love & tennyson

'Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death.

***

Love:
I leap with no looking.
I question not what it is.
I question not why I do.
I love.

We are in this together,
till we walk into the valley of Death.

So:
I do.

engagement

So this might be an interesting experience, especially since it only comes around once (at least for my life). I'm sitting here in my room right now which has been moderately cleaned out, mostly because I don't want to ruin the air of surprise by having a perfectly clean room. There's nothing more that ruins a surprise by leaving those subtle clues like having everyone's shoes near the door or cars parked outside the house for a surprise party.

Wait, so what am surprise am I referring to exactly?

In a few hours, I will be proposing to my beautiful and wonderful and charming and stunning and intelligent and gorgeous Magdalene. She'll become my fiancé and will relinquish title of girlfriend, a term which I've always hated.

It's funny because Mag's mom almost dropped the bomb on this surprise today. You see yesterday I went to her house around 6 PM because I wanted to ask for her parents' permission to marry Mag, and I knew Mag was teaching from 6-7 PM and I wanted to catch them at that time. Mag's mum is notorious for screwing these kinds of surprises up, so I figured one day before would be enough to let them know about it and mull it over before the event.

Of course, when I get there, Mag's mum is teaching and her dad is nowhere to be found. I sit around and look at Youtube breaking videos for like an hour, and then Mag comes up and we get ready to leave for my house to study. I see Mags' dad pulling into the driveway at that moment and realize that this time is probably the only chance I'll get to ask them for permission, so I take Mag out to the car, say, "Oh crap I forgot my gloves in your room I'll be right back" and then run in. I steal Mags' mum away from her student and grab her dad and sister and announce I'd like to propose to Mag today. Her mum says, "You better take care of her" and her dad gives me the thumbs up.

You figured one night wouldn't ruin anything, but the next morning Mag's mum comes up to her and goes, "So you are engaged?" WTF. Even though she said, "TOMORROW?" to me yesterday when I explained when I wanted to do it, she manages to pretty much enact my worst nightmare. Christina managed to defuse the situation by getting her mum to shush up then explaining that I was showing Chris a ring to get her opinion and that her mum saw and jumped to conclusions. I had to call Mag later and cover my ass, saying white lies like, "Oh if I were to propose to you I'd take you somewhere else like do it in Mexico or something" or "So you want me to propose to you tonight? I suppose I could scrounge up a twist-tie instead of a ring..." So basically ball has been dropped, thanks my soon-to-be mother-in-law whom I will be murdering shortly (gosh that's going to make for a great wedding hey?). I hope this hasn't ruined anything, and I hope Mag doesn't see my proposal coming, but my lady is a very astute girl and will be probably making a beeline for a hug today so she can try to feel through my coat to see if there's a box in there. Read:

OMGG JOEEYYY! MY MOM KINDA DROPPED THE BALL ON YOUR SURPRISE TONIGHT. :/ hope you can think of a way to make mag less suspicious and still surprised. If i can help let me know
What the?!
she thought you asked her last night. So this morning she was like, so your engaged now?
Omg are you serious. Omg
Ahhh yeah. :/
Wait what exactly did she say? Omg this is like my worst nightmare
My mom said "so you got in engaged last night?" and mag was like what? And I was like. Mom what are you talking about? And my mom just staarted laughing and mag was like what?? And my mom was like oh no i was just wondering cuz and then more laughter.
Omfg fml. I waited till the last possible moment to tell her so she couldn't screw it up lol ah your mom is too funny. I'm so mad and amused at the same time

So this is it, my heart's pounding through its pericardium and skeletal enclosure. I've practiced my lines a hundred times it seems now, but I'm sure once the moment comes I'll probably just blank and have to ad lib some freestyle rap, "Yo Mag I love you MUCH / you and I should stop going DUTCH / take this ring and be my WIFE / i'll be yours for the rest of my LIFE". Sheesh mageesh this few hours between class and dinner was supposed to be for studying, but every time I look at Dupuytren's or flexor digitorum profundus or scapulohumeral rhythm I start experiencing sympathetic nervous system activation. I'm going to try to go relax.

Exciting times!

-4:42 PM OCT 09/09

***

Right now I want to kill myself. For some unknown, ungodly reason my mother has just taken the car today. I left explicit instructions that she leave the car as I had dinner reservations at 6 PM and that I would be taking my future wife out, but I guess she doesn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of such an event.

I really hate mothers today.

