I don't even know how to start.

Missi - voted "Ms. Vet School 2013" from our class - is gone. It's beyond heartbreaking. Of course people are not always as they present, but she was such a sunny, bubbly personality in class. I sat behind her for three years in lecture and she was always bright and good-natured, laughing and making jokes with her seatmates, open and friendly to everyone. She seemed so happy.

It seems like postpartum depression may have been a large component. When Joy told me about what happened with her baby, I was heartbroken for Missi. I can only imagine what led her to feel she had to do what she did. I can't imagine the pain of living with the reality of that action. When Joy shared the update yesterday that she seemed to be doing well, I was so relieved to hear that. I am devastated to learn that Missi had passed away one day earlier.

I know there are so many more factors to it, but it is hard not to look at my reality of the four people I've known who have lost their lives to mental health issues/depression being in the veterinary field.

Feeling guilty on Christmas Eve.

My parents are out of town living their retirement dreams in Bali at the moment. I don't begrudge them their travel at this stage of their lives - my dad has really started to show signs of his age over the pandemic and I want him to enjoy travel and the retirement that he deserves. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed to be spending Christmas alone for the third year in a row (thanks for nothing, Covid!) Being an only child with no cousins who I'm close to, and being a single woman, the reality of an "orphan Christmas" in my future is very real and a little frightening. I am an introvert - yes - but the thought of being truly "alone" is disheartening, to say the least.

When a friend and her family very kindly invited me to join in on their Christmas dinner, I was relieved and grateful to accept it. To participate in someone else's warm and loving holiday dinner and fun is certainly much more enticing than spending it at home with my Korean take-out and only my (beloved!) cat for company. I have been looking forward to it and have been happy to share with co-workers and friends that I will not be alone for Christmas! Someone wants me to be a part of theirs! Isn't that great?

In the meantime, I have been performing my filial duties by driving to my uncle's house to shovel snow. It's a corner lot, which means extra sidewalk and back laneway to shovel. It has three decks, which means another extra hour. Every year when it snows, I tell my mom completely truthfully that I hate having to shovel this house and that I wish they'd sell it. With my grandparents' passing, there is now no longer a "family" that occupies it. My single, technically elderly uncle lives there alone. He does not cook, he does not clean, and he truly does not need a three-bedroom free-standing home all to himself, particularly in the current housing climate in this city. I would begrudge him less if he made any effort to learn these life-skills, but having been taken care of by his mother, then his wife, then his mother again, and now my parents, it's likely too late. It doesn't help that I have a complicated relationship with him, frustrated that as I grew older his treatment of me did not adjust accordingly. He is argumentative for the sake of "winning" debates that no one is interested in engaging in. Even when I have begged out of these unwanted debates, he does not relent until I have truly lost my cool, and then he plays the victim to my mom, because why would he deserve such an outburst like that? This was before the emotional meltdown I had at him over my grandmother and his refusal to accept her diagnosis of dementia. It has only gotten worse since then.

So yes, there is unfortunately a lot of resentment felt when I have to go over and shovel out the house he refuses to sell. And why does he refuse to sell it? Because - purportedly - he is keeping it to pass on to my cousin. My cousin who walked away from the family while I was in my first year of veterinary school. My cousin who reportedly has depression and is probably not doing anything to treat it. My cousin who is a widow at the age of 47 after just under 10 years of marriage to a woman who steadfastly refused to believe in the medical system and so passed away from breast cancer despite knowing her sister had been diagnosed with it (and survived with treatment) and finding a lump in her breast two years ago. My cousin who is - most pointedly - not here to live in and take care of this house.

A lot of complicated feelings.

Anyway, I shoveled out the house three times. Ryan (my mom's "kid" as I call him) also showed up twice, and my friend Lisa helped out once. I am ashamed to say that I am outwardly cold to my uncle, but it's almost a defense mechanism. If I don't engage with him, he doesn't have the opportunity to provoke me into one of his stupid "debates". My mood significantly improved with the appearance of my friend, but quickly soured when I introduced her as "my friend from Trek" (a high school outdoor program we both attended) and my uncle responded "But you weren't in Trek". Not a question, not asking for clarification about whether I had been in Trek and he had forgotten. He was so certain that he was right that he argued with me about my own life, even when I tried to correct him and laugh it off. 

He invited me to stay for dinner, after having made Ryan drive across Vancouver in the cold and ice to deliver it to him. I declined.

When it snowed again on Friday, I had to shovel my way out of my apartment building (with another exercise in frustration with an old man) and asked my uncle NOT to shovel and to try calling 311 to see if they could organize a volunteer for him. He - of course - didn't listen. When I showed up he had cleared part of the sidewalk. And while I should be, I don't know, grateful?, that he did something on his own, I was more peeved that he could have injured himself and that could have resulted in a visit to the doctor or the ER and for me to "take care" of him. But I finished the rest of the sidewalks while he trailed me telling me how I was obviously doing "the easier stuff" that people had walked on. I finished the front path, the stairs, then moved to go into the house to do the porches. He told me not to do them.

