NYE

Happy New Year!

I wish you all love, happiness and warm hugs. Enjoy tonight and see you all again in 2009!

Errands.

Well, I certainly got out today.

My mom declared today "errands day"and so we set out to complete the tasks on the list.

Six hours of shopping is a lot. Except, apparently, if you're me. I am A Shopper. I love to shop. I sort of hate myself, except that I love my clothes. You could tell me that I have way more clothes than I could wear in a month... but all I would hear is "LC! You have wonderful, beautiful clothes!"

A few items to remember:
+I shop very little while in Halifax. Only when my mom is visiting.
+I spend little money in Halifax. I have spent a grand total of 5 bucks on booze. No lies.
+I shop consignment and sales? So it's not as much money as it could be?*
+I have lots of money saved in the bank, so I'm not in a Shopoholic kind of situation.

Phew. I feel much better.

Oranges are delicious?

Ok, Ottawa. I'm done.

You have a bus strike. I can't go anywhere.

I am sick of watching TLC all day every day. It is not interesting. Admittedly, it's my fault I am watching TLC and not putting the effort into figuring out plugging in the DVD player and watching something more diverting like West Wing. Or, you know, picking up a book. But my poor brain reads so much all the time, I read in the evenings and that's the perfect amount for me.

I would rather be seeing friends and going and doing things and you know, leaving the house. Accomplishing things. The bus strike makes that tricky, but the main issue is the lack of people to hang out with. I forgot how boring my life in Ottawa is. I don't have a tight group of friends I left behing when I went away. I mostly hung out with my mom on weekends. Living in Halifax, things are different.

I have no fun, witty ending for this post. Mmm, oranges are delicious.

Christmas Party Weekend

This weekend was the weekend of Christmas parties.

Friday night was my mom's work's party. I always go as my mom's date since my dad hates parties and I love the people from my mom's office. I worked for them for a weekend at the sexualityandu.ca booth at a fair and I went to the conference in Cuba. It was a fun night; I got to catch up with Gen, practise my french, and sit at the fun table. Plus, it seems like at those parties, everyone thinks I'm super amazing. I'm guessing I'm the only teenager they see on a regular basis, because if they think I'm awesome, they should meet my peers. There are some very smart people there.

The party was at the NAC. Because of the snowstorm, my mom invited her division to come pre-party chez nous since we live so close to the office. We got all dolled up, doing makeup and hair. The cats hid upstairs.

I think they throw a great party. The usual dinner and drinks setup, and no dancing this year -- they decided to forgo the DJ this year. The most exciting part of the night is the big raffle. Fundraised money and donations from the vendors they work with during the year makeup the raffle. Gifts are disguised so you can't tell what is in the package you're getting. Your name is drawn and you pick a prize. Everything from Sens tickets to Godiva chocolate baskets to Ipods to fancy thermoses, and there's a prize for everyone. Everyone is happy. I picked on my mom's behalf, and she is super psyched by her new fancy label maker.

The other Christmas party I went to was a secret santa gift exchange. The party got off to a slow start, but once more people I knew arrived, I had fun. Probably the white russians helped too. And it was close to my house so I was home in bed by midnight. Mmm, cosy.

All in a Day

Yesterday did not start off very well. I started the day with a two hour car ride from Orleans to work. I was half an hour late. Oh yeah, this is why I would rather live in a box on Bank street than in Orleans. Ugh.

The day got much better after work. Sarah, one of the producers for CBC One's All In A Day shops at the store where my mom and I work, and my mom mentioned to her that I'm a big CBC fangirl. She offered to have me over to the studio to see them make the show. I was super excited; I changed my clothes like fifty times.

Sarah was so great; she introduced me to everyone and showed me around. I stood in the middle of the floor with all the reporters and everyone sitting in their cubicles, meeting, yelling across aisles, passing papers, everyone moving and typing and talking. It was so exciting.

When I arrived, it was half an hour before the show started. Ten minutes before the show, everyone was still sitting at computers writing things, editing, checking, totally calm. We didn't even go over to the studio until five to three and the host strolled in at 3:04. I kept looking around like "WHAT?! The show starts in FIVE MINUTES why are you not freaking out????" It was sort of weird, hearing the host reading over intros behind me, and I could hear Rita Celli in a cubicle nearby.

