My great-grandma died on my birthday this year. At least, this is how the story goes according to me. And as ominous as this sounds, my mom and I were in the car when we were stopped by a long funeral procession, all of which was followed by a freak snowstorm in March on the first day of spring. It was like the snow was trying to stop new life from springing.

Ok, so maybe I'm connecting dots where there are no dots to connect.

My great-grandma and I never had a great relationship partly because she always seemed on the verge of death. As a kid I had my grandma who seemed terribly old; then there was my great-grandma, who was older, frail, fragile, and surrounded by myths and legends. For some reason she never told me stories of herself directly, everything was reiterated by my bachelor uncles who poked fun at me.

One of which is that: "Did you know that she use to drink her pee? That's how she stays so healthy. Go ask her what it tastes like!"

Which scarred me for the rest of my life and caused me to be extremely suspicious of her every time she went to the bathroom.

Other stories that surrounded her was her vegetarianism and Buddhism. I don't know how, and I never asked, but she was always a Buddhist while the rest of my family is Christian. I've never seen her go to the temple but she use to sit and pray for hours and hours, her thumbs moving rhythmically through her prayer beads. "A prayer for Ann Ann, a prayer for May-Ann, for Margaret and Andrew."

My mom is affected by her death more than I probably realize. The older she gets the more family oriented she becomes, which in my opinion is too late because we're all past the age of needing motherly affection. At least I am.

The other day my mom actually went in my room and cleaned it. She has never, ever in my entire life done this, which is odd because I know normal mothers clean up their kids room all the time. It was such a bizarre phenomenon that I went through all my drawers going, "Huh, so that's where she put that, I wonder why."

It's like we've reversed roles. I use to go in her room, poke through her cosmetics, clothes, and jewelry wondering how to use these things and why women had to be so complicated. Now she's the one poking through my stuff, wondering how to use it. She asks, "Ann, how do you use your ipad? What about your hair straightener? Can I have your blush and lipstick - what about your curling iron?"

I was reflecting on all this tonight because we just had dinner with my grandparents. My grandparents, especially my grandma, are the cutest people I know and I don't think I love anyone more than I love her, party because she's human, imperfect, proud, humble, and loves me back. I guess because of my great-grandma's death my mom finally realized that maybe she should love my grandma back as well.

Today my mom said, "Ann, you should love your grandparents."

I couldn't even answer her, it was like she doesn't know me.

To my lack of reply she says, "And you should spend more time with them. They won't be around for long, you know. Cherish every moment with them. I'm going to visit them because I love them - oh and I love you too!"

All of this, I should probably say, was done through text.

I guess this entire post won't make sense without really understanding the dynamics between my mom and grandma, which simply put is that they have a hard time tolerating and standing each other. Eerily enough they look 100% alike, my mom is the younger version of my grandma; it's like a weird time warp of you hating your past self and hating your future self all at once. So for my mom to say, "I love my mom" is just as weird as having her clean my room.

And where is Annabelle? My sister seems to have floated off to lala land. While Matthew and I are sharing a bowl of corn beef she's in her room chatting away with Vinay. Not that I resent their engagement or resent the fact that her head seems to be stuck in exam and Vinay land, it's just that I hope she realizes how much she's changing everything for everyone. Which she probably doesn't. I don't think I would ever have the guts to do what she's doing - not the get married and engaged part - the part where she breaks down and builds up and tears apart our family dynamics. A lot of people say that Annabelle seems to be the more mature one, but what I think they're missing to see is that that's not the case at all. As shocking as this sounds, I'm probably more independent than Annabelle. The real difference is that she's not afraid to adjust life to fit her needs while I'm too calculated with my movements.  

Dear Friends, I'm about to get close and intimate with you by revealing a nasty secret: I have a wart. And I know it's a wart because I made my dear sister stare long and hard at the bottom of my foot to determine what it is.

Me: How do you know it's wart and not a callus? 

Annabelle: Because it's round with spots.

Me: A callus can be round and have spots.

Annabelle: Does it give you acute pain?

Me: Yes.

Annabelle: Don't worry, it will go away in three months.

Me: But, how do you know it's wart and not a callus?

Annabelle: Look, do you want me to show you the picture in my text book or what? It's a wart.

