When my best friend Lauren moved to China just over a year ago, I knew emails and letters weren’t going to be enough.

So I gave her a stuffed animal Fox in Sox as a going away present with a note saying that whenever something happened that we would have done together, we would bring Fox along and take photographs. Fox would be the stand-in best friend.

So that’s what we did.

Over time it became habit to take our separate Foxes with us just about everywhere, including on swim team picture day.

Over the past year our separate Foxes have gone to numerous places.

Like Australia…

The Great Wall…

…or a museum about sex.

Whenever we see each other, we bring our Foxes and our photographs…

be it in China….

or back here in Michigan.

Our Foxes have made a lot of friends…

real…

fictional…

small…

and unusual.

We have albums filled with photographs of our adventures…

together…

and apart.

This experience has taught me how friendships aren’t always easy. Even more so now with an entire world between us. But sometimes all you need are two red stuffed animals to make a friendship even stronger.

Ooh, I have the snowing effect when I’m posting too! But I’ve no idea why the snow froze (as in, it stopped falling) just as I was about to type this. =.=

Hmm, a lot of things happened, but I have no idea where to start.. Let’s start from last Monday?

—

30/11/09

Went out to get my adapter repaired at Funan. And the person told me that since the guarantee (warranty?) for my laptop was overdue, I should get a new one instead. I’ve no idea whether it’s because it’s more costly to get it repaired or the person just didn’t want to repair it. LOL. And my dad lied to me~ He said buying the new adapter at Funan would be cheaper! (Oh, but come on, they are all Apple retail stores, why on earth would the price be different in the first place?!)

Anyway, so I got a new adapter. And it looks far cooler than my old one.

Went to eat at Pepper Up. Erm, I think that’s the name of the shop? Anyway, it’s at Suntec. Haha. But I still think there wasn’t enough pepper… Maybe I should have added more on my own.

Watched The Informant, which I thought would be a comedy but turned out to be a serious show. O_o They even talked about price fixing! XD What a good application for Econs. But I can’t possibly write this in my essays: “For example, in the movie, The Informant, MNCs collaborated to fix the price…” Darn it. But at least I didn’t sleep in this movie. XD

Bought a new wallet – the long kind from MiniToons. I got one for my mom too, cause it was cute. As in, the design was cute. And I took the gold one while my mom had the silver one. But I’m going to use it next year. Cause even if I used it now, people won’t be able to see it anyway. NO! I meant, my wallet wouldn’t die if I used it until the end of this year, right?

Arghh~ I was supposed to treat DH to his ice-cream and I kept forgetting! Haha, I think he still won’t get the ice-cream by the end of next year. Yeah, that’s a really long time. xP

Oh, and the funny thing was, I kept getting lost at Funan, so I ended up going up and down twice (from the fourth to the third and back again). Well, I’ll treat it as exercise.

—

1/12/09

Guitar practice! For half a day. And almost everyone had to stay back to help teach the year 4s. Heehee. I managed to get XH, though. She really livened up the atmosphere. Why? Because what I do during practice with them (without XH) is like this:

ME: Play.
(Bass section starts playing.)
ME: Okay, you need to improve here and here at this bar, and your rhythm is wrong at this part, oh, and you need to be able to play together. Play with your thumbnail!

And so on and so forth. So it was boring for me and them. Haha.

But Kevin treated us to lunch! O_o The Teppanyaki burger from McDonalds’! Which is really quite expensive (but tasted super nice too~)

Back to the point. For the year 4s’ combined, we ended up having small group practices. Or more like, Sin Hui’s group did. My group (then consisting of Szu Yee, Si Min and I) ended up playing pop songs and Szu Yee started singing while switching tones so that the song sounded funny but still made sense. LOL.

And they kept eating the smelly beans that Kevin brought back from Japan in the room and claimed that it doesn’t stink! When I opened the guitar room, I nearly vomited from the smell. GAHHH~ And they just kept eating (while I kept screaming at them)…

—

2/12/09

Was supposed to go out with my sis but after she asked me, she went to ask her friend and while her friend was undecided, told me to ask XH out. Then after XH said yes and we settled all the details, my sis wondered if I could ditch XH and go out with her instead (cause her friend couldn’t make it). |||-_- Obviously not, right?