Charitably, I know that it's his way of trying to be kind. He doesn't want me to do more than I need to. But in my mind, I am already here. I have made the drive out to shovel the house out and his not been easy. The drive back to my apartment will not be fun. If I am here, I might as well do things right and prevent the likelihood of my needing to return in icy conditions. The snow today is heavy, I explain. Freezing rain is in the forecast, which can make things worse. If we don't clear the snow and ice, the drains could get clogged and we could have issues with flooding. He tells me I'm wrong and everything will just melt. Exasperatedly, I tell him it's his house so he can do whatever he wants then.

I move on to start shoveling out the back laneway and he tries to stop me again. I explain that to safely LEAVE, I need to shovel this out as I do not plan to ping-pong down the icy death-trap that is the completely untouched back and side streets in this neighbourhood. I also point out that if he is planning to leave the house (which I had strongly recommended he not do), he will need this area shoveled as well, as does the rest of the people who live on this block. Finally, I note that it had already been cleared on the Tuesday when I came by, which means that the neighbour behind us had probably done it the previous days, and doesn't Jeff deserve a break too? My uncle tries to argue that Jeff doesn't have to shovel as much since he doesn't live on a corner lot, as if I didn't already know that having shoveled three times.

When I was finally done, my uncle asked me what my plans are for Christmas. I froze for a second, my mind racing through "he might want me to spend it with him" and "I should probably offer to spend it with him" and "I really do not want to spend Christmas with him". I have plans already, that are going to be fun and warm and happy. If I spend Christmas with my uncle, I have no idea what we'll eat (I haven't cooked for him since he ate ALL the curry I made for him once, leaving no lunch for me, and then turned around and complained to me about my cooking), and I know it will not be a fun and warm and happy time. I quickly tell him I have been invited to a friend's family dinner that I am planning to attend. I am needlessly brusque when he presents me with a $100 gift card to the mall again. I don't shop often, I don't need things, and these cards collect dust in my apartment. I tell him I appreciate the gesture, but please don't get me anything anymore, I don't need it. He has the grace to smile and tell me to gift it to someone who does then. I wish him a Merry Christmas, tell him to be safe, and leave.

My mom tells me people say I'm a "good kid" for shovelling the snow for him. I tell her how actively resentful I am for having to do it. That resentment is actively growing every year, I can feel it.

My friend Meghan texts me and I mention that I've had to go shovel at my uncle's house that day.

Meghan: Did you see Malcolm?
Me: I'm not aware that he's in town
Meghan: He told me he was coming for the holidays
Me: First I've heard of it
Meghan: That would be weird if he came and didn't tell your uncle and mom?
Me: I mean, it's possible they just haven't told me. And my mom is in Bali anyway
Meghan: He said he was coming the 21st
Me: Maybe his flight got cancelled. Anyway, I have no idea

I hate how emotionally riled up I immediately become with any mention of my cousin. I think it's the same defense mechanism I use with my uncle, I have to not care because I've felt so hurt and I don't want to be in that state again. But immediately, the possibility that he is in town and either 1) my mother has purposely not made me aware of it or 2) my mother is not aware of it herself is upsetting to me, particularly with everything she has done for him this year. The third possibility (he is not in town and lied to my friend) seems less likely.  So! My feelings about having to shovel this house have become significantly more resentful.

Today, Meghan showed up to return my Harry Potter want and drop off some cookies. She pointedly asked if I would spend time with my uncle. As someone who has complicated relationships with her own immediate family, I'm surprised that she would care. I tell her that no, I'm going to a friend's place for Christmas instead. When she asks why, I tell her that I have made the choice not to be actively miserable on Christmas. My uncle and I are not a point where we enjoy each other's company anymore, and I don't want to spend my Christmas arguing with him and increasing my already growing resentment towards him.

But, of course, now I feel guilty.

Maybe there's no reason for it. Perhaps Malcolm is in town and he can spend Christmas with his son and they can try not making each other miserable. There's a possibility he could spend it with his on-again-off-again girlfriend of some twenty-odd years and her daughters. I would have absolutely hated spending time with her, that's for certain. She shares that same unearned, self-assured smugness that I dislike so much in my uncle. The two of them together is almost unbearable.

God, I hate that it is always my family (my uncle and my cousin and my dearly departed grandma) that always drive me to needing more therapy. It's not an expense that I really want to pay for, but I think if things keep spiraling in my head like this, I'll have to consider it.

But hey, I have Disneyland in January. Maybe if I hold out until then, that infuriatingly effective Disney Magic can fix me instead.

