In Ancient China, potters adorned their ceramics with glazes that were meant to reach crackled “perfection” generations after they had died, achieving the desirable glassy blue-greens and “robin’s egg” hue. Lined with intentional cracks, this style of artwork entailed the use of a specific glaze that would gradually drip from the rims of clay bowls and settle at the bottom.

Reposted from this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMgAo0Ototk

This year was incredibly lucky for me. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities and experiences I had:

- met Priscilla Ahn (twice, once on my birthday)
- met Clara Chung (twice), got loveprinted (twice)
- saw Ray LaMontagne in concert
- saw Prince in concert
- completed my last driver’s exam ever
- wrote a few good poems I’m proud of
- read the following books: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Life Itself by Roger Ebert, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill, Trauma Farm by Brian Brett, Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain, Know What I Mean? by Michael Eric Dyson, Not Yet by Wayson Choy
- saw the Muppet Movie, which was much awaited ever since hearing Jason Segel was one of the writers. It lives up to the hype.
- saw Hugo, Martin Scorcese’s big 3-D children’s fantasy dream project. I don’t think he’d describe the movie that way, but it’s clear when you watch it that it was his childhood pet.
- made a damn good pasta in red sauce
- ate said pasta
- signed onto a workshop series for youth violence prevention which encompasses a skype meeting with the Byron Hurt (the person who made me realize feminism was cool, real, and possible in me)
- learned these songs on guitar: 1234 by Feist, For the Summer by Ray LaMontagne, Jolene by Ray LaMontagne, Dear Daphne by Clara C, Are We Different by Priscilla Ahn, My Stupid Mouth by John Mayer, If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys
- completed Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- hiked the Chief (peaks 1 and 2) twice
- saw my cousin in LA get married!
- won the Vancouver-LA dance-off (Part 1) alongside my cousins and dad
- became a TIER B CHAMPION in the Coquitlam Dodgeball League with my lovely team
- co-facilitated an anti-oppression workshop
- ate King crab, Peking duck, and lots of pork belly
- drank the best Merlot ever

Here’s to the hope of another wonderful year. Wish you the best!

This is a song I wrote called “‘Cause I Know.” Originally, this song was known as “Two See One,” because as Leo Buscaglia’s student shares in his book Love, “it takes two to see one.”

I could totally win an Olympic medal. I could win Gold in the decathlon. I can’t throw the shot put that well but I can totally throw a discus. Yeah, I could totally throw the discus the farthest.

–
I would rather suffer in sweet silent solitude
Deathly defiant from drowning out
Filthy sounds stumbling ugly and crude
Between the lips of your beautiful mouth

Deep down within me words move in phrases
Frozen and still ’til they decide
To melt and drip over the pagers
Until that moment they live inside

My words enjoy the feel of the paper
Better than mingling with your consonants
Once they get going they never waver
And they slip in between your if, ands, and buts

When my words are hiding between the lines
Then I’m afraid they won’t hear me call
What if they fail me without a sign
What if they hardly surface at all

Screaming and throwing your weight around
My words choose knowledge over politics
You can’t kill my words, they know no bounds
My words are strong and they don’t make me sick

They still remain my only companion
Loyal and true to the very end
They’ll never ever completely abandon
Ever give up the paper and the pen

Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?

Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means.

To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot.”

– Vincent Van Gogh, as quoted in Roger Ebert’s memoir Life Itself.