Twenty-Four Hours Earlier…

From: Phil
To: The Host
Date: Dec. 30th, 2008
Subject: Invitations for Pre-New-Year’s dinner

Did you forget to invite some people?

[List of Names]

- p

From: The Host
To: Phil
Date: Dec. 30th, 2008
Subject: Re: Invitations for Pre-New-Year’s dinner

I don’t know how to reply to this email without sounding weird… but I’ve invited those who we usually hang out with. I probably haven’t spoken to [those people] in years…

[Signed, The Host]

From: Phil
To: The Host
Date: Dec. 30th, 2008
Subject: Re: Re: Invitations for Pre-New-Year’s dinner

Sorry. I guess I’m a bit out of the loop. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all still back in high school.

- p

Twelve Hours Earlier…

Place: Pre-New-Year’s-Eve dinner. Post-party cleanup

Date: Dec. 30th , 2008

“Well, who is she engaged to?,” I asked none too gently, gritting my teeth as I scrubbed furiously at a piece of baked lasagana on glass, “Who is this guy, anyways?”

“Why is it such a big deal for you that she’s getting married?”

“Because she’s one of us,” I said, clearly emphasizing the “us” part to remind everybody there was indeed a them (that we never spoke about).

He clearly didn’t get my point. “So?”

Someone next to me chimed in. “Because, it means things are changing.”

Midnight

Place: AC 888, 20,000 feet over the Atlantic.

Date: Dec. 31th , 2008

Time: Midnight

There was a gentle ‘ding’ from above and all the headrest-movie-screens blacked out simultaneously, plunging the cabin into darkness.

Then the intercom crackled to life.

“Welcome to 2009,” said the captain.

Quiz time.

At this moment, there was:

a) The sound of champagne bottles uncorking

b) The sound of sparklers crackling, couples kissing, and passengers cheering

c) The sound of gentle snoring and babies crying

d) The sound of silence

If you’re wondering what it’s like to be flying over the Atlantic when the New Year strikes, the answer is d) the sound of silence.

Oh. And maybe the gentle tappity-tap of a glowing Macbook as this author tries to write out his final thoughts of 2008.

But I’m getting to that.

The Quartic-Year Cycle

When you’re a student, you live your life according to the the four-year calendar: Grades 1-4, Grades 5-8, Grades 9-12, and the four undergraduate years of college.

Of course, each of these quartic-year groups are further separated into academic years; each year is separated into academic terms and exams; each term is separated into academic weeks; and each academic week is dictated by the individual requirements of each separate class: weekly or bi-weekly assignments, tests, group projects, honours projects, and so on and so forth.

There is an orderly air to everything.

This doesn’t mean life is easy.

High school (to a high school student) is no easier than college (to a college student). People often make the mistake of looking back and whining about how good and easy life was, but this is simply a bias of perspective. It was never easy.

It just seems that way, now. After all, you’re older and wizened.

Teenage angst and acne, for example, seems so insignificant compared to the problems of a single working parent, trying frantically to get through college — but then again, try explaining that one to the average high school student.

That’s what I mean by a bias of perspective.

The End of an Era

For my friends, however, 2008 marks the end of this quartic-year cycle.

2004 was the year of university applications, high school prom, and eventually, high school graduation. Four years later, many members of this class are either finished with their last vestige of education, or are are the verge of finishing.

Life, for these people, will no longer be measured in groups of four years or in academic terms, separated by excruciating and sleepless exam periods. Life is just as regular — they still wake up and head to work every morning; they will all have deadlines to deal with and forms to fill; they will all have bosses and supervisors.

In short, life doesn’t really become any less busy. Just different. More flexible and requiring full independence.

But most of all, there are changes in social structure.

Friendship — within the school system — is easy. You and your fellow comrades are bound in circumstance, whether that means being locker neighbours, sitting besides each other in class, or as residences in the same building. But at the end of each quartic-year cycle, these friendships fragment.

Our group of friends is like the swanky, restricted club in town. We’ve dropped all the not-so-regular customers and now, the only way you get in is by being someone’s plus-one. Or perhaps by being really good friends with the host.

And this scares me.

2008: A year of professional development

I never got a last quartic-year cycle.

‘04-’06 was duo-year (undergrad), ‘06-’07 was a mono-year (masters), and ‘07-’10 will be the final, triple-year piece of the puzzle. Except two of those don’t count, right? Because by the end of undergrad, I was supposed to be finished.

But it never felt finished.

So where am I, now? Did I fast-forward through the last cycle? Or am I actually behind, stuck in this weird purgatory-like place, inhabited by people who never finished high school or never finished college?

Maybe I’m just different.

Professionally, I feel so far ahead. I’m at the point where I’m comfortable with what I know, but more importantly, I’m comfortable with what I don’t know. High school students, by the way, think they know everything, and that’s where the crucial difference lies.

