On Home Owning

So it has been almost two weeks now living in my new home. I'd have to say that it has been quite enjoyable. I've experienced freedom here not quite like anywhere else. Living in a house you (or your family I suppose) owns is great; you can raise kittens, fry pancakes at 2:00am, and urinate on your walls. Now all of that is great and all, however, I was naive and failed to consider some of the less desired aspects of being home owners: and that is the responsibility to answer your door. Why may that be such a dangerous task? Well, I found out today that just outside your front door, in the neighbourhood, lurks the devious door-to-door sales person, the mail man, and of course, the Jehova's Witnesses. When you're not careful, these shady figures can push you into a corner and cause you to be late for work. I've learned a valuable lesson today, and I must improve my skills of pretending-I'm-not-home when someone undesireable comes knocking.

So Here I Am

So here I am, reporting from my lovely little house on Forglen Drive, in my lovely little room with the wooden wall. Evidently, the internet drought has passed, and I am grateful to be both alive and well. The internet drought wasn't nearly as terrible as I had anticipated. For one thing, it wasn't all that hard to find tasks to do around the house during those first few days, nor was I ever short of small errands to run to the bank or to the library.

The oh so wonderful experience of spending your first three days in a new house is likened to having every single item in your possession misplaced. It took me thirty minutes to find my work clothes, before I could hastily jump into them, stuff bread in my mouth before running out the door to embark on my fifteen minute journey to Metrotown. Finding my way there for the first time went relatively smoothly, as I had unmistakable landmarks in the form of the four or five high-rise towers that surrounded the mall; I was able to reach my destination in under thirty minutes, only about ten minutes longer than the projected amount of time. The return trip, however, did not go quite as smoothly.

You see, if you aren't already aware, I am notoriously bad with directions on foot. I can be walking straight down the street in a slightly unfamiliar neighbourhood, make a simple turn left or right, become engulfed in a sensation of absolute daze, then lose my place in space along with my sense of direction. This was precisely what transpired (multiple times) on my first attempt to navigate home from the mall. Now in my defense, the landmarks that allowed me to arrive at Metrotown with relative ease were not present on the way home. I had no large looming buildings protruding in the skyline to act as my guiding light home; I think it's fair to say that the difficulty level of this journey was thus at least doubled. I also decided to take a different route than the one that I had taken to arrive at the mall, I decided to look for a shorter way that led me straight into the center of the neighbourhood and to my house, rather than circling around the main streets which outlined the small neighbourhood, like I have done that morning. It had to be done eventually. So I courageously stepped into the labyrinth of a neighbourhood, shortly before proceeding to get lost.

Forty minutes later I arrive home. Utterly exhausted and disoriented, I consulted a map. Take one glance at the map and you will understand. -Black outlines the most efficient route, red outlines the route I took before finally arriving home.

I regret to say that since that first day's strenuous adventure home, I have experienced that woozy feeling in my head that proceeded complete disorientation a number of times. I must have taken at least five different and inventive routes home in just eight days here. I've decided to stick with the black outlined route in my future days here to save myself some trouble until further notice.

1 Day Before Moving Day

So my time here is finally up, starting tomorrow I will be sleeping in my new house (I use that term loosely, because the house isn't actually new). Hoorah! I am actually starting to feel the excitement between all the packing, lifting, vacuuming, sneezing, and unloading. Today was also the first time I have seen my new house; it's stone mosaic and darkwood exterior seems to whisper its stories to you; you know, the sort of stories that give a house a personality, like murder stories that took place in the basement, or scandals, or weed dealings. It's really quite the quaint little house; that would have a splendid view of the sunset(sunrise?) if it wasn't for the ugly giant trees in the neighbouring backyard.

I was working away like a busy beaver unloading in the new house with my dad(we cheated and started moving early), when he informed me of the upcoming internet drought. I panicked; oh how will I survive without my beloved internet for an entire four days? I barely survived the last time the internet failed for four whole hours. I simply love my personal internet too much to withstand having it torn away from me for such a length of time, oh the despair! It was in the midst of my grief that a solution presented itself in the form of a light bulb flicking on; I must as quickly as possible binge download and stock my computer with as much manga as possible, to tide me over with for the duration of the drought; in addition I must also reinstall Veoh and binge download movies. As I type this, volumes and volumes of manga are being downloaded into my Sysreset folder, I am also monitoring the download of three movies (12 Monkeys, What the bleep Do We Know, and American Psycho). Drastic times call for drastic measures, but I will be well equipped to survive the impending drought. If my movie downloads cannot be completed before I pass out in front of the computer, I will always have the public library close by my new house for video rentals!