Sometimes I have to remind myself:

a) Just because my feelings are hurt does not necessarily mean circumstances have anything to do with me
b) If prioritizing something extracurricular brings me more stress and upset than positive feelings, then I probably should consider re-evaluating it's importance to me

I will still give myself room to have and experience these feelings, I am only human after all! But I should be able to let it go after that. Leaving it to fester has never and will never be productive.

Like many of my misguided opinions in life, I've often thought of Hong Kong cinema as somehow universally "beneath" that of the Western world based on my very limited exposure as a child. I remember experiencing no small amount of shock that after having seen The Departed in theatres with friends and Infernal Affairs at home - two vastly different takes on the cat-and-mouse game between moles in the police and local crime gang - I had much preferred the latter despite it's slight over-commitment to melodrama and three paper-thin female characters. The acting choices and expressive face of Tony Leung Chiu Wai particularly drew me in. "Wow", I thought, "There are talented people making movies in Hong Kong afterall."

This didn't mean I started watching a plethora of Hong Kong features afterwards. It was hard to find any in the rapidly dying Blockbusters, the bootleg DVDs in the tiny, cramped shops of Chinese strip malls in Richmond could not be trusted to have reliable and accurate subtitles, and trying to find an active torrent seemed an impossibility. Besides, where would I even start? My parents are hardly cinephiles and I didn't have a friend-group or community to glean recommendations from. I made a point to drag my mother out to any release that featured Chinese actors or stories heavily - even sitting through the very uncomfortable sex scenes in Lust, Caution in theatres with her - but that was the extent of it. Unsurprisingly, I gravitated towards films that focused on the experience of second-generation immigrants and their experiences, including but not limited to Saving Face, My Wedding and Other Secrets, Double Happiness, Crazy Rich Asians, and The Farewell.


Today, in an attempt to have a better appreciation for Tony Leung's immense talents and charisma while not feeling comfortable enough to brave the cinemas for Marvel's newest installment -  Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - I sought out a way to watch the much lauded In the Mood for Love instead. Glory Hallelujah but streaming sites (legitimate or not) have made it so much easier to access more obscure titles, and once I found a link for this movie I jumped on it. It was as visually gorgeous and lush and as emotionally wrought and mildly devastating as I have read about for many (many, many, many) years. I knew of course that for Tony Leung this is a performance that is widely noted as career-defining, having won him the acting award at Cannes. And he was as captivating as expected - much is made of his expressive eyes and it cannot be emphasized enough how incredibly true and accurate all of those plaudits really are. If anyone has a particularly effective longing smolder for the camera, it's him (the last scene in the movie and everything leading up to the culmination of it, ugh). What I didn't expect was how much more this is Maggie Leung's movie, how quietly heartbreaking she is in a way that his character is not quite. Seeing her on her lonely nightly sojourn for noodles, sitting and watching others play mahjong with polite (dis)interest, covering for her boss and his own infidelity, contemplating on how complicated marriage is and the contentment of being single and alone, worrying about the morality of the situation and what the neighbours will think as she seeks emotional comfort from the one person she knows understands her own hurt...

I expected even less to be so emotionally impacted by the Shanghainese influences peppered throughout the movie. The dialect of the landlady and the elderly house attendant, the clothing, the hair, the architecture and personality of the narrow building and the rain-soaked streets, the anxiety about the imminent political changes. These are my maternal grandparents' people in the city my mother grew up in. This time and place - in some ways - has a part in the history of my family roots that I have not seen demonstrated before because I've never gone looking for it.

Perhaps In the Mood for Love was a melancholy way to spend an afternoon, all in the pursuit of staring into Tony Leung's dreamboat gaze. But it turned out to be emotionally productive, one way or another.

(ETA: A summary of our family history as a result of my rekindled Tony Leung infatuation.)

Me: I'm going to donate my hair!

Some People: aRe yOu SuRe YoUr HaIr Is LoNg EnOuGh To Do ThAt?

First-world whining for sure, but frustrating nonetheless! As if this wasn't something I put a lot of thought and research into already!

Sometimes when I need something playing in the background, I'll hop into a 24/7 Anthony Bourdain Twitch channel. I watched his Azores episode, and when he comments along the lines of "luckily, this food is so good that I won't be going back to my lonely hotel room to hang myself in the shower"... oof. I physically flinched and my stomach just sort of dropped. That one still hurts.

I took a break and then came back to a Melbourne episode. Interesting how I can occasionally feel such strong pangs of homesickness for a place I only lived in for 4 years and admittedly did not explore to its full capacity. But seeing the familiar architecture of the city and its neighbourhoods, and particularly the footage of Queen Victoria Market - where I went for groceries weekly for two years - gives me a kind of ache I don't feel for anywhere else except Vancouver.

