An Introduction to My Memoir.

First of all I want to say how sorry I am for not following the guidelines of around 200 words per a post. Also a lot of my entires are written informally more so the letters than others, and this is because I was writing as if I really was going to send out the letter so that was how I would have written it. It's just that I can't seem to fit my feelings and recount my memories in that amount of words. It should make sense because I talk so much though. Now in my memoir on the side you will see that there is a playlist, each song corresponds to the post in the order that it's in, basically the song "W" belongs with my post for Tiffany and the song "Almost lover" belongs with my post for Dickson. I have chosen each of these songs because they hold some meaning for me and that person or because it relates to the entry that I have made about them.

Here I will include specific lyrics that correspond with each post.

Tiffany Ng "W"

We will keep your place here,

until the day we can meet again,

We believe that we can laugh together with you once again.

You are always our Pride.

We are still searching for the W.

Really I chose this song because it holds a lot of meaning for Tiffany and I. It is a song by a group called JYJ who were previously apart of a band called DBSK or TVXQ but they have just recently broken up and this is the song that the three from JYJ has written to their lost members. The break up of this band has affected us greatly because really in my opinion they are one of the things that have allowed Tiffany and I to stay such good friends even after going to different schools and not being able to see each other as much anymore.

Dickson "Almost lover"

Goodbye my almost lover

Goodbye my hopeless dream

I'm trying not to think about you

Can't you just let me be?

So long my luckless romance

My back has turned on you

Should've known you'd bring me heartache

Almost lovers always do.

I chose this song for obvious reasons.

Geneva "Fun"

F is for Friends who do stuff together.
U is for You and me.
N is for Anywhere and anytime at all.

It's really just a fun song that describes our relationship well. This is kinda how I feel when I'm hanging out with her.

Chelsey "Lean on Me"

Lean on me, when your not strong

And I'll be your friend

I'll help you carry on

For it won't be long

'Til I'm gonna need

Somebody to lean on

Just a simple song about friendship that I think explains us pretty well.

Stephanie and her Mother "Friends theme song"

I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour

I'll be there for you, like I've been there before

I'll be there for you, cause your there for me too.

For a long time this quote explained our relationship well. We were always there for eachother.

Michelle "Low"

Have you ever been low?

Have you ever had a friend let you down so?

When the truth came out

Were you left out in the cold?

What you did was low.

I just think that this explains the situation stated in my entry about Michelle well.

Tiffany Kwok "Breaking the Habit"

Memories consume
Like opening the wound
I'm picking me apart again
You all assume
I'm safe here in my room
Unless I try to start again

[Bridge:]
I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cause inside I realize
That I'm the one confused

[Chorus:]
I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream.
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean.
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright.
So I'm breaking the habit,
I'm breaking the habit
Tonight

Clutching my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again
I hurt much more
Than anytime before
I had no options left again

[Bridge]

[Chorus]

I'll paint it on the walls
'Cause I'm the one that falls
I'll never fight again
And this is how it ends

[Chorus:]
I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
But now I have some clarity
to show you what I mean
I don't know how I got this way
I'll never be alright
So, I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit
I’m breaking the habit
Tonight

I've put the whole song here because it explains how I felt during the period of this memoir entry. This was also one of the songs I probably listened to the most at that time. Really this song means a lot to me and has been able to help me so much that I can't even explain it.

By the way: not all of my posts fit onto the page so you can access my last post either by getting to the end of the page and clicking on "older posts" or just accessing my posts from the blog archive.

Tiffany Ng

Tiffany Ng is probably the friend who I care about the most and have known the longest. She is one of the most important people in my life. We met in 1999 when she first moved into her house next to mine. After that we went to the same elementary school which lead to carpooling. Truthfully, we weren't really friends until around grade 7 because we just didn't get along. So I really don't have that many memories from before grade 8 so let's start there ! :)

Tiffany's 11th birthday party! We weren't really friends then but we would invite each other to our parties really just because we were neighbours.

Dickson's birthday 14th party. A.k.a. The time I ordered white tuna and fish heads, decided I didn't want it when it got here and then you and Dickson had to finish them for me because you didn't want to pay extra for the food we didn't eat. :)

A school trip in grade 8 when we went to the beach and went to Marche. That was some GOOD PIZZA. And then after we destroyed the crepe.

My going away part near the end of Grade 8 because I had to leave about a month and a half before graduation. I was seriously so sad that I had to leave you guys and that I wouldn't be able to go to Grad!

Chilling at the park near Tiffany's house and meeting some friends while we were there.

