the P.Pole

I think I spend lots of time thinking about things ahead and, more relevantly to this post, things behind. Apparently living in the now was just a passing fad. In that spirit, I present you with…

5 things I would do differently if I got a second chance:

• I would stand up to my grade school librarian/English teacher when she accused me of plagiarizing a creative piece that I wrote about my grandparents’ apartment in Hong Kong in ~Grade 4. I won an award at school and was going to get published in a small-time magazine but then she decided I must have cheated, so she shut it all down without speaking to me. Also, she hated me. Now, I am forever-bitter about this person with no way of getting closure (short of something crazy like tracking her down). SOON.
• I would invest more time and effort into my Chinese school classes. They weren’t a wholly unpleasant experience, but it was very hard for me to remember what had been learnt the weekend before. This is mostly my fault, since I never bothered to review or practice any of my Chinese between Saturday lessons. I’m Chinese, technically, but what good is a chicken if it quacks like a duck? That was not my best literary moment, I’ll admit.
• I would have joined/started a debate club in high school. For someone with my kind of personality, I tend to get into some very confrontational situations. If I had practised my debate skills and rhetoric, I would be able to deal with these sorts of things (in both formal and informal settings) in a more even-handed manner. Right now, I’m learning just how valuable it would be to be diplomatic and assertive at the same time, and how terrible I am at that.
• I would not have brought my copy of Pokémon Blue for the Gameboy (Color) to school. My mom bought this for me as… now that I think about it, probably the only game she has ever bought me, because she knew I liked the games that much. I decided it’d be totally cool to bring my old school, Gameboy ORIGINAL (that’s right, as pictured) to school so that I could play the Pokémons during recess, like the other kids. Little did I know there would be a little thief in my class who would steal my game (leaving the brick-sized Gameboy) right out of my desk when I stepped away from my desk (either for a washroom break or gym class). To this day, I think I know who did it (it’s okay, I loathed them since long before, when they broke all my mechanical pencils like a dickwad…) but I have never had a chance to confront (and beat up) that kid. What would Batman do? Anyway, at least my lasting takeaway from that whole affair was that 1) my mom is the best and 2) take care of the things that are precious to you.
• I would have spent more Saturday mornings with my grandparents at dim sum rather than sleeping off late Friday nights of staying up to play video games. A little over a year ago, my grandfather passed away from a terminal case of bone, liver, and lung cancer at the ripe old age of ~86 (I am bad with dates and it depends on how you’re counting) and so I won’t be having any more meals with him until much, much later (or at least until I meet my untimely demise at the hands of a surly biker in a bar fight or, preferably, while doped up by the dentist who is removing my wisdom teeth this Friday). If I could go back, I’d probably have spent more time chilling out at my grandparents’ place instead of hiding out at my parents’ condo, being solitary me.

Sorry for the downer-post everyone, but such is life (sometimes).

On a lighter note, today I went out for lunch with Chip (a smart, nice, and caring coworker) at Big Smoke Burger (thanks be to Shivon for introducing me to the chain) and had a lovely little talk about work, hobbies, guitars, and business. It’s kind of strange how he and I connected so readily and how coincidental our interests and ways of thinking line up so neatly. He’s definitely one of the few (and probably the best of) friends at work. Chip is also a Christian (as I gleamed from a brief talk about his fellow musicians at church) so maybe that explains the inexplicable bond that sprung up seemingly out of nowhere…. Anyway, he’s a real swell guy and I’m looking forward to the next lunch (and not just because he’s paying next time!).