November is coming which means my 24th birthday is coming. Turning 24 is not really a big deal, but if it’s going to be the last birthday I will celebrate with my friends here, I might as well make a big deal out of it.

Someone in my classes found out that I’m 23 and without my degree yet. That someone asked, “Don’t you feel the pressure of the adult clock yet? Isn’t it ticking? I mean you’re 23 and most people have already graduated and finished their degree by your age. Some might have started their Masters or something else.”

My reply? “No. Not really. I had some great experiences in work and in travel to compensate those times I could have graduated. So, I guess you could say that the adult clock isn’t just ticking, it’s alarm is blaring and I’m either too lazy or too sleepy to find the snooze button.”

That’s not to say that I don’t get anxious about the future. I do, and then I don’t. These anxieties sneak up on me on quiet days of relaxation from work and school. All of a sudden I find myself asking, “What am I doing? What is this all coming to?” I wonder when I started becoming more serious about these things.

Wasn’t I the girl who used to say things like, “The average marrying age of females in Canada is 28. I’m 21 which means I have 7 years of bad dates, bad boyfriends, and losers to look forward to and that’s if I’m lucky. Unfortunately, my friends say that I’m NOT at all average so I’ll probably not even get married until I’m, like, dead.”

Or

“I’m not too sure if I want a career. I could have sworn I making more money in University, working for my parents as their daughter.”

Or

“I find dating to be very hard since I tend to find people who are complete opposites of me. For example, I like egg salad and he’s in love with someone else.”

The point is, I used to not care. Or I would be aware of them, but I wouldn’t take them seriously as I do now.

I guess it gets harder to face another year knowing full well that you have friends all at the same age who are starting their careers, are in happy relationships, and are thinking of ‘adult things’ like mortgages, cars, and vacations.

People say that you can’t do anything but go forward, but I think I will disagree. I can become an ‘adult’ any time and since my break-up, this becomes more clear to me everyday. I should stop comparing myself to other people and their achievements and proudly acknowledge my own.

Right now, I’m going to focus on myself and those things that are important to me: my university courses, my VFS plan, my sisters, and my close friends. I’m going to put dating, career and all that other stuff in the back burner. It’s not that I don’t want them, I just don’t want them now. I’m not ready to grow up at 23; probably won’t be ready at 24 either.

So at 24, I need to throw a big party of some sort. I’ll be inviting my sisters and my close friends. It has to be ON my birthday since my birthday falls on a Saturday, so it has to be a Saturday of Shenanigans. I’m juggling through some activity ideas:

- lazer tag
- Julios Barrio’s for drinks and food
- Bowling competition at Red’s … blindfolded
- Duelling Piano bar
- Improv/Theatresports
- Local plays

Or, if I am daring enough may be a whole combination of these ideas so I will have a full-day Birthday! Hahaha.

For those who are wondering, Matt and I are going to try to make it as friends.

(As I told Nobis, the calculation of days one should see an ex can be easily calculated by a simple formula: take the severity of the break-up [from 0 to 10 being the worst], then multiply it by the average sum of the couple’s maturity level [from 0 being adult and 10 being a kid]. That should work out fine. Hahaha. *NOTE: I made up the numbers*)

The last few weeks were heartwrenching, but I had managed to fill them with enough distractions from concerts, old friends, best friend Ashia times, sister bonding moments; to the typical work and schoolwork obligations; to, finally, an awkward confrontation with Matt that I think I’ve mustered enough confidence to move on and be friends.

It’s hard. I had spent two years of my adult life with one person. He was close enough to be my best friend before we hooked up, he was my best friend while we were in a relationship, and now we’re both trying to be the friends we were.

No one really knows what goes on between Matt and I; even if I have delved some details to you on those moments of doubt, most likely I’ve still withheld something. With Matt and I, he and I know each other very well and had continued to learn more about each other in our years together. We’ve been privy to each other’s intimate thoughts, dreams, ideas and were also privy to each other’s hidden selves.

We weren’t perfect. We are very much like children trying to cope in a big scary adult world, playing around to see what works and what fails and hopefully no one gets hurt in the process.

But who’s to kid? We burn and we get hurt and that’s how we learn. That’s how Matt and I were: we had our fights and we would talk and forgive. Some were harder than others. While he and I bring out the best out of each other, we also bring out the worst in each other as we continue to pick, poke, and prod to test each other’s limits.

But we always had more fun happy memories than there were bad sad ones. For what’s it was worth, it was one helluva ride. And I guess I wouldn’t be me I didn’t have the belief that we’ll still be good friends in the aftermath.

All in all, it was a great relationship and I had learned a lot. We’re separated and we’re not. We’ve helped each other march to the beat of our own drums and, for better or for worse, we are now looking at different paths to take.

“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be.”

We’re parting ways next year. Who knows what will happen? Will we still be friends? Will we change? Will we meet up again? Who knows …? For now, we’re a little bit beyond friends, a little bit below lovers, and somewhere between a huge grey area of unknown. We are what we are.

For now, the Era of Matt and Ana rests and a new one begins in strange and peculiar ways.

So at first I thought it was going to be me and the ewok, Wicket, at Thanksgiving. But instead, Wicket’s psychic powers channeled in Matt’s mom, Darlene, and then I was at their Thanksgiving gathering with everyone: Grandma (!), Matt, Karin, Jeff, Lana, Tiffany (Lana’s guest and friend), and the Schrempfs. (A name I would pronounce as “Shrimps” by accident.)

The food was amazing: perogies, potatoes, pies, salads, turkey, stuffing, ice cream, gravy. I regret not taking any photos of the food; then again, I was too busy eating everything.

Now, I do not play cards. I have always avoided cards. Cards and me do not mix like milk and spaghetti. However, after a cheery dinner chat and glasses of wine later, I was convinced that cards was fun. And I played. Darlene and I were partners in a game called Kanasta.

Our table consisted of the pairings of me and Darlene; Matt and Lana; and Brandy and Brandy’s dad. Matt and Lana won, but only by a mere 700 points. Darlene and I did very well considering I was a card newbie and, well, I was drunk.

To be honest it’s actually the Practice Lab Exam, but I treat it like an assignment.

You have been hired by the Thieves Guild to create a magical setup for smuggling. They want items smuggled across the city so that even if the smuggler is caught, the Thieves Guild cannot be implicated. You will implement this with several magical chests.

What I had to do:

1) Create two areas: a city and a Thieves Guild.

2) Make two chests, the Pick-Up Chest and the Drop-Off Chest. The Drop-Off has to be close to the Guild while the other is in the end of a long dark alley.

3) Create the NPC, Master Thief

4) Pick-Up Chest should be locked and I am to create a conversation that in agreeing to help smuggle goods the Master Thief gives me a key to the Pick-Up Chest.

5) In dropping an item in the Drop-Off Chest, these things should happen: a visual effect that something has been placed needs to happen; the item dropped should disappear; more smuggled goods should be placed in the Pick-Up Chest; I am rewarded 100 GP.

6) Change the script so that any item NOT a smuggled good that is dropped in the Drop-Off Chest, the player does not get awarded money.

7) Use plot tokens to mark anyone who drops non-smuggled goods into the Drop-Off Chest and display a message warning the player not to cheat the Thieves Guild.

Add a script to the Pick-Up Chest, to punish someone with a hit of 200 HP if they drop off an invalid item and tried to take items from the Pick-Up Chest.

And guess what? This girl, without help, figured it out. That’s right.
“Say what?”

“I figured it out — all by myself”.

Damn, I am a genius.