Plane Ticket GET

Finally I got around to redeeming my mom's airmiles towards my plane ticket to LA this year. Unfortunately because I've redeemed it rather late, I ended up getting connecting flights instead of a direct flight. Sty, if you're reading this, it's all your fault and I can't stop blaming you. But that's alright, I'll just be wasting more of my time bumming around other airports just to get to the same destinations as you at the end! That is, if you're still serious enough to go to get your act together and get yourself your tickets already! Rant rant rant blah blah blah...

Really though, I wish I went and redeemed it in January like I originally planned instead of waiting on someone who has ended up not getting it yet still. :(

Now my travel there is going to be a pain in the butt.

I did have an amusing conversation with the airmiles redemption lady, acting like my mom (which wasn't really acting) and claiming I was 50 even though I sounded 19. Funny, she even thought I was 19 too until she saw "my birthdate".. ohohoho, why thank you, what a compliment~

The Tales of Brave Vesperia

My previous post was a bit awkward, but hey, here's something different.

I managed to beat Vesperia a bit after the PS3 announcement. A little frustrated that there's more content and the fact that you can possibly use Flynn. I don't particularly care for the new pirate girl but I do like more costumes, scenes and full voices! I'm not sure if I'd want to redo all the grinding I've done though.

Story 4/5
A relatively linear storyline but the characters did make a big difference. There were those little unexpected plot twists here and there which made the world of Terca Lumireis a lot more interesting. I think my attempt to complete as much as I can added to that as well. Again, I swear it's because of those damn achievements.

Characters 5/5
I must say, it's rare to find an RPG with characters you all like - even the bad guys! Firstly, the protagonist a la Yuri - you can't help but like the guy and everything he does is so awesome. To him, there was still that justice but his way of executing that justice perhaps is what made all the difference. It's also refreshing to have a hero that isn't clueless when it comes to other things that does not pertain to "justice" and "saving the world."

The rest of the characters and their interactions with each other were all pretty amusing. Seems like the later the Tales series go, the more humorous the script writer gets. My second favourite character's probably Raven. I was worried for him throughout the whole ending. One who has played it would know why that is. Then there's Repede. It's awesome how a dog responds to the conversation at hand, especially during skits.

Cameos were rather interesting in this series. Gentlemieu, Gentlereplica and Gentlesinger were Gentleman enemies wearing Mieu, Luke and Tear (TotA)'s faces as a mask. There was also Judasey (ToD2) which was a frog monster with Judas's mask and cape. Then they threw in the bad guys from ToD, ToP, ToE and ToS into the 200-man melee at the coliseum. Then there's a bunch of other random ones like Harold's mask is an attachment, love note in the Nam cobanda locker room, Tokunaga the boat driver...

[spoiler]Lastly, there's Duke. Duke was so cool, minus his final forms which then just felt very Tales last boss boring. It was a bit sad to know that he was alone at the end, even though the world did get saved. He doesn't have his best bud anymore 'cept now he has squirrel friends. Makes me sadface. :( [/spoiler]

Sound 3.5/5
Not very impressive but there were a few good, memorable tracks. The last dungeon bgm sounded very Star Ocean. Didn't help that the whole place was crystally, transparent and very SO-like. The most annoying track would probably be the bgm that plays when you played poker. I had to grind that damn minigame, so I ended up muting it.

The voices fit with their characters rather well. For the most part, dialog was consistent minus some strange places when the tone would suddenly change rather awkwardly... but that's not much of a surprise now is it.

Graphics 4.5/5
The cell shading in the game made it 3D and yet still anime-like to call itself a Tales game (Tales of Hearts CG Movie version is blasphemy). The FMV's used both CG and animated scenes, and where they chose to use either of them were good. The world map surroundings would flicker when I'm in certain places, which worried me a bit, thinking it might overheat and RRoD on me or something. The character models and the actual character designs matched quite well.

Gameplay 5/5
The battle system was an advancement of the TotA battle system, and it becomes quite complex with the skill settings. The skills gave the game another level of customization and that was quite fun. You learn skills from using certain equipment long enough and then you set those skills a certain way for certain situations.