So I went to Far East Plaza to shop with XH and bought a dress (yes, a dress, I rarely wear dresses cause there’s no occasion for it, though), and three belts. To think I was actually supposed to buy a vest! >.> And flats. But I forgot all about it and my wallet was completely EMPTY. O_O It’s the second time that’s ever happened in my life.

We had lots of fun trying on clothes though some of the shop assistants were quite scary. We walked into this shop where the shop assistants enthusiastically gave us 4 sets of clothes to try out each. LOL. And they gave me all dresses cause I ended up looking for one. (And yes, XH, I’ll wear a dress the next time we go shopping just to let you see, okay? ^^) The dresses were nice but the price tags were even nicer. ;_; It burnt a hole of $45 in my pocket. Sob.

I’m too lazy to post the picture of the dress I bought. You want to see it? Then let’s go watch a movie or something. But not studying cause it’s uncomfortable to wear nice clothes and study.

And since I didn’t have a suitable belt for the dress I just bought (as well as the one I bought at the beginning of the year but never had the chance to wear), XH and I went on a belt-hunt! I got three belts at $10! Haha! It’s so cheap. Yay! And I ended up giving one to my sis cause I didn’t like vintage belts and my sis had been wanting a butterfly one for a while. Tried to use video call but somehow, it didn’t work for my phone (or maybe hers, but I think it’s mine). And there was this bunch of people talking loudly behind me as I was on the phone and I got a massive headache from that. Yeah, well, more like ear-ache?

By the time I was done with my shopping (and XH just watched me buy things most of the time until she went to buy a long-sleeved blouse from This Fashion), it was raining cats and dogs. Oh, and when we stepped into This Fashion, we took one look and started pointing out Yee Herng-ish clothes. XDDDD Now we see just how lazy she is about buying clothes. Cause Sing Post is near her house and there was a This Fashion outlet there. LOL.

We walked around a bit more and finally decided to go home. And I really had a good exercise. Haha.

I realise that my ending for the day is abrupt. But who cares(:

—

3/12/09

Haha, I actually used forum BB code when I was supposed to use html code to add in the underline for the date. O_o

Back to the story. Guitar practice for the entire day. And I was feeling quite down cause I couldn’t play the new song. I mean, if the chords were those that I was familiar with, it would be easy! But these chords are totally foreign to me. ;_; Plus, I didn’t practice cause I went out with XH the day before. Well, I tried practising at 11pm, but then my dad turned on the television and I didn’t want to disturb him. If I went out to the living room or my room to practise, my sis will probably scold me for practising so late at night. So I didn’t get much practice done. ;_;

After practice, we went to KLP for dinner (at Subway =.=). And quite a lot of them borrowed a guitar home. Since it was raining, everyone decided to stuff all their guitars into Kevin’s car (ahaha) and squash his $12 000 guitar. OMG. The hard case was a lousy one, though. XD Kevin was so happy about his expensive guitar. Oh, and he brought in the guitars that the year 4s were supposed to buy, which reminded me a lot of Pokka’s Milk Tea and Milk Coffee. No, I’m not doing advertising for them. And yes, I do prefer milk tea to coffee. In fact, I HATE coffee. Back to the point. I ended up riding with Kevin and all the guitars in the back cause I’m the QM and I can look after the guitars. LOL. I guess there’s an advantage of being the QM too~

There was apparently the Starbucks free drink day (or whatever it’s called) and everyone went there to get one. For some reason, I was in the queue too though I hate coffee, but good thing they had hot chocolate. And I got to see for the first time, a straw specially made for hot drinks! Cass was commenting that she couldn’t get a lot of the drink from the straw, and I told her to get 5 of the straws and put them all into her mouth at the same time. XD

Oh, and I tried drinking Szu Yee’s iced chocolate (with some coffee) and my face immediately scrunched up. I really can’t understand how people can stand to drink such a strong-tasting, bitter drink which makes my mouth stink for ages and I can’t get rid of the smell. Oh well, to each his own, I guess?

