the P.Pole v.2.1

The decorations were set and the mockeries of cocktails poured, the guests arriving and the balloons afloat. That’s pretty much the sight that welcomed me into Arcadian Court last night when I arrived at Victoria Park CI’s 2008 Prom. I had mixed expectations for the night, since there was no reason to assume it would be the perfect evening but I also knew, God willing, it could very well turn out to be quite a delight. I am not a huge fan of large social events, but I think I’ve outgrown the most introverted parts of myself. There were many memorable things from the night, including the people and their attire (not to mention my own little ensemble that I was quite proud of), the food, the dancing, and the helium.

For the most part, the novelty of seeing everyone dressed up so fancy was an interesting experience which made the $85 I paid for prom a little less searing on my wallet. Of course, a lot of makeup and fancy clothes a beauty does not make, but a lot of people did look quite nice last night. Everyone else was more or less dwarfed by Amy and her excising black dress and silverware. Everyone, that is, excepting myself with my downright cute (for this, I am ready for any and all consequences of using the word) bow tie and black suspenders. I don’t mean to brag, but I think I looked nearly as good (but course, not equaling) Amy in terms of prettiness last night (quite an accomplishment, coming from me, if you think about it). Normally, I don’t mind looking from a little drab to nice, but I really did try to outdo most other people last night. I thought maybe some guys would have bow ties (which some did) and maybe some guys would wear suspenders, but I really doubt any guys wore both suspenders and a bow tie. Yes, I am a preppy badass like that. Enjoy!

The food was the usual banquet-hall type food and wasn’t particularly special, excepting the chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet dessert that was quite delicious. The little butter balls were also quite novel since they were so perfectly sculpted that I had first thought they were white-chocolate mints for after the dinner. Also, the basil-mint-orange-vinaigrette (according to the waiter) was quite the interesting (in the “delicious” sense of the word) drizzled over the more or less standard leaves of greens. As for the rest of dinner (the dinner rolls and chicken breast), they were not particularly tasty and even sort of cold. At least the conversation was fun to listen in on.

The dance floor and music were alright though I only checked it out from a distance as Amy led me decidedly away from the throbbing and wobbling bodies in the laser-lighted artificial fog that covered the dance floor. I have never been nor do I ever really aspire to become a particularly competent dancer and I’m glad I had the excuse “Amy doesn’t want to dance” to use, instead of something lame like actually getting on there and totally getting served. Instead of joining the clusters of teenage bodies gyrating and thumping in every which way, Amy and I settled down in comfy seats in the corner of the room, “watching the purses of Amy’s friends.” That was all. There was neither anything to see nor anything to vomit about. Get going now. Eyes on your toes–yes, just like that. Move along. Move along now.

I am sort of apathetic at the idea that I won’t be seeing a lot of these people anymore after this. I mean, quite a few people I’ll be seeing next year at Waterloo in the same program as myself and/or school, and specific others I’ll be getting together with when I come back to town. As for everyone else I really probably won’t ever be seeing again (commencement doesn’t count), I suppose I bid them all lively lives and blue skies, though, there’s really no way I can guarantee or even make more likely those things happening for them myself. I’d hope everyone would spend time in earnest to find what it is to really live and die, and so that shall be my parting message (disregard my silly message in the yearbook if you please).

Aside: I’ll be uploading photos soon, once I get a few more in so until then, just imagine the awesomeness.

Edit: As promised, photos. Also, mouse over and click sides of the pictures to move through the gallery.

• Amy and I
• Shivon fixing my bow
• Amy and her girls
• Imran, myself, and Shivon
• OMG! Totally BFF’s, rite? RITE?!
• Decorations: Intact so far
• Les Apples de Sex
• I am not a panderer
• Finale, more A&C goodness

The other day I decided to vector trace something I drew for Amy. Since then I have made a wallpaper of it and am now using it. Here they are, in both 1200×900 and 1440×900 flavors. Do enjoy if you are into… our business. If not, maybe you’ll just like the art. I like posting about my computer, that’s all. That, and I like to have these kinds of things hosted in case I need to grab this when I’m in a foreign place to give whatever computer I’m using a more familiar or homely touch.