Tiffany and I at my 14th birthday party choosing what song to rock out on to kareoke. We ended up choosing a chinese rapping song that we failed at but it was fun :) . If it isn't obvious enough in the picture, we dyed our hair the same colour.

Tiffany and I webcamming with Dickson during the summer, because really we have nothing better to do with our lives. It's always nice to spend some time with old friends, especially now that we aren't able to see each other as often.

Tiffany and I at her house the summer after grade 9. After we finished summer school for the day. Her house is really like a second home to me. I know her house better than I know my own at the moment.

Just chilling at the mall in Grade 9. I was able to meet some of the friends you made in High school. It really did make me wish we went to the same high school though.

What dinner usually consists of when I go to Tiffany's house. This specific dinner was on November 5th. Really we're just usually too lazy to make any food that would require an actualy overn

Last week when we went to see Tiffany's little brother get his black belt and we saw epic kids who could fight really well.

Us now. Still love her!

Dickson

Dear Dicky Poo,

Hey haven’t heard from me in a while have you. I haven’t talked to you in about 3 years now… how have you been? I hope you’ve been doing well; actually I’m pretty sure you’re doing well because well you’re you. And yea you being you is supposed to explain a lot because for some reason you’re able to get almost everyone to love you, doesn’t matter if it’s teachers, kids, old people, friends everyone always ends up loving you. Including me.

So that shouldn’t have been something new to you because of my fail confession back in Grade eight a couple of weeks (or was it days?) before I was going to leave. Truthfully I liked you since about in grade six I think? When you would make me mad that resulted in me chasing you all around the school. (I guess you could call it childhood romance?) Then it grew into me caring about what you thought about me, when I heard that you didn’t like me for some reason or another I tried to change myself so that you would like me better. Then finally after two years I could finally call you my friend.

Maybe the way we became friends wasn’t ideal, me consoling you about breaking up with my best friend. But can you blame me? I thought maybe if we were friends then my stupid crush could stop. But that didn’t happen. The more I got to know you the more I liked you, soon enough I could say that I was in love. And no joke I seriously was that whole heart fluttering when you get closer, not knowing what to say when you’re around me, the whole nine yards. But that didn’t bother our friendship did it? That didn’t mess with when I gave you honest and good advice for what to do for your girlfriend at the time when we were having those conversations at night that would go hours upon hours. It didn’t matter that I had these feelings for you as long as we were friends that was enough for me. And yea I loved it when we were best friends. I miss that, so much.

So the moment I knew I was in love? It was simple actually. Remember that time we were doing that project at your house? I don’t actually remember what class it was for, I just remember you doing a lot of the work while I watched tv (thanks again for that I’m pretty sure we got a good mark for that project). We were done and waiting for my mom to come pick me up and we were across from each other on different couches. And then you just lied down and smiled at me. At that moment I wanted time to stop. So yea that was it, a simple smile added onto years of developing feelings was all it took. All it took for me to love you, all it took for me to decide to continue being for you whatever would make you happy.

But that doesn’t mean you had to take advantage of the fact I would do anything for you. You didn’t have to tell me about all your girl problems, you didn’t have to let me help you whenever you got into trouble with them. Even though I was willing you could have turned around and looked at the person who was helping you all that time even for just a second. You didn’t have to just treat me as a friend who you would never even consider liking. You didn’t have to lead me on and call me baby when there was no meaning behind it. But I can’t blame anyone but myself, I knew that you were like that. I knew who you were since the beginning but I still decided to get closer to you knowing I would probably get hurt in the end.

So here’s something I found on facebook that describes my feelings exactly:

“Hi. Remember me? You used to smile when you say me, hug me for no reason, talk to me without any conditions and love me for who I was. I miss that.”

I know that this is supposed to describe people who were dating, but it fits our situations perfectly doesn’t it? So once again, can you blame me for loving you when you were giving me signals that that?

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget you, even though you’ve probably already forgotten about me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hope to forget about you one day.

Sincerely,

Kat

By the way. I addressed him as Dicky Poo because well his name is Dickson Poon so yea, that's what I used to call him. And this letter is really scattered because that's just how I talk when it's about him. The confession that I talked about in the letter actually took about an hour with me going in circles and then even after I told him he thought I was talking about someone else because I don't know even when typing I get tounge tied when it comes to him.

Geneva

Friendship checklist (For all those who wish to be best friends please complete the following):

1. Meet and begin talking due to a school project. (Then ditch future friend on the day of project due to being sick and laugh about it the day after because said project involved singing an embarrassing song.)