After getting our free drink, we went to Subway (which was just beside Starbucks) for dinner. And yes, we ate sandwiches for dinner. =.= Dawn, Hong Sheng, Yu Leng and Szu Yee got really hyper talking about all the funny things that happened on the Vietnam trip. It seems like they didn’t want to come back. XD And there was this ghost incident. XDDD

Okay, never mind, I’m too tired to talk about that, so let’s just say that after dinner, I took Kevin’s car home (and met my parents at the car park) and rested at home.

—

7/12/09

Decided to go out and study on my own cause I keep getting distracted at home. So I studied and had lunch at Pasir Ris Library’s cafe. I would like to mention that the food was not to my liking. But the Cookies & Cream milkshake was! Sat there from 12 plus until 4pm, when I decided that I should go home after finishing that one page for Chemistry. Heehee. Went to Cotton On to buy my flats but the colours that I wanted didn’t have my size. ;_; I wasn’t about to wear a pair of purple or red and neon pink flats and walk around! Speaking of which, it would be funny if someone bought the purple flats, and wore a neon orange pair of jeans + bright blue t-shirt. Urghh! I was just kidding, the above statement had nothing to do with my actual fashion sense!

So I decided to buy sandals instead since mine was breaking. Erm, yeah. I ended up buying a black pair and a gold pair. Now I just need an opportunity to wear them…

—

8/12/09

I think I’m probably going to cancel the primary school outing cause practically no one is free! So far, only 6 people are confirmed to be going. And out of 38 people, that’s rather sad, and I’d much rather cancel it in that case – cause there’s no point in having 6 people meet up. In fact, I think that less people are going to be able to make it, so it’s better if I cancel it, right?

This post is about two of my close friends. [Disclosure: Both are awesome & both have a bright future. And, I myself look upto them for advice.]

Here I have decided to do a sort of personality post mortem. I am listing 5 of their traits which can be compared. But due to obvious reasons, I shall not disclose their identities. And to those, who eventually do realise who these guys are, it is my humble request to kindly refrain from making any disclosures.

If I say that I have never been judgemental about both of them, then that would be wrong. I have been.  But that is irrelevant. All I want from the readers is to think. To compare and if possible, give their views.

So why do I want to do this? It’s because, I want to know what others feel about these 2 guys. I know a lot about both of them and sometimes try to analyse where both of them are heading. It’s because of this that I have an urge to know what others feel about them. Or you can say that I want to test a new concept called crowd intelligence.

So let’s get to the point.

Let’s call my first friend as F1.

• Believes that he can do anything in life, if he wants. But does not ‘usually’ put in the required effort. But when he does, it’s magical.
• Believes in proper planning & preparation. But when it comes to the execution part, his interest or motivation starts going down.
• Has a good enough job, which he wants to be his last. Wants to start something of his own. But there are also times when he wants to join his dream company; which contradicts his vision of starting his own venture.
• Wants to do many things at a time. This sometimes leads to him doing nothing. But when he does something, it is really class apart.
• Is ready to go to any length to nurture a relationship, even if it is not being reciprocated from the other side. This sometimes leads to, you know what…pain.
• Passionate, different, unsatisfied & questioning [Words that are apt for F1]

Now here is my second friend F2.

• Believes that one can’t get everything in life. So, does not think king size. But he knows what to do in his limited capabilities.
• Knows the power of planning and preparation. But believes that its better to get into action straightaway and then change the plan as per existing circumstances. Is not a firm believer of the concept of detailed planning.
• Has a good enough job, which he wants to be his last. No, he does not want to start any company. He just wants to retire from his present organization when he reaches 60.
• Focuses on one thing at a time and completes it before touching anything else. Does not believe in doing things ‘awesome’ly. Just wants to complete things.
• Is not ready to put much effort into relationships. Believes that relationships grow as they ought to grow and are eventually decided by destiny (God).
• Result oriented, protocolish, satisfied & abiding [Words that are apt for F2]