It's a strange phenomenon, but the basement suite almost seems smaller now with all the furniture as well as kitchen-living room partition gone. I guess the partitioning and furniture gave the space a sense of depth that is non-existent in the now vacant lot; my room is reduced to an empty box with a dinky little table, and a pillow for a seat in front of the computer. I will be here for the next couple of hours tending to my downloads with snacking anchovies for company. They really are overrated, this is probably thanks to Futurama giving me unrealistic expectations for the small salty snack fish. This morning I had quite the satisfying breakfast however,

doesn't my last meal in this house look delicious? The new big kitchen in the new house hopefully will inspire a bountiful amount of bread, pastry, and cookie baking. On my sister's part of course, not mine, I don't cook.

But ladies and gentlemen, I really must be taking a break. I over exerted myself today and wounded up getting jabbed in the ribs by a doorknob. It's exceedingly unpleasant, and I should lie down and nurse my aching back and ribs before I resume my download surveillance. Man I feel old.

2 Days Until Moving Day

After clocking out today, I leisurely did my errands then caught the bus to head home. I dozed for nearly the entire duration of the trip before getting off the bus. Then like usual, I stopped at the corner house to look for Molly under the car; like usual, she's there. I meow at her and called her name, she rose and briskly sauntered towards me with her bell jingling to rub her head against my hand. While I sat there on the sidewalk playing with Molly, I realized that today might be the last time I'll ever see her again.

I had to get some pictures of her before I leave, so I went home to grab my camera quickly to give Molly a photo session. Like the last time I tried to take pictures of her, Molly proved to be a most difficult subject; sometimes I really think she's doing it on purpose. I would zoom in and focus my camera, crop a perfect image, then once I hit the shutter release Molly would move in a split second to give me a blurry image. It's not a coincidence if it happened for ten pictures in a row! So finally, twenty or so minutes and about thirty shots later, here I am with four acceptable pictures.

I will miss you Molly, you are my favourite cat in the world, and even if I make cuter, prettier, friendlier cat friends, I will always remember and think of you.

P.S. Click image to enlarge for better quality!

3 Days Until Moving Day

This morning I woke up with a crocodile in my bed and it pricked me in the toe. This unpleasant awakening inspired me to have a super productive day in packing, art and exercise!

My Indonesian crocodile woke me up earlier than expected, so I decided to finally head to school and return my textbooks in exchange for my report card. I have only one thing to say: Ms. Lehtonen is an absolute douche; she never changed my term one grade that she promised she would change, even after she marked my alternate assignment and gave me a 94% for the term. She never went to change my mark. But I've decide, I'm not going to bother with her anymore. I hated photo 12, and my grade in photo will not interfere with my UBC admission, I'm never going to see Ms. Lehtonen again, so I'm just going to let it rest and move on.

After arriving home from school, and spending a generous amount of time napping, I've had a pretty productive day packing, if I do say so myself. My closet is completely cleaned and 90% of my clothes are packed; I also packed all my books, papers, bags and miscellaneous items. Everything except for my beloved computer must be packed by Saturday. As productive as I had been this day, it took me nearly the entire day to accomplish said packed items, I decided to call it a day at about six(?) pm to head out and play some badminton. It's terrific that I've been getting all this exercise for the past week, but my eating habits have suffered horribly to compliment my increase in physical activity. You see, my mom has already packed away more than half of our kitchen appliances, utensils and dry foods, leaving us little to eat save for instant noodles, a sack of flour, milk, frozen pizza, and whatever else is in the fridge. All kitchenware required for cooking is gone and no more food will be cooked until Sunday; I've more or less been living off ice cream, green tea, sardines in a tin, leftover rice, and instant noodles. At least the microwave is still in service.

So while packing the day away, I've adopted the habit of blaring music while I clean and pack for enjoyment as well as to distract myself from the heat; and since a couple of days ago, I've had a craving for some Nirvana music. (I think it was from the tone deaf man by Granville Station who plays and sings off key Nirvana cover songs.) I dug up my old Nirvana music and gave it a good listen, somehow later I found myself looking for Modest Mouse music on Dailymotion. I think if I was to buy a CD, I'd definitely get "Good News for People Who Love Bad News" by Modest Mouse, that or "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", "Saltbreakers" by Laura Veirs, or maybe a Sufjan Stevens album. To start purchasing CD's, however, would simply add to my spendings, so I decided against it. Perhaps I might receive any of them on my birthday, or Christmas (hint hint). Heh. If not, I'd give a shot CD hunting in Taiwan. I may come across an obscure music store that sells indie music for bargain prices behind some 7-11, or a Buddhist temple. Speaking of Taiwan I still need to call my uncle to inform him that I am coming and make living arrangements.