Sarah was directing that day, which meant I got to see her actually making the show. We sat in the control room and Sarah did her thing, calling up guests and organizing everything with Pierre, the "button pusher and switch switcher" as I described him to my mother. A woman came in with a fish for one segment, and I got to eat some of it. The best part was when Michael Bhardwaj came in to do an arts report. Sarah introduced me to him and I got to say "Oh, we've actually already met!" and then we had a chat about life and stuff. I felt pretty cool; "oh yeah, I know people. I'm all connected and stuff."

The whole thing was great. I just kept thinking "This is what I want to do". I didn't even feel the cold walking home.

Dear Santa

This evening was spent adjusting the tree ("No... left. Back. Forward now. Is it leaning right?") and decorating it. We opened the storage boxes and pulled out old ornaments and centrepieces and twinkle lights. With them came the smells of last Christmas, the whos and wheres of each ornament, the fights over whose turn it is to put the star on the tree*.

The tree and house are decorated. The stockings have been dusted off. Santa's cookie plate is out. Everyone is excited for Christmas... but the jig is up. I am now eighteen, and my sister is fifteen and everyone knows not to look in the trunk of the car or the cupboard in the basement. Be this as it may, Santa still visits our house every year.

When I got home last week, my mom told me to write my letter to Santa. My sister and I sat down in front of the TV to hang out and write them with pencil crayons and coloured paper. She seemed to have no problem writing hers out, but I was at a loss. I'm at home, with my family. We have a beautiful real tree that makes the house smell wonderful (my favourite part). I got some nice new clothes while shopping with my mom at my birthday and I already have the assurance of one visit from my mom next semester. I whine about my cell phone, because I'm the product of a consumerist society, but really it's fine, and my vague dreams about dabbling in photography don't warrant spending a ton of money. The only things I want are things I have to work for myself: learning to knit beyond "scarf", getting an A on a paper, coming to terms with leaving the nest.

So Santa, all I've got for you this year is this: I like books? And world peace would be nice. PS: Check out Etsy.com and you can't go wrong.**





* MINE.
** Etsy.com is a dangerous thing, my friends. A girl can lose the better part of an evening staring at lovely handmade camis and cardigans.

Jon Stewart always makes me laugh

Did anyone else see "Provinces in Peril" on the Daily Show on Monday night? I heard about it after and caught it on YouTube and laughed a lot. It drags at the end with the correspondents, but the beginning is gold. It plays up the classic, and true, Americans-don't-know-anything-about-Canada stereotype. Who doesn't love that?

WHAT IS GOING ON??

I go away for one semester, and all hell breaks loose. Ottawa arts funding mess, Ontario goes poor, attempted crazy driving restrictions, transit strike and way more snow than anyone needs. Phew. At least I'm here now. The restrictions failed, and I brought some warmer weather for next week. Enjoy. But could we please work on this transit strike business? I only have one more Christmas present to buy. And I am NOT hiking around in the snow.

I'm not just being prissy -- my mono has reinstated long afternoon naps. Walking around the house makes my heart race. It's a little scary. I tried to work on my paper this afternoon, but I got a splitting headache and had to sleep for about 3 hours. Mono totally sucks.

Rosie likes the naps. She spends every moment draped across me, purring. I think she missed me. I missed her.

Last Day in Halifax

I literally did not turn on my computer for five days last week. Not only did I not turn it on, I didn't even think about turning it on. For five days. I didn't think about the emails piling up in my inbox, the blogs I could be reading, the posts I ought to write, or even Facebook. My mind was completely stuffed full of one semester of FYP. So, instead of writing about my life, I was contemplating Iamblichus's theurgy, Dionysius's hierarchies, Plato's 3 waves in his Republic, and Dante's Paradiso, among a million other things. Ask me anything about the heaven of the Sun. Go ahead, I dare you.

All this was for my one and only exam. This is a mixed blessing. I have one exam, yes, which means less time doing exams, but this one exam counts for 4 of my credits, since it's the FYP exam and FYP is 4 credits. So if you screw that up, you've screwed up 4/5 of the exams for the semester. Now, to add to this stress, the exam is a fifteen minute oral exam.