__________

In the end, I have 3 questions to ask –

1. Is it better to be like my friend F1 or F2 and why?
2. Who is more likely to go higher in life? Assuming lady luck is equally favourable to both of them.
3. Why am I playing the God here? [OK, no need to answer this one]

Dear New Moon,

Let’s do some quick math. There are approximately 8 young men among your characters. Five in the wolfpack, Emmett the vampire, and of course of course the eminently prominent Jacob* and Edward (aka RobPat**). Of those, 7 at one point or another remove their shirts.

Your running time is 2 hrs 1 min, or 121 min. Divided by 7, divided by total time spent by each of those boys on screen, minus the extreme lowness of RobPat’s pants during that one scene (I mean seriously, I wasn’t sure he was wearing pants for a while– do they let him film in the nude in order to get him on set?), plus the amount of time K.Stew spent biting her own lip while looking at the shirtless boys, multiplied by the slope of Taylor Lautner’s neck muscles…

…equals about 92.3% shirtless boy time out of total movie time.

This isn’t a complaint.

WHO AM I KIDDING? I LOVED THIS MOVIE. I laughed and sighed and said, “OH HIGH SCHOOL” more than once. I totally know what it feels like to have a best friend you don’t want to lose who feels more strongly about you than you do him. I totally know what it feels like to wear ugly sweaters and giant raincoats to math class (grew up in Seattle, people. Not that far from Forks). I totally know what it feels like to have go dashing off to Rome at a moment’s notice to save my vampire boyfriend from committing suicide, effectively choosing him over my wolf boyfriend who was finally trying to kiss me and hopefully will not transfigure too close to my face or I will die, and of course they are natural enemies but they both love me even though I am a basically lame girl who is supposedly not that pretty (probably designated as so due to the fact that I have brown hair) and who has no personality whatsoever. I TOTALLY GET IT.

[Ok, on a side note, I actually have heard of grown women leaving their husbands after reading Twilight. Because their marriages didn't measure up to the standard of love presented . (Which is what? The "I would die for you but I can't because I'm immortal" standard? Yeah. That one.) As one trained mental health specialist put it, "I would say they have larger issues than Twilight. I would also question this designation of them as 'grown.'"]

But seriously. Pure trashy fun. Perfect after you have turned in your final, revised poetry portfolios for your first semester in an MFA program***. Entertaining to the ninth degree. And did I mention the shirtlessness?

Yeah. That.

MM

*aka Boy Taylor who is dating Girl Taylor– Swift, that is. We don’t even have to come up with a stupid nickname for them ala Bennifer or Brangelina. They come with it built-in. No batteries necessary.

**aka international heartthrob of girls who like pasty white boys, aka boy who may or may not be dating/doing Kristen Stewart but sweet hell don’t ask the insensitivity of you people always asking questions like she’s a celebrity and this is an interview or something.

***Hello. My name is Margaret Michelle. I am currently getting my MFA in poetry. I also like Twilight. [The views presented here are not condoned by and not in any way shape or form representative of the management, the network, my employers, my professors, my classmates, my friends, my parents, my books, and/or anything that I ever may have touched or spoken to.]

I knew a movie for Father-Son relationships, lovers and family.

But this one is for best friends… a thrilling and a dramatic and sort of exaggerated one but a great movie to see:

Jennifer’s Body

yes.  Megan fox.  An ordinary girl who soon became a monster!!!

The challenge….

>>>>Would you kill your best friend for the sake of all?

……….

Chances are:

- You would regret it!!

- You will end up in a facility

-  You will be like her/him

- You would try to do the last thing for good

OOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPSSSS!!  Major SPOILER!!!

We went to our buddy’s (Patsy) house last night for dinner. After dinner, we played rummy (someone thinks he won). She made one of our favorite dishes, her fantastic enchiladas. So good. Wish you all could have had some, but then we would have had to share. She even sent the leftovers home with us, which reminds me of something.