I grinded a lot. Not so much leveling, but to get certain titles/costumes/synth items/*cough*achievements. And as much as I hate grinding, the grinding was actually really fun (...maybe except the item farming). One grind used a "Minimal Damage" skill which reduced all your damages onto enemies to 1. That way, you could easily execute fatal strikes and hit combos. Certain fatal strikes also gave you bonuses at the end of your battle. I needed a certain number of this bonus for learning more skills, so I spammed that for quite a while. Dangerously addictive.

Speaking of which, the EX Dungeon reminded me of FFXI all over again. Grr to random drops and treasure chests.

I only have three small complaints: my character getting stuck in a corner of the battle field (b-but the battle field is ROUND?!) when he/she's auto-running to the enemy. That drives me insane and it seems to happen frequently. 2nd is lag. It's minor but it happens... it's the most obvious during the 100/200-man melee when there's a crap load of people on screen doing a crap load of stuff at the same time. 3rd, the sorcerer's ring doesn't always like to hit. Sometimes it's because of the elevation, other times it just goes right through the enemy. Frustration.

Overall 4.5/5
I've clocked in at around 110 hours with a single playthrough and completed a big chunk of the optionals. What's left before I finish and put it away is to let Ba'ul fly for a few hours to get two more achievements. Rather tedious to just watch the game fly forever so I'm kinda meh about finishing that up. Really though, achievements are just evil.

After getting all the other goodies at endgame, I wish there was an additional ending or something so I can put them to good use... and no, EX New Game is not an option :b

Vesperia was a fun ride and I think it's safe to say it's my favourite tales in the series overall (though I have yet to play ToR, ToI, ToH, TotT, ToS:KoR, and the Radiant Mythologies). I wonder when that special edition code with come into play though. Perhaps that allows the 360ers to get what the PS3ers are getting?! Wishful thinking but then again I'll probably grab the PS3 version if it comes out here anyways.

Erm.

It's funny (...and gross) when you know you've just walked into someone who was just looking at pr0n and the person thinks you didn't know.

Portfolio, Traveling, Eating...

With some additional effort, I finally put my revised portfolio up (after a possible future employer and an uncle requested it all on the same day). I'm not completely happy with it but it will do for now.

Friday night I had the Griffon at the Vancouver Hotel with Uncle Pond, Auntie April and my grandpa. The food there never ceases to amaze as usual. The bread, especially, rocked. But then again, I love freshly baked western bread in any restaurant. I had myself fish because I remembered the awesome prime rib I already had earlier in the week at Chops. I also delivered a dozen cupcakes to my uncle by request, though he has yet to tell me what he thinks of them.

Sunday, the Team Cupcakes (+Mina's sister) went to Seattle for a day. Met up with everyone at Mina's place a bit after 7 (Lisa forgot to wake up and we ended up waiting in front of her house for a while). Mina and sis brought us awesomely disgusting mcdix breakfast and we were on our way.

Our first stop was the Seattle Premium Outlet. The museum and tours we were going to visit don't open until later, so we decided to do shopping first. Unfortunately it was only 9am and it didn't open for another hour so we went next door to visit the casino. Everyone played at least a dollar worth of penny slots and only Vee 'earned' anything (which she got rid of by losing it all). After the amusing diversion, we split up to do some personal shopping for an hour. An hour was not enough for me, even though I only wanted to visit 4 stores, but I barely made it through. We continued on our way down the i-5 to the glass museum (for Chihuly) in Tacoma but we lost our way. I regret not bringing the GPS. It was a bit past noon already and there were other places we wanted to visit, so we decided to skip it and perhaps leave it for another day.

We found the EMP|SFM (for Frank Gehry!) and ended up unintentionally spending a few hours in there. We also found out that the penny stamp machines don't do well with Canadian pennies. As much as we wanted a shinier and newer penny for mushing, they're too thin for the whole imprint to fit. The Canadian penny attempts turned out to be rather awkward shaped circles instead of ovals.