Clearly from this conversation Annabelle knows what she's talking about. 

On a side note: What am I going to do when Annabelle gets married? Who will look at my warts then? Am I going to have to start going to a real doctor?

Anyway, I developed this callus-wart at work because Holy Cow guys, my feet are killing me and it's ridiculous how big my calves are getting. All this half standing, half running around and breaking a sweat has resulted in very painful feet.

Speaking of work, I've met some very interesting people recently. Here's a list:

1) The Eerily Tanned Designer

I ran into this eerily tanned woman today who wanted to buy two cribs for her twin boy-girl grandchildren (eerily tanned because it's frickin' snowing outside in the middle of April. Where did this tan come from?). So it's Thursday afternoon, a time when normal people are at work, but this woman is not normal, she's luxurious. She's been to Arizona many times before and has been to countless Targets, so she knows the merchandize and what to expect. 

She told me straight up that she wanted this crib and she wanted to know whether it would fit in her Lexus SUV and if it didn't, whether or not I can jot down her phone number so I can call her for whatever reason. The entire time she had her blackberry in her hand showing everyone pictures of her grandchildren. She became visibly angry when her daughter wouldn't pick up the phone and give her the time of day.

This woman is fantastic. She is the epitome of brand name products and was probably only shopping here because she wants to tell everyone where she shops. Just the fact that I know so much about what products and brands she has within the 20 minute conversation we had shows you just how high she puts a value on her brand names.

2) The Lonely Shopper

There is an entire specimen of undocument people out there who are lonely shoppers and they are fantastic at telling you what you are lacking and then talking about their entire retail experience history. 

They come in many different forms, and today I met the shaggy bearded kind. This guy was looking for oregano, but we didn't have any so I took my nifty gun and scanned the barcode to show him we didn't have any in the backroom. I thought that was that, but he was so fascinated by the scanner gun that he followed me from one end of the store to the other talking about his retail life. 

First he said: "At No Frills they don't even bother checking. They just tell you straight up that they don't have it without even checking. That's a neat thing you have."

Me: "Thanks. We try to have good customer service."

Shaggy Beard: "I mean even if you were just lying to me and didn't really scan it I appreciate that you still tried."

Me: "But I didn't lie to you, I showed you it said there was nothing in the backroom."

Shaggy Beard: "I know BUT even IF it was a lie. At No Frills they don't even bother."

Me: "Well let me know if there is anything else you need help with."

Shaggy Beard: "Do you have wool?"

Me: "No."

Shaggy Beard: "My mother is looking for wool. I'll tell her you don't have it. Why don't you have wool? This is Canada. People here need wool. That big guy up there is making $120, 000 a year and he can't even send people to, to places like Walmart and Zellers to see what they are selling and try to have the same items. My mother wants wool. Interesting how you don't have it." 

And on and on he went. As you can see, this guy is a lonely shopper, 1) He's shopping for his mother, on a random Thursday afternoon, how much lonelier can you get; 2) He's a shopper. He knows his retail store and has been around, and like the Eerily Tanned Designer, he knows his brands and products. I thought it was interesting how he refers to the CEO of any company the 'big guy up there', which is usually the idiom for God. Lonely Shoppers have their gods too. (And one of their Ten Commandments is: Thou Shall Not Lie About What You Have In The Backroom To Customers with a footnote saying: Always consult scanner gun first.)  

3) The Novel Writing Major

No joke guys, my new coworker is a Novel Writing Major at George Brown. What! I don't even understand how. I wonder what the employment rate is like for this program, I wouldn't be surprised if it has the lowest employment rate of any program George Brown offers. 

But working in retail is probably the best hands on experience she can get for this. There are a lot of crazies out there, enough to have enough material to write a longer and crazier series than Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.  

Eddie keeps on telling me not to burn myself out because looking back, I don't think I planned this past week out very well. I knew I had to set up decor on Thursday, prep and help out with the dinner all of Friday, be on JAM for Saturday, and then be ready for the children's ministry on Sunday on top of working almost 50 hours. I was so exhausted that by the time I rolled into work on Saturday morning everyone told me I looked like I was just hit by a bus.