2. Then get the karma when you have art together and watch as friend is amazingly talented in art and you fail time and time again. Have your final project as said friend creating an amazing recreation of the Mona Lisa while you draw weird pictures of dead sea monsters which are supposedly self portraits.

3. Have an epic talk about what life means and what would happen when you die. Then ruin the moment by talking about how if you end up in heaven you will have wings sprouting from the front of your body instead of from your back because you’re just that weird. (Then have said friend never let that go and go through losing one wing then having it grow back, only to be ripped off again. [Hypothetically speaking of courseJ])

4. Bring said friend whom you have already been with for a reasonable amount of time to Pacific Mall and laugh while she feels awkward because she is surrounded by Asians. Then make her feel even more awkward about it when you speak to the cashiers in mandarin instead of English.

5. Read 5 books for White Pine and then have said friend lie about reading 5 books to go to the luncheon. Then get separated into different groups for the trivia and have a battle to the death to see whose group will win. In the end neither of your teams win and you just feel stupid.

6. Wake up early to stand in line in the cold for tickets to a book festival. Thinking that no one will be there you get there only about an hour before the tickets will start being distributed. Then you see a REALLY long line and stare at your friend while she stares back. Valuable lesson learned CANADIAN GIRLS READ.

If you remember these things then you are one of three people:

1) Geneva

2) Me… which you can’t be because I’m me and you being me makes no sense because once again, I’M ME !

3) A stalker and I have to then say GET AWAY FROM US YOU STALKER!

These are just a few of the things I’ve done with Geneva which has allowed us to be best friends. I can’t even being to say how lucky I am to have someone like her in my life so I won’t. We haven’t known each other that long when compared to some of my other friends but she very quickly became one of the most important people in my life. I can’t image my life without her now. It seems that whenever we’re together we can have fun just because we always talk about the stupidest things.

Chelsey

-Enter into the hall from main staircase.

- Turn right onto the hall and look around, sees a custodian

Kathy: Uhm, excuse me. Where is room 220?

-Girl turns around and looks at Kathy.

Girl: 220 is right next to you.

Kathy: Oh, okay thanks.

-Both enter room and decided to sit next to each other. Look up to the front of the room and see that there is a seating chart. Looks at each other and realizes that we are the in the correct seats.

Chelsey: Hi my name’s Chelsey, what’s yours?

Kathy: My name is Kathy.

Our science teacher Ms. Freda then began the class and started talking and realized that we have many common interests such as Twilight, anime, Maple Story etc. We also realized that we had 3 of our classes together that semester.

We look back on how we became friends and usually account it to my stupidity. But we look back on it fondly because, without that moment I think our lives in high school would have been drastically different. Neither of us would have the friends that we have now and we may even be really different people. Being friends with Chelsey has allowed me to be myself (no matter how crazy the real me may be) something that I had a lot of difficulty doing prior to high school.

Stephanie and her Mom

There was once a time in my life that I considered two places to be home. One was the place where my family lived and the second was where my friend Stephanie lived. I may have mentioned this before but I didn’t’ used to have that many friends when I was younger. Who knows what? I think I was just anti-social, something that seems to run in my family. So I have known most of my classmates since the first grade but oddly enough, I had never been able to really connect with any of them. Then came Stephanie. Now looking back on it, I don’t think I even made the decision to become her friend, it kind of just happened. But I think that’s the way it worked with most of her friends, there’s just something about her that makes you become closer to her without you even realizing it. With her help I was even able to make a lot of other friends.

I really can’t pinpoint a moment when it happened, but Stephanie’s house had become a home for me at some point. It got to the point where I was staying over at her house almost every weekend. But if I’m going to be honest, it wasn’t Stephanie who I really wanted to see when I went over, ti was her mom. I don’t think I even realized it at the time because I was really close to Stephanie but really I loved her mom. I think maybe it was because her mom seemed to have everything my own lacked. First of all her mother was so strong. She was able to singlehandedly take care of her two children and be a high school teacher, which realistically gave her about another 100 or so kids to worry about. I know that my own mother would not be able tot surcice if my dad were to leave us. And she was so caring, she seemed to care more about what I was doing than my own mother did and she would take to me about things like she was a friend. We even liked a lot of the same things.

So really her mom was what made Stephanie’s house feel like a home. At times when Stephanie was busy but I was already at her house I would just spend my time with her mom. She was there to watch television with me (we actually went through about 3 seasons of bones together) or maybe help me with my math homework. Her mom has changed my life in more ways than I can think of, but most importantly she’s shown me the type of person that I want to be in the future.

