Holding a Trickling Past

In Waterloo trying to learn how to tie ties via Internet site

Feeling: Reminiscent and distant
Listening to: Anberlin's Fin
A really good song they did in collaboration with a young boys choir. I highly recommend listening to the full version of it. It's an amazing song.

Saturday to Monday morn: Waterloo with the Macdougal boys and Vanessa
Monday to Tuesday morn: Western with three high school friends from three different social groups

I miss everyone already. This post is essentially a recollection of my travels:

I took the Viva train in the morning- my parents were kind enough to car me down there and stopped for a traditional HK breakfast of congee, buns and hot milk tea prior to my train to Waterloo. On the train a York teacher sat next to me and we talked for a while about her travels to New York to do a history channel excerpt on death rituals. There was also this caucasian guy who seemed interested in talking to me while lining up to board the train and he sat in the seats across the aisle from me. After talking to the teacher, he asked me if I was a design student and ended up swapping seats with the York prof and we talked for the 1.5 hour ride. He was a second year graphic designer in the York Sheridan program. Pretty chill guy.
Anyway, I got off at Kitchener and was welcomed to a sight of my friends lined up in a row to greet me at the station. We drove to the Macdougal boys' house- a gorgeous house with many sun filled rooms. We watched some Youtube prior to driving to St Agatha's for a lunch that consisted of breakfast foods... and then went to sobeys and LCBO for groceries and liquor (for St Patricks). And then Vanessa and I spent the rest of the time baking chocolate chip banana bread, brownies and an inverted apple pie to jazz music(we ran out of dough to make the criss cross top of the pie so one of the guys had the brilliant idea of doing the squares instead of the strips.. we gave it two separate titles.. one made up by me the art nerd and the other by the engineering nerds. So jokes):


Anyway, at 10:30, because Derek was working with his team the whole day and worked hard to go out later on, we went to Purple Place for hot pot. Initially we canceled it because everyone was a little lazy and full of snacking on baked goods but felt guilty that Derek worked so hard to go there.. so we went along with another girl they consider their sixth roomie. The six of us were the only customers there, served by this grumpy Chinese guy who warmed up to us because he started talking basketball to us... he loves Yao Ming and a game was going on with the Kings. We ate so much beef, noodles and napa along with mango slushy.. so good. I started injecting my random questions about relationships, taking a more 'shallow' but honest perspective on them. Questions like "what's the first thing you notice about a girl aesthetically speaking?" to other characteristics they find attractive in the opposite sex in terms of talents, abilities and skills which prompted other discussions on whether or not plastic surgery is biblically wrong and when it is okay to have it done... which lead to questions about koreans who the guys find most attractive but are obviously artificially constructed. That night they presented me with a gift they said would 'nerdify' my wardrobe a bit: a shirt from MIT that said
"i have an imaginary friend(s)"
with the square root of negative one to the power of five symbol below.

Lol. Oh engineers. And they all signed it at the bottom. So sweet.

The next day, Vanessa made blueberry pancakes and bacon for me and then we all went to church. The sunday school was really good because the teacher was able to pick apart Zechariah and talk about it in a historical perspective which I find extremely interesting. Later Josh, vanessa and I walked around the campus and then went back where Jon made Montreal smoked ham sandwiches and we tried out our apple pie a la mode. Most satisfying indeed. Then I just chilled with Josh and then Jon in their rooms respectively since Derek was yet again busy with his project. Vanessa had to leave that night so Josh and I walked her to the Fed bus and then purchased my greyhound ticket to Western prior to going out for dinner. Derek and Eliot decided to go to a meet and greet event for their CCF nominations so I went back to wait for Derek so we could hang out a little before my departure. He didn't come back until 11:40- by then I was pretty tired. But Eliot, Derek and I moved to the living room, started the fireplace and switched on some Norah Jones and played cards for a while before just started talking about random things. I started falling asleep but since they were so used to being up during the school term, they made me stay awake till 3:30am.

The following day Derek drove me to Kitchener and I took the Greyhound to Western (I knocked out for the entire bus ride there.. which was not long enough for me to power up). Took the public bus to my friend Soph's place- an adorable house with an adorable attic bedroom. We then met up with Dor and had lunch at a coffee place prior to going back to Soph's place to watch 'Underworld'. Afterwards Dor drove me to the local mall so I could purchase a charger for my cell phone and then I hung out with Soph while she got ready for partying at the bars for St Patricks. I was too tired to go out and line up to drink green beer so I just had pizza and sprite spiked with rum while watching youtube versions of America's Best Dance Crew. After she left with her roomies, Dor showed me her place and then gave me a car tour of the Western campus at night and then played three pieces of music on the piano for me including my favourite, Liszt's 'Un Sospiro': I never knew how insanely technical that piece was until I saw her play it. I bumped into Boaz, a family friend, in the practice rooms- really random. We then visited Lois and Janet at their apartment and then went back to Soph's to watch 'The Devil Wears Prada'. I really wanted to stay up and chat but I was falling asleep while watching the film.

Today Soph accompanied to the greyhound terminal and I boarded the 10:30 express back to Toronto and met up with Rin to watch the L'oreal Fashion show for Evan and Dean... and then walked around Eatons prior to meeting with Jer and Ang to kill time at FMP and then dinner and bubble tea with Matt afterwards.

It was one crazy long weekend.
I've realized my relationships with the Raps crew are quickly... disintegrating a bit. We've all moved on and I'm finding it hard to say anything to them. There are some people we find easier to pick up the pieces with- the UN crew for instance, we rarely have deep conversations but I see them every time I return to Toronto... and it feels like time never came between us.
As for the Waterloo kids, although I cannot participate in a lot of the conversations that include people I do not know, the times I cherished the most with them I resisted taking any visual documentation of. You cannot replicate a moment or feeling and it seems futile. But I had a lot of fun staying with the Macdougal boys. We didn't do anything really eventful but it's great to have memories of jazz, apple pie, fireplaces and hot pot locked in the back of my head.
One thing I appreciated that someone said to me was that they found the relationships conversation during our hot pot session really refreshing. Most of the time whenever dating issues came up, they would be focused on the spiritual side and less about the more superficial fluff. So coming in with questions on aesthetics, health and beauty was really satisfying. I was a little surprised by their eagerness to talk about the shallow stuff but it was one of the funniest conversations ever.

I'm home but I already feel the strange pain of knowing that I'll be gone soon. I miss the people- I don't know when I'll seee them again as a group. Now when I'm with certain people, I try to soak up their presence knowing that I may never experience them in this setting again.