I didn't plan on getting sick! That's the one thing I should have probably thought about. I was coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose so much that I should have probably called in sick at some point, or you might be thinking, that I should have skipped all my 'church activities' and just rest. But the way I see it, if I'm not going to call in sick for work, why would I call in sick for God's work?

I learned a lot about serving this week. Here's a list:

1) I volunteered to do the decor for the Spring Banquet. I've never really thought about whether I like doing decor or not, but since no one else was doing it, I decided to do it. In the past, Ariel or Lynette or someone else took care of it, but sadly, they're both gone now.

If you're ever curious about what God's will or place for you in the Church life is, all you have to do is do something. Fill in the empty shoes, start something, plug yourself in somewhere - then as you're doing these things in the Spirit, you'll realize that you're doing God's will. Often we're always trying to figure out what God's will for our lives are, but really, God already told us. The song "Jesus, All For Jesus" one line goes, "For it's only in Your will that I am free." God's will is for us to be free in Him and be led by the Spirit.

Summary: When there's a lack, fill it in even if it's different from your usual role. Most often in the Church life, we don't get to pick where God puts us to work.

2) So after I took up the ginormous task of decor and games, I told myself that I either do everything 100% perfectly or just give up because there is no point of doing something half-heartedly for God. It's no surprise that OBVIOUSLY with this mindset I felt extremely overwhelmed, frustrated, and annoyed; especially when certain people who were committed to help me out disappeared or complained the entire time.

What do you do?! I don't know, someone tell me. At Target, we have huddles where we vent out our frustrations and tell each other what is making us feel overwhelmed. At church you can't do it because 1) These people are your friends and 2) You don't yell at people at church. It's just wrong.

It was at some point I realized that God won't care if not all the pinwheels had buttons in the middle or that not everything matched or that the photo-booth does not look perfect. Who cares! What's more important is that I don't loose my temper and put myself in a situation where God can't speak to us because my emotional outburst.

Apology: Sorry people if I ever glared at you or gave you the silent treatment. That is my way of stopping myself from yelling at you and saying a lot of vulgar words. I will heed Clement's Yoga Master's Wise Words and try to control my breathing in situations like these.

3) God is always there to help. I don't have an definite example during the weekend for this one, but it's that feeling that things just work out for the better because God's taking care of you and understands what you're worried about. Does this make sense? It better.

It's things like, while frantically preparing 2 hours before the dinner Catherine suddenly appearing and making the photo-booth look 100x better, or Yong and Jacob suddenly appearing with props, or suddenly finding that obscure looking hat in the obscure corner of the church basement that was perfect for the photo-booth, or Del suddenly showing up to fix the tables and set up the mic, or Jane just always being an arms length away when I need her.

Take home lesson: When everyone else flakes on you, depend on God.

So that's it. After this weekend, I think Easter is my favourite holiday.
1) It's spring! Pastel colours and flowers galore.
2) It is very humbling to remind ourselves of God's sacrifice for us and that the most amazing gift for us to receive is an empty tomb.
3) Easter cakes are 100% delicious. At work someone baked this gigantic cake was devoured in seconds. Also, Pedro came home with a bunch of Portuguese easter cakes (one of which had an actual egg). Most amazing cake I've ever had.
4) The long weekend.
5) It's the one time in the year when you're allowed to ask, "So how long haven't you been to church?" without offending anyone.
6) Today I went to church, then Tako Sushi, then slept, then to Congee Queen, then ate a bunch of cake, and then slept. Best day ever.

It wasn't until I sat down and started watching VSauce on youtube that I realized how tired I was. I love VSauce! He's an amazing brilliant mind, and for me to fall asleep in the middle of his video is an incredible insult to his intelligence.

Then I thought about it. Although I'm physically tired, what's actually sapping the life out of me are my emotions. If I could, I would live as a robot, happily doing my work without being bothered by emotions such as feeling sad, happy, crappy, and anxious.

So recently, I've been working 55-ish hours a week, ish because the amount of time I spend at ELC is uncountable. This, I am happy to say, was enough to impress Jay Park, the king of working overtime. I told him I was putting in at least 42 hours at Target, and at first he was sympathetic enough to say, "Wow that on top of this?" But then quickly retracted his statement a bit by saying, "When I was your age, I worked more."

Whatever Jay Park. I will take this as a mini-praise for the crap you put me through.

