Nullsphere

Just as I was winding down for sleep, I started flipping through Daily Candy A-Z (yeah, yeah, the guide to living the good life).

Two things happened.

I read the small mantra about finding your moral compass and realigning it when it goes out of whack.

Hoobastank’s The Reason started playing on my old music player (not the iPods).

I had a moment of clarity. I knew what the song means to me.

To give you a little background, back in the day, back when I was in love with someone who I knew would end up pulping my heart, I’d always thought it meant that deep down, he did care. That’s the way the cookie crumbles and eventually, our relationship too crumbled. I wish I had know what was in store for me, I would have realised sooner what the song meant.

To me, this song fits perfectly with what I feel about those people who are still there, those who love me unconditionally and have stuck around through the dark times. My family. My friends.

The people I neglect because it’s easy to forget giving news when they’re just dots on a screen. Fact, it’s a bit dramatic saying this out of the blue but they are my moral compass. Sometimes, I contemplate things that I wouldn’t feel ashamed for but that I couldn’t admit to them. Then I know that I shouldn’t and why.

Sometimes the only thing that connects us is lines on a screen or our late-night conversations over the phone but one day, all those dots will connect to form the picture of the person who I am growing into being. Not so far removed from who I used to be but not so different that my kindred spirits no longer recognize me.

I may be grounded in my experiences but there are those who helped me build the wings that I fly with. And for that, they’re the reason I owe it to myself to believe and succeed in what I am doing: engineering, writing, my dream job…

My friends of old are my moral compass. I don’t feel complete without them because they are part of my history. There isn’t anything I can’t share with them; love, laughter, pain… they may be far but they’ve made such an impact on my life that I can’t not measure all my achievements to the measure of the unconditional friendship and support I’ve received from them over the years.
When all the people who’d known me longer (save one) had abandoned me because I am not pretty or cool or famous or rich or noble enough (hah, if they knew) for them, they replaced the empty feelings of fakeship with honesty and trust.
I feel the twinges of a compass amok sometimes and round up the usual suspects, to check that they’re still there and I’m still me.

All I can hope is that we continue to grow together and that I never cause them so much pain as to sway away.

I’m not a perfect person
There’s many things I wish I didn’t do
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I’m sorry that I hurt you
It’s something I must live with every day
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
That’s why I need you to hear

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you [x4]

I’m not a perfect person
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I’ve found a reason to show
A side of me you didn’t know
A reason for all that I do
And the reason is you

Tonight, there’s a documentary fiction about the Canadian fighter plane, Avro Air’s Arrow.

And guess who worked on the Arrow? My daddy, that’s who! Now how is that for cool? I’ll be watching with bated breath just in case they used real names and he happens to be mentionned. I’m so proud of him.

Too bad it didn’t get made in the end… but I don’t think I’d be here if it had.

It’s that time of the year again and how time seems to have flown… It seems that only yesterday, we were having the rainiest, crappiest summer ever.

So as is my tradition (whether on the blog or not), here is a review of my year.

Continue reading »

Engadget has been good for a smirk this morning as it brought me this tremendous study: teens still like to hang out. No shit, Sherlock! Just because we all love to fritter our lives away on the internet doesn’t mean that we’ve all turned into socially inadapted spotty geeks.

How else could they partake in parties, drinking, sex and all the other fun things to do in high school and college?

No, auto-erotism in front of Slashdot doesn’t count.

Where can I find a job where I’m paid to do that kind of survey?

On line 8, on my way back home, I was confronted with not one but two occurences of psychos in the métro.

The first sort, an aging woman with her trolley was harmless enough, as she kept yammering on and on about either “asses” or “souls” (in French: “ânes” or “âmes”), I couldn’t really tell which. Nor did I really care. She was talking to everyone and no one in particular in a monotone.

Wow, doesn’t that remind me of someone currently forcibly present in my life who cannot shut up for five minutes and always mutters in a low-ish voice?

The second sort was the aggravating sort that’ll pick a fight if you stare for too long or he feels that you’re not agreeing with him. He came into the compartment smoking and t/yelling to anyone who would listen that he’d DONE TIME INSIDE and he should be feared. To be honest, all it gave me was a burning desire to beat his sorry ass into a pulp with a baseball bat for thinking that it gives him any special priviledge, such as harassing the poor woman who sat across from him.

Anyways, this was soon over as we reached the connection at Motte-Piquet and I continued onto line 6 where thankfully, no one stood out at the late hour. On the bridge, the Eiffel tower sparkled, indicating it was 11pm.
It reminded me of the previous evening, where L. and I had stood in the taxi queue at the foot of it after our trek back from Châtelet. As much as I try to reject Paris, there is an undeniable attraction. Every time I see it sparkle, it reconciliates me with the town, as if the shining sparkles could somehow erase all the ugliness that roils beneath the surface.
Many of the defining moments in my life have involved it in some way or another: high school, its parties, the evenings spent at the foot of the tower in the grass, coming home from high school, going home from parties…

This wasn’t the first time the Eiffel tower had given me a sense of peace as I watched it. It seems to watch over my life and renew my faith that everything will turn out fine, that I’ll make it through in the end.

And that alone is enough to make Paris my hometown, as much as I am loath to admit it. Like a parent with whom you have a conflicting relationship, it’ll always be there for you… like a mother. My mother.

Hopefully this means that I’ll never end up a muttering wreck on the métro.