Day Fourteen.

And it ends. As swiftly as it had come, it goes now into a memory, into the past.

It had occurred to me that there is a long stretch of silence between Day 4 and Day 14. What happened? Well, a whole lot, and perhaps, I think, not much worth mentioning. The ending of my grandfather came as a blow to my vacation, and put a blot right in the middle of my plans. My mood changed and I no longer had any desire to write anything. It was indeed with great effort that I moved on and that I find myself writing again. Even now the sadness has not fully faded away, and there may never be closure. I can think when I try not to think of what's gone and missed.

As I had said, it ends here. Without regret? I do not know; can anyone say that with certainty? There were days when I was so busy I had no knowledge of time passing. Then there were days when I did absolutely nothing, just passing the afternoon with sleep and spending hours resting on my chair. Now when I think back on this I feel it was never a waste. Be it resting or busying about, I spent those days quite well. I cannot recall everything that happened in the past ten days, but I will attempt to update what I did in a quick summary.

Right after the death I spent two days in mourning. That night friends of the family came over to see us. That was the day of my last blog entry. I attempted to write something but I fell apart midway through. I had not cried in a very long time, but that night everything came out. The next day I went out for a lunch with Ruth, and that evening we went for the temple to do a service. I was holding up fine that day until I saw all those people there with their sympathies, and that brought tears into my eyes. After the service ended they all congregated outside the temple and talked. I stood a fair distance away by myself, looking at the ground. The day after I was supposed to meet up with Alex, but I cancelled because some family friends came from Montreal. They were really surprised to see my physical change. I'm getting used to the compliments now, but it's always nice to hear them. Then came Saturday, MMA day. We spent half the class on Jiu-Jitsu and the other half on kickboxing. I didn't learn that much from the former, but during the latter half I picked up a lot of tips. I felt quite happy about myself and my progress.

Much of the next week was spent dazing off into space. Perhaps I needed that. At what other time can I truly do nothing? On Wednesday we had more MMA, but there was hardly anyone there, so we just worked on arm-triangle escapes. The next day Alex, Ruth, my brother, and I planned a trip to the Warsaw Caves in Warsaw, Ontario. This was one of the best adventures I've ever been on! We saw so much: from giant ball-shaped mushrooms, to bats, to a cross-dressing Asian man. When we arrived it was too late to buy firewood from the camp officials, so we had to drive into town to find a convenience store. We tried several with no luck. Finally we came to one with an Asian man who's face was completely white with makeup and wore red lipstick. He looked like a Geisha. He sold us enough firewood to last the night. Camping was a lot of fun. We ate barbecue, roasted marshmallows, and acted like a bunch of goofballs. When we snuffed the fire and everyone crawled into their tents I stayed outside by myself with a flashlight. I wrote this on my book:

I cannot see the stars anymore.
In this place everything is quiet; absolutely quiet.
And I cannot see anything outside my tiny pool of light.
The human body is such an impressive machine.
It can exist so far from home and still survive.
With whatever food or water it can gather,
it continues to live
hundreds of miles from home.

The sleep that night was broken. I was awoken by sudden sounds in the night, and the uncomfortable position my body was in inside that tent. Several times I would awake to check if my brother was okay and to double-check things I kept inside the tent. The next morning we packed all our belongings and headed for the caves. The Warsaw Caves were created by an enormous glacier receding away 12,000 years ago. As it melted it left behind a giant body of water, and there was evidence of its existence by the little "kettles" left behind on the rocks. Kettles are perfectly cylindrical holes drilled into the rock. They range from a several inches in diameter to about a metre (if i'm not mistaken). They were created by eddies in the ancient river that flowed here. The eddies trapped bits of rock and sand, and as they spun, they slowly drilled away the rock underneath, creating these deep holes. There were many of these kettles we saw on our journey. I noted that this whole forest was filled with moss and limestone rock. The ground rises up and falls down regularly, often into crevices. Some of these crevices lead deep under ground: these are the caves. Using clip-on lights on our caps, we crawled into these caves to explore. They were dark, cramped, cold, and wet. The space inside was so narrow and was arranged in awkward angles, so one had to always maneuver in such a way to fit between the walls. One could not afford to be claustrophobic. Inside the caves it was so dark. But we did see a bat at one point! It was so small and it was shaking in fear. We went through about 5 caves, and when we had enough we hiked the area. Jumping over cracks, climbing hills, skipping stones, examining animal droppings, slipping on rocks, finding mushrooms, we had the greatest time ever! But in the end I think it was the people that made the adventure. If it wasn't for Alex, Ruth, and Pavanth I don't think this trip would be what it was.

