Nothing like Christmas and the approach of the year's end to make one feel contemplative and guilty for neglecting one's oft neglected blog. I have spent the past two weeks being gloriously unproductive and spoilt, being constantly fed, catching up on the old seasons of Community, reading books for pleasure, ignoring questions about my future, and all in all enjoying the company of family and friends. Toronto awaits me in two days with its frozen witch's teat of a weather, and I plan to spend the remaining hours of 2011 thoroughly drunk and alternating between states of euphoria and catatonic depression. When your mind and motivation has been running on empty since November (which is always, always the most awful month of the year), it's time to just accept and initiate your crash and burn so you can emerge a hungover phoenix ready to kick some major ass for the next 365 days. And that's what New Year's Eve is for.

Is it becoming a pattern in my life that my plans are constantly being downsized but not necessarily downgraded?

Case A: The Gap Year going from France to Montreal to staying here. 

Case B: Exotic Winter Break Getaway going from Hawaii to South America to home. 

Guess a girl from HK needs to return to HK at some point. With mixed feelings. Mostly I am thrilled because it has been over a year and I will get to see family, stuff my face with mum's cooking and other cheap food, have my laundry done for me, reunite with the highschool girls as well as some university friends, and be somewhere warm and snowless. Cons? I guess I would have to lose weight so I have leeway to guiltlessly stuff my face as well as look hot to my highschool enemies. Also must deftly avoid another Big Talk About My Future with the parents as well as make it sound like I'm not on the path to becoming a homeless person when I talk to friends working at law firms and banks. Oh, that may be another to-do on the list....marry a rich banker/lawyer friend, then divorce them and get alimony to buy my own theatre.

I have grand plans for those two and a half weeks okay. 

Things I am thankful for.

1. The bottle of wine in my fridge.
2. Fall days that feel like summer.
3. Sleeping in.
4. Nutella for breakfast.
5. Friends and family.
6. Friends who host fabulous dinner parties.
7. My grumpy fat cat for letting me use her as a pillow.
8. The trivial drama in my life.
9. Getting to chase/do what I want.
10. Several empty wine bottles by the end of tonight.

Lessons from Montreal.

I can successfully communicate in French with an old man Quebecer. Day made.

My friend and I communicate through song.

My friend and I haven't changed much since we were 14.

Every girls' sleepover should include a trashy makeover, fur coat, and photo shoot.

Pina coladas: a shortcut to summer when it's bitching cold outside.

Badass leather jacket: every girl needs one.

"Just put yourself in an uncomfortable position. That's yoga.": my friend introducing bed yoga, which is harder than you think.

Rediscovering old school Alicia Keys: an awesome nostalgia trip.

Deconstructing Hugh Grant.

I'll admit it -I've had too much Hugh Grant this holiday. The fact that I somehow managed to not watch Bridget Jones with a tub of ice cream is somewhat of a miracle. What is it about this man anyway? He's not that attractive or dreamy. He's kind of insufferable. And he's definitely kind of really poncy. So why do I proudly declare my love for Colin Firth only to find myself guiltily searching up Two Weeks Notice on YouTube?

Watching a Hugh Grant movie is like slipping into an old pair of smelly sneakers with holes in the bottom and maybe some dog shit stains that won't wash out....you know you should throw them out, you know it's embarrassing to be walking around in them, you know you should switch to something more decent, but god they're just so comfortable. That's what Hugh Grant is: smelly, comfortable familiarity. You know exactly what you're going to get. Which is why the guy is all too often labelled as an one-dimensional actor associated only with romantic comedies.

Which is actually not as correct as your instincts might tell you. You think you know Hugh Grant, but think about "fuck/marry/kill." No, that's not the new Hugh Grant movie, much as it would be a perfect one for him. It's like a crasser version of the informal "hot or not" game only you categorise three different people and feel good about judging them and being an asshole. Anyway, my point is that Hugh Grant covers all three bases of fuck/marry/kill with the characters he's played. And these roles are pretty different from one another --but because he becomes the archetype for each one so perfectly, people forget this um, versatility.

Fuck

Obviously this is where all the bad boy Hugh Grants go, the prime example being Daniel Cleaver. There is NO QUESTION that Colin Firth/Darcy is far more superior but someone needs to make room for that trope of Sleeping With Your Sexy Boss (because what else do working women do, right?) and that is how Hugh Grant edges himself into the picture. He is that cocky bastard you shamelessly flirt with/diss/preemptively tell your friends to keep you away from before you get drunk only to find yourself all over him anyway. Anyway, the important thing to remember is that Bridget fucks and chucks him and ends up with Darcy. Instant gratification Hugh Grant means you don't want to deal with him the next morning.

Marry

Only Hugh Grant could make marrying a politician look appealing. Seriously, a Prime Minister who deliberately fucks all diplomatic relations with his country's biggest ally because the US president made a pass on his crush? And then uses state facilities and personnel to track down the girl at her house on Christmas day? Who cares if the country's going to shit, the guy is a total romantic! Also, someone I can have dance and lip-syncing parties with? Yes please.