Do you know what a pain it is to shell butter beans? Well, it takes a while. That’s why the shelled ones always cost so much at the roadside stands in the summer. Five bucks for a little bag. It’s worth it though. Of course, they’re shelled by machine.

Patsy used to grow a garden back in the day. We were all so young then. Don’t know what being young has to do with it, but…

Anyway, they lived in one of those little brick ranchers that were all over the place back in the sixties. Was it all brick? Can’t recall. It had a large back yard that stretched down to….help me….I think there were woods back there, and I also think it was in a flood zone. Is that right? I mean….not the house, but the back part of the yard…maybe. Seems like it flooded back there occasionally. Maybe not.

She used to plant a garden back there, and she grew butter beans in her garden, along with a variety of other things. I was so impressed. It seemed like a lot of work. Then the most wonderful thing happened. She started bringing bags of butter beans to me… are you ready for this…. already shelled. Yes! She would grow them, pick them, shell them and bring them to me in a bag – not zip lock. We didn’t have zip lock bags back then. We did have gasoline powered cars though.

If you love butter beans as much as I do, you know why I’m still talking about it almost forty years later.

Anyway, we had a great time last night. The drive over to her house was a little scary. Ice and snow were falling, and for some unknown reason, I was driving. Some people don’t think that’s such a good idea. They think I don’t see well enough to drive on a rainy/snowy night anymore. I didn’t drive home though. The same someone who thinks I shouldn’t drive at night didn’t want to ride with me, so he drove. I can’t understand it.

Thanks, buddy. We had a great evening, but check that math. I’m pretty sure I won.

Just realized that the last time I spent Christmas with my best friend was in 4th grade, right before she moved away.  This… saddens me.

I told her that she said “Ew, what an awful thing to realize.  I’m so glad God has kept us in each other’s lives.”

So am I.  Everyone should have a friend who never stops believing in them.

Yesterday, I was hanging out with my best friend Tony. We went to his dorm and he signed me in like every Friday. This particular day I saw this guy Harrison from my Acting Techniques class. I said “hey” and smiled really big. No one knows that I have a little bit of a crush on him. I mean no one. So once we get into the elevators Tony turns to me and says “you know that guy?” I was like, “Yeah. I know him from Acting Tech.” I was totally surprised when Tony says to me, “he’s such an asshole.”

I was totally caught off guard and baffled. Harrison has never been an asshole to me and we have always had great conversations. We talk about movies like film students do and we’ve had some pretty intense conversations before. He has never seemed like an asshole to me and I was confused. When we got back to Tony’s dorm he told me my friend Alec, also his roommate, “will agree that he’s an asshole.”

Needless today when Alec got back to the dorm Tony asked him and he exclaimed, “he’s such a fucking deusch.” Wow. I exclaimed that he has never done anything on the long list of things they said about him and what made him an asshole. He’s also been really funny and really cool to me and everyone in Acting Tech. They ended the conversation with “Maybe he’s trying to get with you.” I didn’t wanna talk about it anymore.

I was, because I now had a couple guys point of view, pretty excited on the inside that Harrison might be trying to “get with me,” for the lack of a better term. I would really like to get to know him better.

I did realize that both Alec and Tony can be assholes themselves and I’m sure other people in their classes see them as “the Harrison type.” Oh well. Takes one to know one I guess.

Photo by John Fraissinet via Flickr

When I broke up with the last guy I was dating, I tried to be polite about it. I told him he was nice, cute and fantastic—and he replied with a low blow about my “lack of stability.” Eww. He hurt my feelings, especially since I had tried to be amiable. I reacted by doing what I swore I would never do. I told him all the awful things I’d thought about him over the last month since it first occurred to me that maybe I didn’t want to date a guy who wore white shoes hiking and complained about them getting dirty.