Our next stop was the Underground Tour, which we made in time for next scheduled tour at 5pm. The lady we ended up following was rather monotone and talked rather fast, so we didn't really catch most of her jokes. The way she spoke felt quite memorized so it did feel rather boring. However! The story itself about Seattle was rather interesting. They tried to worry us about the rats but we only really just saw one (and that was outside in the back street) and another, which was already dead. I got a bit of a headache from all the smell but I managed.

The Mcdix breakfast was rather filling for me so by the time the tour was over (~7pm), I finally felt hungry. They wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory so indeed that is where we went. MOAR BREAD. I did some serious bread hording and that kinda prevented me from finishing my meal and having dessert but no fear, I brought some to go!

Before we continued on, we stopped at the gas station for a refill. There were some rather frustrating complications but we managed to get gas at the end. The gas was also a lot cheaper than we expected (damn you amerikans and your cheap gas *shakes fist*).

The last stop was Walmart - yay for 24 hours! They did some serious shopping but I only ended up getting a drink and some USA-exclusive Iced Tea flavoured Ice Breakers. Though I do regret not getting Kingdom Hearts RE:Chain of Memories when I saw it there. I was turned off by the exchange rate but now that I think about it, the game's rare now. DAMN. I'll probably never see it again.

We took Pac Hwy back to avoid the rather frightening 80+ min wait that was shown on the announcement board on our way to the Peace Arch... even then, we still didn't get home until after 2am. The day after, I did some serious sleeping. Serious. 12 hour serious.

Yay to winding down

School's been out for a weekend and a few days now. The long awaited break has arrived!

Last Friday, I ended up spending the day cleaning out my grandma/grandpa's storage room with the rest of my family. It's basically a continuation from the cleaning we did the week before but didn't bother touching the storage until grandpa couldn't sit still. My good-for-nothing uncle had the free time but didn't help him so we ended up having to help yet again. He went through to find his old clothes he can wear again and we donated the rest of my grandma's stuff. Not surprisingly, my grandma had a lot of clothes... just expected from the shopping lady that she was. She loved spending, and the amount of stuff she has is a good sign of that. It makes me wonder how it'd be like for my mom or myself, even, to clean out our own stuff.

Amy was visiting from HK to do some vacationing and for bringing back some of her stuff back over there. Saturday was her arranged hot pot night at her brother's place. Her brother, Henry, opened the way to their apartment at the Seasons (which was conveniently beside my school - convenient parking!) where I met up with Simon and Jason who were there first. I ended up playing with Henry's tablet notebook where I tried Paintshop SAI for the first time and OMG! it makes me want to draw again. I didn't really care much for the program's praises at first (not much of an artist you see) but I can see why its so heavily used now. While I was enjoying myself muchly, people starting pouring in. Me and Jason chilled (aka. lazied) while others started getting things prepared. The kitchen was packed with people, there was no reason for us to join in on the squishing. :B

The actual hot pot meal was amusing. There were two pots, and one was especially bigger than the other so things took longer to cook in that one... I ended up eating over that pot but food was still plentiful. We established a bit of a plum juice crew - those who enjoyed plum juice with their hotpot - which ended up to be, I think, 4 of us out of the 14. After food, we headed out to get bubble tea at Chiffon (there's always room for bubble tea). When we brought them back, some of us had a few rounds of MJ where I lost really, really badly. After we played Big2, amusingly full of fail magic shows by Henry the lol!Wizard and Slap JackJake where we kept adding in new rules which made the game really silly and difficult. We ended up thinking about the next number to shout instead of worrying about the card that was tossed out that round. Very funny. It was a very good abs and cheek workout after the filling meal/bubble tea. The combination of events really tired most of us out so we called it a night a bit past midnight.

Moni and I went to Easter service at Resonance to find that we missed out on pancake breakfast! A bit of a shame but we didn't know so it couldn't be helped. After I dropped Moni off and I was rushed to meet up with the rest of my family at Vivacity in Richmond for dim sum with some other relatives. When we got there, we found out that the reserved time was postponed for another half an hour so we sat around until then. 1pm rolled around, and the other relatives started arriving. We had a pleasant lunch with my Auntie Caroline and Uncle Lawrence whom we don't see very often anymore (however the presence of the good-for-nothing uncle kind of ruined it). After eating for almost 2 hours, my brother and I grabbed some quick bubble tea (lol moar bubble tea) and headed to Metro to grab the dualshock we had on hold at the bestbuy there. On our way back, we also took a visit to my grandma's grave.

