Happy Birthday!
To me.
I'm 23.
Whoopee.
Party!
Later!
I'll talk about it then!
I remember the first birthday I had in Montreal. It was a pretty pathetic day, actually, since it was my second(?) day at school and I was going to a field experience day with three hundred other froshees at an elementary school in the middle of Montreal North. I was an hour and a half late because I underestimated the time to get to the metro stop, and then I underestimated the time to take the bus from the metro to the school by an hour. In any case, it was a very pathetic day.
So I decided to head back to McGill and plop myself in SUMS, when I didn't know anyone yet anyway, except Vito. I sat on the couch and listened to a very complicated ("complicated" being a very wrong description, more like "$@!#ing nuts") conversation between Seb, Marco, and others. After an hour of listening as confusedly as I was, I felt like exploding. Something compelled me to finally speak up, after a week of being invisible in a city of a million, after having to be forced into a situation no one wanted, and after feeling lost and alone for too long. I blurted out, "It's my birthday today."
Seb finally turned towards me and started talking to me, as later I found he would be so sociable. The others resumed babbling, while I talked about my crummy day and that I was new to the city and I felt terrible that day. Happily, Seb decided to invite me out with a few others from SUMS for the evening, which made the day so much better.
So Seb, Marco, Marcus, Gabe, and I went to the Eaton Center (back when Eaton was still in business) for supper at the food court. During supper, Seb presented to me a box of Daskelida's chocolates which apparently came from all the guys. I was very touched. :)
Afterwards, Marcus left but Seb wanted to treat me to a movie. We went to see "The Sixth Sense," which Gabe promptly ruined the ending for me about a minute before the ending. So I won't talk about the ending and what shouting I inflicted upon him for this terrible crime.
In any case, this was probably the beginning of my wonderful and not-so-wonderful adventures in SUMS, as a cronie and as an exec, and then as a cronie again, and then as an exec again...
An even more unforgettable event which I want to tell before I go to sleep (!) is what happened two weeks before that birthday. I have always felt guilty abou that day, and the events leading up to that day. I could only attribute such foolishness to my deeply rooted self-doubt and lack of any common sense.
My entire family left to Toronto the previous week before McGill Science Frosh, leaving me behind in Quebec, and they just returned to Quebec two days before Frosh began. I neglected to tell them that I needed to go to Montreal right away, before they left. As soon as they arrived, they were outraged at my terrible timing and my incompetence. And I had no one else to stay with in Montreal, except my sister, but she was reluctant to accept me at her place.
I packed quite hastily and my parents exhaustingly drove me to Montreal the next day. I was barely into the appartment when the entire shouting mess started. I vaguely remember my mother and my sister yelling at each other, about me, and how my mother started crying about how we sisters couldn't ever get along especially when we needed each other the most, and my sister crying about something else. Then I started crying and yelling and then it was just a big mess.
I will never forget the moment when my parents were about to leave. My father was standing there, silently witnessing the fight, not daring to contribute nor provoke another mess. As they were leaving, he pulled out from his pocket a red envelope, and calmly proclaimed, "Happy Birthday."
Then I started crying again, having completely forgotten my birthday and that I would not be with my family for the first time.
Needless to say, I can't think about that day without welling up in tears again and wishing things did not turn out that way. But if I had to sum up my father in one story, this would probably be it.
By the way, the worst part about this story was that Science Frosh was a complete waste of time and money. I wish I had never went, and if I could, I would sue them for false advertising. "No need to drink to have fun at this Frosh" my ass.
This is also the beginning of my animosity towards SUS. Not so pronounced as with the entity called McGill, but it is still there.