Y2kk Update: Well, I'm an idiot, but a proud one, in more ways than one...

Today is 08-08-08 day, the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, and supposedly the luckiest day in the life of a Chinese guy like me. But apparently, I have no choice but to make my own luck. I've had a horrible week, all thanks to my own stupidity. Perhaps tonight will be the starting point of something new for my life. Then again, I just got this motherfucking huge mosquito bite on my left arm that is ripping my sanity to shreds. So much for that former theory of mine then...

I still pretend in my HTML title up above that this blog of mine is a news site for S3, Matrox and PowerVR cards. To be honest, that's only because I'm too lazy to think up a new title, but that's besides the point. It's been years since I last reported any video card news, but that's not to say that I ain't still obsessed with that kind of technology. I still have my S3 Savage 4 card preserved in a plastic frame in my room, I still do the same with my first ever 3D accelerator of the Matrox PowerVR M3d, and I'm still using my Matrox Millennium G200 in this very computer of mine that I'm typing this shit into, simply because it will forever stand to me as the most beautiful 2D video card ever made in history...

For some odd reason, despite all logic arguing against it, I have an obsession with buying old PCI video cards. That's right, video cards for original PCI slots, not that bastard format of AGP or the PCI-E interfaces that the ATI 4850 or the nVidia 9800 GTS boards rely on. I never play PC games, or at least I won't again until Starcraft 2 is released sometime before the end of time, but I just love wasting my money on old PCI video cards for some goddam reason. My collection so far that I can recall consists of that aforementioned Creative S3 Savage 4, a nVidia TNT2 from some random company, both the ATI Radeon 7500 and the 9250, and the Mad Dog nVidia 5200 FX that I was using in my old AMD Duron until this week. Ha, wish I could get a Matrox G450 or Parhelia or some shit like that to boot. Obviously, none of these video cards are good enough to run anything but World of Warcraft, if even that. But whatever, I just love stock-piling old PCI boards, for whatever goddam reason compels me to do so...

I've been itching for a new one for a long time now. I was tempted to go for the Visiontek X1550, until I read about its power consumption requirements and its price, so I set my eyes on the lesser eVGA nVidia 6200 PCI from Canada Computers instead. Problem was, I'm too cheap to take public transit, and the store was about a twenty minute walk from my current workplace, and maybe a half hour walk away from the trains at Union Station that I need to take back home. On any normal summer day, that wouldn't have been a problem. But for those of you two readers out there who know Toronto in 2008, it hasn't exactly been the luckiest year for us in terms of weather. July broke the Pearson airport record for most rainfall in the General Toronto Area ever for the month, and August already seems to be on pace to outmatch even that...

Monday was a total bitch in terms of weather. It was raining and pouring cats and shitty ass dogs, and any normal sense of logic in a human being would've lent me to take the underground pathway safely from work back to Union Station, preventing me from getting wet and cold from the torrential downpour. But for some odd reason, I just wanted to "feel" something for a change, you know? For some damn reason, after all the shit that has happened to me that you two readers know about, I just wanted to experience something goddam real, something goddam painful, for a real fucking goal no matter how pathetically illogical or whimsical that goal may be. I wanted my fucking 6200 PCI video card, even though it would make no difference from my 5200 PCI for internet browsing purposes, and I wasn't going to let some fucking god-awful weather stop me from attaining my goal. Not this time at least, to the distinct echo of "I Would Walk 500 Miles" in the recesses of my mind...

... ha, I immediately regretted my decision...

By the time I got to Canada Computers, bought the video card, and then returned to Union Station by foot? My fucking God, my entire body (umbrella be damned) was soaking wet from tip to toe, with my shoes and socks making worse squishy sounds than if I had jumped in a goddam pool of mud. I was freezing cold in the clothes I had on, and I was shivering from my underwear being more wet than a teenager getting a blowjob for the very first time. And yet through all of this, no matter how sore and bitter my body and mind had become, I was still pleased with myself that I had braved the cold against all logic, just to get the trophy that I felt I deserved. I was far more pissed off at the price of the damn useless device ($52, if you two readers need to know) than I was about my present physical condition...

Ha, that opinion quickly changed over time. My shoes were still soaked to the slippers by the time the next day arrived, so I had no choice but to wear my new dress shoes to work instead. Problem was, I made a gross miscalculation in terms of size. I had bought these cheap ass dress shoes to wear in case of emergencies, and I had bought size 8 because a) they felt alright to walk in at the store, and b) I was sure that my dress shoes from my sister's wedding were size 8 as well. Well, these shitty ass shoes were decent for walking, but as soon as I tried to run through a yellow traffic light? That's when the entire back of my fucking heel was ripped off and bloodied to shreds. And when I got home, realized that the 41D size that my Feet First wedding shoes read was really 8 and a fucking half in US terms? That's when I also noticed my toes had white, bubble blisters on them the size of my fucking thumbs. And this was all because I was too damn dumb to properly buy shoes in the first place, and then followed up that brilliant blunder with walking a day earlier for a full goddam hour in the fucking blistering rain...

So now what? To summarize all the physical failures I now have thanks to my sheer stupidity on Monday, I still have two painfully sore feet thanks to a laceration on the back of my right heel and two pinky toes squished to the width of my pinky fingers. Making matters worse, my teeth have been hurting all week long, probably thanks to all their incessant chattering when dealing with the cold on Monday, and now I have this goddam giant and possibly infected mosquito bite from tonight to boot. Add all of that up, and combine it with the fact that the long walk on Monday night seems to have blessed me with a goddam cold as well, makes it all sound like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

But does it really matter? Because hell yes, I got my fucking useless video card. It didn't help any performance out on my old PC whatsoever, except now it shuts down about two seconds quicker than before. Go figure, I guess...