This is quickly becoming one of the worst nights ever. I swear if the food turns out to be rat confit served in a beet puree with oyster sauce and we get in a car crash along the way back and then once we get into the hospital it gets destroyed by a wayward meteor that'll just be icing on the cake. Fuck you Murphy's Law.

How embarrassing, this is supposed to be a date and Mag is picking me up. Will my credit card be declined too and she'll have to pay? Omigosh FML.

-5:41 PM OCT 09/09

***

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!

-7:05 PM OCT 09/09 (Actually posted at 9:13 PM but I'm estimating when I actually did it. I have video footage with the actual time that I'll pull up on a later day.)

***

So it went like this. The moment Mag drove to my house, my dad came home with the van, so we took the van out. Mag always does this thing where she tries to guess where I'm taking her (typically she's right) but this time she struck out. Her first initial guesses were Red Ox Inn and Characters (omgo$h no) and then when I started heading on the Whitemud she thought we were going to Chop. Instead, I took her all the way to the River Cree Casino and we went to Sage, this nice little place inside that has a good reputation for their steaks. Mag had a Caesar to start with a delicious pickled bean, and then we ordered Guyere French Onion Soup and Steak /w Frites (Mag got her fries switched to mashed potatoes). One of the best steaks I've ever had.

We finish up and pile into the car and I almost get us into car accidents like 4 times on the way back because I'm so full that I'm driving drunk (the kind of drunk where all the blood rushes to your stomach because you're digesting a giant steak). We get home and Mag immediately homes in on my computer to check her e-mail for an important document her instructor was sending her.

By this time, my heart's pounding pretty hard. I made this video using Taylor Swift's Love Story as the background music that I wanted to show her, but for some frustrating reason Mag wouldn't relinquish use of the computer. She was watching a Paul Dateh music video, and then she decided she'd read about Grad Expo, and I kept trying to force her to close the window but she was so damn stubborn!

Eventually I got it to go, then I started the video. She squealed but was confused that I made a video for date night, but laughed anyways. I synced the part where it goes, "I got tired of waiting...wondering if you were ever coming around..." with the video where Mag caught the bouquet, and then just as she catches it, the song goes, "and he knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said".

At that moment, I stopped the video and gathered Mag up and tried to say three lines that I had memorized and practiced for two days straight, but I choked and only remembered the first one. It went, "I know you know I've been really excited about date night, and there's a reason why. It's been six long years of happiness, and I want to make that a lifetime more of the same. I promise to love you forever and always and I vow to take care of you for the rest of my life. Magdalene, will you marry me?"

Mag said, "OF COURSE I'll marry you!" and then we proceeded to call our families. It's a day in now and Mag and I are still having trouble saying "fiancée" instead of "boyfriend/girlfriend".

Thanks so much for everyone's well wishes. =)

-10:11 PM OCT 10/10/09

britney spears

This has nothing to do with Britney, except that she just happened to make a song titled Lucky. Random, I know, but that's how I've been feeling today. I've been pretty dejected this last few days, mostly because I've attempting to attain my goal that I hammered out at cell group last week. For those who weren't present, it goes something like this:

We were sitting around in a circle at cell group discussing the topic that Jia brought up, which was What should Christians do? It goes a little deeper than that, but basically it asks what Christians are called to do and what is their scope of practice, for lack of a better term. We somehow got into asking each other what we thought God was calling us to do, and Jia got excited and recorded them all down. I figure we're going to do a one-year post-op, followed by a five-year post-op and so on and so forth just to see where we're at with following the dreams God wants for us, so I'll share with you what I've been getting up to:

My goal according to how Jia worded it: Joey Mo: To feel and display genuine love to my friends, the people around me, and totally strangers. I know I don't display the perfect love to my friends, in fact I honestly don't really make an effort to care about them sometimes. I don't really realize this because I guess I'm a little self-absorbed in what I'm doing at the time, whether it be studying or if I have something else that I feel is more important for me to do. I ignore people's birthday parties, show up late to occasions I say I'm going to or don't even bother to show up at all. I ditch friends in social events, or when I get there I don't even say hello to them at all, but hone in on the food table, grab a bite to eat, then leave. I'm often cruel to my family, and am not there for them when they need me. I also walk by the same homeless Asian guy in front of Tim Horton's every day and when he asks me for change I think Change is good and That's a good thing to ask for, Obama would like that, but then I tell him "I don't give change" then go inside and get my extra-large double double like the gluttonous, self-centered, un-sharing beast I know I am.