For a week, the King's campus rings with the sound of studying. The oral requires a special kind of studying. Solo re-reading of texts and notes will only get you so far. If you want to really study for orals, you need to find some other fyppers and talk. Ask questions. Teach one another. Really get the texts and the philosophers enough to be able to compare them and relate them to one another or... anything really. In orals, questions like "What would Plato think of lunch?" and "Relate this watch to Aristotle" come up. Now, if this doesn't sound fun enough for you, I add that the oral exams are conducted by the tutors and lecturers of the Foundation Year Programme, ones that you haven't spent time talking to and getting to know in tutorial, no, you get someone you don't know. Someone whose voice you have only heard at the front of the lecture hall.

I was shaking when I arrived outside my exam room. I wasn't sure if I would be able to speak at all, let alone speak intelligently. After ten minutes of deep breathing exercises, I was invited into the exam by Dr Curran, who informed me that he was "the bad cop". Great.

They seemed fairly receptive, nodding and agreeing with me, but things got a little iffy with the Greek Tragedies we read this year. I scraped by on that one though, and I think it was ok. Maybe I killed it and I'll get a fabulous grade. I can dream right?

I'm supposed to be working on my 2000 word position paper right now, but my brain is sadly turned to "off". I worked on it a lot yesterday and woke up this morning for breakfast at 9 but still felt pretty sleepy, so I went back to bed. I woke up 4 hours later. My poor body is telling me something about the state of my mono. So I've decided to take advantage of my paper extension and chill out today. I have a 1300 word outline and 300 words of actual essay, so I guess I'm doing ok.

I will be in Ottawa TOMORROW! I'm excited for the snow (the crunch, crunch, crunch) and my family and my cats. I'm so excited for Christmas. I'm so excited to just relax and not cram reading into my brain 24/7. I'm excited for my mother's Christmas cookies. So, so excited. And brocoli with the tops on...

Proof

Look at all the snow! Look at all the pretty!

Monolicious.

I have made it through another day.

I did not make it to lecture. After another night of little sleep with a stomach that has decided to feel ill every morning at five, I was completely exhausted. I spent an hour curled up on the cold bathroom floor.

At 11:45 I pulled my whimpering ass out of bed. My attempt at lunch failed miserably -- I choked down half of a breakfast in a pouch before giving up. Tutorial was totally brutal -- I barely remember anything from it. Before I knew it, the room was empty and my tutor was sitting next to me peering at me with a concerned look. I think the mother in her saw a sad, sick, lost little girl and she ushered my upstairs to see the head of the programme and only left once she was confident I was set up and introduced.

Daniel, it turns out, it a very nice man. He quickly realized I had no plan of action. My only plan was to get back to bed as quickly as possible. I wasn't even thinking about catching up on reading or preparing for orals. He was very understanding and gave me an extension on my paper so that I don't have to do it until I'm curled up in bed at home.

Home... oh, how I would love to be at home. That's basically all that I want at this point. My everything hurts and I just want my home. I'm trying really hard to have a stiff upper lip with my mom on the phone and my friends when I see them. It's not their job to take care of me (but I do love it when they come by) and my mom feels bad enough without hearing me whimpering into the phone. She sent me a care package with Vitamin C, oranges and banana bread. I'm basically set all weekend -- I won't even have to leave my room. Perfect.

So, I have mono.

Fuck.

My throat hurts so much that I can barely swallow, I can't eat, and the numbing shit the doctor gave me numbed my tongue but not my throat. Helpful.

Last night was College Christmas dinner. The dining hall was smothered in Christmas and food. It was so sweet to see all the people I see everyday giving me food dressed in adorable Christmas shirts serving the best food we've seen all year. Mussels... mmm... and salmon! And stuffing...

So much good food and yet... my throat. Kill me.

I wanted to write more, etc, but I feel shitty, it's almost 8:30 and I need to go to sleep.

Fuck. Mono.

Hot Water Bottle Season

When I woke up on Saturday morning and looked outside, I blinked. And blinked again. Because someone had waved a magic wand and turned Halifax into a winter wonderland. A thick blanket of snow covered everything. The kids from Vancouver Island freaked out. My friend Mark told me he'd never seen so much snow in a city before. Last night there was a snowball fight in the quad and the Middle Bay boys built an epic fort you enter through the first floor bathroom window. Everyone has gone snow crazy.