There are times where I am very tired and very sad and can feel myself becoming a less pleasant, sympathetic, and accommodating person. I will always remember a friend telling me in university that "maybe this is the real you after all" and how terrible that made me feel. But maybe she was right. As noted in the movie "Parasite", being nice is easy when your life is easy, so maybe underneath it all, I am not. If you have to make the choice to be nice, it's not really the same as really being nice, is it?

Also. Maybe I need a vacation.

I feel like I've failed my friends and their pets.

The circumstances around COVID-19 has sapped me (along with much of the world) of a lot of energy and ambition. There are many things I've been wanting to write about in this journal that I haven't been able to bring myself to sit down and try to pull together into a more manageable state.

So - once again - I turn to the highs and lows of D&D.

Today we (hopefully!) concluded Praxana's major backstory arc. I joked that Veit Copperlark was her very own "Princess Peach" - unfortunately plucked out of their grasp right back into mortal peril every time they thought they'd pulled him out of danger. While I generally play Praxana as quite brash and confident in most situations, the absolute terror of possibly losing her dad again after decades of him being MIA absolutely paralyzed me. I couldn't bear for him to die because I knew that she wouldn't be able to handle it. Praxana knew how absolutely devastating that would be, how much it affected her world-view. At one point she had pulled another party member - Zanner - aside, admonishing him for his reckless actions in battles that endangered both himself and others. She didn't want him dying for her family's problems, especially knowing that he had his own quest to find his missing wife. "I've been a bard long enough to know stories like ours more often than not end in tragedies," she told him, "But I'm banking on things being different from us. I want us to have happy endings."

In today's battle, the wits and efforts of my friends in-and-out-of-game absolutely saved my fake dad's life. A brilliant move by John's character - a frog-like wizard - got Veit out of the villain's grasp and the party absolutely decimated the bone devil that was after him. An unlucky (or poorly planned on my part!) sequence of event resulted in Veit suffering so much damage that he had two failed death saving throws and when he rolled an absolutely abysmal "4" on his third death saving throw, I was panicking. Luckily, having placed Praxana close to Veit and by the good graces of our DM, I was able to give Veit my "inspiration" for the game to re-roll, and with a "19" he had managed not to die.

I actually shed a few small tears and had to hide my face because I was so relieved about an imaginary character in our make-believe game.

In any case, this was about as much of a "good end" as we could have had, jumping feet first into a hellscape and escaping with none of our party dead with a hundred or so prisoners released. Sure, some decisions we've made are likely to come and bite us in the ass later, but for now Praxana and her family are alive, no one had to make any major sacrifices, and now she has a possible spell-induced proposal from a dwarven prince????

Ah, D&D!

Had such a fun time yesterday with D&D getting to play Cst. Huxley an anti-social, sarcastic bookworm who also happens to be a fighter. It was fun to banter with the Sergeant whom she didn't quite respect the way she should and display a total lack of disinterest in most people.

It was also fun hopping back into the comfortable shoes of Praxana and immediately emotionally terrorizing her charismatic and shifty younger brother when it looked like a quest for a lost father was actually going to be some sort of crazy heist for his own purposes. It made me laugh when - after going to a "private room" to work out this issue - everyone else was joking about how expressive we had looked in our brief interaction where Praxana rolled a 20 on intimidation and did her best to make her little brother pee his pants in fear.

Ah, D&D!

When do you end a friendship?

When someone is taking advantage of you?

When there are irreconcilable differences in morality?

When you no longer share anything in common?

I have mostly been lucky in life - aside from a few bumpy patches - to have good friends in my life. At a (very) young age I was guileless enough to be charming and had two very best friends in pre-kindergarten and as good a social-standing as you can have at that age of 4. Moving away to the other side of the country in the early 90's meant the end of those friendships; at such a young age with no easy way to keep in contact and likely would not have been worth the effort. I found myself in precarious social-standing at my new school in Vancouver, being one of the very few Asian children, but found myself two new very best friends for the year and we became our own little misfit trio. But in the days of elementary school, your friendships were very strongly dictated by who you shared a classroom with, and so friendships started and faded every year.

High school was tricky in the first year, when one of my very best friends from elementary school suddenly decided she didn't like me anymore. I was baffled and hurt and incredibly lonely that first year. I remember being left to watch a circle of various belongings - backpacks, lunchboxes, etc - as members of my "friend group" each peeled away to leave me there alone, pointedly not inviting me to join them. I felt like a social pariah until Elaine unceremoniously breezed into my life and decided we should be friends. She is my Best Bud Forever to this very day and I will never forget how in that one act, she probably single-handedly saved my high school experience.

I came away with a few new strong friendships in university and had cemented some existing ones into what I expect to be life-long friendships. Vet school brought more of the same, and I walked away from my time in Melbourne with some friendships that would have made the whole experience worthwhile even if nothing else had come from it. I will never forget the feeling of loss when I left Melbourne, that things would never be like this again. I will never forgot how Joy immediately started sobbing and how loved I felt in that moment.