I got my trophy, I attained my goal, and I did it all just to feel something, to feel anything again. I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm itchy, and I can't walk properly anymore. But at least, for one hour of this week, I felt alive...

And that's the true spirit of the Olympics, now isn't it?...

... to get that trinket of a medal, no matter the cost...

... and then later regret thy decision, oy...

Y2kk Update: A week long vacation always helps to clear the mind, although I would feel a lot better off if I had just taken two weeks...

My time off of work started last Thursday, although I didn't do anything much that day except treat my parents to lunch and Kung-Fu Panda. I returned to work today, exactly one week from when I left, although it was a goddam mistake to have come back to the office so fucking soon. I'm definitely not in the mood to work, not like there's anything to do but talk with my managers about projects that will never get off the ground. And besides, when I had first booked my vacation time, I completely had forgotten that the coming Monday here in Ontario is the Civic Holiday of Simcoe Day. If I had taken today and tomorrow off from work, I would've had a grand total of twelve fucking days off straight to clear my mind of the shit that you two readers know all too well about. But oh well, I guess I'll just have to take an extra long lunch-break tomorrow before the long fucking weekend, that's for sure...

As for my actual vacation? I went to Charlotte, North Carolina this past weekend to visit my old friend from high school. Whenever I tell people at my workplace of what he and I did in the 'States, namely just watching movies (Dark Knight twice, once at IMAX) and hitting the golf driving range, they raise their eyebrows at me and simply don't know what to say. My colleague at work, he even went so far to criticize me (albeit half-jokingly) that I'm like an old man when traveling, that I should've acted my age and gone clubbing and grinding at bars or some shit like that. That's just not me though, all I wanted was to spend some long overdue, quality time with an old friend of mine, doing the same kind of things we did way back in high school. Sure, I paid a lot of money to go down south just to do the same things as I normally do every weekend I'm up here in Canada alone, but I for one don't put a price on keeping close the people that I most trust...

Okay, well, so maybe that's partially a lie. I do put a price on everything, I'm goddam Chinese and cheap that way afterall, so I only really chose to go down south to North Carolina after I got a pretty damn decent price on airline tickets in the first place. If I had taken Air Canada for a direct flight to Charlotte, the total round-trip would've cost me over $520 with taxes included. Somehow though, NorthWest Airlines was offering a round-trip trip to the same American City (albeit with a three-hour stopover both ways in Detroit, uggh) for just over half that price, at only $270 CDN after all taxes and surcharges were included. For the most part that's an amazing deal, and it wasn't even a special promotion or sale. I had checked what the price would've been if I could've taken a car down to Buffalo, New York and flown to Charlotte from there, but at a cost of $220 US or more, it just wasn't worth it to put my parents through all that trouble. What was even stranger to me, was that if I had not listed myself as a goddam Canadian on the NorthWest Airlines website, the round-trip from Toronto to Charlotte claimed to have cost over $400 US. I mean seriously, from the same fucking airline and website? How does that make logical sense? WTF?...

The only terrible thing about my trip was being stuck in goddam Detroit for more than three hours each way. And trust me, I knew I was in goddam Detroit (the armpit of fucking America) the very moment I landed and needed to take a leak in the washroom. Now, I must admit, the Detroit Wayne International Terminal is a pretty clean place, with tons of washrooms and stalls for both sexes all over the massive building complex. And when I went into the toilet area, everything was nice and pristine and obviously well maintained, even by the best of Canadian standards...

But then I took a look at one of the urinals in front of me, and you know what I saw? I saw a giant blast of shit spread all across the goddam urinal, as if a urinal cake covered in horse shit had suddenly imploded from searing heat all over the goddam place. The stench was terrible as well, and I literally could not stomach the sight of it whatsoever. Who the fuck would leave a dripping and giant stain of running diarrhea in the goddam urinal, when every stall and toilet was open and available and fucking clean to the public? It must've been an Asian squatter or some shit like that, and I certainly do hope he brought his own toilet paper to wipe his fucking ass dry...

I wondered though, why didn't he at least try to flush the goddam urinal with the manual button, or perhaps the shit was simply too huge for the automatic flush to pull it down all the way through? I couldn't help myself, I just had to do my civic duty, even in a foreign terminal washroom, and I held my breath ever so sharply as I tried to flush that goddam disgusting shit down. And you know what shocked and flabbergasted me even more? The torrent of goddam fucking shit actually managed to flush all the way down on my first fucking try. Which means, whichever fucking squatter had actually had the audacity or stupidity to shit in this urinal, didn't even try to manually flush his goddam crap down the drain? And how the fuck did he manage to avoid the goddam automatic flushing capabilities as well? Seriously, he just left all that shit there right in front of his face and for everyone else to see? WTF?...

Besides that sort of shitty ass sight-seeing of mine, there really wasn't anything to do in Detroit whatsoever. There's an automated tram on the upper levels for those who are too lazy to walk across the massive terminal, and there's this interconnecting bridge of some sort with flashing coloured walls and goddam elevator music all over the place to try to brainwash pedestrians into working for Pinky and the Brain. There was pretty much absolutely nothing to eat in the place, so my lunches and dinners consisted of Big Macs and ice cream cones from goddam McDonald's. My coworker commented that I'm such a fucking boring lame-ass, that I should've went to a bar there and just drank for three hours to pass the time. Sadly though, that's even less of my idea for an ideal good fucking time. I had more fun pacing and walking around in goddam circles in the place than I'm sure I would've by actually spending the money on goddam booze. I'm that damn NorthWest cheap afterall, and no amount of alcohol can change that...