OK so, if I was a robot working this much every week wouldn't be a problem. I'd tell the kids at ELC to man up and do the work without feeling guilty of hurting their feelings, and I'd man up and tell the customers at Target to pick up after themselves in the nicest way possible.

Notice how in both cases I said man up, and that's because the answer to not feeling emotions is to be a man: Simple minds, simple pleasures. I'M HALF JOKING because it is a true and admirable fact that guys are able to turn their minds off and not think about anything.

Example: It's the same situation where my coworker the other day started tearing up and crying because of how overwhelmed she felt at work, while my male coworker who also felt overwhelmed controlled his emotions by shutting his brain off and ate a sub.

And although I'd love to just shut my brain off and emotionally eat, I developed this unproven theory that deep down, I actually like feeling emotional and that I like complaining about being emotional. It's a twisted sadist paradox that I can't get out of. On the one hand, I have all these swirling emotions and thoughts, and on the other hand I have the answer, but it's as if there's this oppositional magnetic pull that prevents my two hands working cooperatively together so that the solution never gets to the root of the problem.

Wow that is a congested paragraph.

Here are two types of sadist paradoxical emotions girls love to hate:

1) The Emotions that lead to Problems
This is the most menacing type of emotion because it is manipulative. Emotions have these tendency to linger in our heads, and the longer they linger the longer we end up analyzing it. One way to get rid of this lingering, manipulative emotion is to create a problem to replace the current emotion we feel. The result is that although we feel a different type of emotion it's actually just an emotion on top of an emotion with a problem.

Real life example: A girl who is angry at a guy. To get rid of her anger, she decides to release it so she will feel relieved. What ends up happening is that instead of feeling relieved, she feels miserable for lashing out on the guy. So the result is that she is angry and miserable and still has the problem of what to do with the situation. She may love to hate this situation because she does not see this as a problem caused by her, but a problem caused by the guy and therefore the guy's fault and should be fixed by the guy. In conclusion, all the emotions that she feels is the guys fault even if the guy didn't do anything but cause the initial emotion of anger.

2) Overwhelming emotions that leave you feeling overwhelmed
Self explanatory!

Real life example: A girl has many different suitors. She has tall dark and handsome suitor, she has lanky and geeky suitor, she has beautiful set of hair suitor, she has the tattoo covered bad boy suitor, and finally, she has a midget. She doesn't like any of these guys but is overwhelmed (and feeling fat) by the amount of flowers, text messages, facebook likes, dinners, and chocolates she is receiving from them. It's enough to overwhelm and exhaust her. Obviously, she loves to hate this problem because she is getting attention from many different guys.

I hope these make sense because they make sense in my head. It's like doing math, but instead of 2 + 2 = 4, it's 2 + 2 = 5.

I usually have a high tolerance for all things crap but there comes a time when you have one crap too many and end up feeling emotionally constipated.

Crappy situation #1: My birthday
I hate this, every year it's the same thing. I don't mind it but I hate the pressure of having to make a big deal out of it and feeling the pressure of having to celebrate it. Right now, I feel very emotionally constipated because I don't know how to celebrate it, and I don't know whether to feel happy or sad about it. So it's just crap.

Crappy situation #2: Work
I made up my mind a bajillion and one years ago to quit ELC, but everytime I go to work these kids look at me with their puppy eyes and I get sucked in and never want to leave. This past week is no different, I've probably thought of quitting a million times.

So usually, Jay Park and I have a meeting every week. Today during our little meeting Jay Park mentions the summer and I was so, so, so close to telling him I quit when suddenly he says, "I'm going to give you more hours."

And with those magic words I just had to listen to the rest of what he had to say.

Ok so we all know Jay Park. He's this big hot shot entrepreneur professional guy who owns three businesses. He wants to basically give me more hours to help him out with his consulting business and screen out candidates for him. This is so painful guys, you don't even know.

Also, Target is painful. Basically, the thing is this: Right now no one is really assigned to an area, so the Team Leads are having a blast picking and choosing which team members they want on board. It's kind of like gym class. Everytime I go in someone says, Join my team! You promised to be with me right? I choose you! In my head I'm just like, "Nope, don't pick me. I don't really want to do work or be committed to you right now." PLUS no one has said it yet but Target is a little bit sexist. They put all the girls in the clothing/baby/cashier departments and all the guys in electronics and the backroom. What if I volunteered to be in electronics, now what? But that would mean I'd want to actually do work ...