As my mother often says, "I count my blessings" with the people in my life now. I am very lucky to have good friends who I know care for me and will go out of their way to show it. Now more than ever, I appreciate those who've taken the time to check in on me in the midst of this pandemic. One group of friends and I joke about investing in a mansion together in our old age and hiring a caretaker to tend to our fragile, crotchety selves.

I've had my share of friendships that fizzle out, as we all do. Life gets in the way, schedules and commitments make it difficult to connect, and sometimes people just naturally grow apart. There are some people that I am not in close, continuous contact with, but I know if I was ever in need of help that they would provide it without question, and vice versa. There are people I think fondly of, but have not spoken to in many, many years. Facebook - while not without its problems - enables me to keep up-to-date with some people in small ways. It makes us feel connected even when we are ostensibly not really involved in each other's lives.

And then, I have had some friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years though. I have garnered a bit of a reputation for being nice and patient, but what many of my close friends know is that I have a long memory and the unfortunate habit of holding a grudge. I can let little things lie, but when "infractions" increasingly pile on, my patience can start to wear thin, given enough time and incidents. When someone manages to cross beyond my "tolerance" threshold, I find that I am often unable to cross back over and will actively stop prioritizing that person in my life. It is not an admirable trait and it's one that I have tried to curb, by learning to speak up sooner than later about things that make me uncomfortable or unhappy. 

It is interesting that most of the friendships I have chosen to "end" in recent years have been with men. One was a newer friend I'd made in Australia, a guy in the army who I ran into at a pop culture convention and we bonded over our shared love for Battlestar Galactica. He was fun-loving and outgoing and the kind of geeky friend I needed in this new environment. But we increasingly fought over a number of things (even joking about our friendship-break-ups) as we clearly had numerous different values and outlooks on various topics. Where I lost my patience was the time he point-blank told me that being stressed over my final exams in vet school was small potatoes compared to being pregnant and going through childbirth, so I should learn to handle it better. I was further pushed over the edge when he posted that only those of a certain body-type should be allowed to participate in cosplay at conventions, as the "non-ideal body-types" in costume disgusted him. There was such a heavy layer of misogyny and privilege underlying his happy-go-lucky exterior. How could I be friends with someone like that? 

Deciding to "end" a friendship with someone I've known since high school was tougher. But I'd put up with over a decade of him showing up 1-3 hours late, which became increasingly hard to interpret as anything but a blatant disrespect for my time over his. He would only call when he needed to purchase food for his dog and then would expect me to be available to personally deliver it to him at all hours, regardless of my own schedule and commitments. He would cancel plans at the very last minute, forget to show up for things he had arranged, and would rely on others to pay for his meals. He was never able to step outside himself and consider other people, something that was frustrating in a teenager and intolerable in an adult. The last straw for me was when he wanted a last minute delivery of a large bag of dog food, and then was unable to pick it up from me because he had an "emergency situation" where he had forgotten to renew his passport ahead of his trip to Asia the next day. He had once sent me to deliver food to his house before, swearing to me that he had called home to ensure someone was there to open the door and take the food. They weren't. Needless to say, the dog food stayed with me until his return and then I told him in no uncertain terms that I no longer had time to be his delivery person and the he needed to find his own source of dog food.

I am now struggling with someone I have considered a close friend in the past few years. By virtue of us both being single, we had become food buddies and hung out quite a bit as a result. It had been clear that we do not see eye-to-eye on many topics (I had said that if he still wanted to be friends, then politics was off the table because we disagreed on so many things) but overall he has been a kind, caring, and generous friend. When he wanted to adopt a senior dog, I was wary and told him so, but since he had a regular 9-5 job now, he felt up to the task. Then he want back to his old job of jet-setting around the world and working odd hours, leaving his senior dog in the care of his neighbour for months at a time. When he didn't show for an appointment he'd booked for his dog, I called him and he told me he was at the pharmacy and was running late. We booked another appointment and I called him fifteen minutes prior to remind him of the appointment. He told me he wouldn't be able to make it, that he was caught in a work emergency and I told him how upset I was that he was not only disrespecting my professional time, but he was actively taking away an appointment spot that we could have given to a sick patient. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he did not show up for the third appointment, that it would be a mark against our friendship. After being away for a few months, he flew back into Vancouver right as the 14 day self-isolation recommendations were announced by the government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out a plea for someone to deliver toilet paper to him, which I did. I was anxious, going into a high-rise and therefore high-occupancy building, but I did it because he's my friend. When he noted that his dog had been vomiting and no one was able or willing to bring him to the clinic to be seen, I offered to pick up his dog in the morning before my shift. He told me I had to call his neighbour, and I told him I was not comfortable calling someone I didn't know to try and pick up his dog, especially that early in the morning. This was his dog and therefore his responsibility, and I was doing him a favour. He begrudgingly agreed. When I dropped his dog off at his apartment that evening, he had a cleaning lady in his apartment. Despite the self-isolation recommendation, despite the fact that I had - on two occasions - put myself in a position that was scary at that time to help him, he had broken the self-isolation rules for his own purposes. I went home and cried to my mother on the phone. When I received the labwork results for his dog (they were all within normal), I reported them, ensured the dog was doing okay, and then I reamed him out for being irresponsible in breaking his quarantine. When he lamely argued that his cleaning lady had told him it was fine, I was even more upset that he refused to take responsibility for his part, that he was pushing it onto her, someone who needed to make a living when I know it is fully within his capability to pay her and ask her to come back when his quarantine was over. I told him that taking these unnecessary and selfish risks was putting people like my parents in danger. When his dog became ill again, he would text me later at night to tell me his dog had been sick all day, when I was already at home and could not do anything about it. Despite my personal frustrations with him, I felt badly about Frank and the situation; it's not easy to have a sick pet. When he made the decision to euthanize, I met them in the parking lot because our protocols prevented me from being in the hospital when I wasn't at work. I told him to call me if he needed to talk about his grief over Frank's loss. However, I was still not at the stage where I was comfortable with him as a friend anymore, especially with his purposely inflammatory posts on Facebook during the pandemic. It is reaching the stage where I question whether our differences in values and morality are at the stage where continuing the friendship is no longer viable. I was hoping tincture of time would let my emotions about my various grievances settle down, but his actions continue to fan the flames and I wonder if it's worth it. I'm starting to think it's not.

