting beginning of a year. It definitely started out with a bang when I learnt that my dad had a mistress and she tried to suicide by taking too much sleeping pills in order to get my dad to divorce my mom. Then this and what else? I think I can say that my life is in tatters with everyone close to me suddenly gone. Now I do feel sad. I think I’ll lie down and drench myself in this sadness for a while.

Here’s a picture of a glorious time.

“Stop dreaming and start living Peter.”

The thought echoed in my mind like a bonefire on a cold desert night. It was already there on music sheets that I composed. But to have someone play the notes and actuallying hearing it instead of imagining the music is overwhelming.

On any other giving time, I would’ve ignored it, but that night. All the conditions are met to make me open my mind to thoughts.

They float around every corner of my thought… I can’t shake it off, or shut it away.

What comes out of the wound, when there’s no more blood in you?

An Engineer.
And the period has finally decorated the end of that motto of mine. Caressing the hard cold iron encircling my small finger, I look back at what I’ve left behind while chasing this invisible mark on my mind’s imaginary battlefield. What a sad person.

The soft kiss goodbye. The hug and the chest pain that comes after. Like a frozen frame in the movies, it burnt itself into my memory. The moment, unforgiving, pushed on by time. The last time we’ll see each other.

August 6th is my plane. I will leave for Taiwan. I have no fear because the pain is deafening. I am tired of struggling. I think, I will let the tides of events sweep me off my feet and forget myself in the unforgiving embrace of life. Merging with my kind and let everything go. Start over. Everything that I was for the past 13 years will be erased. And everything that I was for the 10 years before that have changed beyound recognition. I will start over as a stranger amongst my kind.

Walking away, rage within. Anguish over the tears that forces its way out. This is it. Goodbye Sarah my adorable dance partner. Goodbye to the studio that took me in: “Let’s dance” and goodbye Josée, Ivan and Claire for supporting me and teaching me.

Today, marked the end of a chapter of my life and the start of another. I hate myself for being so useless. If only I could find a job. Then we could’ve stayed together. It has been fun and I enjoyed our time together. Now we’ll each take our steps towards unknwon that we must face. Growing apart, day by day, instead of growing together.

My tears have dried out and my heart broken. I feel tranquility again and I am ready for the next battlefield that I must wage war on.