4 Days Until Moving Day

It is unbelievably hot today. I respond absolutely terrible to heat, and it's making packing difficult. It is so incredibly hot that I can't think straight and therefore cannot write a decent post, so instead I will post a picture; this photo by Michael Wolf sums up how I'm feeling right now.

5 Days Until Moving Day

It is now five days until moving day and I had just spent the entire day doing everything but packing. I've made about $35 dollars today, but I also spent about $90; not to mention the money for paint and work pants yesterday, I am seriously digging a giant hole in my bank account; I have also grossly overestimated my will power and self-restraint, as well as utterly underestimated my capacity for justifying frivolous spendings. The shopping monster that I thought I had gotten rid of over a year ago has caught up with me again, and it's making its ruthless comeback to devour my wallet. I really need to cut back on flaky unplanned spendings.

At least I'm saving money on movies.

6 Days Until Moving Day

For anyone who might someday ponder this notion, I will warn you beforehand: tissue paper boxes do NOT make good shoes; in fact, they make terrible shoes. They are far too boxy, stiff, and constrictive to support feet. Besides, they'd only be available in one size, and they hurt!

Now in retrospect, this finding seems like something I should have been able to predict prior to stuffing my feet inside empty square boxes, but it really seemed like a good idea at the moment. But for other hands-on learners, here's a piece of free information that might save yourself some discomfort in the future.

But enough about tissue boxes. Since my last post, I've done some feeble packing, shopping, and movie viewing. I am happy to say that I am finally able to add 2001: A Space Odyssey to my Seen movie list. It is everything that it's hyped up to be, and maybe even more; stunning cinematography(especially for 1968), grand soundtrack, space travel, bright hypnotic light display, spaceships and astronauts, a homocidal computer, what more can you ask for? One aspect I particularly enjoy about viewing old films is the retrospective recognition of pop culture references that I haven't been able to catch previously. I've probably seen parodies to 2001: A Space Odyssey on at least four different notable instances(Simpsons, Recess, iPhone, and Lego) and failed to acknowledged their sources until now, the same goes for Citizen Kane. There will definitely be more future trips to the public library. I am going to have to schedule a library trip somewhere between work, packing, and attempting to pack, over the next week; otherwise my videos will be overdue and I will have to pay late fees again! The library must've ripped a small fortune off of me in my lifetime through late fees.

Now, I regret to say that I've had a super unproductive day today, strolling around Granville Island, then downtown to purchase paint and funny looking black pants. But I've decided, I am going to get that turquoise dress. It was an executive decision made about an hour ago. The dress is just too pretty to give up, and I must have it before someone else snatches it. Since I'm already a couple hundred dollars into my savings for the summer, what's another $85? I'll just have to resolve to save 90% of my first paycheck to make up for it.

On another note, I've finally made some progress packing today; I put all my more sporadically worn shoes in boxes and all my art supplies (with my new paint!) is now packed away. I guess I should start clothes and books tomorrow.

7 Days Until Moving Day

There is exactly one week left until moving day.
Before then, we must tear this house from its sturdy Canadian housing foundation, give it a good sound shaking before picking out our various belongings from the piles of debris, wood, gravel, burst water pipes, angry landlords and their furniture that would result. Unfortunately, I've become quite settled into this cramped little basement suite that I've called home for the last two years, and far too languid to start preparing.

Packing basics say that you should start with what you use and need the least, and work your way up towards those items of daily use. But I am genuinely convinced that everything in my room is equally vital to my daily life; from the boxes of shoes occupying the bottom of my closet, to the four or five used sketchbooks living under my bed. This notion of packing undone, is hovering like an ugly mustard coloured bird with an eternally obscene humming noise that bites your ear if packing slips my mind for even a minute. So packing hasn't left my mind for a minute, though that's not stopping me from procrastinating. I will definitely regret my idleness later, but later hasn't come yet. In the mean time, there are tons of things I can do with my time besides packing.

During this last week or so, instead of packing, I've been amusing myself with shopping, reading, film viewing, mocha consuming, portrait drawing, art show attending, midnight underwear running, paper hat making, and contemplating the various ways to enjoy green tea.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must be off to see if whether empty tissue paper boxes will make adequate shoes. I shall report my findings in my next post.