Wanting to watch the second season of My Brilliant Friend, I was faced with the reality that the only way to do so was to shell out the extra money for the HBO and movies package. "Fine," I thought, "I'll just have to make sure I make the most of it for the one month that I decide to continue with the subscription. 

(Spoilers: I did not, and have yet to cancel the subscription.)

I loaded "My List" with a number of different movies and shows from this fancy new package that I wanted to prioritize, and to my credit I watched maybe... three of the movies in the first month? That has to count for something, when you take into consideration that My Brilliant Friend is eight one-hour episodes. I didn't add that many other series - I'm sometimes a bit leery of making that kind of commitment because so often it doesn't pan out. But when Anna Kendrick's face popped up on a poster advertising Love Life, I thought, "Sure, why not? She's aggressively likable, right?"


While I would hesitate to say I'm a rom-com person, I do like rooting for cute or intense or "obviously-meant-to-be" relationships. And as I've noted before, I do appreciate when relationships are portrayed in a way that emphasizes how much work needs to be put into them sometimes, the ups-and-downs. Love Life is... fine. For a person like me - a shy, square, and risk-adverse introvert who has only had two serious relationships, and that is a miracle in and of itself - I certainly can't relate to everything Darby goes through. But there were moments that made me remember the giddy feeling of beginning to love someone, the isolation and loneliness of break-ups, the sheer "how the fuck did I get here" feeling when someone turns out not to be what you thought and threatens to kill themselves when you try to leave. 

Yup, that happened.

The episodes that hit me most were the ones that explored Darby's relationship with her mother and best friend. While they were some of the more melancholy entries in the series, I appreciated that they did emphasize the importance of non-romantic relationships and how they can affect our lives, how things can change; they can be healed and they can just as easily be broken.

The whole reason I'm making this entry though is really to document this one thing, this one fragment of such strong emotion I experienced in these "unprecedented time", unrelated to any of the romance mumbo-jumbo. It was Darby going to see Hamilton with an old high school flame at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Seeing the crush of people lined up to get into the theatre, seeing the merchandising booth and Darby giddy with anticipation, seeing "The Room Where It Happens" packed with excited theatre-goers... it gave me goosebumps. I was there four years ago in that exact location, feeling that same giddiness, surrounded by complete strangers who shared in the anticipation. I almost teared up at the scene, thinking about how it was both an extraordinary but still normal experience, and how returning to that "normalcy" is so far away. It was absolutely a feeling of mourning.

Oof.

Back to the romantic side of things though, the narrator with her soothing British accent announces early on that the average person has seven relationships before they find "the one". Watching this show is making me realize this may never happen for me. I joke that I take it as a sign that COVID-19 hit just as I had re-installed a dating app on my phone and was actively making an effort to try and meet new people, if only because I felt stable and happy and like myself again. But COVID-19 makes that nearly impossible, and I am not going to jeopardize my own health, the health of my co-workers, the health of my friends and family, etc to try and meet "the one". On the one hand, I have never really prioritized romantic relationships and I am not the kind of person to put myself "out there". I have said on many occasions (and truly believe) that I have never been miserable they way I am when a relationship is going south vs when I'm single. I am comfortable with my own company - and that of my cat, of course - though I may find it a little boring. But I am not unhappy.

I don't know if that's enough, but for now it will have to be.

We lost another classmate today.