We went out in the snow last night to celebrate Seana's birthday with some fabulous cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake and I loved this stuff. I wish I could tell you the name of the restaurant, but I have no idea what it was. But it was delicious.


The walk home, however was freezing. When I got back to my room, I filled a water bottle and jumped into bed with my reading and TV on my computer. I turned in early, but no one else did and I was nice and awake at 3am. Oh, dorm life. So soon I will be home and I can sleep a full night. I can't wait.

Flannel is my new best friend

Today was a gray, rainy day, and it just put this heavy damper on my day. I went to class, I went to work, I'm doing reading... but I just feel so... deflated.

My solution is watching the last few episodes of Project Runway on the internets. I'm rooting for Jarell. Sshh, don't tell me how it ends!

The wind is blowing hard outside and I feel much better now, all curled up in my cozy, flannel* bed with my reading and my computer. I think I'll put in my earplugs and fall asleep early.

* These flannel sheets are the most incredible thing ever. I got them for my birthday and I now wish to spend all my time in bed. Ask Davis -- they're perfect for snuggling.

Snow!

I should be in class right now, but my head is all spinny, so I think that's a really bad idea. I'm not sure what my head is up to with this spinning business. It might have something to do with the lack of sleep (this is my mother's theory*). I was planning on sleeping early, but since it was Monday night, that did not happen. Too much drunken drama in the hall and in my room.

I had the most fan-freakin-tabulous birthday -- thanks to everyone who brightened my day. It was a weekend full of eating and dancing; two of my favourite things! I got cakes from my work, my mom and friends, and DanceCo. And I was showered with fabulous gifts like warm mittens, fab earrings and great books. My friends bought me Bitchfest, a collection of articles from Bitch magazine. I've been inhaling that over the past couple days and ignoring my reading. Oops...

PS: It's snowing here for the first time. I makes me miss the thick, crunchy snow on the ground in January in Ottawa. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

*My mom would interupt my birthday greeting to her to ask if I was in class. She would.

Blackout

So much for NaNoBloMo.

I have been completely MIA for a week, working on:

FYP essay
journalism article
journalism essay
journalism scrapbook OF DOOM
a book a day in reading

...and now, it's all done. I can go to bed before 3 am. I can hang out with friends without a knot of guilt. I can spend time in places other than my room. I am SO EXCITED for sleep.

In other news, the Dance Co's show, Clockwork, has been going so well. We've been having a blast, hanging out, rehearsing, chilling, and, of course, dancing. So much dancing. Dance parties all the time. Tonight, Dance Co hosted a dance part in the Wardroom after the show. It competed with the big Dante party in Middle Bay and totally won. I headed over there after my late dinner with my mom -- who is in town! For my birthday! Which started an hour and a half ago!!!

It's been a big week, and it will be an even bigger weekend.

At midnight, when it became my birthday, I was in the Wardroom, dancing my feet off with my closest friends and DanceCo ladies and my friends counted down to my birthday and then all cheered and hugged me. I feel so blessed to have incredible friends like these. And my birthday was awesome from the second it started.

At 11am, I'm having a birthday brunch with friends, and then my mom and I are going shopping. Having her here is so wonderful, and strange, and I love spending time with her and showing her my life. I wonder how she feels to be in it in Halifax.

OK. It's late, my brain is tired and can no longer compute. I hope this update made sense. It wasn't drunk blogging, I promise, although it is a Friday night and I wouldn't put it past me. No, tomorrow night is the night for partying it up at the cast party. This is going to be the best birthday ever.

Rain.

Today was the midterm. It's over. It's done. Every minute the day improves because every minute distances me from it more. And now I'm sitting around my room in my underwear watching TV on my computer.

It's raining today. That doesn't sound weird for Halifax, but it has been completely gorgeous the whole time I've been here. Even on overcast days, the air is fresh and the sun is glowing through the clouds. Today was just rain. Lots of rain. Pouring rain. It was complete pathetic fallacy. Before the midterm it was just spitting a little, but after, it was raining. I glared at it and then took the tunnel.

Yes, I should be studying for my midterm

First of all I love this conversation found at Megan's blog. It made me laugh and forget briefly about Plato.