I’m not usually such a bitch, but early on in our discussions, he’d said he didn’t see any point in staying in contact with the girls he dated once he’d broken up with them. So I felt I didn’t have anything to lose. If I’d thought we could be friends, I would have acted differently. Typically, I’m at least friendly, if not friends, with most of the people I’ve dated, a fact that he wasn’t very comfortable with. In his opinion, women are more likely to cheat with an ex because it doesn’t affect their “numbers.” In other words, sleeping with someone you’ve already slept with doesn’t change the number of people you’ve been involved with. I disagree. If I can’t trust the guy I’m dating with his ex, I can’t trust him with anyone. (And if I can’t trust him, I don’t date him.)

While during the relationship, I did find a sense of security in not having to compete with any ex-girlfriends, I realized the reason he didn’t stay in touch with his exes was that he wasn’t really friends with them in the first place. I want a friend as well as a boyfriend, someone who will always be a part of my life even if on the fringes, someone I can trust long after the romantic relationship has crumbled. This last guy I dated didn’t need to be friends with the girls he was dating, because he already had enough friends of both sexes in place to go out to dinner with and do fun activities with. The women he dated seemed simply necessary to take care of his other needs, but not to incorporate into his life, although this wasn’t immediately obvious to me.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to date a guy who was best friends with his ex either. One of my sisters dated a guy who still hung out with his ex-girlfriend, whom he had dated for several years. While the guy was dating my sister, the ex-girlfriend bought him a dog, baked him cakes, and the two of them went to lunch and dinner frequently. This became an area of major contention between him and my sister.

As relationships change, boundaries need to change too. I recently told one ex that if he wanted to continue being friends with me, he had to stop talking about my boobs. I don’t care if he talks about boobs in general, just not mine. Sometimes it takes time to adjust. I didn’t mind flirting with another ex with whom I’d had an amiable split, until I started dating someone else and he was still sending sex texts. He agreed to stop the flirting in favor of preserving our friendship.

On the other hand, just because we are now friends doesn’t mean I want to hear about the sex life of any guy I’ve dated, kissed, or even had a discussion about sleeping with, let alone actually slept with. I will genuinely be happy for him if he’s joyfully dating someone new, or commiserate with his dating failures.  However, when I had a guy I’d had feelings for tell me about the apartment-shaking sex he’d had with a one night stand, it just made me feel dirty and embarrassed.

In the future, I will consider a guy’s relationship with the previous women he’s dated more closely. If he can’t relegate his ex to the backseat, then maybe he’s not ready to move on yet. However, if people come and go too easily from his life, it’s likely that I will be in and out of his life just as quickly and with just as little impact. Ideally, the guy I date will have an amicable, but not inseparable, relationship with most of the people he’s dated. That way, even if the romantic relationship doesn’t work out, like Humphrey Bogart’s character at the end of Casablanca, I can look forward to “the beginning of a very beautiful friendship.”

One of my favorite bloggers, Gala Darling, recently asked a pretty thought provoking question. “Do you believe in Soulmates & what does the word mean to you?”

I feel….conflicted about this. On one hand the idea of Prince Charming sweeping me off my feet to a fairy tale ending is oddly inviting, I know I’m too much of a cynic to really think it would happen (to me at least).

Maybe Soulmates are only for some people, people who are optimistic and shine brightly in your life like sunshine on warm summer mornings. I know people like that and I swear that they see life through some beautiful rose colored prism that casts rainbows over the flaws that makes the world so unbearable.

I don’t want to believe that though. It makes my own future seem that much more bleak and depressing to imagine that I will never end up with that special someone. So maybe everyone does have a Soulmate… but in a different way.

Maybe not every Soulmate is someone you end up with; maybe it’s not even someone you love romantically. Everyone has ex’s they remember fondly, and even those not remembered so fondly still have positive memories mixed with the bad. Memories that when you think of them make you smile, even if your madly in love with someone else.

So if my Soulmate is not someone I end up with, why can’t I say I have lots of Soulmates? People that I meet throughout my life that leave just a smidge of themselves buried inside me. Even if I don’t realize it at the time, I could be standing and laughing with someone who will leave their thumbprint on my life for years to come.