By the time we got back, it was already 4pm. My phone ran out of batteries and I started to get sleepy (/unrelated). Me and Moni headed out around 6:30 to pick up Sach at her place. That night we had Chops, located at the hotel me and Moni used to work at, where its been completely renovated and prettied up. The place was gorgeous now... it felt very "downtown" and high class. Moni said it was a good alternative to The Keg and indeed it was, but even then, it felt like a completely different class to compare it with. To me, it felt like a class higher, even. Anyway, the place was nicely designed and our waiter was very outgoing, friendly, funny, courteous guy. The food was great 'cept the mashed potatoes were very horseradishy (not a super fan of horseradish, sadly). But that's just my personal preference more than a flaw in the meal. We topped it off with a raspberry creme brulee which had a candle sticking out of it by request lol. It wasn't overly sweet like most creme brulees you'd have in other places so it was very good. I was also surprised with some presents which I didn't expect (wait, that'd be a lie if I said I didn't expect it.. and I shouldn't be surprised either). But it's great to have such good friends ;_;. I guess my actual birthday celebration was that day so it felt very birthday-y indeed and I'd have to thank no other than my friends for that. I got moar gloomy stuff on top of an awesomely gold/bronze finished external harddrive which I still don't know what to use it for!!!

After an awesome meal and with only 45 mins before the start of the movie we wanted to watch, we fast walked to the washroom and gawked at the interior design of that area, followed by zooming through the lounge and then through the hotel lobby. Next we drove sped to the theatre, grabbed tickets, grabbed popcorn, grabbed giant glasses and headed in to watch Monsters and Aliens in real 3D IMAX. It was nicely lighthearted and fun... a good change of pace, I must say. It was either that or find a place where we can watch loldbz for free somewhere.

This week... I've gotta go through my little to do list of things to do (which doesn't include recreation of course):
- send photos to relatives (done)
- call airmiles to possibly redeem stuff (right after this)
- finish portfolio (plan on doing tonight)
- vacuum (I guess tomorrow.. or maybe after calling but VESPERIA NEEDS ME!)

Triple Combo Critical Hit

On top of the insanely occupied weekend, I had three projects to hand in this week.

Tuesday's group project on our cupcakes bakery wasn't too bad. I took all the free time I had on the weekend inbetween stuff to get as much of it done as possible. Unfortunately I was busy all Monday so I was unable to help the rest of the group build the comps and put together the finishing touches. Apparently one particular person did not keep up with our pace and ended up having to make the rest of the group wait on her stuff. But fortunately, Tuesday morning's presentation turned out to be quite the success. We were the last to present and we ended it off by telling people to wake the eff up and start figuring out how to get our grad funds together. The cupcakes project of ours were a real business to make money for our grad show happening next year. A bit more on that in a bit.

Wednesday was our corporate identity project. I already had most of the stuff done from the previous weeks so it was pretty easy going. We also brought in our first order of cupcakes by the teacher. I got jack shit for comments on my presentation. My appointed commenter is a useless retard.

Thursday was a bit hellish. I went through the day on two hours of sleep. The final project of my portfolio revamp was pretty half-assed but passable. And it just means I'll have to work extra hard this next week to get it into better shape before I start going out and doing some job hunting. Again, I got shit for comments for this presentation too. This lack of feedback thing doesn't help my progress at all really.

After class, we had a class discussion on our grad show funding plans. It was mostly a useless conversation. It was all just talk and no do. Ideas, sure, but not particularly feasible (realistic standpoint). They probably thought differently though... so it was just probably me. K, make things, and then sell them. Okay... who would want them? Who's making them? What are we making exactly??

I didn't have much to say to help the conversation so I said nothing. I did think of making some money doing something online, but I couldn't think of what it is exactly we could do yet... hopefully I'll figure out something with that soon... It'll be pretty damn hard to get our class working together considering we seem to hate each other's guts in some way or another. I should be more positive though. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong. Well actually... I hope they do prove me wrong.

