Goodbye 2010, Goodbye Montreal

I was going to write a long post, reflecting on 2010, thinking about the future, and talking about my upcoming trip, but my brain is pretty fried, so I'll make this short and sweet.

1. Tomorrow I leave for Japan! Craaaaazy! It hasn't sunk in entirely, but I'm sure it will when I wake up at 3 am to head off to the airport!

2. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve! I'll be spending it on a plane, but I hope everyone else will be out partying! So...

3. HAPPY NEW YEAR! And I'll keep in touch when I have a free moment upon arrival :D

Love you all! ♥

Redscale Negative Fun!

I woke up feeling irritated and cranky. I definitely slept enough... but I think that the stress from my upcoming voyage has made me very irritable.

So that being said, let's talk about something that makes me happy: photography!

I don't take nearly as many photos as I would like, but when I do make the time for picture-taking, I'm often happy with the results.

Yesterday I developed my second roll of film used in my Diana Mini camera, and I was really pleasantly surprised with the photos! I used Redscale Negative Film, which was pretty cool! When developing them, I also asked them to print 2 exposures per print, which I think they're supposed to do anyway, but didn't last time I developed them.

So without further ado, here are a couple of my favourite shots :)

If you look closely, you'll notice a couple of booboos. For one, there's a scratch common to every photo I developed from this roll, which means either I placed the film in wrong, or somehow the negatives got scratched when I was rewinding the film. (It totally got jammed when I was trying to rewind it before taking it out...) Another booboo is that all the photos seem to be backwards, which leads me to believe that maybe I did load the film in wrong... Oh well, these things sort of add to the photos' charm, so I'm not upset at all :)

Every roll I develop is a learning process. I still have 2 more redscale rolls and can't wait to load them into my camera and start snapping away again. I think I'll wait till I get to Tokyo, though! I really should be doing more relevant things with my time right now anyways.... (packing, whaat? >__>)

If you'd like to see other photos I've taken with this camera, I encourage you to check out my Flickr set. :)

Antsy is the New Calm

Today I've gone through all kinds of negative emotions.

I officially started organizing things to pack. I went through a good portion of my clothes, placing them into three main piles: Yes, No, Maybe. So far the pile doesn't look too huge, but based on youtube videos my father found, neither does my potential dorm. I knew going into this that my place would be pretty small, but I guess I didn't realize that storing my clothes would become such an issue. Oh well. I'll make do with what I'll have, I guess. Worst case, I'll just store my socks in the extra space in my fridge :P

I've been doing a lot of productive procrastination as well, because I can't sit down in one place right now. For example, instead of packing and organizing, I finally found time to read a third of my KCP Handbook (which I received this summer....), wrote this new movies page, started reviewing my kanji hardcore, and now I'm writing this.

I'm supposed to go to the mall tomorrow to do some last-minute shopping for the trip... but I haven't even made myself a list yet. Eff. Maybe I'll do it early tomorrow morning... knowing me and stress, I won't be able to sleep in later than 8 am anyway... >__>

I know I should feel excited about the upcoming adventure, but I just feel so blah today. I feel antsy and impatient. I feel ignored and unimportant. I feel selfish and guilty. I feel so needy. I feel so behind and so stressed. I have 4 days left and countless things to do. I just wanna roll up into a ball and wake up in my dorm on January 10th, because once I get to Tokyo, I'll just have more stressful things until the move-in.

But that's not possible. I guess I just have to try and stay as positive and motivated as possible these next few days. On the plus side, allow me to introduce you to my new travel buddies :)

I received an excellent piece of luggage from my aunt for Christmas, and I am quite excited to start putting things into it. I named her "Lucy Luggage" and her address tag is "Seymour Fish."

Love, Paranoia, and Other Fun Stuff

I feel unwell.

Part of it is most definitely paranoia. I was informed this morning that an ex-coworker has gastro, and was at work yesterday.... which means that everything that she would have touched was still potentially infected when I went in today. People think I overthink these things, which may be true, but living with a doctor makes you so much more aware of the presence of germs, so let's just say I'm thoroughly freaked out right now.

To make matters worse, my grandmother was for sure sick with either a really bad cold or the flu when I went to see her today. My grandmother comes from 'Old Country', so things like constant hand-washing and soap are not super important practices for her. And when she's preparing all the food to be eaten at Christmas Eve supper, it seems almost impossible to dodge infection.

All this to say, with less than a week until I leave the country, my sickness paranoia is on high-alert.

I also think I'm just super tense. I feel the same kind of tenseness that I did for the first month or so of this semester. As much as I've been trying to convince myself that those constant feelings of sickness and nerves had to do with the stress of planning this now-upcoming Japan trip, I know deep down that that was not the major cause of my morning illnesses.

People talk about love as if it's some sort of wonderful experience, but I'm not so sure about that. I think that it must be, providing the object of one's affection is capable of returning these feelings. Love + Love = More Love. I guess that's the sort of equation that make up most working relationships. But when love is one-sided, it's a lot more tragic an experience. Maybe 'tragic' isn't the right word... 'traumatic' then? Love + No Love = Frustration, Sadness, Disappointment, and all other kinds of unfortunate emotions. Loving someone makes me feel physically sick. I can't sleep. I wake up feeling like I'm going to vomit. I get nervous. I get tense. My body does not know how to react with the message that my brain is giving it.