Other than blog and watch the L Word, I called my family twice today. I was reading over my notes when it occurred to me that I haven't talked to my sister in quite a while. Why not phone her up? It seemed like the perfect study break. It went something like this:

LC: Hey!
Sister: Hey how's it goin.
LC: Oh, you know. I have a midterm tomorrow.
Sister: Yuck.
LC: I know.
Sister: I'm working on math.
LC: Good! Math sucks but you gotta get through it to access the Good through dialectic.
Sister: ...

What? Not everyone is in FYP? Bugger.

*******

Another conversation from my day:

Sarah: NO! No studying at dinner. Could you guys talk about weed or sex or something? Anything?
LC: That is so totally going on my blog.
Davis: It's a shame you can't write about juicy things on your blog.*
LC: I guess, yeah. But your dad reads my blog.** That's the weirdest thing ever.
Davis: He found it one time, I don't think he actually reads it.

So I guess I can be juicy? Maybe I should do juicier things so I can write about them. Have to stay fresh and exciting now, don't I? One too many posts about Dante and I'm screwed.

*I can't remember why I put an asterisk there.
**I met Davis's dad for the first time and the first thing he said to me was "Oh yeah! I read your blog!" Yikes. How many of my friends' parents read this secretly???

Clockwork

After dance practice today, I saw Davis. "You're so excited about dancing," she told me, smiling, "I haven't seen you like this."

I joined the dance show totally randomly. I stopped by Davis's room one day, for no reason, and her roommate, Seana, convinced me to join her at the Dance Co audition, for moral support. I didn't want to go at first -- I had work, I'm lazy, it's easier not to go. But I wanted bonding time with Seana, so I agreed. Plus, I have a big dancer envy and so basically, I think dancing = cool. So, why not?

It's been a really long time since I last danced. When I was little, I was such the girly girl. Barbie dolls, pink sheets, ballet slippers. What I wanted most in the world was to be a ballerina. My poor mother had to line up in the cold to register me for ballet classes at the community centre since I just HAD to be in and I wasn't the first little girl to have ballerina aspirations. Those first classes had little to do with first position and more to do with rustling tutus and soft, pink slippers. I learned to do the "princess wave" that became my signature.

Those first, tiny ballet shoes still sit on the top of my keepsakes box in my closet. Actually, there are a few pairs, each one larger than the last. My mom couldn't sew the elastics into my new pair fast enough for me.

I grew up and grew into classes at dance studios with mirrors and bars. My mother and I would sit in the waiting room and I'd gaze up at the older girls, duffel bags slung across their slender frames. The ballet buns gave them all incredible cheek bones. I couldn't imagine any creature more beautiful, more graceful, more confident than these divine spirits who breezed through my life for seconds every Saturday. My tondues and demi-pliers would become their arabesques, one day.

But then they didn't. I took ballet, tap and jazz combo classes and decided to try jazz at a new studio (the blue leotard probably did it -- I was 11 and so over pink). I quit all those and tried hip hop. After that I quit dance altogether. My busy, new teenage life didn't have room for my soft, pink slippers.

After auditioning with Seana, I looked back and scratched my head. Why did I quit? I really enjoyed dance -- I spent the last two years of high school trying to make room and quietly envying the ballerinas I knew. I wasn't able to get past the planning stages, the vague ideas. I watched "So You Think You Can Dance" instead.

So why the fuck did I ever quit? An hour after the Dance Co audition, I sat drinking a beer at a party and wondering. I'd felt a rush, dancing in the audition. The rush was awesome. Then I remembered my last class I signed up for. It was jazz; I went to the store to buy the leotard, but they didn't carry my size. "My size" wasn't really your normal ballet size. While it was being shipped, I wore baggy sweats and a T-shirt to dance. I have a vivid memory of standing against the back bar, looking into the mirror in the studio; week 3 of no leotard yet. The room was filled with slender, chinioned girls prancing around, and there I was, this monster at the back. I just knew there was no way my 11 year old, developing body would ever be like those mature ballerinas. I never went back after that class.

Except that's totally bullshit. None of the girls I know who are dancers are skin and bone the way I imagined back then. I have no idea what they actually looked like, these girls I looked up to, but I'm guessing they looked a lot like me. It only took me 7 years to figure it out.