Here's to another year of school.

Time to deal with the work side of things... anyone need me for side designing jobs/tasks? Money now prz.

RIP Grandma

This post is largely family-related. Some good, some bad.

Thurs Apr 2 - My grandpa and good-for-nothing uncle arrived later that night. We went to where my grandpa was staying (which was my grandma's old place) after dinner and talked... talked mainly about the preparations for the funeral. The good-for-nothing uncle hung around being his usual, good-for-nothing self.

Fri Apr 3 - My brother, mom and myself went and picked up my grandpa from his place at 11 the next morning. We decided to have dim sum somewhere on the way to the cemetery so we had Golden Swan, which just so happens to be the same place we were having the after funeral lunch meal (what is the official name for that in english anyways?)... Sadly the dim sum was pretty bad there but we persevered. We also waited there for my Auntie Lily to join us from work downtown. Grandpa went to talk with one of the waitresses who were pushing the dim sum carts around. "Do you have any illnesses? Are you sick? When you shout [the food names] you spray onto the food that we eat!"

We headed out a bit before 1 and got to the Oceanview cemetery for an appointment with the Japanese who spoke perfect Cantonese and English planner there. The trip was basically for my grandpa to do his feng shui casting and make sure the spot we chose was acceptable. He, too, didn't want to make things so complicated so he stuck with what was passable.

After the paperwork was completed, we made a quick stop at Bubble World by Metro and then drove him back to Chinatown to dropped him off at one of his acquaintance's store where he stayed around to chat. We went to T&T and did some grocery shopping for him so he wouldn't complain that he starved to death because he had nothing to eat at home. He only requested potatoes, yam, rice and shabushabu beef slices. According to my brother, that is indeed what he enjoys eating.

Sat Apr 4 - Had dinner with Uncle Ben (the son of my grandma's eldest brother) who came from a business trip in the states and is apparently involved in a healthcare association that works with the government (of Canada). For the record, he resides in Toronto. We ended up having Ebisu on Broadway (birthday people apparently can get up to 30% off if you reserve!) where Uncle Ben had live lobster for the first time ever. At dessert there was some surprisingly awesome black sesame ice cream.

Sun Apr 5 - Happy birthday to meMy brother and I reserved seats at 11 sharp for cheap asian breakfast. My parents and Uncle Ben almost came too late to join us. After food, we headed to Glenhaven Memorial Chapel in Burnaby, where the visitation was to take place. From 1-3, various people came and gone. The whole family followed to have late afternoon food at Pink Pearl. We sat on two separate big tables to fit everyone, so each table ordered our own. The China lady kept pushing their leftover dim sum on to us but my grandpa refused to take them BECAUSE they were "somebody's leftovers." We ordered a crap load of other dishes (soup, noodles, rice) so dinner later that night was not needed (for me anyway).

Mon Apr 6 - My brother and I went downtown at 9am to pick up Uncle Ben from his hotel. We then headed to Glenhaven for the ceremony at 10. I ended up having to sit beside the good-for-nothing Uncle, and normally, in situations like this, we'd put our differences aside... HOWEVER, the dude reeked of oil and it made me feel sick. And for sitting at the very front row, I ended up having to do a lot of hand shaking with lots of sweaty palmed people.

The ceremony ended and 2/3 of us followed the casket to the crematorium back in Vancouver. The sun has come out by 11 and it was dreadfully hot (especially in black). 11:30 - It was my first cremation experience and it was definitely more emotional... Just the thought of the body leaving for good makes the moment that much more precious. It was actually a bit strange at first - the witness room had a complete seating area with couch and everything and then there was a giant window (wasn't giant enough still) which viewed into the cremation room which looked a bit warehousey (grey and cementy).

12:30 was the massive lunch meal. The family's original idea was to have the immediate families sit together but the seating was already scrambled when we got there. There were 5 full tables and 7 filling dishes. Me and my brother ended up sitting at a table full of church people because we refused to sit beside the good-for-nothing uncle and hear him bs while trying to enjoy the meal.