Charlotte itself was a very nice looking city, and the weather wasn't nearly as hot or humid as I had feared coming off of that plane. The one thing that really stood out to me though, was the fact that I myself was sorely sticking out, that I was essentially alone in this state as a goddam Asian. Seriously, I think I saw maybe only two young Chinese women in the city the entire time I was there, and both of them were blatantly white-washed, surrounding by buffed looking Western guys. Then again, there's always certain pros in places with absolutely zero cultural diversity, as in there were some really, really ridiculously hot looking white girls there that I simply cannot forget. The one that I can't get out of my mind right now, was simply a brunette standing about six feet tall, who wore the sexiest high heels in a free-flowing green dress that I think I've ever seen in my entire fucking life. Plus, there were just so many amazing blondes there with butter faces and stream-lined legs, that it almost made me believe I had accidentally booked a flight to Sweden or some shit like that...

Arriving back in Toronto? Well, to be honest, women here just don't look that hot to me anymore. The Western ones specifically look a lot more dull than they seemed before, and even the South Asian women here now just look more spoiled than hot in my eyes somehow. But then again, there was this one Chinese girl (escorted by a white, rich-looking asshole though) that I passed by today, who somehow seemed familiar to me. Not sure where I remember her from, maybe I had actually hit on her one time or another in the past, but she indeed was amazingly cute as a button to me. I had an instant attraction to her, actually. And she seemed to somewhat recognize me too, I saw her eyes turn to me and they didn't flinch away at all until after we had passed each other by. Charlotte may have had some of the fucking hottest women in the entire world, but what can I say, I'm still into adorable little Chinese girls. It's simply in my genes, along with having zero tolerance for terminal alcohol and being cheap as fuck with bloody hell airplane tickets. Ha, I do wonder who that Asian girl was anyways, and why I had the strangest sense there of deja vu...

Guess there's not really any more details about my trip to North Carolina that I do want to divulge. Truth be told, I didn't do much there, I just did my usual routine of movies and internet and spending time with my friend. But to be perfectly honest, that's all I really want from a vacation, some time to be alone and to be myself, and for plenty of time to stay close with those whom I most goddam trust. My colleagues at work may not understand what I want in life, but I most certainly do. I just wanted a week to relax, and that's exactly what I got, with Dark Knight twice as an exclamation mark to boot...

And like I always say, sounds like fun, now doesn't it?...

... well, it definitely was for me, though I'm not sure when I'll do it again...

... guess it depends on how cheap I'm feeling next year, afterall...

Y2kk Update: My friend and I were reminiscing the other day, about an emo chick back in high school who was obsessed with Carl Jung...

Short story short, I had my crushes back then, and she was one of them. No, she wasn't my prime obsession or anything, but she and her depressive-yet-bubbly nature certainly kept me on my toes in Grade 12 English class. For certain, while I was always more into Sigmund Freud and modern psychiatry over Carl Jung and his concepts of archetypes and synchronicity, I have to admit that I still couldn't help myself when it came to researching the latter subject in order to impress this emo girl at school. Naturally, I took back then the Myer-Briggs personality test, and was actually surprised at the time just how damn accurate the resulting description was of me...

After getting back from my vacation (which I'll talk about in a later update), I just couldn't help myself again. I took the Myer-Briggs personality quiz all over again online, and once again, my results were identical to how they were back in Grade fucking 12. Guess I never do change much, do I? I was a hardcore INFJ back then (Introverted, iNuitive, Feeling, Judging), and I'm still nothing but a pure INFJ as I write this today. It's only fitting that I should exist as such a character, considering you can practically spell my name as IvanNFJ, afterall...

The thing that always strikes me as being far too accurate in the descriptions of my kind of personality, is the fact that I'm a true bonafide introvert who somehow comes off as an extrovert to strangers at times. For the people I don't know at all and for the people I know all too well, I have the dumbest habit of saying so much random shit from my mouth, filling in random silences and sometimes never even letting other people have the chance to speak, that I broadcast myself as almost seeming like a popular kind of social guy. In reality though, I'm as nervous and shy and timid as they come when it comes to being with people and groups in general, and the descriptions nail me dead on when they say that sometimes as an introvert, I retreat back into my own shell of a universe and all the people who assume I'm an extrovert simply cannot understand why. This is a fault of mine that I've been trying to correct long before I ever read that goddam synopsis of my very being back in Grade fucking 12, and it's still one of my most annoying personality traits to this very day. It's just something I can't help though, when I get upset I get really upset and all I want is my goddam privacy...

Just out of extra curiousity though this time around, I decided the other day to read all the descriptions for every type of personality style that I could find online. In all honesty, I'm still obsessed with the goddam girl at work that I fell for like no other, and I wanted to know if she fit into any of Carl Jung's exact archetypes as defined by the Myer-Briggs test. And lo and behold, almost too easily and readily really, I found a listing of almost exactly every damn way she's acted towards me in real fucking life. It was all in the description for the INTP personality (Introverted, iNuitive, Thinking, Perceiving), and it was almost chillingly accurate at just how fucking exact Jung was able to label her to the fucking letter T (... or TP, in this case...)...

The online pages mention how people of her archetype come off as sounding almost child-like with their naivete, something so fucking true about her that it drove me batshit insane at times. Now don't get me wrong, she is one of the brightest young women I have ever met in my life, especially when it comes to programming and computer systems and all that other technical stuff. When it comes to people though, when it comes to the way the world actually works, I kept wondering to myself why she just didn't seem to get it. I admit, I'm rather an idealist myself, but never to the extent that she seems from whatever she would mutter from her mouth. At times she would complain how the world is "all darkness", then the next day, she'd start talking about certain people in her life as if they were perfect, straight out of the Disney fairy tales or something like that. For her, everything she talked about seemed so cut and dry, black and white, good vs evil, and all those primary colours of ideals that you had back when you're a kid. I know she's smarter than she sounds most of the time, but I couldn't help believing some days that she really is that damn naive. According to the INTP personality, she really is not nearly as innocent as she sounds, but she can't help saying things in almost too simplistic terms, simply because she does not know how to properly express her feelings and thoughts verbally in words...