The sickness sort of subsided after the official rejection something like two months ago, but somehow it seems to be coming back and I don't know what to do. It isn't full-fledged, but in times like right now, when I'm stressed about other things, all I think about is him, and I wonder if these feelings will ever go away. I guess I just really wanted to see him before I left, and I'm starting to realize that that won't be a possibility, and my mind and body have gone into panic mode. To keep myself from breaking down in front of a class full of people, I pretty much ran out of class as fast I as I could that last day, which obviously meant no time for goodbyes. Then he didn't show to my going-away party, so there went that opportunity too.

I don't know why seeing him before I leave is so important to me. I guess I'm just weird like that. And if he ever finds this blog, he'll probably think I'm a grade-A creeper and there would go our friendship too. I don't know why I'm writing this in the first place. Maybe it's because it's Christmas. Maybe it's because I'm leaving. And maybe it's because I'm scared of losing something I never had.

Merry Christmas~!

The year has flown by faster than any other before, and Christmas is upon us once again. I can't say I really had the chance to appreciate all the wonderful things that come with Christmas this year, but one thing's for sure: I am so grateful for all the great people who have been a part of my life this year!

So to all of you reading this, and to those who don't even know this blog exists, thank you for being there for me all year, through all my various ups and downs and I wish you nothing but the best this Christmas!

Merry Christmas, from me and my buddies :D

Goodbyes Part 3: Friends

Yesterday I had my going away party, and I must say, it was quite successful! Lots of people showed up, and I really had a great time! I was really touched by all the people who came out to see me! :) I'm so thankful to have so many nice people in my life! ♥

Beforehand, Akané and I went for supper in Chinatown, which was lots of fun because she's such a fun and nice person to hang out with :) I should have taken some photos of the place we went to, it was really nice! Too bad I had worn such a tight dress... couldn't eat too much lol (and the portions were huuuge for someone like me!)

For the party itself, we went to the St-Sulpice bar on St-Denis, which is a really cool place, because it has different themed rooms. We went to the library, cause we're cool like that XD It's actually the exact same place I had my birthday party. I decided to not drink very much because I had already been drunk once this week, and I really didn't feel like being hungover today. I also didn't want to risk getting sick at the party, and then have to leave before some people showed up. I don't at all regret my decision: I don't need to be drunk to have fun ^^

I guess my only real regret of the night is that I didn't take enough photos. I have so few photos of all of my wonderful friends. I used to take a lot of photos, but as time went on, I realized that when you spend too much time behind the lens, you spend less time in the moment and end up missing out. And because yesterday was the last time I was going to be seeing a lot of people for a long time, I wanted to talk to people as much as possible ^^

I was really surprised that I didn't cry at all last night. I guess it just doesn't seem real yet. As much as some things are sinking in, the fact that I won't be seeing all these wonderful people until many months from now just seems so incomprehensible that I can't seem to grasp that. I guess that's a good thing in a way, it made the night less sad.

To conclude: I love you all and thanks for everything yesterday! Hugs and kisses and more hugs to everyone ♥

In other news, I'm completely in love with the wonderful nail polish that Akané bought me!! It's so pretty! And the bottle is pretty too! And it smells like roses~~!

The photo doesn't really do the colour justice. It's a little more pink than in the photo, and sorta sparkly and just wonderful! And now a photo of the the most awesome bottle:

Thank you Akané-saaaaaaaan~! ♥

Busy Week & Goodbyes Part 2: Work

The last two weeks have been sooo busy!

For one, I did a 10-day work marathon. It's not the longest work marathon I've ever done, but because I'm moving away in 11 days, I have so much to do, my stress level was pretty much through the roof. More questions keep appearing, which means more phone calls to make, more visits to the bank, and more confusion.

But that's besides the point! I had all kinds of fun social interactions this week! I went out for desserts with Akané on Wednesday, Cora with MF, Francis and James on Friday, and cookies with Allison and my work party yesterday. It was so nice seeing everyone this week, because these are all people I barely ever see, so it was nice to have somewhat intimate hangouts one last time ^^.

Today was my last day at work. It was really emotionally hard. I mean, I was expecting that, but still. I cried so much and in front of so many people. I was teary-eyed and voice-crackly with customers too... Between the hangover headache I woke up with, the fact that I'm on my period, the lack of sleep I've been getting, and the amount I cried today, I had such a huge headache and actually left work a bit early.

It's definitely weird to be leaving, because I've worked at this job for four and a half years, and my co-workers are pretty much family. But because of this, I know that we'll all see each other in the future. I'm so happy that I had the opportunity to work at such a great place with such great people! We have a breakfast on Friday morning, which for sure means more tears, but oh well. Such is life, I guess ^^; Gotta be thankful for small miracles, like waterproof make-up ^^

Tomorrow is my going-away party! I hope I won't cry too much ^^;