After eating for an hour and a bit, the group started to disband. When we got outside, the sun and the pollen came out of nowhere and attacked us and our allergies. Wasn't very pleasant.

Gramps wanted to go for a joy ride, so me and my brother drove him in and around Richmond for a bit. We stopped at Pearl Castle and grabbed ourselves some bubble tea to relieve us of the nasty heat. The joy ride ended for me when we took a quick stop at our place to change out of our formal wear. Apparently they followed to go downtown and drove around Stanley Park. I took the opportunity to squeeze in as much homework as possible.

6:30 rolled around and we met up with my grandma's youngest sister who came from Toronto at Golden Ocean in Richmond with the rest of our giant family where she treated us a grand dinner. Sitting between two "mothers" isn't especially pleasant when one is especially talkative (cough one being my mom). There were 17 people sharing one giant table so eating conditions weren't comfortable either but it sure was lively.

Tues Apr 7 - *FYI: Religious and rather personal section coming next*
For some reason my mom came home seriously pissed. It began with her complaining about my good-for-nothing uncle insisting that he do a incense/paper money burning ritual when they put her urn into the wall on Thursday. I wanted to see the urn being put into the wall. I didn't care for the ritual itself.

Out of nowhere, she then bursts out that my Christianity is a fake. It was completely out of line. It was extremely upsetting... for a number of reasons. You wonder how it's related to this topic. Well, Christianity doesn't believe in the burning ritual and all that of course... and my suggestion for going to see the urn being put in somehow got her saying that. Of course, that's probably not the only thing that suddenly made her say that. The other main reason is probably because I've stopped going to Sunday service. Firstly, definitely not to her church because I am not comfortable there. I can't stand the Chinese congregation. A big chunk of the people there feel so fake. It could also be because of the traditionalness they uphold that make it rather dull. Don't get me wrong, I respect a lot of people in that Chinese congregation as well. As for the English side, I can't seem to fit in with them. They already have their own little clique and being a person who doesn't enjoy socializing, it doesn't really help me. Sure, there's a few classmates from high school there and a relative, even, but I was never close with those people. As for Resonance, the other mini church May brought me and Monica to the other time, the place and people are great. But because I was invited by someone and went there with certain people, I've become reliant on those people to go with me. Again, probably another socialization issue with me and myself.

Other reasons I can think of to justify my mother's actions... My mother claims she has an open mind. I don't believe that is true. I accept the world as it is, and work around it... her interpretation of that can be misjudged. She doesn't realize she cannot force her religion on people... for example, her hate paper money burning. My brother wanted to go. My mom got furious and totally slammed on my bro. He didn't believe in the whole ritual, but he, too, wanted to see the urn placement. My question is, attending certain, say, rituals, but not believing in them, is that wrong? As another example: if you went to church and didn't believe in the religion, that still makes you a non-believer. One can go to church for all the wrong reasons... which reminds me, I remember there's a classmate who went to church for spotting girls. What does that make him?

It's also difficult that only three of us (mom, dad, me) are the only "Christians" in the family whereas the rest of my dad's side are atheist/buddist. The whole ceremony of my grandma's was Christian because my mom made my dad force that ritual to happen that way. Well, to be honest, the rest of the family didn't particularly care what style it was done in, as long as it was done. We were able to get a lot of help from their church that way. A good thing of course, since most of us were already busy enough with stuff as it is.

Speaking of fake... hearing someone tell me that MY belief is fake from a person who I think is the fakest person I know is probably the most painful. Especially when it's from someone you respect and trust the most. She who's denying my belief which I live in my life day to day means she's denying my very existence, is she not? I've always overlooked her fake facade and never commented on it. I've completely lost my respect for her. However, I have no reason to prove anything to her. Whether I'm faking it or not, God already knows, so why would I have to fake it? I don't need to purposely fit in like she does. Ultimately, our walks with God are our own, so how true my walk with God really has nothing to do with her. My beliefs and hers, which are supposedly the same, are apparently not. If anything, she, who claims she is Christian, has no right to determine another person's beliefs. She should know that. But if she reached the point where she bursted out to say that, it means she honestly did think that deep inside. People tend to say things "they don't mean," but it means they think that inside but shouldn't say it.