The next comment about this personality type that really stuck out to me, was the descriptive word of "chameleon". To me, she's always annoyed me to hell with just how much she tries to blend in with other people, especially those that are complete opposite of her personality. Whenever there are social gatherings, whether with coworkers or friends, she would always dottle around to each and every little section, trying to mingle and pretend to be one with that group, even though everyone around her can blatantly tell her awkward she's acting in those very damn scenarios. I always kept wondering to myself, why can't she stick with the people she knows, so that she can actually act and be confident as herself instead of constantly failing at being like everyone else around her? Yet every single time there was some sort of party, that's exactly she would do, right on cue. She would go to every single patron, put on a fake smile, and try her very best to mix in with the crowd until everyone around her would simply leave her out of the conversation. Yet strangely enough, she never seemed to get the hint, she always thought she was making others happy in the process. It's just something I never understood, yet that's a trait that's apparently inherent in so many INTPs out there. WTF?...

The girl at work, she was always somewhat easy-going with other people, simply observing them at work and in the streets as if she were a scientist studying the behaviour of mammals. Essentially, she was the silent chameleon and did her best to stay out of the spotlight, except in situations where one of her core values or beliefs were threatened. She was a technical writer at both my company and the job she had before, so it was only natural for her to be so overly critical and somewhat arrogant every single time I would make a grammatical mistake. I've never been one for clear and concise points in technical documents, but I do admit, sometimes it did annoy me how she would try her best not to criticize me for them, yet simply could never resist that temptation. The real kicker though came whenever it came to her fundamental family and religious beliefs, with the latter one more on my mind recently than anything else. She claims to be an agnostic who takes no sides, but she was simply so close-minded to any sort of institutionalized religion that it hurt my brain at times. She thought she was neutral in her stance, she thought that she was simply being a silent observer in terms of respect for other peoples' beliefs. But every time some religious story would show up in the news, it was simply obvious where her true bias and loyalties lied, as she just couldn't help herself in criticizing the irrationalities and all the contradictions that you can find in people's religions and beliefs. Apparently, INTPs simply think so much about all this kind of shit, that they simply cannot keep it to themselves quietly in their minds. And most certainly, whenever the girl at work couldn't hold her beliefs in any longer, they came out in exactly the same kind of explosion of arrogance that so many INTP descriptions clearly warned of and meticuously outlined...

But the comment about her personality style that felt most personal to how I truly do feel about her, is her sense of goddam "duality". All the websites I looked up about the INTP personality, foretold that while the girl at work may have so many different emotions all boiling yet bottled up deep down inside of her, she constantly fights in a struggle to suppress it all with her overwhelming desire for rationality and logic. And that's exactly how the girl at work reacted to me pretty much every single damn day of the week. Whenever I would do something out of emotion, whenever I would elicit some sort of reaction from her and the way she felt, I could see her experiencing so much feeling inside of her gut, I could see it rising through the looks in her eyes. But somehow, she always managed to curb the sensations and criticize me back with random rants of logic and rationality that I always felt had no place in a conversation so based on personal values and beliefs. She would always govern everything she said with the thoughts of a goddam Vulcan, even though it was clear as fucking daylight from her tone of voice and her quivering lips as to exactly how she was truly feeling and what she truly meant behind her mask of words...

In truth, I swear I could see in those eyes and smile and sometimes even screams of hers, that she really did care about me, and she cared about me far more than she would ever let on. That's truly why it drives me crazy that she and I will never be together, that she would never give me another chance to set things right. I could truly see, in spite of all her beguiling words and facades of rationality, that she truly did care about me in ways that pure logic could never understand. There was this one time I recall that she saw me with my shirt buttoned down, and she couldn't help but literally drool as she just stood there and stared at my chest until I broke the silence with a smile. And yet, even though it was plain to see that she was attracted to me, she simply scoffed it all off, said she was busy, and tried to ignore me as if I wasn't even there. Why was she always so damn afraid of what she was feeling? Why couldn't she ever just have the courage to give the both of us a chance?...

The one footnote from all my wannabe psychology studies of the past week, has been that supposedly the perfect mate for an INFJ like me, is the complementary personality of an INTP. Apparently, we two are drawn to each other in order to battle and understand the differences in thinking and feeling, judging and simply perceiving the world. Supposedly, we two types of personalities seek each other out to complete ourselves, simply because I want to figure out how to manage my emotions more with logic, and she wants to feel free with her feelings. And the thing is, before I even had read all of this, everything that Carl Jung and his successors talked about is exactly what I've always felt with my relationship with the girl at work. We were drawn to each other, I swear we were, but she just wasn't willing to give into her emotions. I just wasn't enough of a reason for her to be who she truly is, I'm afraid. And I'm still wondering to this day, where do we go from here?...

What was the whole point of this goddam rant of mine today? Nothing really, although knowledge like this does help me at times to not feel so alone in my goddam empty and bitter cold universe. It helps to know I suppose, that there are reasons as to why I can't seem to get this girl from work out of my goddam mind, that there is indeed precedence and perhaps even method to my goddam madness. None of this will lead anywhere though, I know she won't contact me again or ever offer a goddam apology for ignoring me so. But at least knowing what kind of personality she has at the true core gives me some extra sense of reassurance and a measure of mental control, simply because she no longer seems or feels like such the goddam enigma as she did even one week before...

And it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

... well, I wish it was all as simple as typing your initials into a database and finding the perfect mate of a match...

It's been more than a bloody hell month now since I last goddam heard from her...