Kill

Disregarding the fact that I kind of want to kill myself for wasting an hour and a half on any Hugh Grant movie, there are two particular types of Hugh that make it near impossible not to stab the screen.

First, you have the Hugh Grant who is basically the "fuck" version minus any self-awareness or wit and infinitely dumber. In other words, a total man child brat which is what Sandra Bullock and I had to deal with in Two Weeks Notice....god, this film. The worst part is the coupling of the two at the end which although predictable is SO WRONG and absolutely infuriating. Let's not even get into the whole Type A Woman Needs To Not Be So Accomplished And Intimidating So She Can Find A Man deal....

Even further on the murderous spectrum is Chopin Hugh Grant. A distinction needs to be made here between Chopin the composer and pianist whom I love and is brilliant, and Chopin Hugh Grant in Impromptu who is almost a person in his own right due to the levels of ridiculousness and sap achieved. This is Hugh Grant at his most sickly, snivelly and apologetic as a sad romantic musician. He's probably meant to be pathetic in the sense of evoking pathos, especially when pursued by a headstrong, fiery woman but GOD do you want to just push him into a lake and watch him flounder about. Look at him there, sitting next to that damn fine Liszt.

So there you have it, the fuck-marry-kill trichotomy of Hugh Grant, who is very much a three dimensional actor. Okay, so a resume of three stock characters might not make him a chameleon. But it's kind of extraordinary how the same accent, bedroom eyes and bewildered expressions result in a disparate trinity that at the end of the day, makes him a lot of cash. And while he may not be my favourite actor, he is definitely my favourite 80s has-been pop star. You know those hips don't lie.

New beginnings, same old debauchery.

Only at a college New Year's Eve house party do you:

- Find yourself drinking from a measuring beaker because all the glasses and mugs are being used as ashtrays.

- Find yourself singing along with an entire room to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"

- Talk your friend out of going upstairs and doing a second um, snort

- Find yourself feeling like Winona Ryder in Black Swan aka resenting all the 18 year old first years who can afford to do hard drugs and still look young and flawless

- Find yourself drinking champagne from the bottle

- Think the DJ cloned himself/has a twin because suddenly there are two of them

- Find yourself being talked to/at by a guy seriously rolling about the unacceptable misogyny at the college

- Find yourself being talked to by another guy who is also rolling about how he sees tunnels when he closes his eyes and that time he cried watching John Malkovich's performance in some Arthur Miller play

- Find yourself constantly checking the time because it feels like hours have passed but it's only been 5 minutes and you're exhausted already and those DJs are creeping you out and you feel like an old lady and wish it was bedtime

- Find yourself in bed at 4am

Overdose.

Two things I thought I'd never get sick of: dessert and movies. My sojourn with two friends (like real friends, not the dessert and movies) has been one of marathon baking, channel surfing, and oversleeping. Somehow there were enough hours in two days to accommodate all these activities in excess. My waistline too is probably accommodating to the indulgences. Tea and books detox here I come.

Well, baste my steaming puddings!

Top Christmas movie lists are all the same, it's really quite dull. Everyone knows It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story are musts, so why repeat what's agreed upon?

Here's some non-generic Christmas cheer featuring a jarringly friendly but still hilarious Blackadder and appearances by Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Miranda Richardson. Imagine a tea-party with Prince George, Melchard, and Queen Liz. Best tea-party ever.

While we're on the subject of the genius that is Rowan Atkinson, his bit part in Love Actually is also absolute gold.

Alan Rickman - Videoclip - Love Actually - MyVideo

"Ready in the flashest of flashes" --that is a total Blackadder moment they must have deliberately referenced. God, who needs Bing Crosby when you've got this guy's wit and charm.

All I want for Christmas.

This is currently my desktop background. Colin Firth gorgeousness aside, Love Actually is actually the best Christmas film. But Colin Firth doesn't hurt. To do: Bridget Jones viewing, which I know I will be hating at the very same time I'm lapping it up. Otherwise known as the continuation of vicariously living through romantic comedy characters to get through a solitary life winter.

No big deal.

Home alone = walking around in my underwear, feeling badass in general

Screw(ge) plans.

"Yeah, I'm going to be alone over Christmas, watching Bridget Jones and eating Ferrero Rochers."

Summer sins.

This was the summer where I had no job or class, went to too many deck parties, climbed up a roof, got high on a roof, curled up in bed with the spins.

This was the summer I went to my first big concert in Toronto, watched old Hollywood and French movies, ran at sunset and baked at midnight.

This was the summer I painted to blues rock, discovered a modern day Bob Dylan and bought two harmonicas.

This was the summer I fell in love with a new city, smoked for a month, overindulged in macarons, finally enjoyed French lessons, danced by the river, wore my shoes out and almost got killed on a bike.

