Buddhafied

2008: Alive

It's hard to believe that only 10 months ago I was still up at Koyasan getting my hair shaved off, and I am now typing my last entry of the year in the comfort of my own home in yet another midst of snow storm in Vancouver.

2008 was a lot of changes for me. I finished off a life long once-in-a-life-time opportunity, said goodbye to some old friends, did something meaningful, got an addiction, tried something new, and lost my virginity. Along the way I laughed a little, got raged, but occasionally stopped to take a deep breathe.

It had been a year full of ups and downs, but I ended up spending a lot of time on myself. Instead of trying to merge everything I've learned through my monk journey with my daily life, I stopped chanting and just let myself be the person that I am and had all my true feelings and emotions out. It didn't always work in a good way and the person who had to deal with my fluctuations was Scott, luckily he still tolerated me for being ridiculous. For that, I know I have made the right choice for being with him.

Last night, after 6 months, I started chanting. It felt natural again.

All and all, after a year of storm, I looked back and felt I grew up a little and knew myself more a little. It was emotional and it was chaotic, but it was an important transition of my life: I feel, for the first time in my life, alive.

Melissa O'Neil – Alive

Stuck in world
No longer turning
Always the girl
Waiting for something
Too many days
Walking around sleeping
Open my eyes
I'm tired of dreaming

I wanna run with the reckless emotion
Find out if love is the size of an ocean
Even if I crash down, burn out
At least I'm gonna know what it's like
To feel alive

Sun on my face
Lights of the city
Maybe in love
Or just learning to be
On my two feet
I can only imagine
I'll say the words
And believe it will happen

I wanna run with the reckless emotion
Find out if love is the size of an ocean
Even if I crash down, burn out
At least I'm gonna know what it's like
To feel alive

They think they know
But how they know me
I'm getting to know myself
I'm finally ready
To be somebody
With a story to tell

I wanna run with the reckless emotion
Find out if love is the size of an ocean
Even if I crash down, burn out
At least I'm gonna know what it's like
I wanna feel til my heat breaks wide open
I wanna blaze like a fire that's growin'
Even if I crash down, burn out
At least I'm gonna know what it's like
To feel alive

Thank you for walking along with me through 2008 and shared my journey. My life is so small, but having your company makes me feel so much special. So, thank you.

A fulfilling Christmas

   
Despite my constant battle with myself trying to find a balance between my moral as a monk and living an actual life (but failing the being a monk part), I still like to think that I am a good person by heart. One of the things I do every year to remind me that I am not so evil after all is Christmas hamper.

It started when a former manager of mine asked whether I will help delivering food around Christmas time four years ago. It was a very rewarding experience. What it is, is this lady, G (who I will remain anonymous because that's how she like it to be), with her huge connection will find families who are in need for help, yet might not have the courage to go to a food-bank, buy food and necessities for them and deliver to them a week before Christmas. The amount of food each family gets will last them for at least a whole month, because as G said last night "the toughest month for a mother is January: when the welfare cheque is gone." G organize everything from doing fund-raising dinner to get money to physically packaging the food, all we need to do is to show up on a particular day and do the delivery.

So last night I brought along 7 friends with me, a total of four cars and we headed the church. We arrived early because G will never let any of us leave until we all have food. As she said "this is the only thing I can offer you, so EAT!" We then listened to her heart-warming tear-draining speech and we were off with our boxes of food by 6pm. Each family generally gets about 6-8 boxes depends on their size (some of them have 11 kids!), they might even get a turkey!

We decided to split up into two teams this year, each team has 4 families to deliver. It took us well over two hours to distribute them all around Vancouver area, and though the road condition was bad due to the snowstorm we had a few days ago, seeing the smile on the faces of the children and their parents were priceless. We delivered to a basement suite with family of 8, which the father ran after us and shaked our hands individually wishing us a very happy Christmas; we delivered to a pregnant lady with children, which she couldn't believe how much food she's getting and kept on asking us where they came from and who she should thank; we also delivered to a mom with a son, which the son was jumping up and down when he sees that he is going to get gift for Christmas this year. All of their faces are vividly imprinted in my head and I will always remember the joyful smiles and how grateful they look when all we did was just as simple as leaving food at their doorsteps.

A few years back, when I was still working part-time as a security patrol and first-aid attendant, I told one of my co-workers about the Christmas hamper. She told me about 10 years back she was living in a small town in Alberta. Right before Christmas, when her son was only a few months old, she realized it's no longer safe for her to live with her husband. She had $50 in her pocket and took a bus to Vancouver. That year, she got Christmas hamper delivered to her door. For her, that was one of the best thing that ever happened to her.