... if I can never be with her, then I'll do anything at this point to just move on...

She's still the girl of my dreams. I still haven't forgotten her, I don't know if I can...

... but she forgot about me so long ago, there's nothing more I can do about that...

Y2kk Update: Same old shit as the weeks go by, same old shit, day after day after day...

Well, there was a change in plans last Thursday at least. My friend at work was elected to be the "CEO for the Day", sort of a joke of an assignment where he actually had to do a bunch of goddam planning for an afternoon of corporation celebration or some shit like that. Well, he didn't do a bad job, and I thanked him anyways for helping to organize the damn thing. It's not like it was really his fault that I had such a shitty time anyhew...

Last Thursday, apparently it was my coworker's idea to take everyone back on a similar type of boat cruise that I had as an intern two years ago at this company. It wasn't a bad idea really, except that thanks to budget cuts, the boat we got this year was cramped at about half the fucking size as it was before. I felt goddam claustrophobic, not to mention sea-sick from time to time. I never wanted to be that close to my coworkers, so I actually did my anti-social best and stayed locked away in the lower decks for most of the goddam time...

While there, after suffering through two bites of that god-awful burger they were serving on the ship, the hot waitress came along and asked if she could take the dish. I always get flustered around women that are attractive, I always end up saying stupid shit or slurring my words, and it was worsened by the fact that I was in the middle of a conversation with a couple of coworkers and wasn't paying attention to what she was asking. So without thinking about anything, I replied back, "you can take it if you want". It was the latter half of that statement that got her and apparently one of those goddam coworkers of mine frustrated and confused...

The waitress looked pissed off. Basically, she didn't know what to do and had to ask again what I wanted. I just waved it off, told her to take the burger away, when in reality I was now too flustered and embarrassed over what I had said to think clearly any longer. But I don't give a shit about pissing off some anonymous waitress on a noname boat, no matter how hot a blonde she may have been in that blouse of hers. What I did care about, was how that coworker of mine reacted when the lady had left and all was said and done...

You know what he told me? "That was so stupid. I was tempted to throw my drink at you, but it would've been a waste of booze"...

That was a joke, right? Please tell me that was a joke. Or at least, that's how I took it. I may have been a dumbass, but there's no need to actually hate me for my stupid mistake. Whatever that coworker of mine really meant, all I could do was shrug and laugh it off. I didn't give a shit what I said to the waitress girl, why should he? And although I did care about my image in the company somewhat, I felt secure that this little incident would stay between the three of us in that goddam room...

Well, apparently I thought too much of this colleague of mine. Later that night when I wasn't there, when he was drinking with a bunch of other coworkers and apparently the CEO of the company as well, he blurted out and started laughing about how dumbass I was with the waitress that day. He told them the whole story, and the entire group laughed at me at my fucking expense. One of them later told me about all this, how that colleague of ours spilt all the beans in front of the managers and CEO and fucking owner of the company. And while I still don't give that much of a shit, I still have to ask myself, why would this coworker of mine mock me like he did in front of all the big wigs in the corporation? I made a mistake, big fucking deal, why expose it to people controlling my goddam wages and salaries? I did not appreciate being reduced to his goddam joke of the day, especially in light of his goddam company around the table. WTF?...

That certainly pissed me off during the weekend. But as always, as expected, leave it to the girl at work to remind me that there are worse things in life to be angry and annoyed at...

Today, I just had that feeling I would somehow run into her. I can't explain how or why I get that tingling in my spine, but I did back in January before I suddenly managed to meet her in the underground pathway, and I had this same feeling back in February before I ran into my old crush who had just gotten married at the time. I don't know what this feeling of mine is, this gut sensation that I'm going to meet someone significant from my past when I least expect it. But I've learned to trust that spider sense tingling of mine, and the bells were sure as hell ringing like a fucking fire alarm today. I did my best to keep my eyes peeled and avoid the girl at work at all costs, but somehow it's days like this that I become my worst enemy with goddam self-fulfilling prophecies or some bullshit like that...

How the hell was I supposed to know she would show up where I wait for my trains at Union Station? For the past six or so months, she's never appeared, yet there she was this afternoon, heading straight for me as if we had goddam set a date. Besides the stunned sense of horror on my face, the first thing that ran through my mind was that she and I somehow were wearing matching goddam outfits. We were both clad in the same shade of goddam blue, we would've looked cute as a button together, what are the fucking chances of that? I couldn't help but lower my head in fashion shame, then raised it back up when I realized she wasn't taking a detour to avoid me. She was heading straight for me, and I had to think fast...

I raised my hand out of instinct. I mean, I still love the broad, don't I? I couldn't help myself, so out I yelped "hi". She waved her hand with the slightest of inklings back, but that's when I realized she wasn't slowing down in her approach, and she wasn't heading for me per say. She was taking a direction around my area, she was obviously going to simply slip past me at all costs. So what other choice did I have? I could tell from her body language that she had no interest in talking to me, so I simply shrugged it all off, turned away and went back to waiting for my goddam train. I pretended like I didn't even care that she was there, and she simply walked by me as if I didn't exist whatsoever. Whatever, she chose to do this and so did I, I suppose...

She couldn't help herself though as she was passing by. She wore the fakest, more tacked-on and insincere smile on her face as she muttered one of the dumbest and forced lines I have ever heard her speak. She tried to make a joke, "Long time no see!" But uggh, the way she said it, it sounded like a little kid in elementary school saying hi to all her friends after they get back from summer vacation. It was just so childish and naive the way she blurted it all, almost with a sense of political nervousness, with a sort of backhanded reservation that proved in all its subtlety that she still was goddam ignoring me after all this time. I don't know why she couldn't help herself and simply stay silent as she moved on by. You'd think she would've mastered the art of ignoring me, but here she fell victim to having the last fucking word...