Michelle

Dear Michelle,

How have you been the last couple of years? We haven’t talked in a long time and honestly I don’t know if I want to anytime soon. I can still remember When we were best friends basically doing anything and everything together. At least that’s how I thought we were, that’s why I let you talk me into coming to St. Augustine. I guess that was kind of abrupt but really that’s something that has been bothering me since it happened. Why would you do it? Why would you even take the time to talk me into something when you yourself ended up changing your mind?

I didn’t want to come to St. Augustine for high school, I was completely set on going to Pierre Elliot Trudeau but then you spend all that time talking me into going with you. Then I go with you on that day to get the admission sheets and I still remember it. Goring to the school and getting our sheets, getting kicked out by Mr. Smith because apparently we weren’t supposed to be there. Then going back to your house and filling out our sheets and talking about all the things that we would do together in high school. Then a couple of days later getting our teachers to sign the application to recommend that we would be a good addition to the school, even going as far as going to buy our uniforms. We were so set up to go to school together and though I was nervous because almost everyone we knew was going to P.E.T I was going because you asked me to.

So can you even begin to understand how I felt when I come back from summer vacation in August and have you tell me that you transferred back to P.E.T? You know what made it worse? The way you avoided me, the way you weren’t even going to tell me, the fact that it took someone else to start the conversation before you would even fess up for what you did. So do you know how I felt? Let me give you a few suggestions betrayed, angry, confused, scared all these words can apply. But this is in no way supposed to be a hate letter (you don’t really believe me after all that do you? But seriously it isn’t). I guess it’s actually a thank you letter. Because of the decision you made me make, I’ve been able to figure out who my true friends are. Those people that I am still able to say in contact with even after ending up in different schools, and those people who I’ve never spoken to again. So really it was helpful or else I think I may have ended up depending on people who would have just abandoned me if I had gone to P.E.T.

I guess the bottom line is, I think I may always blame you and thing of a million “what if” situations about if I had decided to go to P.E.T. But I also have to thank you for showing me who was worth having in my life (sadly you didn’t end up being one of them) and it taught me what kind of friends I should be making now and in the future.

Sincerely,

Kathy Li

Tiffany Kwok

A person once said to me, “Be a good replacement for me when I leave.” It didn’t really make much sense to me at the time, be a good her? What was that supposed to mean? Why would I have to be her instead of just being myself? Now looking back on it that seems to be the time I remember before everything went downhill.

In elementary school, I knew a girl named Tiffany Kwok. She was friends with people like Tiffany Ng and Corina Lee; even in the first grade there were already people who were obviously more popular. They didn’t have much to do with me the first couple of years of school, I was more of a loner, someone who just liked to hang out alone from everyone else and they seemed to be the opposite of me. The only thing that connected us was Tiffany Ng because she was my next door neighbor and her mom drove me home from school everyday, even then we didn’t talk that much. So with someone who I really had no connection to, I didn’t know why she didn’t seem to like me. I never did anything to her, so why did she just seeme to have this constant dislike for me?

I got my answer the year she said she was going to move away. I didn’t think of it then, but she though of me as a threat. For some reason she thought that I was going to take her place in her group of friends because of my connection to Tiffany Ng. It was true that over the years we had started warming up to each other more, but our friendship was still nowhere near the one they had. So the year she thought she was going to leave, she told me to be a good her because she wouldn’t be there anymore. Btu the thing was, she didn’t move away that year.

It was after that summer when we returned to school that the bullying began. Though I guess it can’t really be called bullying since whatever she did it wasn’t like I was taking it and not retaliating. It was more just a fight that went on and on for a couple of years that consisted of snarky remarks, rumors spread and the occasional physical altercation.

This constant fighting with this girl and just the stress of everything finally got to me one day and I made what I think can be considered as one of the biggest and stupidest mistakes of my life. I can’t really remember when it was or the specific even that trigged it, all I remember was the relief that I felt after Id’ done it. I’m not going to sit here and lie through my teeth saying that I completely regret what I did. This may say something about what my mental health was at the time but it really helped me. For a few short moments I was able to forget everything that was wrong in my life and just concentrate on one thing. And what was a little more physical pain when I was already going through so much emotionally?

At the end of seventh grade I somehow ended up making up with this girl, I don’t really know how or even why but we were able to set aside our differences and stop fighting. It may have been a bit overdramatic and I may have involved some hugging and tears but it actually seemed to stick. Now again I’m not going to say that one apology made everything better and made us become the best of friends but we didn’t hate each other anymore. Now this peace lasted, but for the time it lasted it made some permanent scars on me.