Population of Columbus: 0

I'm not gonna lie, despite it's tiring and a lot of work, I really like going on business trips.
Having an entire hotel room all to yourself is better than awesome (is there a word for it?)
I come home and I throw my stuff anywhere, take off my clothes as I walk to the bed and flop down. I don't have to be considerate and keep my makeup and stuff in my bag, i can just leave everything around however i feel like it.
I can get room service should I choose, I eat on my own time, with new people i meet and go bar hopping every night.

It's unfortunate the city seems as though it has a population of 0.
They had to close the road due to a Blue Jackets Hockey game last night. Their roads are twice the size of toronto and the number of ppl leaving the arena were less than toronto on any given time of the day. geez.

I did, however, attend that game. First live hockey game EVER. Will update about that later.

Presentation tomorrow! Wish me luck!

iHome not at home

Just a quick update on my excitement about the alarm clock i am waking up to.

I'm currently at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio and there's the iHome as the alarm clock!!!! I put in my ipod nano in there and i wake up to my own music! I so want one now, but Adeel is telling me that it would be an impulse buy so i gotta think about it more.

Hopefully I'll have more time to do updates, but currently busy all the time!

You've Got a Message

Yesterday, while we were watching You've Got Mail in class, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the start of my relationship with Adam and the movie.

When Adam and I first started talking, it was purely an online relationship. He sat across from me at work but my company had an unwritten code of fulltimes not mingling with coops, mainly for the reasons that coops come and go and you end up with no friends if you fall into their clique.

He was about halfway through his second coop term at my office when we were caught in the elevator together and an awkward conversation about how he's always in earlier than me ensued (with me defending myself and asking him why he's monitoring me). Two weeks later, when I came back from my business trip, I emailed him and told him that I was in way earlier than him that day. After a few email exchanges that day, we moved our conversation on to google chat and began the two-month long of chatting every minute of every workday (as corroborated by the message history). We talked about everything that was both important and unimportant. From whether the Backstreet Boys comeback is logical to wondering why people want to buy lululemon shirts that contain seaweed to the meaning of life. However, if there was one thing we did not talk about, it was our present personal lives. We also contained our converstaions strictly online because I didn't want people to know we were talking. We would chat for 8 hours with four monitors between us in an open concept office and then we would go home without even saying goodbye out loud.

I made a point to tell him that our relationship is nothing but "intimacy by convenience" (which was kinda mean) because he happened to be someone who was easy and fun to talk to and made me laugh a lot. I didn't want to know about his problems in life nor was i going to share mine with him. I was on guard because I felt a little embarassed that I was talking so much to someone who was two years younger than me and really enjoying it. A month later, I lost the battle.

Is Email any different than chatting? There is the obvious delay in time of response as well as the difference in topic. When two people are having a conversation, they are quick to exchange ideas and, for the most part, the topic is limited to one (at most two). Things one person will say and their attitude changes depending on the reaction of the other. But at the same time because the response time is quick and you have less time to modify what you say, you won't be able to take more care in plotting out and executing some longterm rhetorical goal. When two people are exchanging meaningful emails, it becomes an exchange of monologues and you can only predict how the other person will say based on (educated?) guesses.You may even engage in three or four different topics at the same time.

So which one is more expressive of your true self? When you are chatting and there is less time to plan your response or when you are emailing when you can't modify what you say based on someone's immediate reaction? Would Adam and I have gotten together if we were exchanging long and meaningful emails with longer gaps of time between each exchange? Hmm...

Sleeptalking

When I woke up this morning, Adam told me that we need a socket. I was very confused by his nerdtalk until he told me that I was sleeptalking in Mandarin and he couldn’t understand anything (he barely speaks any Cantonese).

I am not a sound sleeper; I am known to move around, hog blankets, grind my teeth, sleeptalk, and even sleepwalk. When I was about 7 or 8, while I was in Atlantic City with my family, I woke up outside of the hotel room and started crying.

I asked him if this was the first time that i sleeptalked in Chinese. He said most of the time when I sleeptalk I mumble and this was the first time that I spoke loud and clear (which must have been a bit creepy). Unfortunately, I cannot remember what I dreamed about last night, but I am now really curious about which language I use most often in my subconscious. But in the case of dreaming, I am guessing that it would be dependent on who I converse with in my dreams.