I didn't bother to turn around and acknowledge her comment. I simply lifted my arm again to say, "see you later", whimpering it out with a callous lack of grace. Did I care that I had just given up on perhaps my last fucking opportunity to talk to the so-called girl of my dreams? Yes, immediately I felt that sense of fear and panic and dread and regret that so often goddam drives a stake through my heart. But I also remembered that very look in her eyes and that goddam fucking fake smile on her face, and realized all over again that she never had any intention of talking to me in the first place. Whether deep down inside, she missed me or not, I will never know. All I do know, is that I asked her one month ago whether she wanted to go out to a movie and dinner, and she flat out ignored me without any sort of response. Why should I talk to her now? I'll deal with her when she finally shows me proper goddam respect...

I feel bad for shoving the cold shoulder down her throat today, but it's what I had to do to deal with these feelings of mine. I care about her, far too much considering it was obvious that she feels absolutely nothing for me. If I had talked to her, if I had tried to get through to her to open up, I only would've reopened my own fucking wounds and prolonged the goddam healing process all over again. I wasn't willing to take that risk. As soon as I saw her eyes and saw how frozen and barren they burned at me, I knew I had no choice but to convince myself that she wasn't even there. For so long now, all I've wanted was to be with her by her side, and quite honestly I still do. But I can't do so under these terms, I can't be with her if she feels nothing for me. It's just not worth it anymore, to risk everything I am for nothing...

So yeah, short story short, it's been a rather shitty ass week...

... and it's been goddam bugging me, how the fuck is my Spidey Sense three for three?...

Sometimes, I can't help but think it's fate that I meet the people I meet on these days...

... sometimes, I can't help but think of destiny, of some sort of meaning...

But that's when I hear the silence...

... and that's when I walk alone...

Y2kk Update: I had thought it was over...

... I guess it is now...

Really, I know it's all in my mind. It's not like we share a connection or even a goddam friendship or any shit like that. I know it's all just a chemical imbalance in my brain, I know it's just biology working its magic on all the logic I have in my mind. I know that there's nothing really between us, I know better honestly about what I think we have. It's just that, none of it seems to work, you know? Logic and reality, they just never seem to help...

I keep thinking to myself, why doesn't she feel the way that I feel about her? Every time I breathe, every time I sigh, I can literally feel my heart sinking, I can literally feel my gut gasping for breath. I can goddam feel a hole in my chest, and every time I try close it, every time I try to heal, somehow a new wound manages to tear itself a home. I don't know why I can't get over her, you'd think that after all these months of silence I would. The last time I saw her was in January, and yet still I can envision her in my mind as I had seen her just yesterday. I keep dreaming of her, I keep trying to convince myself that this is love. I keep wondering to myself, why the hell doesn't she feel the same way about me as I do for her? It feels so fucking real to me. How can she not feel it?...

At the time, she had ignored me for a month and a half. I hadn't heard from her since before her trip, when I sent her two wishful e-mails to which she never replied. But that was fine, I thought. If that was it, at least I got to say goodbye, at least I got to end things on good terms that I respected. I just wanted a finish to the story, you know? Whether it turned out for the best or the worst for me, whether I get to be happy or experience the same old shit, I just wanted to know what she really felt. And after a month and a half of waiting for her to respond, I guess I did realize that it truly was over. That is how she felt. She felt nothing, and I accepted that...

The very Monday after I wrote my June 15th update, that's when she suddenly appeared in the office. Did I see her? No, but my coworker warned me that he had heard her voice. He even checked for me to see where she was hiding, and apparently at the time, she was talking to her old peers in QA. I was insulted that she didn't come to see me first, considering I was far closer to the front door than any of the people she had talked to along the way. I figured, maybe she didn't want to see me, even after all this time she simply did not want to bother to even say hello. I didn't want to risk the pain and torture of further rejection, and my coworker gave me a way out. He offered to leave for lunch with me at that very early point in time, and why would I refuse? I may care about this girl with all my heart, but I was not willing to see her for the briefest of moments on shitty ass terms such as this...

If she had wanted to see me at all, she would've contacted me beforehand so that we could've met up for even a goddam minute if she was visiting the office. Yet for the past month and a half, I had heard nothing but silence. Why would I want to see her on these terms after all that emotional shit? Why would I want my heart to be broken again?...

So I left. I didn't see her that day. I didn't even hear her voice...

A week later, while I was still kicking myself for not having the guts to get off my ass to confront her in the office, I actually received an e-mail from her, where she claimed that she had been so busy for the past two months to reply to my last letters. She also claimed that she had looked for me in the office but that I was nowhere to be found, although she admitted she didn't look hard. Translation being, she probably couldn't help but check on me from a distance but couldn't see me since I had left. The only real question now being, why was she contacting me now? I had heard that she was visiting a certain someone in the office, a woman who has a tendency to confront the girl of my dreams about her own love life. It's very possible that I myself did come up in the discussion, that would certainly explain why the girl at work would suddenly contact me again after two fucking months, out of the blue. Maybe she was giving me one final chance? The real question then became, how should I respond? What should I do?...

I've never been one to simply stand pat and stay silence, so of course I did reply. The thing is, I couldn't help myself, I couldn't help but respond in earnest and harsh honesty. I thought long and hard about simply putting on a fake e-mail smile and welcoming her back, hoping that by laying the red carpet and my goddam pride down for her, that things would improve back to the way they were before. But I just couldn't muster the words this time around with her, not even through the goddam keyboard. So I realized I had no choice but to tell her the truth, to get all the things I wanted to say off my chest once again. I clearly stated that she had ignored me for almost two months, and that if she had visited the office and truly wanted to see me, why didn't she just send me a notice? Why wouldn't she contact me if she really wanted to know how I was doing? Why did she ignore me, why did she leave me there in cold silence?...