My brother tried to help me when I started crying by defending me but it didn't help that he's an atheist. He probably just made it worse but I silently thank him for being the awesome brother that he is and being understanding to the situation. I don't think I've ever been so upset in my life. I didn't think something like this would affect me so deeply either. She probably doesn't realize how big of an impact she's done.

I refused to go have dinner with my Aunt Maime and Uncle Jacky which we prearranged the night before. I didn't want to see, talk nor hear my mom anymore that night. For the sake of seeing my aunt n uncle for the last time in a while, I forced myself to go. I was pretty quiet on my end of the table and luckily they were on the other side so they didn't get to see my awfully puffy face from all the crying. The dimness atmosphere of The Keg helped a lot too. My mom tried to talk to me before we entered the restaurant, but any further conversation with her would just make me cry some more so I refused her offer.

After that night, she didn't try and talk to me after that... I don't know what she thought after and what it is she wanted to say. Did she regret what she said? Seeing it from her perspective, I don't see the reason for her to do so. She'd probably just "forgive" just as she was "taught" and probably just forget. Unfortunately for me, it's not sliding very well. Just thinking about it now again, makes me really upset. It's quite awkward now. I can't talk to her straight in the eye. I've only made side comments/remarks during conversations. She's tried "fixing" it by giving me a birthday present, getting my dad to hurry up and get me the shoes I wanted, then tried to talk to me in a happier tone...... I don't feel that that's the right solution. It doesn't really fix anything. Break a twig in half, you can't save it with glue. We can't really go back to how we were before even if she apologizes, because of the fact that I know that's what she thinks of me in my back of my mind.

I actually don't even know how this should be fixed. In most other cases, our trust in the Lord can save a relationship but in this case it doesn't seem to work that way because it's about a religion that should be saving us, instead is breaking us. This is not a simple case of "oh I forgive you mother" because this is rather different, isn't it? I can forgive her if that's the solution but what is there to forgive? I forgive you for not believing that I'm Christian?

Hm, it's like telling the pastor that he's a fake. I wonder how the pastor would respond to that.

The Last Few Pushes....

The past week has been tiring. There was a project due Monday, so my weekend was pretty much dedicated to that.

The rest of the week had me and the whole family working on cleaning out my grandma's apartment for my grandpa to live in when he returns later tonight. The lady we originally wanted to hire to do the job said it was too late of a notice and couldn't do it, so it was up to us.

The place was insanely messy, as if someone went through and robbed the place kind of messy... hm, I never asked why it was in that state to begin with though the place should of been cleaned a long time ago (like half a year long ago) by my Aunt but she's apparently too lazy. The kitchen was probably the nastiest part. I found a bit of an insect/bug's nest hidden in one of the cupboards. The insects freaked out and exploded out of the cupboard, and in turn, I, too, freaked out and ran. Cleaning is not cool when it gets to that condition.

Speaking of cleaning, we'll need to be doing some of our own house cleaning soon. Relatives are coming from all over the world to go to her ceremony and they like to visit houses... hmm yes. There's three of her siblings from Toronto, her daughter (who came a few weeks ago), her youngest son aka. the useless uncle we all hate, my grandpa who we've been trying to get to move back here permanently, and probably others we'll get to see on the actual day.

The preparations have been taking up a lot of time. A week and a half left to go for school and there's still three more projects to do. I think I'm royally screwed. I'll have to keep my grandpa company this weekend too I bet. The awesomeness of Vesperia isn't helping much either.

There was also an orientation earlier today for us 3rd years about 4th year and what to expect. I'm still so confused. I guess I'll be leaving that until September... or at least until all this insanity boils over. A side note, apparently because of the olympics, we'll be getting 2 WEEKS of reading break instead of the normal 2 days *cough* so it will push everything later for us. Good/bad thing? Not sure yet.

Also because of the busyness this week, I completely forgot about looking for a job. Fffff... I hope it's not too late to get to that after school ends.