While I don't know the circumstances exactly, we know that our classmate was in the ICU and was essentially declared brain-dead. His family made the decision to honour his wishes and will to donate his organs. His wife wanted us to know that he had struggled with depression for years and she had the unparalleled grace to worry about how we - his classmates - would accept the news about his loss.

When I saw the news posted on our Facebook page by a classmate I am particularly fond of, I burst into tears at work. I couldn't help sobbing and was somewhat relieved I was alone when I found out and took ten minutes to myself before seeking out a hug for comfort. One of my bosses asked if we were close and I had to say that while he wasn't a close friend, our class had been as close as 120 people can be. We saw each other on an almost daily basis for 4 years of our lives. We exchanged pleasantries, helped each other with assignments and studying, and celebrated our veterinary milestones together.

I wasn't particularly close to Julian through vet school, but I do remember that he was one of the first people I met during our Orientation Week and the feeling of mutual relief that we were not the only ones over the age of 21. He was soft-spoken, gentle, and funny, and I remember his very clear affection when talking about his then-girlfriend and their shared cats. I remember the tight-knit friendship that developed between him, Atsuko, and Rosanna and how they often were found together.

I will admit that I was somewhat alienated by how strongly vocal he became after transitioning to a vegan outlook. But as combative and inflammatory as he was online, he continued to be the soft-spoken, gentle classmate in-person. I understand that he wanted to speak for those he recognized as voiceless, and wanted our animal charges across the board to be afforded the same protection and dignity.

I cannot imagine what his loved ones are going through. I only know that I feel his loss the same way I did with Flynn. When my co-workers kindly asked how I was doing, if my class seemed to be coping okay, I said "The last time this happened..." and then stopped and sighed as the meaning of those words started to sink in.

I hope very much that Julian has found his peace.

I've written a little bit about the lack of Asian representation in Western media and its effect on me as an Asian-Canadian. Well, here are some resources I want to have for the future: 

Well.

The past 2.5 months has been a time that will be difficult to forget, and it looks like we are in for more of the same. I don't really feel like waxing poetic on the subject. It's simple. We are experiencing a pandemic that has changed many aspects of everyone's lives. I am lucky. I have a job and a steady income. I work with people I like and the fact that we are split into two separate teams to keep the clinic running makes us sad. I miss these people, their faces, their thoughts, and their conversations. We organized an "ice cream anti-social" yesterday, where we saw each other for the first time in 2 months, separated by a six foot space marked by masking tape. We ate our ice cream and commiserated and discussed how sad we are to be apart and how happy we are to see each other. We will continue to be separate for at least 3 more months. We may continue to be separate into the new year.

Work is different, and the same. We do not allow clients into the hospital anymore. I get to wear my "cute scrubs" to work everyday. We get to express our frustrations a little more loudly than usual. We are understaffed and less efficient and more exhausted despite seeing fewer cases. Euthanasias are tough, what with us not being able to comfort our clients in the same manner we usually do. 

I spend my days off at home, pretty much only venturing out to buy groceries. I don't see my family or my friends. I have to protect them the same way I have to protect my colleagues at work. I come in contact with too many people throughout my day to loosen up on my social-distancing. I talk to my mom daily on the phone and have regular chats and check-ins with my friends over FaceTime and WhatsApp and Discord and Steam. I've chosen my tools of repression and coping: Animal Crossing, Just Dance 2020, bullet journaling, whiling my hours away on the internet. I've purchased a digital keyboard after waffling on it for many years, and am slowly working my way through my Royal Conservatory pieces, trying to build that muscle memory back in my fingers.

Dungeons and Dragons every two weeks is now the highlight of my social life. I do my hair and make-up and pretend to be a dwarven bard for four hours. I glory in using Fireball to reduce a kraken to ashes and a well-timed Dimension Door to cut off a villain's escape.

I donate. To the Food Bank, to the Vancouver Aquarium, to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to bail funds for protesters. I read articles about how I can actively practice anti-racism. I think about joining the protest and remember COVID-19 and having to keep my work-family safe. I think about how the Black community is just as susceptible - even moreso - and goes out to protest anyway because it is a fight for their lives.

I am thankful that things are "not too bad" in my city and province. I am saddened that the same cannot be said worldwide. I am grateful that I was able to have my 10 day theme park extravaganza and the photos to look back on to spark some joy. I am mildly horrified that the theme parks are planning to re-open despite the state of the US.

I am lucky. And I am grateful. And I hope to do my part to ensure everyone can enjoy the same level of safety and security that I have the privilege to experience.

Finales are a tricky thing. How to strike the balance between "artistic integrity" and "audience satisfaction" is a fine line that I'm sure is difficult to tread. There have been shows I've loved that had lackluster endings, and there have been shows I've tolerated that managed to end on a high note.

The Good Place - if you're buying what they're putting down - had a pitch-perfect ending.