Sure, I apologized at the end of my e-mail about being so blunt and direct with her, like any true wuss would, but it doesn't change the fact that I did honestly pretty much attack her. Did I feel remorse as I was writing it, did I hesitate to press the button to send? Hell, I think I even had cold and wet hands as I did so, terrified and rather petrified that I would be hurting her feelings as badly as she hurts my own. But I felt I had no choice, if she wanted me back in her life, I had to have a clear conscience. And truth be told, I never would've forgiven myself if I had just lied down for her all over again and lied through my fucking teeth. I needed to be respected, I needed to be treated equal, I needed to know she still cares...

Well, she did respond, and she certainly did not sound happy about it whatsoever in her e-mail. She simply retorted back that she's been sick as hell, that she's been too under the weather to keep in contact with everyone on her gmail account, and that there was no point in contacting me because she didn't even know if she would be entering the office that day. Seriously speaking, none of those are true excuses. Being sick doesn't mean you can't send a ten second e-mail, telling others that you're ill and won't be available for a while. And when it comes to not entering the office, she could've easily asked me to come visit her downstairs in the lobby or outside for ten fucking seconds of her day or some shit like that. I realize both of these points now, but at the time when I first heard she was sick, I couldn't help but go back into lovy-dovy mode when it came to being all considerate for her health and well-being. I sent back an apology, admitting to her that I felt like a complete asshole for writing to her the shitstorm that I did while she was ill. How could I have known, right? I was hoping she'd understand...

... well, she didn't... she didn't understand...

... that's the last I heard from her... that's the last I expect to hear...

To ruin my pride even more, I had tried to make it up to her. Even though I got nothing back but stony silence once again, I tried to repent and show that I cared. All I wanted was to be with her, that's all I gave a shit about. After a month and a half of complete silence between the both of us, all I wanted was for another chance to be with her, to truly experience whether she is the right woman for me or not. So in my final e-mail to her three weeks ago, I asked her out for the final time. Looking back at what I wrote, how I popped the question of whether she'd like to join me to see Wall-E and a dinner afterwards, I can't help but slap my forehead at how pathetic I had become once again. But at the time, how could I have helped it? I so desperately wanted to be with her, I so very much wished that I could have one last chance, that I simply could not help myself. If I had my pride, I never would've sent another e-mail until she responded, I never would've asked her out. But I didn't care anymore about who was right or who was wrong, I didn't care about the past between us anymore. I just wanted to be with her, that's all I desired. It just wasn't what she herself wanted in life it seems, that's the end all be all to this tale once and for all...

I asked her a direct question in my e-mail. I know she received it, gmail would've told me otherwise. I directly asked her if she had any plans to see Wall-E yet, and if not, did she want to see it with me in theatres and all that other shit. I didn't sugar coat anything, I didn't write it in any ambiguous fashion that could be misinterpreted or misconstrued. When she received that e-mail, provided she didn't block my address, all she had to do was to send back a simple yes or no to my question. That's all it would've taken for me to know that she's still willing to talk to me, that she had at least begun to take the steps for forgiving me for pissing her off. But instead, I heard nothing back from her. For three full fucking weeks now or more, I have heard absolutely nothing but the same fucking silence that I heard before. How could she do this to me, seriously? How could she choose to act like she has? WTF?...

I miss her, I seriously and honestly miss her, I do. But I can't forget, and I don't know if I can forgive anymore what's she's done to me after all these months. She chose this, she fucking chose this, I can't get past that fact. All those other times, she can claim she was busy, she can claim she was sick. But here, I asked a direct question, she could've simply replied that she wasn't feeling well enough to see the movie with me or some shit like that. Instead, she chose this, she chose to ignore me, she chose to fucking ignore me as if I wasn't even there. As the days and weeks went by, I could literally feel my heart being crushed again under all the pressure and weight of the wait and all the tears I held back. I had forgotten what it felt like to truly open yourself up again, to actually ask out the girl you dream about with all your mind and heart and soul. I had risked it all, and she chose to be silent. She chose this, and I simply cannot forget that. This was her decision. This is what she wanted. This is how it ends, there's no longer any doubt in my mind...

You know what's even more sad? It's that, the day before I sent that final e-mail out, the night before I asked her out one last time, I had a dream while sleeping, the most warm and endearing vision I've ever had since I first started dreaming of this very girl at work. That night, I saw her next to me exactly as I see her in real life, not as a different person and not in a different body like I've experienced with so many other women, but rather exactly with the same face and the same voice as I've always known her before. And there she was, I literally could smell her hair, I literally would feel her fingertips, and I swear that I could seriously grace her feel as she held my hand and laid her head gently on my shoulder with the most innocent of smiles. She wanted this, she wanted to be with me, she wanted us both to finally be happy. She said this to me, she said it all while staring in my eyes. I couldn't help it, I thought it was her, when I awoke I swore that it had been her, the real her I knew so long ago. But it wasn't real, it was just a dream, it was just another fucking dream. It felt so real, it felt so goddam real, but it was just another fucking dream. Yet I acted on it, I goddam acted on it, I opened back up my heart and asked her out...

I knew what I wanted. I wanted her, I wanted to be with her...

... I chose this, I chose her...

... I thought it was real... but I was wrong...

I thought I knew what she wanted. I thought I knew who she was...

... she chose this, she chose to be alone...

... what can I say?... I was wrong...

And this time, this time I know it's over. This time, I know I will never hear from her again...

... this was her decision, this is what she chose...

... I need to remember this, I must keep all this in mind...

She will never know how much I care for her. Whether my feelings are real or not, they feel real to me...

... the dream felt so genuine, she seemed so happy...

... but she chose this, I must remember that...