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm acting towards friends, family, and people in general, and have been attempting to cognitively re-structure my thought process in order to actively recognize what I'm doing and change it. I'm trying to love, but it isn't easy, because I am often compelled to go elsewhere and do other things. It's difficult to love everyone without neglecting yourself.

It seems like I'm being very hard on myself, and I am. So why do I feel so lucky?

I think it's because God has given me wonderful support systems with which to share this learning experience. I was most touched by this one moment after church last Sunday, where Simon started talking to me. He asked me, "Joey, do you have a Bible?" and when I said, "No," he didn't hesitate to offer the one in his hand - his own personal Book of God where he's written all his marginalia and poured his hours and love into - saying, "Here, have mine." This is his gold, the word of God in purest form, and he was willing, so willing to relinquish it in a heartbeat in order to reach someone who didn't deserve it. I said thank you, but one of my personal goals is to find a Bible I really enjoy myself, to just peruse the Bible Store and go through it slowly to find the book for me. But it was this principle, this love for your neighbor that is so far-reaching and touching, even in the most seemingly mundane of events ("dude, it's just a book...") that really hit home.

I feel so lucky that God has introduced Jason and Steve into my life so that I can intersect groups of friends whom I have nothing in common with. These are people well versed in God's walk, and so will be invaluable resources in learning about God and what it means to be a Christian - which I feel I still know nothing about but am learning more about if that makes any sense. Through some strange statistical anomaly that I can attribute only to divine intervention, God's put like the only two people on this continent who actually like talking about neuro on a day-to-day basis into my life so that I can discuss religion, fulfill my goals of meeting and holding down groups of people with which I can share God's love, and also talk about Searle and the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. I've talked about consciousness with Jason at length, and just yesterday discussed with Steve about Crick's (of DNA's famous Watson & Crick) deathbed work on the claustrum and Gestalt-like integration in the sensorium. We discuss Ramachandran and Descartes, Beauregard and Sacks.

Of course, my friend Jia who is often my anchor in the tumultuous waves of my every day reflection, is also very good for stability. I have fought long and hard with figuring out in which direction my moral compass faces, and have often had a heated argument with my beautiful professional debater Magdalene over black and white and the gray that is supposedly between them that I have yet to see. I talk law with Law, pour over the Bible, dissect the Pharisees, the ways of the lawful man, how evil lawyers actually are despite following the law, and evil people in general.

Friends help me clarify where I stand; help me thin(k) and reflect. You give so much of God's love that I can't help but want to give God's love back to you. So with your help, let us try to make some small miracles happen with my fingertips and the relationships around me - friends you are my witnesses and God you are my hands.

***

cross words

in an effort to make sense of the Times
i have tried to finish the Times
imbuing each open space with words like:
Rich (59 across)
Diamonds (22 across)
Gold (55 down)
i am but lying to myself, for the clues are actually:
"Slave girl of opera" (59 across); Aida
"Relied" (22 across); Depended
"More than like" (55 down); Love

it's ironic though
Aida died for love, which i suppose is more than money
Someone depending on you requires money, so that's not ironic
just fact
and Love is certainly more than like.

While my answers may not be correct
They certainly are not incorrect
But the real irony is that love hardly ever triumphs riches.
(it may be timeless
but what is timeless in a society that knows no history?)
An interesting conclusion i reach;
Thanks to the Times.

i turn my head to the end of the page:
Maybe it is safer to do the Sudoku.

***



"See Heaven's gates are open wide
where tears never streaming,
where only bliss and joy reside
and never-fading love!"

(Wish I could say a name with that much intensity. ~1:45, when he finds her in the tomb, makes me shiver every time.)

食物/喜爱

For me, personally, the greatest gift I can ever receive is the gift of food. Food is so basic, it's a need, not a want, something so simple yet so gratifying. I feel like one of the most sincerest forms of love is when someone cooks something for me - I feel like they took the time to make something with their hands that provides me nourishment, satiety, or simply the feeling of pleasure as a result of endogenous opioids, leptin, ghrelin and NPY.

Food can say so much. A feast can mean welcome to our household, just as much as it can mean I am sorry for your loss. Bakery can be given to say I was thinking about you or I love you, just as sausage can be given to say thank you for being my friend and happy birthday. Rarely is anything edible depicted with hatred, perhaps with exception of the odd comparison of a person to durian, brussel sprouts, chopped liver. Give an Asian family oranges and you say thank you for inviting me over or I appreciate what you did for me. Give a child a bowl of strawberries, and you say I care for you. Give a starving man in a third world country rice, and you don't have to say anything at all. Food can say everything; food is synonymous with love.