This was the summer I slept in a lot, bummed around a lot, stopped worrying so much, took a break from thinking, spent more time dreaming.

I think it's time to get back to the worrying.

Pilgrimage.

Setting aside the aftermath of unpleasant skin allergies for a moment, the day I made contact with poison ivy was in fact quite a special one. My dad and I decided to make a trip out to his village in the countryside where he was born and raised. We have no relatives who live there anymore so I'd never been, and the last time he went back was some 16 years ago.

For the hour that we were there, my dad walked around like a celebrity offering cigarettes to the neighbours and asking them if they remembered him. They all did, but the fun part was seeing how reactions ranged from "Oh my god it's you!" to "No shit, it's you." But mostly they were happy to see us.

We found his old house, which was abandoned and had clutter around it but otherwise was in good shape.

A gaggle of geese waddled across our path.

We found a well of spring water from the mountains.

Made our way up to the top of the hill through prickly grass and plants to visit my grandma's grave.

My dad is a pretty easygoing workaholic, if that even makes sense. What I mean is he left a lot of the disciplining and parenting to my mother. She was the one who dished out the curfews, beatings, lectures and sex talks (which consisted solely of teenage pregnancy horror stories). My dad just kind of let me get on with it. So sometimes I forget how real of a generation gap exists between us, which is what I was confronted with once I stopped admiring the landscape like some asshole tourist and started imagining what it would have been like to grow up in such a place.

You know that Simpsons episode where Lisa finds out all the women in her family are, unlike her dad and uncles, geniuses? I get the impression that might be the case with the male members of my family (we'll see about my brother). My grandpa on my mum's side never went to university, and basically worked his way up in a factory to become an engineer, and ended up inventing some kind of tractor for the Russians. Something like that. He's also a self-taught musician, artist, and calligrapher. And my dad (also an engineer) worked his ass off to not only get out of a peasant village, but a country that had been intellectually, socially and economically stunted by the Cultural Revolution shit show. He was among the first group of students to go abroad. That's such the norm these days but back then, people didn't just pack up and leave China. Back then, an international scholar from China was something of a unicorn.

The generation gap between me and my grandpa and my dad basically boils down to the difference between possibility and necessity. All this to say that I feel like my indecision over my own future is a luxury. And maybe seeing it that way will take off some of the existential edge this year.

(P.S. Thanks, dad.)

Lessons from the Middle Kingdom.

On relatives: If you engage in conversation with any adult over 30, something like 10 minutes will be dedicated to how tall you are, how much you've grown, how much you can still grow, how tall your brother is, how much taller he can still grow, how tall you both are compared to every other kid they know. I don't know what it is about height that's so grippingly important, but it's probably some national inferiority complex.

On traffic: When I got into my first taxi, I noticed there were no seat belts in the back. Then I started wondering whether the customary bars implemented between the front and back seats were meant to protect the driver from shady clients....or me from a shady driver. Then my driver started yelling across the car to talk to another taxi driving beside us, whilst still driving himself. Then I figured I had a shady driver and reached for my seat b--nevermind.

On streets: 6 lanes, no pedestrian crossings. Do or die.

On food: The French have an ally in frogs' legs. And it tastes better than chicken. And yes, that is a piece of tortoise shell. And yes, I passed on that.

On Mao:

If there's a market for getting oneself photoshopped in a manly handshake with the guy, he evidently still matters.

Familial obligations.

Maybe the only thing I really regret about my time in Tours is that I didn't pull out my harmonica by the Loire.

Je suis à Tours! Donc je dois parler et ecrire en français.

Je l'adore ici beaucoup beaucoup.

Je prends des cigarettes aux matins, des macarons aux midis, et des décafeinés aux soirs. Alors j'exagère un peu, mais c'est plus ou moins comme ça.

C'est plus ou moins comme un rêve.

My first Passover. I learnt many new words, dishes, and songs. I can now say to D I am more legit Jewish than he is Asian. He also provided drunken commentary when we decided to watch The Prince of Egypt.

The meaning behind the orange (which is not traditionally on the Seder plate) is this: according to D and S our Jewish hosts, some bigot once said "A woman rabbi is as out of place as an orange on a Seder plate." So their family decided to put an orange on their Seder plate.

Quotes make the trip.

Note: this is purely self-indulgent and for nostalgic purposes only.

"REE-LEE??"

"Dear Diary: What's going on?"

"Wong Professor"

"Close Facebook and face the real books."

"Most wonderful."

"I am pansexual."

“刚刚起床。”

"What happened in 1914?"

Double-note: My trips down memory lane will somewhat be halted due to my laptop being in repair for who knows how long....ugh. Not only does it have all my pictures, but having to come to the library to satisfy my internet urges has been pretty lame and miserable to say the least. Am considering spending an entire day at the movies tomorrow, or in bed with hot chocolate, cookies and many many books. Hey, if it's going to be a lonely Christmas might as well make it good.