This was for an English assignment, but have a look anyway and see what you think. The original poem by cummings is linked at the bottom.

nothing happens in this stuffy drowned town
(with stacks so smoking healthy smog brown)
spring lever auto splinter
they buy their uses and sell their souls

buildings and builts(both ugly and tall)
filled with the living, not at all
slaving away the day and the night
sounds touch taste sights

people pressed(much more than a few
as more they commute, as more they stew
auto splinter spring lever)
as drivers stopped for more and more

this is how one kills belief
in lasting life and death that’s brief:
hear the show and see the song
overthink any and all your days

somedays buried by everydays
lost in borings that score a loss
(see hear pause but then)in
stead of living we opt for death

taste sights sounds touch
(not only the old but even now children
are people who ought to regret their existence
with stacks so smoking healthy smog brown)

one day i know i’ll leave i guess
(will no one care to hate this place?)
anyone hurry to fill my shoes
rattle the cages and wage the battles.

malls and malls for seek and keep
and store by store to steal your reap
not one will anyone please come april
and yet you wish as if by will…

buildings and builts(in which we cling
lever auto splinter spring)
will sub living and fix despite
sounds touch taste sights
- Carl Wong, nothing happens (parody, see: anyone lived by e. e. cummings)

Edit: Fix’d!

As a year-ending trip of sorts for the IB class of ‘08, our English teachers organized a trip down to Niagara On the Lake to see a matinée of one of George Bernard Shaw’s plays at the Royal George Theatre (not really all that royal, but pretty nice anyway). We got down there by chartered school bus and after about two hours bouncing up and around in that hellish metal box, we arrived with empty stomachs and full bladders. I had never been to Niagara On the Lake before (but a lot of others have) so after a short introduction video and a tour of one theater’s (there are several in the area apparently) backstage areas and wardrobe workshops, we had a boxed lunch and set off (myself with Amy and a few of her friends) to explore the town before the show.

There’s something charming but slightly annoying about the quaint little town. I mean, everything there looked antique and authentic as far as old stuff goes, but that (I think) the town is mostly a tourism destination rather than a normal town left an unsettling feeling in the air. Not really disturbing mind you, but it just stick in the back of my mind that all these cool shops, neat oddities, and novel discoveries were put there as a sort of attraction. Sort of like a fake genuineness. Anyway, I’m sure the townsfolk are nice and not at all conspirators for tourist’s monies. The cushions in their theaters were particularly cushy, though.

While walking through the town, we came upon a few interesting items: › Continue reading

Here we begin the wind-down before the resounding bang to come prom-night: today was a chill day with Amy. We’re exactly one mortal week from the start of Epic Week last Wednesday (where a Fe-clad man ran amuck alongside one very sassy girl). It is thus fitting that we watch a movie (”Juno”, to be exact, starring Ellen Paige and Michael Cera) today.

I’ve been waiting to see “Juno” with Amy since whenever it came out. I think it was around our January exam period so we never got around to it until now. I’d heard a lot of good (and some bad) about it and wanted to check it out for myself. Ellen Paige I had already seen in “Hard Candy” and I liked her disturbing character in that movie so I was interested in how she’d pull this one off. As for Michael Cera, I’ve enjoyed his performances as a dorky teenager in “Arrested Development” too much to miss out on his (secondary at best) role in this movie.

Without getting any more detailed, the movie was a neat one. I liked how they dealt with the issue of a teenage pregnancy in a fun but not childish way. There were some very tasty messages I got out of it and Amy agreed that it was a mushy one. I rather liked it and the funny bits (even some of the not-meant-to-be-funny bits) were quite a lark.

Anyway, with some minor alterations to our plans, we grabbed a quick pizza lunch and grooved some mushy melodies before heading for the park. The way I’m just breezing over the details, you know it was a chill day. To be honest, there really were no mega-details (well, none I want to divulge here anyway) because it really was just a simple day of enjoying the sun and each other’s company. And enjoy I did. Twas a quiet day on the range, but I have no qualms with our peace and awesome.

This morning, I walked over to my grandma’s to find the garage door broken (presumably from me using yesterday) and so I couldn’t bike to Amy’s as I had hoped. Fiddlesticks. I opted to take the bus down (like most normal mortals, I guess) and got yelled at by a bus driver for getting on the bus. Apparently, people wishing to get off the bus who don’t look like they are going to get off the bus should be treated as if they were getting off the bus even if you had no idea they had any intention whatsoever of getting off the bus. Hey bus driver lady, maybe you should worry more about impeding traffic by driving at your 10 km/h instead of worrying so loudly and unnecessarily about me being discourteous to people I can’t even see. Stellar, really. I was absolutely displeased with that incident on the bus. It’s one thing to admonish someone for being careless, but quite another to berate a stranger about an honest, unpreventable mistake. Oh man, I’m getting angry just thinking about it. When I got off the bus, I thought body-languaging her up, but instead just gave her a dirty look as I proceeded with J-walking. Anyway, liquid nuts to her.