What I've learned this year is that there are families that might appeared to be just fine but in fact they are in desperate help. We visited a family with a big flat screen TV (which Scott and I still don't have one), and maybe looking from the outside of the house, you will never know they are struggling. Yet, they are having a tough time putting food on the table. I guess there are people out there that used to do well but is facing a tough time right now. So while you are busy wrapping up Christmas presents and making donations to food-banks this year, don't forget to pay attention to the people around you, maybe some of them need help but just don't appear so.

This is what Santa Clause really is isn't he? We don't all have to grow a beard, gain 200 lbs and sit at a mall to make people happy. Have a wonderful holiday, everyone, and may everyone have a full tummy this year.

Scent of burgers

I believe science has brought us very far for the human race as a whole. Merely a few hundred years ago, people were still living in huts and riding horses as transportation. Now, we couldn't even walk outdoor without our cellphone attached to the side of our face. That being said, once in a while, there are inventions that just make you think what the heck people are thinking in this world.

From the Food Selection Blog:

Scent of a Whopper

Want to smell like a burger, but don't want the mess of rubbing one all over your body? Burger King has introduced FLAME, "the body spray of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat." On its website, Burger King presents the novelty as if it were the aromatic equivalent of a Barry White song (spray some on and "set the mood for the flame to ignite"). This might be the beginning of a whole new line of fast food-based perfumes: after all, as one reviewer asked, "can I get fries with that." $3.99 at Ricky'

I mean, I am no shame of admitting that I like my man to be a bit meaty and beefy, but having the scent of burger is really not my kind of taste, pun intended.

Phoenix Flight 2009

Though it's slightly similar layout to the Pride 2008 poster I did, I quite like what I did for the Odyssey's New Year's Eve Party poster. Of course, once again, I have to pick a muscular guy as the poster boy... Just wouldn't be me if it wasn't.

Alternate Currency

From my beloved xkcd:

Amen.

Bubba, I want one of these!

My dog eats broccoli too... so does everything else she can put in her mouth...

The naked, the arousing, and the sexy

Finally, the depression is over (I worked very hard to get out of it before Scott came home from his trip. Apparently, three days of non-stop video game has the power of wipe off any kind of sadness in me. Note taken.) So guess what? There will be whole lot of blog typing and replying comments on my blogrolls. Watch out, my awesome blogger friends.

As I promised, here are the naked, arousing and sexy topics and photos of my past weeks.

The Naked

The new place is awesome! Now, before I get into that, let's backtrack 3 weeks and start from there.

The whole moving experience was more or less enjoyable. We had our best slaves friends helping us out, so the move went really smooth... well, other than the fact that we packed quite in few things in garbage bags (we have a lot of fluffy things) and our slaves movers at one point were giving us the dirty looks.

There were a few hick-ups with the move though. First of all, the custom-made couch that we ordered couldn't fit into the apartment. Who would've guessed that the ceiling of the apartment building is so low (Scott's fault)! Luckily they were willing to take the couch back as long as we get another couch from them. Now, we are just waiting for the new one to arrive, hopefully because Christmas. The second thing was that our washer machine fried up (again, Scott's fault). We finally get to do laundry after the whole move for the first time, and with our luck, we've got hit by a power outage while it was on. When everything came back on, the machine wouldn't come back. This really suck especially because we haven't been able to do laundry at our place since then. Fortunately, I have over 30 pairs of underwear and our friends Bill and Todd let us use their laundry. Again, we are hoping the replacement parts can come in before Christmas, or else Santa might get three stinky stockings this year. Lastly, one of our toilets got clogged (maybe my fault, but I'd like to blame it on Scott as well.) I threw some paper towel in the toilet and I guess the water pressure at this condo is different than our rental apartment, so I haven't been able to get a good flush of that toilet since last Wednesday. Scott the Plumber with his assistant, Cleo the slacker and floor licker, is working hard today to get that problem solve.

Despite these little problems here and there (which can be somewhat annoying, but such is life) the new place is just amazing. After living in a one bedroom 450 square-feet apartment, moving to a two bedroom with double the square footage is a nice upgrade: I actually can walk instead of tripping over to the washroom.

Cleo seemed to be getting use to her new home as well. She had claimed over our ottoman to be her new bed. Since she loved it so much we decided to put it at the foot of our bed so she has a little bed to sleep in during the day.

Here's a naked picture of Cleo lying in ottoman for the first time.

The Arousing

Remember my little bean from the egg? It's no longer little anymore! It's growing into a big "tree". I was amazed by the speed of this thing can grow. The bean part of the plant is starting to shrink and will probably be detached soon though. I guess that's the part where the initial nutrient were drawn from, and now that the leaf is big enough to get photosynthesis from the sunlight, it's no longer needed. The ironic part of this whole thing is that the bean part is where it has "Friends 4ever" on it... I guess just like many relationships, when things started to move on, some people will no longer be in your life. This reminds me of a flower in Japan called Mañjusaka or, in English, Lycoris radiata Herb. It literally translated to "Flower of the other shore".