I feel a little bit sad about the lost time. I see so many girls who have been dancing for so long and they are so beautiful. There's one piece in the show that makes my eyes fill with tears of beauty and regret when I see it. That's what I want to do. I want to be beautiful like that.

I'm in beginner level dances in the show this year, a far cry from the breathtaking pieces some other girls are doing, but there is this moment in one of my dances. It's the last one, in lyrical hip hop style, and there's this moment at the end of the song where the whole group is doing the same thing at the same time and it feels like we jump right in to the music. It feels good like improv felt good. I'm saving up my pennies for dance classes next semester -- I don't think I'm quite ready to give up my ballerina dream.

Let's ditch this and go to Europe.

Midterm studying actually did end up going down and I'm so totally gonna kill Plato. I hope. I think. Midterms are worth only one paper, but I want to kiiilllll this thing. My last essay apparently missed the mark -- this was the all nighter paper. Apparently the 5 am revelation... not so much. I need to counteract this totally shit feeling and own the midterm. Jules and Mark (above) are my very capable study buddies, and pretty nice friends to boot. They stopped making out with each other to study with me.

Ahh... the newspaper. My other love. Or my tumour. It's a painful, cumbersome, physical growth on my life. Assembled all in one place, they don't look so scary.... but the are. That's a big pile, I promise. And it's sitting there, weighing on my mind, quietly whispering its prescence -- a constant buzz in the back of my mind. I went today to buy scrapbooking stuff for the assignment and hoped this would quiet the voices. Instead? They got louder. Helpful.

Venus is for those with too much lovin'

Well, let's hope you made the right choice, America.  Also, someone make sure Fox shuts up.

That's really all I have to say.  I have to do some studying, and reading, and then I'm off to the Wardroom to watch the election coverage.  This is more interest than I had on Canadian election night, but can you blame me?  I couldn't vote in that one either.

Dante's Paradise

Moon

Mercury

Venus

Sun

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

LADDER

Stars

That had better be right.

Exhaustion has set in.

About two weeks ago I met with my tutor to talk about my essays so far. She didn't have much to say, so we ended up just chatting. "How are you doing? How are you liking it here?" Of course, I told her how much I love King's, but my eyes must have had giant circles under them. "You look... tired" she told me.

Truth is, I never get to bed before two. Living in res provides me with constant distractions at any time of day or night, whether I want them or not. It seems I have to budget an extra twenty minutes in to everything traveling time because I will aways end up distracted by someone. Then, suddenly, it's midnight and I haven't started my reading. How does this happen? I don't know. But then it's two hours of Dante or Plato or something. This is probably why I have been sick for two weeks. I sound pretty pitiful, hacking and wheezing every morning when I wake up and provoke and "Are you ok?" from my half-sleeping roommate.

Now the midterm is Friday and Dante needs reading and the essay needs writing and the journalism scrapbook needs starting and the dance show is gearing up and I would like to go to sleep and sleep for days and days and days. Saturday's afternoon of leisure only served to remind me of what I'm missing: a good, long rest. Several days, in fact, of rest. ...Later. Maybe I can pencil some in and get that....later.

"This is the way/ it's the way that we live and love"

So I'm half-heartedly participating in NaNoBloMo. Ish. Yes, it's true, my first post of the month says "November 2" BUT I wrote it before I slept from November 1, so I consider it from November 1.

This is all to say that I have got to write something for today. But the thing is that today is like, really boring. I read Dante, I went to a study session for midterms, I have dance later on. The usual.

I actually have a ton of work to do tonight since yesterday was spent curled up in bed nursing a nasty hangover and watching the L Word. It was surprisingly not awful; it was quiet and dark, my favourite show was on and soon all that was left was a general feeling of wanting to be warm in bed. With lots of pillows. A purring cat would have been nice too, but that will have to wait for another time.

Dance hell week is coming up... and midterms... and journalism assignements are due... Everything is piling up! But it all ends on November 14 when the last assignment is due and my mom rolls into town just in time for my birthday. Hurray! I'm so excited.