In any case, the original plans for today included making a corsage and a boutonnière for Amy and I out of beads, floral tape, and wiring. When I got there, her father and sister had already left for work and school so only she and her mom were home.

Within minutes of starting a petal for the rose, we realized that it’d be a ridiculous amount of work just for one rose, nevermind the multiple ones we’d need. The beads, it seems, were too small to work for the guide I had found online. We did persist that it’d be not so bad once we got the hang of it but that only lasted until we saw the first two petals (a flower petal by myself and a leaf petal by Amy). Scrunched up petals don’t look nice, and definitely weren’t efficient. Oh no! And prom is in a few days–what to do?

Well, long story short, we went through a few other options (including making the flowers from beads sewn onto fabric, or using dyed coffee filters for the petals) before we settled on making them from tissue paper (the kind used for crafts or stuffing gift bags, not the kind you use for your face). We got working on them, using a wooden skewer for the stem and wrapping nearly everything in floral tape. For lunch, Amy’s mother went to grab us some KFC while we hit up the Flower Shoppe (Victoria Park and Finch) to see how much our last-ditch, failsafe plan of buying two red roses, one for each of us, on the day of prom would cost. After a brief grocery shopping at T&T, we went back to Amy’s place to start a movie and finish the roses (we made three, one long-stemmed and two short).

In a way, today was a meet the family for myself. I had already met Amy’s father (sort of) when he drove us back from Anime North, but I had yet to meet her mother (who was scarier in my imagination than in person) or her sister (who was sillier and shyer). Even though I thought I would have reason to be somewhat nervous, it wasn’t all that bad since her mother was kind, although sometimes unsettlingly quiet with me (I’d expected more questions about myself). As for Amy’s sister, well she was mega-quiet and even took to whispering to Amy. Yes, I have that effect on girls. Even girls way younger than myself and thusly out of my league. *winks and drops dead by popular demand*

Today’s plans deviated even farther from usual date hotspots as Amy and I headed out (after picking up letters from school for Amy and a doctor’s appointment for myself) for the IKEA near Leslie subway station. I don’t remember who suggested it first (though I suspect it was probably me), but we ended up actually browsing through the showrooms at IKEA and having a fun time trying out different pieces of furniture and using any pairs of anything as make-shift bras for me. We also started doodling little animals, including an elephant, a hippo, a pelican, a pidgeon, a giraffe, and  a Pacman, all over random pieces of paper (and even the wooden floor, in the case of  the giraffe) throughout the store. Of course, we didn’t buy any things (apart from replacement lightbulbs for Amy’s lamp) but it was a decent couple hours spent in IKEA fooling around.

After a quick lunch of hot-dogs, we  boarded the shuttle bus back to Leslie station and made our ways home. When I got off the bus near home, I decided since I was already out and it was still early to hit up my grandparents’ place to see what they were up to. On the way there, my grandparents actually got off a bus (returning from a haircut and shopping) at a stop just a bit ahead and on the way. I ran up beside them and helped carry their stuff home. After some chilling, I grabbed the bike and pumped its tires up. Amy had suggested a couple days ago that she would bike from her place to mine eventually. I thought this was a little dubious since she does live many city blocks away and although she does bike a lot, she’s no Olympian. Can you see where I went with this? I grabbed my bike and kicked it into gear, pedaling my way all the way (talk about cutting a long story short) to her front door before turning around and heading right back to my grandma’s. I traveled at a decent but not breakneck pace and the round-trip took about an hour and ten minutes, not bad for my first biking session of the summer.

[before I decided to bike today]

Carl: “I don’t know, it’s a pretty long trip. I’m not sure it’s even possible!”

Amy: “I am thinking it will take maybe… what, 45 minutes?”

“What if you collapse halfway through and can’t get to my place?”

*pretends to look at watch

“‘Man, it’s three. Where are you Amy?!’ Haha, that would suck.”

“Haha, well my pride and ego will prevent that from happening.”

“Very well, whatever pleases you.”

Needless to say, it is indeed possible and not nearly as grueling as I had thought. If I can do it on a smoggy day such as today in jeans without water or even a decent lunch and facing into the gusty wind, I’m more than certain Amy can do it when she attempts it. Yes, I do feel a little bit like a hero for having tested it out so I’m gonna revel in this moment of honourable exhaustion for a bit. Actually, it wasn’t even that tiring but I was sweating pretty bad and getting stiff neck and elbows from the long trip. I know I will sleep well tonight.