There’s an unusual calmness I feel now. It’s hard to express, but there’s this one scene in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation which delivers a truthful pang to my heart every time I see it. In that scene, the lovely Charlotte (Johanssen) is lying next to the wizened Bob (Murray). She asks him, “Does it get easier?”

“No,” he says at first. Then, “Yes, it gets easier. The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”

Professionally, I know who I am, and generally what I want. I know what I can do, and I don’t let things I can’t do upset me.

2008 has been a year of such professional growth and maturity.

And so in that respect, I feel ahead.

So far ahead, yet so far behind

But if I’m ahead of the curve professionally, I’m behind the curve socially.

I stopped making friends after high school. After all, how could I? I started university in 2004. By 2006, I was in my last year, while the class I’d begun with was in their second. In 2007, I’d leave the country to pursue school elsewhere.

Ah, of course, I’d make ‘friends’. People I say hi and goodbye to when I pass them on the street or in the department. Perhaps people I chat with when I find the time to attend some party. But the real friends? The real friends you get to know, then learn to love, and invite to dinner parties and buy birthday and Christmas presents for? I stopped making those ages ago.

So for me, my group of friends is still largely the same group as it was at the end of high school. Then judging by the opening e-mail of this post, if anything, the number of new friends I’ve gained since then has plunged into the negatives.

This is why I balked when I heard a friend from high school had just been engaged. It was inconceivable! To me, marriage is as foreign as it is to a Grade 9 student. It’s like arriving in homeroom, only to find everyone you know has gone off to work at their jobs, or to tend to their babies and wives and husbands and goddamn garden patches.

No, not everybody is getting married and having babies. But things are changing. New friendships are being forged and old ones are being left behind.

I mean, Jesus Christ, why do I feel like I’m being left behind?

2009 and Beyond

Where to from here?

In one of my previous posts, one of the readers made a jibe about one of my previous prophecies. One that was printed in the city newspaper.

“He expects his time at Oxford to be more relaxed than the last three years have been,” it says in the newspaper.

“Dude, that crystal ball of yours was so off the money,” came the jibe.

It has and it hasn’t. Professionally, I’ve continued to grow. I’m more mature and calmer about my fate in the world. In that respect, it is more relaxed. Phil-the-mathematician is alive and kicking and well as ever. He’s teaching, he’s researching, he’s writing, and he’s publishing. He’s also sleeping, by the way.

But Phil-the-everything-else? Phil-the-friend, Phil-the-boyfriend, Phil-the-joker, Phil-the-athlete, Phil the living, breathing, socially adept human being?

I just don’t know anymore.

the three mugs

In which the author prepares to leave his home of twenty years and reminisces about his past with the help of three, rather unremarkable coffee mugs.

Having garnered a position as a student at a well-to-do university somewhere across the Atlantic, I found myself in the prickly dilemma of having to pack my entire life into two, under-50-lbs suitcases (thank you very much Air Canada) and leaving for England.

Unfortunately, for someone as ‘hobbity’ and fond of comforts as me, knowing what to pack and what not to pack is a monumental task.

Take, for example, my mug situation. Every avid coffee or tea drinker knows that the selection of the proper mug is key.

But actually, a mug means so much more than the delicious caffeinated goodness it may contain. Oh yes. A good mug symbolizes comfort. It represents a good home. And above all else, a good mug tells you a lot about the person holding it.

But with very limited room and weight for my possessions, I have to pick and choose.

Thus, it’s essential that I pick the right kind of mug. A mug that evokes poetic images of my hometown. A mug that subtly hints of my childish and rumbustious upbringing. That pains me with twangs of unrequited love and past heartbreak. And of promising futures.

I have four of them. Four mugs, each with truly revealing, utterly riveting stories. Each symbolizing a different aspect of what I’d like to bring to my new home.

Now one of these mugs — which, if you’re the attentive sort, has been a constant companion throughout this blog (look up), I’ve already decided to bring. And the story, though certainly of interest and certainly revealing, is one I’m not too eager to share. Let’s leave it at that.

And so without further ado, I present to you the three contestants.

The First Mug: Mickey and Pluto

This mug, which has a cartoon picture of Mickey Mouse and the lovable Pluto dozing off was a gift from my parents for one of my birthdays. Knowing them, it was probably bought at a second-hand store.

Of the four mugs, it’s the most unexciting, and uninteresting one.

But it’s a symbol of the warm comforts of home. It makes me remember all those times I spent sipping coffee at home, studying diligently, while constantly being peppered with intrusive interruptions by my mom.

Roz Doyle, from the TV show Frasier once asked, “Why is it so easy to love your family, but so hard to like them?” She hit the question right on the nose, and I’m not sure what the answer is, or even if there is one.