Crappy situation #3: Everyone is leaving

Technically, just Ariel is leaving but it's enough to make me feel like everyone is leaving, becuase after Ariel is Yong, then Jacob, then ... who knows. I've been feeling blue thinking about this. The deeper issue here isn't abandonment, it's fear of change and lack of faith in the future. Crap crap crap.

Crappy situation #4: Valentine's Day

YES Valentine's Day was one month ago. I never use to care for holidays like Valentine's Day in the the past, but recently ever since I realized I shouldn't be so emotionally constipated and be more open to 'feeling' I decided to care about Valentine's Day. (Believe it or not, I actually tried to get in the habit of hugging people. It failed because I kept on forgetting to hug people right when I meet them. It's awkward to say, "Can I hug you!?" five minutes into the conversation.)

Ok so ladies and 'gents, as I was lecturing my student Po today, when you are in a relationship, giving flowers isn't an option, it shouldn't even be a question, it should just be some thing you do automatically ESPECIALLY on Valentine's Day. So if you're like Po and wondering what the big deal is, I'll explain.

Flowers die a week after you receive them and they're freakin' expensive, which is exactly the point! It shows that you are willing to indulge and spend your hard earned pennines on this worthless novelty on someone you deep down truly love and treasure. In a romantic boy/girl relationship, it shows that the guy isn't a prude and cheap with his money. The guy also gets extra bonus points with the girl if he is creative in the way the delivers the flowers (i.e. home delivery, which costs more and shows that he knows how to plan ahead of time to make sure you receive the flowers on time). One thing girls secretly hate are prudes, especially on Valentine's Day.

In other non-romantic relationships where you give flowers to your mom, grandma, or sisters at church, it shows appreciation and love and care and that you would actually take time to think about them and pick out their favourite bouquet.

Ok go back to romantic boy/girl relationships. Making the girl happy is also a sign of respect towards her, it shows that you respect her for her femininity and you are respecting her by being a gentleman. It's part of that woo-ing process that guys today don't know how to do.

I swear I will talk about this topic forever and go on and on about this but I'll stop now because although this is all nice and all, the theme of this post is crap. Crap crap crap. I don't want to rat anyone out but since you all know who I'm going out with it's kind of unavoidable *ahemjohnnyahem*. But guys, Valentine's Day was last month and I still haven't received flowers. My birthday is next week so I better wake up to three dozen roses (preferably in a shade of pale pink). Just saying.

Crap situation #5: OMGEE

aueriotq34iu56 (*^A*&E5R8746895Y43UIr6786467e8iuguyr67yuibuyf76qtuyt786876868555788954%%^&%$^**#%&^$%*&(Q(Q@&*^$*IGHIUSRI!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I don't feel better. I'm still emotionally constipated.

Sometimes I'd be in my room minding my own business when I'd catch Charlie staring at me:

At work, I have a good friend named Unique. We actually went to high school together but we were never friends then because I was scared of her since she was the type of girl who looked like she was always about to beat someone up.

But that's all in the past. On my first day we caught up quickly because she mentioned she was into writing, to which I responded: "Me too!" Apparently, she's trying to get published and has been writing an online series for a while now.

Somewhere along our conversation I miraculously felt comfortable enough around her to say that I wanted to craft a story that also talked about my faith, since I'm a Christian. Unique got all wide eyed and responded: "Me too!"

So ever since then, we stopped talking about writing so much and began talking more about God at work. Some time after high school where she felt a lot of underlying angst at society, her parents, and the world in general, she was brought into salvation and had a complete turn around.

I love talking to Unique because she makes work feel so much more cozy. Just having someone there to talk to about God and reflect on the Bible makes it feel like I'm finally putting the rubber on the road. Unique doesn't attend a bible study group or go to church often, but she still reads the bible and has a lot of questions about it. I'm like, well I can help you! Let's talk!    

So that's my little tidbit. I'm very impressed by Unique because she's so smart and brilliant, you give her any problem and she is able to solve it. It feels like the constant lesson I've been learning lately is to never judge a book by its cover.