I remember reading parts of Fugitive Pieces by Anne Micheals, one of my favourite books, and she probably understood food the best out of all the authors I have read, even those who write cookbooks. She described food as beauty, how putting plums in an orange bowl as opposed to a red one can change the ambiance of the room. She talked about food as a surprise, when in the war a crate of oranges exploded and people found fruits everywhere. One man found an orange in his shirt pocket hanging out to dry, a woman found a flock of oranges nestled underneath her car. Here were starving Jewish people finding treasures hidden in the most peculiar places, smiling at the delight of pulp and vitamin C. Food can be desperation, as one man was accosted by another holding a package of lamb, he said. Lamb! Imagine lamb during the war, enough to feed his whole family and the love they would share from this simple meat. The man gave him all his savings, but it was worth it, it was lamb! He took it home to his wife, who was delighted, and they opened it up to find a dead dog.

Food can hold so many emotions, but I would argue the one it holds the most is that of love. My friend brings me a pineapple for my birthday, I bring Mag BP's lasagna after a hard day's work, Poh poh brings over wings and mushrooms and sticky rice. When I listen as I savour flavours, inhale wafting aromas, I hear:

"Thank you for being in my life."

desktop pt. 1

One of my guilty pleasures is creating desktop layouts that I find really gel with my mood and mindset that I'm in. I feel that it creates a certain ambiance to my whole time spent interfacing with this digital medium that allows us to connect with the virtual world. The mentality I've got lately is one of love and fostering an environment of love, and of course I always have to throw in clean lines somewhere so I merged these two concepts:



I just love the mysticism that the tweaked moon projects, that love should be otherworldly yet close enough to us that we can see it and call it our moon. I'm also pleased that I got the idea to arrange the icons into a heart (Mag helped, my heart looked more like a diamond), a pattern I haven't yet done with my icons. I also changed my desktop settings to take on a metallic tone, a real clean finish in gray to complement the moon's colours, but also to address the crisp lines I so enjoy. And of course a beautiful Thoreau quote, as if love is an ailment yet a serum at the same time, that there is never enough love, that it is selfish but the paradox is that it is wholly unselfish because the receiver demands it all and the giver gives it all without thinking anything of it because it is love!

I love love almost as much as I love run-on sentences and poor grammar. =)

love

Owl Pellets
Ralph Fletcher

A month ago
in biology lab
you sat close to me
knee touching mine
your sweet smell
almost drowning out
the formaldehyde stink
which crinkled up
your nose
while I dissected
our fetal pig.

Now I take apart
this owl pellet
small bag that holds
skin and hair and bones
little skeletons
what the owl ate
but couldn't digest
and coughed back up.

You sit with Jon Fox
ignore me completely
laugh at his dumb jokes
let your head fall onto
his bony shoulder
while I attempt
to piece together
with trembling hands
the tiny bones
of a baby snake.

Certain things
are just about
impossible
to swallow.

***

Ah, love unrequited. The most beautiful love.

timeless(love)

"They made us take in a German officer. He stole from us. Every day I saw him take something - knives and forks, needle and thread. He brought home butter, potatoes, meat - for himself. He watched me cook it and I had to serve him, while Kostas and I ate only carrots, boiled without oil, without even salt. Sometimes he made me at part of his meal in front of Kostas but wouldn't let Kostas eat..."

Kostas stroked his own cheek with Daphne's hand.

"My dear, my dear. He thought it would make me crazy, but truly I was happy to see you have enough for once."

Fugitive Pieces (Anne Michaels)

***

What I would sacrifice for you cannot be measured. Love holds no chronology; it is timeless.

huh

XY ? XX

paper

Remember when I mentioned that when important events rolled around, I might take a few days off from this? Unless I feel like procrastinating, I'll be a little busy writing my psychiatry paper, and probably won't write anything intellectually stimulating for the next little bit.

I have a question that Jia asked me today, though. It's honestly Philosophy 101, but it's important:

In the name of love, would you sacrifice your career (say you're going to be a doctor, and the public health policy you would eventually implement hypothetically would save thousands), just to be with the love of your life? Is it stupid to do this, or is this the ultimate love, the one that sacrifices everything just for that one person? Is love selfish, or does love trump all?

grade 3

"love is such an ageless song..."