On Wednesday I have to go back to work. I don't feel sad about this. I don't dread this. Perhaps what I feel now is a sense of satisfaction; so much so that fear and anxiety is quelled. Hmm, if there's one lesson I learned from these two weeks off it's this: no matter how much time you have, you cannot accomplish everything you want. There will always be a million things unaccomplished. And now, where do I stand? I think I feel more sedated and pensive now. I find myself just sitting and being in silence. I hesitate to use the phrase at peace, because I don't know if my mind is all that peaceful. There are a dozen more things I want to do, but I need to be at a better place with my life to do all of it. We'll see. Thank you for reading.

Day Zero.

I stand now at the crux of my vacation. And even as I stand here, about to embark upon two weeks of happiness and freedom from work, I feel afraid and doubtful of my choice. I would afterall lose two weeks worth of pay. Will it be worth it? How much can I really train in two weeks? This time off is what I've been awaiting for a long time. Yet now that it's here I am with doubt. And further yet, I think, it is too late now to entertain these doubts, for I've come too close to the edge. Now there is nothing left but to leap into tomorrow.

Much has happened these past few weeks, yet nothing much had changed. My work stagnated any growth in me, both physically and mentally. Everyday at work I would pray for some change to occur. For some ounce of fortune to fall upon me from the heavens. For the girl across my lab to look up, for even half a second, and catch my eyes; I would wait the entire day for that. When you're dying of thirst in a barren desert, you would cherish even the dampness of a wet cloth upon your tongue. When I think about this I understand now why I decided to take these two weeks off. It was for my wellbeing. I wasn't well, at all. What's even more frightening is that I was getting comfortable with that life. I even thought this morning, "Why would I need two weeks off? I could keep doing this. I'm actually getting better now." This is frightening because that thought would lead down a path to complete stagnation. I would have given up my dreams of finding a better career, my passion for MMA, and my creative endeavours. There are young guys at my workplace - no more older than I - who've worked there for 10 years! Ten! I couldn't believe it. These are intelligent guys, at the prime of their youth, wasting away labeling bottles for 10 hours a day. When you lose that drive and fall into complacency, you would slave away and not even know it. Not even feel it, for your mind has now been numbed. I fear this will be me. That is why I must take these two weeks off. Not just to train, but I must use this time to find a better job.

As I would work the best days of summer, inside a lab, lifting bottles from cold boxes of ice, labeling them with stickers, I would often ponder the notion of death. I hesitate to even say this, but there were times when I thought of ending it all. As my days of work was filled with the thought of death, my two weeks of freedom must be filled with life. I must live every hour, starting tomorrow. For once these two weeks are over, I am back into that hell. This is Day Zero.

Hungarian Sausages.

Stupid Bangladesh. Why do I always cheer for the underdog? I just get my hopes up only to have them shattered into smithereens. Now I've focussed my attention onto the West Indies game against Australia. It's not a Test, just a one-day game, so it's outcome wouldn't matter as much to me. Where is Chanderpaul? He and Chris Gayle hold this team together. And out of the two it's Chanderpaul who's reliable. I have nothing to say about the bowlers.

I've completed my snowboarding gear purchases. I have the whole set now: snow-pants, water-proof jacket, goggles, gloves, and toque. Am I excited? I'd say I'm looking forward to it. I don't know what to expect. And this lack of expectation, lack of something to look forward to, might be what's abating my excitement. What will happen on Saturday? It all seems like a passing dream. I wasn't even sure I was going but a week ago. The last few days I've been running about purchasing items from a rough gear list; not knowing where to go, what to look for. And now I'm set, awaiting the morning I'd set off, with little planning or any idea of how I'd get there. It all seems loosely attached, lacking certainty and determination.

I enjoyed the Hungarian sausages I bought today. Mmm, I could still taste it in my breath. The chunks of fat, compactly placed in between the flavoured meat, melted on my tongue after every bite. *droooool* I declare this to be the sausage of the month. I would like to try it colder next time, without frying it. There was another sausage I bought, I forgot the name of it, but I think it must've been Polish. It wasn't as flavourful, so it should be used in conjunction with another food. I will use it in sandwiches, I think. I will visit Starsky's again very soon. I want to try a new sausage every visit. Next time I will see if I can buy some Haaring.

On a final note: life seems dull and dreary without Watership Down. Finishing the book felt like closing up a part of my life. It had been with me throughout these integral months of change. The tales of Hazel, Fiver, and Bigwig paralleled my own adventures. When they struggled it seemed I too struggled alongside them. We shared the same battles, the same fears, the same losses, and the same gains. We shared the burdens. We picked our courage from the same pit. When Hazel's heart beat as he hid in the ditch, from the farmer's gun, my heart beat with his. I think what I loved so much about this book is the utter audaciousness of their missions, the lack of a clear plan, and the sheer determination that saw them through to the end. Then there were the straight-forward missions. No matter how simple the idea was, and however minuscule they envisioned the danger to be, something always went wrong. They held firm to the faith that luck was on their side, even when it was running thin. They pulled from a shallow pool of courage, even when it was thought to be dry. I found my inspiration there.