It’s not a mature mug, of course. It’s a childish and homely. But it does brings back comforts of Ottawa and of my suburban home. And that’s why I like it.

The Second Mug: Hillcrest High School

One day, when I’m lying on my death bed, I’m going to revisit the fondest, most memorable times of life. And high school, well, high school will most definitely be on that list.

To me, it’s not strange to admit that my final few years in high school are considered the high points of my existence.

I had everything. I had friends from all types and backgrounds — some of whom have continued to form the core members of my troupe. I was close to many of the teachers, and able to laugh and joke with them as I did with all my friends.

I was academically at the top of my game — in a time where you could be at the top of your game. Homework and school projects were always an output for my creative brand of humour and satire, with many presentations breaking out in song and other variations of silliness.

I was an avid athlete, competitively trained in track and field and at one point, National Capital champion in the triple jump. In gym class, I got to run around like an idiot, playing dodgeball, basketball, or whatever was offered on that particular day.

I was in love. Infatuated and silly. Hopelessly romantic.

But that’s what teenage love is all about, n’est-ce pas?

I was naive and still possessing boundless energy and that youthful outlook on life kids enjoy but never fully appreciate. Most of all, I was coming out of my shell. Sure, I was still awkward, but I was learning. Learning fast.

It’s all gone downhill since then. Not in the typical sense, of course. In many ways, I’m more successful than I ever was. I’m older, smarter, and have a pair of documents that proves to the world I have enough academic training to put the average girl to sleep on a date.

But I’ve lost a lot of the magic.

I’ve lost that balanced, jubilant lifestyle I once enjoyed.

That’s what this mug means to me.

The Third Mug: Overbrook Public School

Almost nobody can tell you anything about Overbrook Public School.

That’s because there is no Overbrook Public School. At least not anymore. It was shut down half-a-decade ago.

But even when there was an Overbrook Public School, it was hardly noticeable.

The school taught kindergarten through grade 6 — which was unusual since most primary schools that bother going up to grade 6 are capable of accommodating grade 7 and 8 students as well. Tiny was not the right word to describe Overbrook.

It was minuscule.

It had about 300 or 400 students and a handful of teachers. Everybody knew everybody and that was that. The gymnasium, I still remember vividly (but not all that fondly); the roof was perhaps 12 feet high, which meant the basketball nets where 7 or 8 feet off the ground. You literally had to lob the ball horizontally, otherwise it would bounce off the roof.

No wonder our school was always creamed in basketball.

Me? I was there from grade 4 to 6, but only because the school offered a unique French Immersion program. The thing is, nothing really happened when I was a student there. I was a pretty normal, run-of-the-mill kid. I was quiet, bright, athletic, but not unusually so. Girls thought I was awkward and a total nerd and geek (oh, how things have changed…), but at that age, they still had cooties and I had little interest in the fairer sex.

So in the end, that’s what this mug — a prize for my Grade 6 speech on Amelia Earhart — represents: my humble, quiet, and terribly unexciting past.

Your see, I have high hopes for some of my friends and acquaintances. I think some of them will go on to lead wonderfully successful lives. Make buckets of cash. Marry beautiful men and women. And then invite me to summer in their waterfront homes and lend me keys to their flashy sports cars.

But wherever we are, whatever we may do, it’s important to remember that most of us come from humble beginnings. Some of us attended tiny, unremarkable schools, and, at least initially, led wholly unremarkable lives.

Because, really, it’s all about the journey.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “Who is that unbeareably handsome guy off to the right?”

Look at those eyes!

Those brown, mellowy eyes that just ooze intelligence and…what is that? A kind of gentle weariness and humorous melancholy?

Maybe. But either way, I bet you were so enamored by those eyes, you didn’t even question my use of the word ‘mellowy’.

And that slump!

Oooh baby. That casual slump that somehow manages to tread the fine line between downright coolness and hopeless slack. It’s a slump that says, “Baby, James Dean s’got nothin’ on me”.

What about that smirk?

A subtle smirk that’s probably maddening to most people if it weren’t so suave. That’s the kind of smirk that’ll get you the ladies, I bet. Or get you beaten up in the 8th grade.

But surely that smirk reminds you of someone?

It’s me, duh!

I love it!

Is this what models feel like when a photographer takes their picture and, through a combination of makeup and photoshop produces a product worthy of a magazine cover?

It sorta looks like me, but not really.

Because for one thing, I hardly look that good in real life.

In any case, the reason I look so good is due to my friend and acquaintance, the talented artist, Captain Slug, who grudgingly put his artistic skills to the test on my behalf.

I was sorta hoping for tights and a cape, but I suppose that suit doesn’t look half bad.

second wind

Later in high school, he went through more women than I through textbooks.