I suddenly feel much better about my future to think this way. The pressure of finding “the one” feels less weighty for a moment, because I’ve already found bits and pieces of my Soulmate in the laughter of my best friend, the warmth of my Grandma’s hugs, the broad smile of a past love. I just need to treasure and remember them when days are dark.

I am sitting down to write this entry for you lovely readers as a break from packing up my room. I’m moving into the room down the hall (with red carpet!) in a few weeks, but I want to save all of the gooey wall-project details and photos (for Michelle, of course, as she always complained about never having wall-project photos. Oh, summer) for then as not to spoil it. And also coz I’m cruel like that.

I am out of here, homiez. It’s 9:20pm, and ever since WriMo ended I’ve been getting addicted to going to bed early again. So I think I’m going to organize my backpack, clear the papers off of my bed, and curl up with a book. And I will talk to you guys later.

PS. Ben! You’re back! Dude, leave your email with your comment next time so I don’t have to talk to you through here. It’s weird. xD

Having Teal and Eryk here was a true blessing. It is Thanksgiving with out the food and Christmas with out the decorations. They arrived on Friday and it has been 7 days from heaven. Of course Teal brought the CA sunshine with her. Saturday was glorious sun and blue skies, which I haven’t seen in literally 3 weeks. It was a perfect day to explore Lindesberg. We walked all over town, by the lake, did pretty much everything to do in Lindesberg . Then we made dinner and had a night at home….Teal couldn’t believe it was only 330 when it was getting dark and got a little stir crazy She was like “this is all you do?!” Hahaha. At least Eryk knows what the darkness here is like, here she can finally sleep in because it seems early when you sleep til noon and it’s still looking like 5am outside. Trickery.

Lindesberg Lake

Lindesberg

After our game in Orebro we explored the town a bit in the rainy drizzle that is November here. Because we have been going non stop with 4 games and 15days straight of volleyball and winning 3 of 4, we have 2 days off So that meant Stockholm for us YAY road trip!!

Orebro

We spent the night at Malin’s as usual, I love her little apartment and comfy couch, after driving all dreary afternoon. We wandered around Sollentuna a bit and planned our day. We then spent literally the whole next day in Stockholm exploring and seeing sights. It wasn’t ideal weather but it was great to see everything and explore.

Exploring Gamla Stan, Stockholm

Absolut Ice Bar, Stockholm

Storkyrka entrance, Stockholm

We wandered around and found our way to most of the big spots. The Palace, City Hall, Gamla Stan area which is pretty much an island and a central area, and the Absolut Ice Bar. We found churches, hidden cafe’s, shops, many bridges, bars, chinese food, the ice bar. We wandered through narrow streets and hidden alleys framed by colorful buildings that seemed to create light in such dark winter weather. It was a perfect day and I wouldn’t have chosen to spend it with anyone else.

(Prepare yourselves for raw thought.)

Who am I to condemn liars? I too have avoided the truth… or at least I did earlier in my life.

I can say, that for quite sometime now, I’ve  tried my absolute damnedest to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. It is because of this, I know the happiness I’ve felt is truer and richer than ever before. Since I’ve been at school, I haven’t lied about anything. I don’t find the need to. Not only have I stayed true to myself, but I’ve also obtained the most amazing friends; the type of friends you concoct as a child.

I’m feeling particularly nostalgic these past few days. A couple of my dearest friends called my last night and today, and with their calls came a wave of both happiness and ache. It warms my heart to know that they take time from their day to check up on me, and ache because I can not wait to go back to the way things were a month ago; to go back home.

Let me elaborate on that word “home” for moment. In a previous post, I reference the movie Garden State and the conversation Braff and Portman have about “home”. He describes it as the combination of feeling safe, content, and loved. Well, my friends, since I’ve been back in Virginia, it’s safe to say that Savannah has become my home. Not necessarily because of the pleasant environment, but because of the people. I’ve grown and thrived academically, artistically, and emotionally, and it’s the friends I’ve made that’re to blame.

I guess the moral of the story is if you live honestly, you’ll live better than ever.

I’d also like to add one more thing,

I think the reason my relationships are so beautiful, is because my companions have been just as truthful as I.