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.

Double Two.

Other than the fact that I must now ban Lily Allen's song from my playlist so I don't dissolve into a heap of blues and angst, I am looking forward to a low key, chilled out birthday hanging out with the few individuals who are special and with no real plan in place on how the night will go/end. Midnight started with somewhat of a bang at least, taking a cinammon shot (with gold flakes for extra class) with my roommate followed by obligatory bothering of Pistache.

I am as much an old lady as I am a wild child at heart, and these days the former seems to be dominating. Honestly, my idea of a good night is drinking white wine while watching Jersey Shore with my cat.....yes, this may be as archetypal an image of Lonely Single Girl as you can get, but in the wise words of my pop hero Kelly Clarkson, it "doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone." Skyping with my mum earlier, she asked if I had a boyfriend and when I said I wasn't remotely interested in even finding one right now, she proceeded to extol the virtues of experimenting and getting experience at this stage in my life....which I found really rich coming from the same woman who used to feed me horror teenage pregnancy-suicide stories.

I did receive some good advice though, to her credit. She said between now and 30 is the best time of my life with few responsibilities and a million possibilities, and I should enjoy each day and smile each day. I agree and call bullshit on the myth that the University Years are the best years....they are phenomenal years in the right shade of hindsight sure, but where I am and what I'm doing right now? It feels great in the present. And so this former nostalgia tripper may just be converting into a now tripper with a complimentary side of bad decisions and no regrets.

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. 

Dear Facebook Friends at Law School:

Stop posting statuses quoting your textbooks and case studies and professors and various law jokes. They're not funny and make you sound like a FUCKING BORE. I don't know what it is with Canadian law students, it's like they think they're pioneers in some new field of study and just reverted back to frosh levels of insufferable enthusiasm and pretension. Guess what, if you really had it together you would be on a training contract with a law firm by now like my friends who went to the UK, but I guess you would then just make intern related statuses and still be, that's right, a fucking bore.
You can go ahead and defriend me now.

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.

Classical Shakespeare.

I was at the opening weekend concert of the Toronto Symphony's 90th season last night --is there anything quite like listening to classical music live? Add to that a Shakespeare theme that included Christopher Plummer as a guest reading from Henry V alongside Walton's score and you basically have an evening of epic proportions.

I'm pretty sure Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is the favoured musical interpretation, but I may just have been won over by Tchaikovsky. Though my friend astutely pointed out that all he can think of when he hears the familiar love theme is Sims (sigh), the cliched association of cartoons or cheesy slow motion scenes of lovers running towards each other is overridden by the other theme representing the rivaling Montagues and Capulets. I've never heard the piece in its entirety and it gave me chills.

10 ways I am like my cat.

1) My default look is usually bitchface/judging-you.

2) But if you give me a back massage I'm all yours.

3) My bed is home.

4) I'm hungry....a lot.

5) I miaow.

6) I'm hot then I'm cold.

7) I'm an old lady.

8) I'm a night owl

9) I have childbearing hips

10) I dance dance dance