3 am and I'm still awake writing a blog

Trite pop song reference? Yes please. I can't believe I have started a blog, but I am kind of excited about it. I suppose this is what time off between college and grad school is meant to be used for--that is, wasting time.

Here are some of my blog resolutions. The need to clearly delineate is innate, so bear with me.

1) This will not be a diary. That means I will spare both myself and you from angsty confessions, mediocre (at best) poetry and whinging about friendship/men/the ilk.

2)

Well, I think 1) just about covered the main points. I'm not sure what this blog is for exactly, if not to be used for a diary and I may have wasted 10 minutes picking my font type and color and fiddling with background settings. I think it has something to do with the fact that writing in my diary is becoming confusing--there are the angsty/whingy thoughts and the more rational ones. I'm looking for somewhere to unload the latter.

I guess the most important news from this year is that I decided to go to law school. I think, I thiinnkk it feels right. Or as right as anything can feel to me. Med school did not feel right and vet school did not feel right and I'm still really pissed that I sacrificed my spring break in florida to go on that stupid externship. Lazy as I am, I poured myself into the lsat and the apps, so that says something. The best news is that I got into University of Toronto, which is the best law school in Canada and has the best program for international human rights and which I didn't think I had a shot in hell of getting into. The sad news is that I guess I am leaving the states for good, or for now at least. What with boarding school and college, I've made a lot of good friends there and it will be sad to know that there is that border divide, even though these days it doesn't mean much. I've become Americanized, much to the chagrin of my mother, who pretty much thinks America is the antichrist although she made exceptions for Hotchkiss and Harvard. Despite my whining and despite the war-mongering in Iraq and Afghanistan and the flagging economy and the fact that, two years ago, the American people chose to re-embrance and champion Bush's general toolishness, I think America is a great country. The democrats' winning the house and senate reminded me of that.

I'm scared that I am too American, but I think it is something that can be cured. So I watch CNN and not CBC/CTV and I read The Economist and Time and not Macleans (is that even how you spell it? See, I totally don't read it). And I know nothing about Canadian politics, but I guess I'm here to learn (it IS boring, and without the bells and whistles the American media's got (think: that awesome touchscreen in the CNN newsroom during elections--that touchscreen is enough to make anyone apply for citizenship)). And I think I'll be weaned off the "America as the center of the universe" mindset that I have been brainwashed into (my mother again), but it will take time and a freak of a lot of globe and mails, more reading of lloyd axworthy and less of books like "while canada slept", which slumped me into depression for days.

The important thing is that my family is in Canada, I guess, which may sound weird, but I've been away from home since I was 14, so I am looking forward (to put it lightly) to my parents' moving back to Toronto next year in March. My aunt and uncle and cousins are scattered around toronto and ottawa and my sister's at Queen's, and I can't express in words how good it will feel to be in the same vicinity as everyone...FINALLY. I cannot wait to be able to go home for the weekend or have a home base that I don't have to travel for 24 hours to get to. I'll miss Saudi, but it's about fucking time to leave. I think I tapped that country for all that it's worth (actually that is totally untrue, seeing as how my days in saudi involved lazing around the pool or lazing around my house or lazing around in any number of other locations).

I'm living right now in an area of Toronto called North York and I loovvee it. There's a huge amount of restaurants (mostly Korean and Japanese) around the area, and (my favorite) Baton Rouge right across the street. EVERYTHING is connected to my building--shops, drugstore, the loblaws (grocery store), second cup, and a ginormous library which I frequent, well, daily. my gym is across the street as well, and I love my gym because it is glorious and has classes in which I am singled out and yelled at everytime and at the end of which I feel nauseous from unnatural amounts of physical exertion. It was pretty horrible living alone, but now Tanaz has moved in since she's doing her MBA coop in Toronto and it is fun.

Sadly, around Christmas-time, my grandma (who lives in ottawa with my granddad) began mass deterioration, which sounds mean, but it's really the only way to put it. She was incredibly deconditioned, weak as anything, on all kinds of painkillers, and had a knee surgery. It was a horrible time--all my family was here for the holidays, but we were literally in the hospital everyday, all day, and sometimes, all night. She is at home now, but she is still very deconditioned and it has become blindingly clear that she has dementia. she doesn't remember how to sit up or sit down and someone has to help her all the time, including the nights, when she can't get up and go to the bathroom by herself (and may I add that she has to go to the bathroom about 7 times a night). i stayed in ottawa for two months with my mom, helping out, and left for toronto when she left to go back to saudi. I was in toronto for a couple weeks when, again, it became blindingly clear that they needed help. We are a Chinese family, which means we are impossibly filial and we are westernized in that we are loving and express affection. That means everyone is freaking out/was freaking out/will be freaking out about what to do. It means all we talk about is this situation and all we think about is this situation. It also means a nursing home is out of the question until every single person in this family, including the overseas people, have done everything he can and/or is on the brink of exhaustion. My aunt lives about 20 minutes away, but she is a full-time nurse and can only do so much and was driving herself to exhaustion and is now taking antibiotics for a nasty cold.

Which is why I am here at my grandparents', up at 4 am. I'm here for a couple weeks, until my other aunt can come up from toronto and stay with them for awhile. We're switching off because it is a hard job. I stay up nights helping her deal with the bathroom stuff and help her do her exercises during the day. Since she gets pretty, um, creative at night, it's interesting hearing the things she has to say to me in the middle of the night, such as, "did you change your diaper?" or "feel free to use the commode--it's here for everybody." I've decided to look at the crazytalk with amusement, instead of as something that is mind-numbingly sad and another indicator of the tragedy of age. The plus side to all this is that my Chinese is fast improving, since my grandparents don't understand a word of english. It also means that I have an excuse to stay up at night, which I am prone to anyway, because at night is when my mind is clear and my thoughts fluid.

Anyways, I won't bore anyone with anymore of those details. There is more good news--I am going to India with Dickyi(who has taken a break from Harvard)! We are going to Dharamsala and I am going to volunteer with a Tibetan organization for human rights. I am/have been/am trying to change my fellowship from africa to this, because it's more within the budget and more up my alley. I will go to africa some day, but hopefully on a safari. Probably heading out end of May. But first I'm going to visit Boston and New York to see everyone I so dearly miss. Hopefully we will be drunk the whole time I am there, since I have not been drunk since graduation. I now drink in tiny amounts and like a lady and I'm ready to bust out and get nekkid as balls. (not really nekkid as balls, but I just wanted to write that). In the meantime I have to apartment hunt for next year and mentally prepare myself for mental expenditure (law school), since I have not engaged in mental activity for quite some time (have been sitting around for many months hanging out and watching tv on dvd).