I was somewhat suffering from insomnia again last night. I was studying til at least 1 AM, lied down by 1:20 AM, tried to write a letter or two but failed because I was so brain-dead. I owe a few people whom I really care about some snail mail/Christmas cards that's long overdue, so here I am, making a promise to myself (and whoever's reading this) that I will write at least 2 letters tonight after I finish this post. I hate making empty promises, but sometimes it's impossible to keep up with everything. Especially when the people I care about so much are so far away. I can't afford to call them/text them....the only other way I can get a hold of them is e-mail. Which is probably just as personal as those stupid facebook "nudges".
So I thought, I am brain-dead from studying, so why not kill it more with some mind-numbing Hollywood flick so that I can actually fall asleep? I googled "Comedies dvdrip 2009", just to check what movies are up and out. I left my fate in the hands of my computer, closed my eyes and randomly pressed a button on the computer after doing a CTRL-F. The first movie that came up starting with a 5 ....was (500) Days of Summer.
I was caught pretty offguard - I never expected this movie to be the way it was - afterall, I was only expecting yet another hyped-up Hollywood bust (that's so common in the past 10 years). If you haven't seen it yet, it's about a hopelessly romantic dude who believed in fate and a girl who never believed in love, let alone finding the one. I'm not going to give too much away, because I think it was a movie actually worth seeing fully awake. It was witty and subtle. It hinted at how my life is and could be. I felt throughout the movie that I could easily have stepped into the shoes of the protagonist.
Without hinting at the rest of the movie though, I think I need to learn the same lesson that Tom Hansen learned at some point. Life is a mixture of fate/randomness, but we're somehow totally in control of it. Sounds like a cliched oxymoron? It is. Yet sometimes we just can't help but feel overwhelmed by all the things that happen in life. In every helpless situation, we just need to realize that we must help ourselves to overcome whatever the obstacle is.
....and I think my next obstacle is my fully-empty stomach.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tinto the Hobbit
As funny as it may sound, I think I'm going to devote some time to blogging. I haven't really blogged before, but I think it is worth a try to express myself, and type what I think (since I always tend to get into trouble when I speak before I think!) Hence, my first blog entry.
Over the past few months, I've found it increasingly hard to find someone to talk to. It's not that I'm a poor communicator at all! I have all these feelings that are trapped up inside me and I just can't let them out for one reason or another. I guess you can compare me to Frodo Baggins. I can't help but be curious about the rest of the world. Sure, I have trusty fellow hobbits who I can always relate to within the confines of my comfort zone - but I never felt that this was enough.
So I left the hospitable shire and went off half way around the world (literally, it was only a quarter of the way; I only went through 6 different time zones). At first, it was just out of curiosity. What's it like there? What is the culture really like? Why is there such distinct, colourful, diverse cultures in such a small place? I guess I can do the same in downtown Toronto, but it's not the same - I don't know how I found it so inviting to try to make it on my own in a realm where I knew nobody and may possibly not fit in with everyone. Yet, life was slow enough that everyone had a chance to breathe. A chance to sing. A chance to dance. A chance to smile. I don't ever recall having to force a smile, nor have I ever felt someone else's smile radiating so much that I can harness that warmth to flex my own facial muscles.
Now I'm back. Now I receive blank stares and indifferent gazes from unfamiliar faces. Ah, the cold, stoic persona typical of North Americans, frozen in appearance by the bitterness of winter, frozen in its core by the numb, systematic brainwashing of its culture. It's weird, this society that prides itself in "individualism" - it continues to confine and limit us, on appearance, to the very stereotypes it says it wants to be rid of.
-Tinto
Over the past few months, I've found it increasingly hard to find someone to talk to. It's not that I'm a poor communicator at all! I have all these feelings that are trapped up inside me and I just can't let them out for one reason or another. I guess you can compare me to Frodo Baggins. I can't help but be curious about the rest of the world. Sure, I have trusty fellow hobbits who I can always relate to within the confines of my comfort zone - but I never felt that this was enough.
So I left the hospitable shire and went off half way around the world (literally, it was only a quarter of the way; I only went through 6 different time zones). At first, it was just out of curiosity. What's it like there? What is the culture really like? Why is there such distinct, colourful, diverse cultures in such a small place? I guess I can do the same in downtown Toronto, but it's not the same - I don't know how I found it so inviting to try to make it on my own in a realm where I knew nobody and may possibly not fit in with everyone. Yet, life was slow enough that everyone had a chance to breathe. A chance to sing. A chance to dance. A chance to smile. I don't ever recall having to force a smile, nor have I ever felt someone else's smile radiating so much that I can harness that warmth to flex my own facial muscles.
Now I'm back. Now I receive blank stares and indifferent gazes from unfamiliar faces. Ah, the cold, stoic persona typical of North Americans, frozen in appearance by the bitterness of winter, frozen in its core by the numb, systematic brainwashing of its culture. It's weird, this society that prides itself in "individualism" - it continues to confine and limit us, on appearance, to the very stereotypes it says it wants to be rid of.
-Tinto
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