I find this fascinating for two reasons.

For one, I remember when I was in elementary school and we used to discuss what language we think in and I used to wonder about whether we need language to think. Can we think without language?

I know when I first came across the question which language I think in the answer was Chinese. By the time I was in grade 10 or 11, the answer became fuzzy. Sometimes I stopped to wonder if i’m thinking in Chinese or English, which suddenly becomes impossible as soon as you are donig metathinking. What I do realize is that there’s a lot of switching going on during thoughts, depending what language can term the ideas the best. Recently, when the question occurred to me again, I realized that now I mostly think in English, which is inevitable given I only speak Chinese to my mom whom I see once every two weeks. Yet again, I was told that the language you count in out loud in is the language you think in, and I always count in Chinese (every time I do it, adam calls me a fob) so does that mean I sitll think in Chinese or only that my subconscious is my mothertongue? Or perhaps the theory is just flawed and counting is just a mothertongue thing?

The second reason why what happened last night was fascinating to me is the fact that my boyfriend does not speak my mothertongue. I am a devout Sapir-Whorfian and I feel as though by the sheer fact that he can’t understand me when im not conscious means that he may not be able to understand all of me. But does that matter?

I have been using the fear tactic to get him to learn Mandarin. I told him that my dad speaks no English and he is not going to be happy when they meet if they can’t communicate. But another part of me knows that learning a language is different than being immersed in the culture. But perhaps that’s an absolute defect of human relationships.

Consubstantiality. We can be one in essence and yet we still retain unique substance. Two people can be one but never be one.

And

maybe the beauty of love is in the perpetual, unwavering endeavor of bridging that gap.

Let's all be thankful together

If this post is going to be about Thanksgiving dinner last night, I believe it proper to begin with a formal thank you to the host of the evening Matt Chan. Thank you for your hospitality, your hardwork on the turkey, your effort on making the event happen, and most of all (this might sound a bit mushy) for your friendship.

Of course, also thank you Yukiko and Paul for being the co-hosts and the ginormous turkey!

So what was this wonderful event? According to the host on the Facebook event:

Because I’m SO thankful for all the great people I know, I’ve decided to show it by getting you all over to my place for a Thanksgiving bonanza. I actually did this last year when many of you were in NYC, and it was DELICIOUS.

This alone tells you that the dinner is going to be kick-ass!
Although knowing Matt, that "SO" thankful part probably was layered with some sarcasm, but I always take what i can get and im going to take it literally that he's thankful he knows such a great person like me.
=D
And that I attended the event because I am thankful for all the great people I know as well!
=D =D

So the food:
Borscht, Bruschetta, Shrimp Platter, Broc & Cauli Stir Fry, Sweet Corn, Baked Mixed Mushroom Platter, Mom’s style Turkey & Mom’s style traditional stuffing, Pineapple Ham, Roast Beef, Grilled Salmon, Mash Potato, Jumbo shell pasta (alfredo, zucchini, italian sausage), Rice & Stir Fry, Fruit Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Fruit Flan, Cupcakes, and lots and lots of wine.

Speaking of wine, I think a good number of us were pretty drunk by the time dinner actually started and our table was especially loud and obnoxious.


This is the other table.


You can tell that there were a lot of people there...thirty was I believe the final count. Matt, Yukiko, and Paul had to spend the entire weekending preparing the 24lb monster that took 7.5 hours to cook!



Although Ju and I talked about ordering a Turducken online, it really wasn't a good idea since that turkey was so ginormous and I was unable to find a grocer that was willing to ship to Toronto anyway. I ended up making the salmon fillet as I was assigned. For the record, I have never made fish before and I think my lemongrass salmon turned out ok!

Matt did a good job on keeping mums about Tal showing up. I figured I was lucky enough to have influenced Ju to buy a last minute ticket from Seattle to Toronto for Thanksgiving, but who knew that Tal would be here too! And to think that a few days ago Tal and I were emailing about how it was a shame he was going to miss the event of the year.

I pretty much crashed by the time dinner ended, with the wine, the turkey, and all the other goodness. This is the first thanksgiving I had since the first time I came to Canada, which was about 16 years ago, and it was definitely a thankful event.

Again Matt, thanks for the awesome awesome evening and putting up with so many people in your house!