No, I don't expect to hear from her again...

... my heart knows now, this is real...

... I know now, this is how it ends...

Y2kk Update: I've always believed that golf is the truest sport where you compete against oneself...

... wow, I really must hate myself then, because I sucked so much ass on the goddam course...

Yesterday, I met up with my brother and brother-in-law at a golf course north of Toronto. Of course, I did my usual ranting and whining about how I didn't want to waste gas and travel that far. Really, I have low self confidence in my driving abilities, even though I've driven long distances countless times by this point in my life. I'm always unsure about myself after going through a long stretch of highway and not remembering a damn thing that just happened. But meh, after going through the usual bickerings with my brother, I met up with him up north for 18 holes of golf over at some Kettleby course. Besides being terrified of the highway drive all the way there, I was nervous about my performance on the course. I so didn't want to embarrass myself, but I knew that some things in life certainly were inevitable...

Have I been to the driving range a ton of times this year so far? Pretty much, as I have practiced off the grass or the mats at least once every single week since my birthday back in April. I've become decently proficient at that kind of shit, after enough swings and misses in the early days of the season at least. The thing is though, I haven't been on a golf course at all this year, let alone a full 18 holes which I've never done in my entire goddam life. And as for the couple of 9-hole executive courses I've tried, I did horribly there as well, especially the first time when I got so flustered and frustrated from the pressures of facing off against some five year I was paired up against. I practically wanted to pull a Happy Gilmore on Bob Barker's ass out on that golf course, I shit you two readers not...

Was I mentally prepared for golf this time around? I tried to be, I really did. As far as I'm concerned, golf is the perfect sport for me, in proving to myself the kind of person that I want to be. Sure, I am absolutely obsessive over watching the NBA and the Toronto Raptors, to the point where I'm practically stalking the team as if they were the girl at work. But when it comes to playing actual basketball, I don't know, but either I just never really got into the sport or I just sucked too much against others to ever really appreciate it in action. Golf on the other hand, is slow and meticulous and so damn logically methodical that I was able to gain a trust and dependency on it at my own kind of pace. To me, golf is the ultimate sport for personal reflection and perfection, it's the one activity of mine that I truly do feel free whenever I do experience that one rare, perfect swing. Consistency though? That's where true confidence comes in, something I certainly seem to be lacking in fold...

I thought that by this point in my life, I'd have some sort of true confidence in myself. Now sure, I'm always claiming I'm confident in my complete lack of confidence, meaning that I'm proud that I never sold myself out like so many nerds turned geeks turned assholes during their university years. Still, I can't say that I wouldn't have minded to follow that kind of jackass path, as it leads to plenty of dating and women and normally lots of irritating laughs in the office as you kiss the boss' ass with beer. Obviously, my career has been moving nowhere so far in my life, and the one girl that I truly wanted simply rejected and ignored me like I wasn't even there. To me, golf is the perfect metaphor for my life. I still suck so fucking badly at it, with only one rare solid shot out of practically a hundred practice balls at a time. But that one fucking time that I swing to perfection? Well, that's the one time that I truly do feel at home, at peace. It really is all worth it in the end...

Let me just say though, that on the 18 holes the other day? I never once felt that fucking goddam peace. I started off weak, and ended up even fucking more pathetic than ever before. I don't know what the fuck I was doing, but completely contrary to how I am on the driving range, all my shots (even off the fucking tees) were slicing either far to the left or far to the right, and we're talking about almost 90 degree angles here or some shit like that. I know that I'm still learning and just trying to get comfortable out there on the course, but it's sad to say I was actually lucky whenever I only took five or six strokes over the goddam par. WTF was wrong with me, that even after all these weeks and months of practicing my consistency, I still caved under all the fucking pressure of being with my brother and brother-in-law? And things just got worse when my brother couldn't take it anymore and started giving me tips and pointers. I understand he's trying to help, but everything he told me just made me more and more nervous, destroying my self-confidence even further, to the point where not only was I embarrassing myself but I was having absolutely no fun whatsoever at all. WTF?...

Why do I let this shit get to me? Why do I let little things like constructive criticism bother me like it does, even from someone I trust like my own brother? Like I said, golf to me has always been the perfect metaphor for how much I believe and trust in myself, and I certainly failed that test in every regard yesterday afternoon. To add insult to injury, quite literally actually, I actually feel like I tore something in my left knee while twisting badly on some sort of swing. Maybe it's just soreness or tendinitis, but my fucking left knee has been bothering me all day, which only compounds with the fact that my left wrist has felt practically twisted ever since I contorted that part of my body wrongly a couple weeks back. Granted, I can blame some of my piss poor performance on the fact that my left wrist and arm were practically useless and a hindrance in my backswing, but then again, my drives were normally still straight with my injury the last time I went to a driving range. So why the fuck did I completely crumble under the pressure of 18 holes and of simply being with people that I knew and hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of? Shouldn't I have found some sort of faith and trust in myself by this point in my life? WTF?...

Golf to me, at this period in my life, is my idea of self actualization in the truest of senses. It's through golf that I seem to be most honest with myself, outside of these noname websites of mine that nobody will ever read at least. It's during my backswing that I either realize every single fault I have in my life, every single want that I wish I had, leading to a horrific fucking shot that slices far to the left or the right? Or it's during that backswing of mine that my mind is so clear and so pure for the briefest of moments, that my body feels as flexible and loose as goddam water as I strike the ball with the most determined of strokes...

The difference in feeling between the two is simply the purest of joys that I cannot put into words...

... now, if only I could put that same damn feeling into action in my real fucking life, maybe I would get somewhere that I want to be...

Because it all sounds like so much goddam fun, now doesn't it?...

... if it wasn't for my busted knee, maybe still it would have been...