And I assure you, that was no small feat.

There was this girl way, way back in Grade 8 that I fancied. Sort of.

But you know how trivial adolescent love is — it’s a truly turbulent time, what with swirling hormonal mood shifts, awkward hair, squeaky pubescent voices and bad, bad, bad posture.

She was cute. Short, brown eyes, shoulder length brown hair, itty bitty hands, and a button nose. Almost the very definition of sickly cuteness.

I’d often stop by her locker in the morning and sorta squeak out a measly excuse for a conversation.

“Sup,” I’d say.

“Not much,” she’d say.

Then we’d sort of grin at each other and go our separate ways.

No long deep conversations on abstract math, no lustful eye-gazing, not even a bit of innocent flirtation.

I was young. It was hard enough to walk without tripping over my own shoes.

So Christmas comes, and she surprises me with a small gift. Which was totally out of the blue because we were locker buddies in spirit. Certainy not the kind of friends to exchange gifts.

It was a really cute present: a packet of a few dozen pennies individually hand-wrapped in red Christmas paper. The story of why I had such a public obsession with pennies is so vague to me now that there’s no real point in trying to remember it all.

The point is I liked pennies.

She gave me pennies. A lot of them. Individually wrapped.

And this, I reasoned to my young, naive self — could only mean one thing: She wanted to jump my eager little bones.

Obviously.

So school lets out and I deviously find her number. You know, through a friend of a friend of a friend. I’m not sure what outrageous lies I had to tell my friends to solicit her number without warranting suspicion, but I’m sure my hastily fictionalized excuses were entirely noble and pure at heart.

“Hi, is this Sally?”, I said.

“Sure is,” she said.

“It’s Phil,” I said.

“Hi Phil,” she said.

She was cheery. And the fact that she didn’t say, “How the fuck did you get my number, you perv?” pushed me onwards.

“Iwuzondring…uh…if-yud liket’go… [muffled cough] movie w’me?”, I gasped in one entirely strangled breath.

Smooth, Phil. Real smooth.

Right. But this is where it all gets blurry. If you were preparing yourselves for some amusing climax, I’m afraid you’re going to be severely disapointed.

It was a bust.

From my vague recollection, she agreed, though somewhat unenthusiastically. We then carried out an unusually protracted game of dueling datebooks which consisted of me: serving possible days for our coveted event and her: clumsily returning sympathetic excuses.

Oh, but what a tumultuous phone call it was. Minutes later, I slumped, exhausted and sweaty into my chair, mopped my forehead, and pondered the final decision: we’d both agreed — well, it was more 70/30 — to wait a week or so until school started again, after which we’d find a more suitable date.

It never came.

But you knew that already, didn’t you?

Only a few days after school started, I found out that one of the schoolyard kids — an asshole, even at that age — had asked her out and they were now an exclusive couple, whatever that meant.

Which you know, kind of sucked.

I would have appreciated a bit of an advanced warning. I don’t think she spoke to me much after that whole fiasco.

It didn’t really matter, of course. They eventually parted ways a whole 3 weeks after and he was off oogling another girl before I had a chance for a second wind. Later in high school, he went through more women than I through textbooks.

And I assure you, that was no small feat.

I did hear about Sally from a friend a few years ago. Apparently, she’d put off plans for university after high school with the intent of moving in with her amourous partner.

And here I am. 7 years later.

I don’t think I’ve ever look at a penny the same way since the Christmas of 1999.

Lately, I’ve been making mistakes. A lot of them. I’ve been watching my life spin in a million different directions, and I’ve noticed everything falling apart. Slowly, but surely.

I’ve been watching my grades fall. At this point there’s not much hope of repeating history and claiming the third and final Governor General’s Academic Medal. My research has been sidetracked by my academics, as well as my bids for graduate schools and graduate funding.

It doesn’t help that I’ve grown weary of school. I’ve been skipping classes I shouldn’t have skipped. I’ve frankly disowned the mathematical community at large and am turning into more of a recluse than ever before.

It’s hard. Because you see, without my academics, I’m nothing. Nada. Zip. Ziltch.

I’m known for my academic ability. I’m known not as a top student, but the top student. And if I give that position up, then what am I? Would I be just another one of a thousand faceless students?

If I can’t hang on to the only thing that makes me me, then what does that mean?

has-been  /ˈhæzˌbɪn/
–noun

1. a person or thing that is no longer effective, successful, popular, etc.

2. Phil. Loser.

I guess I’m starting to feel the effects of finishing undergrad so fast. I wish I was back in High School. I wish I could go to parties and get drunk. I wish I could just sit in the park and talk with a lovely girl I fancied, instead of sitting home alone at 4 in the morning, trying to understand Topology, Dynamical Systems, or whatever.

Oh, how I envy you guys.