A Classy Halloween

The grocery list of the evening:
+3 flappers
+2 dressy gents
+ a burning bush
+a Freudian slip
+1 very broken window
+various fairies and ballerinas and peter pans
+a shitload of hairspray

So, Halloween happened.
In addition to the roaring party in Alex Hall, there was a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Alumni Hall -- we watched it and danced on the tables. It was liberating to dance and sing "Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me, Touch Me" in the room where Curran (one of the lecturers) loves to tiptoe around the word SEX. A fun and mostly classy night was had by all.

C'est l'Halloween

By the time I finish writing this post, it will be HALLOWEEEEEEEN. Can you tell I'm excited?

This year I had vague plans to dress up as Ellen Page or something until Julia set me straight. So I was initiated into the flapper girl plan (pictures to follow, I assure you). There will be three flappers, as well as our gent -- we conned Mark into being our gent instead and being our accessory. He was disappointed until he realized that this meant he'd get three lovely ladies hanging off his arm all night.

At first, I thought about dressing as a flapper all day, but I thought again. Does anyone else love to remember Halloween when it really was Halloween? I mean, ages 4-10, the prime years. I remember school class parties with movies and chips and Jake's mom's homemade cinnamon buns. Everyone would linger in the school yard, swapping plans for the night, coordinating meeting points, promising candy swaps the next day. I remember watching all the Halloween episodes of my favourite TV shows (Magic School Bus!) and scaring myself silly while picking at a dinner I didn't want to be eating. Finally, FINALLY, when it was dark, my mom would light the candles inside the pumpkins, and I would get to put on my costume. It felt so special and so new. A different me, for one night. I remember feeling incredible those nights. Cool night air mixed with anonymity and sugar created the best adrenaline rush. No wonder I loved it so much -- I was completely high. And loving it.

This is the first year ever that I didn't carve a pumpkin. But I will be darned if I don't do up my costume right. If I had a DVD of the Magic School Bus, that would help a lot.

Not that I've been doing much, other than read Dante...

So I hear it snowed in Ottawa!

It's a strange feeling to hear second-hand about things in your city. As much as I love Halifax and I'm enjoying living here, I still feel like I'm borrowing it. It's my home on loan -- but Ottawa is my city.

I'm not sure what to think about that. I have friends with me here who are super excited to "become Maritimers", and I love it here too. But I don't know if I'll ever really become a Maritimer. Of course, it's hard for me to really predict the future, to know how I'll feel in a year or two years or three... but Halifax right now still has a temporary "camp" feel to it, one that's connected with first months away from home. It helps that Halifax is full of students.

*****

The weekend of COMPLETE SUCK finally ended. I finished my paper, and my two journalism assignments right in time for Monday night, affectionately known now as "Shmammered Night". My friends and I started the trend for Monday, spreading the word about the DJ in the Wardroom. Not maybe first years go to the Wardroom on a regular basis, since, well, we're mostly underage and that's how it goes. But when we showed up and I started chatting with my upper year friends, they got so excited. "You guys never come to the Wardroom! Last year first years came all the time!" It's good to know the upper years don't all hate the first year students.

I'm being a tad bit bitter owing to a shitty encounter I had while part of a focus group with other King's students in other years. I questioned a bit my relationship to upper years, and the whole fypper-upper year relationship as a result, but everything is mostly back on track now. It just felt really good to feel welcome in the Wardroom.

We danced the night away and dealt with the usual Monday Night Dramas. No hickeys for me this week though*.


*Thank goodness. Last week's teasing from my bosses/coworkers was enough to last me a very long time.

Saturday Listening

What I'm listening to right now:

-a loud party next door
-my roommate in the hallway talking about her awful work shift
-a boy puking in the bathroom next door
-CBC radio three live webcast of the show I'm too young to get in to.

I may be writing my essay (well, writing... planning more like. I'm still in the planning stages.) on a Saturday night, but I am keeping hip by keeping up with the Halifax Pop Explosion -- a festival I will enjoy a lot in two years when I'm old enough to get in to the Marquee.

While lamenting my inability to see Holy Fuck, a friend looked suprised. "Friggin Ottawa kids and your no fake IDs."

The lack of all-ages music scene here is quite upsetting. I'm always hearing about all these great bands and bars that have great live music and I have to miss out. Boo.

Back to working. Let me know if you have anything helpful to tell me about St Augustine Confessions.