In Buddhism, it was said that not all relationship will last, but each time a relationship ends, as painful it might be, a beautiful flower will grow at a river in the "underworld" (I believe it's the river that the dead must cross to say goodbye to the living world. Once crossed though, there's no turning back; hence the name "other shore".) It's the smell of this flower that will bring back all the memories, good or bad, of the dead that walked by, before they will be erased and reincarnate. It was this story, that got me passed many nights when I was upset about a broke up, knowing there is always something beautiful that will grow out from a sad situation.

Here is a picture of my continuing arousing plant.

The Sexy

So, I decided to do more carvings. Yes, I'm addicted to them like people are addicted to tattoos, but at least my hair will grow back in two weeks.

This time around, I let the hair-stylist to have full artistic control over the carvings. The ended up doing two separate designs on either side of my head. One looks like a leaf, the other one looks like a vine. I've got many compliments about it, along with my full-hawk. The only complain I have is that I don't think I have them carved deep enough, so I will go back for some re-touching some time this week. Next time, I'll design a artistic form of a Buddhist Mantra (or Sanskrit), I think it will be very unique and be somewhat representative of who I am.

Here are a couple of photos of the sexy lines around my head.

So here is a short summary of what happened to me in the past couple of weeks, which will be known as "the Weeks of Happiness and Depression" from now on.

Today started off a very good day. I was no longer depressed and I was ready to type off whole bunch of stuff I wanted to do so for a long time... then everything just starting to go downhill from there again. Instead of leaving a bad note on the blog, I decided to type about the depressing stuff in this post and save the happy stuff for the next one.

Flat Tire
I've got another flat tire, this is the second time in three months. I don't know what happened this time, but I went out to pickup lunch, and when I came back, someone from work told me I am flat. Not the typical comments I get everyday.

Anyway, I originally budgeted to replace the spare tire of the Jeep this week, the money will now have to go towards the new tire, so the spare tire will have to hold off again. Which is depressing because I'm getting sick of being make fun of having a Jeep with no spare tire.

Birthday
So, once again, my birthday is being a huge issue for everyone this year. I'm sure I've typed this before, but having birthday in mid-December sucks. Back then in school, my birthday always land on an exam day and people always promise me that they will have a celebration for me after, which never happened. By the time it's late December, everyone was busy with Christmas parties and my what-so-called birthday party will be a sidekick of another birthday in January.

I didn't have a proper celebration for so many years that I decided to host my own party on my 25th birthday, which proven to be a lot easier to force people to come than let them decide on their own term. I think my line was "how many years have you known me and how many of my birthday party you have been to? Point made, please sign your name here."

After knowing Scott, birthday went better, there were two very memorable celebration. One was that Scott and the guys took me to the most expensive restaurant in Vancouver, Lumiere. It was by far the most expensive dinner I've had (and might be I will ever have). It was just between the few of us, but it was intimate and great. The other one, I partially arranged it with Vivian and everyone got drunk and I got a huge mango cake from Priscilla, it wasn't my personal one, but at least it's a party. The sad part was both years  Scott couldn't be there on my actual birthday because of work.

As I thought things have changed and my lonely birthday curse has broke, this year is proving me wrong once again.

I was originally going to plan my own birthday again this year, thinking my 29th birthday is more worthwhile to celebrate than the depressing we-shall-not-mention age, but everyone told me to just do it next year, so I held it and let people arrange it for me. It turned out, my birthday is sandwiched between two birthdays, a ski-trip (which by the way, I were supposed to go but sacrificed myself so everyone can get a better deal for accommodation), a work-trip, Christmas parties and of course the birthday of the baby-freakin-Jesus himself, which for all you prop-hate supporters out there, HE IS FICTIONAL. What does that mean for me? That means my birthday is once again an inconvenient to everyone and I have been receiving emails/phone calls asking me whether I mind sharing parties or is it okay to do my birthday in another day. It's not particularly the kind of attention I am looking for.

So here is what I propose, people. How about we just skip it this year if everyone can promise me that my 30th birthday can be the first priority among other birthdays and parties. One year, that I have a birthday dinner/party BEFORE my actual birthday; one year, that I can have a birthday with everyone there and I am the ONLY birthday boy; one year, that I don't have to feel guilty for having my birthday at the busiest time of the year. One year, that's all I ask. Well, that and a Mini-Cooper for Christmas. I'm sure if you all chip in a little it could happen. Please make it a red one, thank you.

I hate myself for being so naive and being such an annoying bitch about this... but there's a kid inside me that always feel abandoned, and this really doesn't help.

Depression is now official back on! w00t!