I feel like The Good Place is best experienced the way I encountered it: knowing vaguely that it was about a specific version of "Heaven" and wandering into it with blind faith that Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, and - most importantly - Michael Schur would not steer me wrong.

Honestly, I feel I was well-rewarded for that faith. Even if I haven't followed Mike Schur's most recent endeavours (sorry!)

I was so charmed by this utterly delightful, colourful, quirky world that scratched the itch that Pushing Daisies had first sparked in me that I tried (unsuccessfully) to get others to watch it. It so confidently cast its lot with selfish, self-described "dirtbag" Eleanor Shellstrop and her journey and I was enamoured with each new chapter, even as I sadly had NO ONE to talk to this show about. I was on the edge of my seat for months, waiting for the announcement of a renewal after the first season had quietly come and gone. Was I one of those people who smugly noted that I'd been there since the beginning once people jumped on the bandwagon when Netflix rolled around to save the day? You bet I was!

Even though I am under no pretenses that anyone is reading this journal, I feel like any attempt at summarizing this show would do it a disservice. It needs to be experienced firsthand. It may not have my heart the same way that Parks and Recreation does, or the familiar affection that Brooklyn Nine-Nine inspires in me, but it shares the optimism at the core of both those shows and achieves a level of impeccable execution I can only admire.

In the end, I feel lucky to have been along for the ride.

Ah, Little Women. 

As I have previously noted, tvN's time-bending, procedural drama Signal was so good that it almost single-handedly made me change my mind about Korean dramas and what they can accomplish. It bought so much good will from me that when it was recently (finally!) added to the mammoth-sized Netflix library, I eagerly sought out recommendations for another kdrama that I could use to unwind with, thereby recharging my overtaxed introvert batteries. In my very shallow internet search, I stumbled across the synopsis for another tvN show that piqued my interest - three young freedom-fighters in Japan-occupied Korea during the 1930's are reincarnated as a best-selling novelist, a veterinarian, and a ghostwriter who solve mysteries in the modern day.

Reincarnation? Period drama in the form of an underground resistance? Friendships that are so strong they span multiple lifetimes? Um, yes please. Sign me up for Chicago Typewriter.


So first, let's get one thing cleared up: I had somehow completely misread the synopsis. I had imagined these three exceptionally attractive young people (it's a kdrama afterall) meeting up, reconnecting about their past lives, and using their combined skills and knowledge from both lifetimes to team up and solve mysteries, Scooby Doo-style. Who knows why I found that concept so charming, but I did! Alas, rather than solving modern-day mysteries, they are actually trying to piece together the "mystery" of what happened to them in their past lives. Which not only makes more sense, but is also much more dramatic and in-line with your typical Korean drama, I suppose. Of course, that means with the pacing issues that are also typical of Korean dramas, things don't really start rolling with that plotline until we are almost halfway through the show.

Sigh.

On top of how long it took for them to really get to the main hook of the show (six episodes!) the tone of the show was all over the place. One minute we're in a quirky rom-com with multiple suitors as the leads bicker their way through misunderstanding after misunderstanding, then we're in a tense resistance operation in the past where secret identities are at risk of being exposed, and then we're back to the present with unnecessarily morally corrupt characters manufacturing additional drama where there really doesn't need to be any. I'm not saying dramas can't be funny or comedies can't be tragic, but this sometimes felt like five shows crammed into one, which is a lot to ask of it.

Having said that, there were aspects of the show that I really did like. None of the characters were particularly groundbreaking and the best-selling "idol" author was a bit much to take with his crazy mood swings in the beginning, but I did grow to be quite fond of the main trio, even if they were much more compelling as their past selves over their modern iterations. The actors were all charismatic enough and look, I can be shallow too sometimes and the two male leads were very easy on the eyes in their 1930's garb. Once the main trio are on the same page in both timelines, there is a genuine spark and warmth to their interactions that justified their lives being tied to each other in two lifetimes, but I just wanted more than they gave me. The other characters were... fine. The "antagonists" were frustratingly irredeemable, the way they often are in Korean dramas, and the remaining side characters were there to add a little "flavour" while pretty much having no real effect on the plot.

My main frustration is that the 1930's storyline was always going to be the more interesting plotline because there's a real sense of urgency and danger associated with it that can't be replicated (at least not successfully) in the modern day timeline. Everything in the modern day that didn't revolve around these characters regaining their memories related to their past lives felt comparatively frivolous. The writing itself also left something to be desired, with the modern day storylines almost overstuffed while the past storylines felt underdeveloped. The resistance is necessarily doomed to failure for this whole concept to work, but even the journey into how that happened was incredibly predictable with little intrigue. I was surprised maybe once by the story, but that only served to make me more frustrated that they hadn't tried harder to tie it into the overaching storyline sooner.Oh, Chicago Typewriter, how I wish you were made for me and my tastes only!