HOLY EFF part 2

[WOW: I just replaced the batteries in my electric toothbrush and it was NUTS. My teeth feel fifty times cleaner now. I swear, the thing is on DRUGS. Really good ones.]

I am COMPLETELY exhausted.

While going to the Q taping last night was clearly wonderful, it meant I didn't get anything done until late at night. Sleep deprivation* is no good when it's King's Open House Day and everyone you work with is running around on crack. I had a tour group of 20 people (that's big, people. That's more people than fit in a dorm room.). No matter how tired I was, it didn't matter. I was so psyched for Jian's talk.

I got there twenty minutes late -- I left my tour group in Prince Hall to eat and I motored down to the basement and sat down at the back of the classroom. JG was giving a "believe in yourself, work hard, be radical, make a difference" kind of talk, which was good, because it involved several fun stories. He was Student Union President at York. That's a good story, if you ever get to hear it.

Sitting at the back of the room, I was focused on redeeming myself. I didn't want JG's only impression of me to be "blah... I... hi... *STARSTRUCK*". I took deep breaths to push away the butterflies in my stomach and asked my question. Remember my not being able to elaborate on his style? No more. I asked about his show's style, blah blah, it was good. Clearly, he is very passionate about his work. It does come through in his show; when he's interviewing someone about a book, he reads their book. The whole thing. I can't even count the number of times I've heard "Now, I didn't read the whole thing, but..." on CBC. He makes sure he knows his shit.

After his talk ended, I went to talk to Kathryn Borel again. She told me about the Holy Fuck show at the Marquis, I told her about my being a doofus in front of JG last night (she laughed at me. Clearly. But he did recognize me today, and said "nice to see you again" !) As she was getting ready to go with Jian to Dal, she asked me for directions to the Dal building where the next presentation was. I actually knew where it was, and started giving directions in my own, personal, crazy way (it involves a lot of judgement). I was half way through my somewhat complicated directions when a Journalism prof I didn't know stepped in.

"What are you doing right now?" He asked me.
"Uh, I don't know... going to work?" I was completely confused.
"Why don't you take them there?" He suggested.

BINGO. Light goes off in my head. "YES. YES. Perfect. I will do that."

Please, can I get a fangirl squee from all of you?

During the 7 minute walk to the Dal building I chatted with Kathryn (my new fave person), discussed hair issues with JG (for two whole seconds) and accidentally insulted him. Oops. Those of you who have met me have met "first five minutes of knowing you" me, who has a strange voice, and very sarcastic. Here's what happenned as we left King's:

JG: Do we need to get a cab or something?
K & LC: No...
JG: Aren't we going to Dalhousie?
LC: Have you seen a map, or anything? Dal is right there. See that building?
JG: Wait, what's this "Have you ever seen a map of anything"? Hey!
LC: Aaaaahh...
K: Nice. From quivering mass to insulting the host.
LC: Nononononono
K: No, I admire your hutsbah.

Not gonna lie, I mostly talked to Kathryn during the walk. But he hugged me goodbye! Geez, I am such a fangirl...

My mom said she heard my cheering when she listened to the show today. I'm going to listen to the podcast to hear it.




*Neither is having the hickey that won't die.

HOLY EFF

I am trying to come up with words, but all I have is feelings. I have a want. There's this incredible, wonderful, full and yet lacking feeling that started when I walked into the Sir James Dunn Theatre and saw the Q stage set up. I want. I want this. I want to do this.

I will have to pay my dues. I will have to do shitty jobs and cover stupid, useless stories no one cares about. If I'm lucky, a local radio show. If I'm good, something national. Who knows right now. But I want a wonderful show that makes people want to listen to the radio again. I want to make people laugh. I want to give them what they didn't know they wanted. I want to talk to interesting people and get paid for it. I want to talk to audiences and do live shows. I want to talk and have many people ACTUALLY listening. I kind of also want to try producing.

I talked to Julia about this last night:
"I want to do radio. I want to host a show. ...but I think that isn't meant to be and I should just be in the control room as a producer."
It's stupid to be pessimistic. It's stupid to be cynical. Dreams can come true sometimes, right?

***

Okay, so the show was awesome. If you listen tomorrow at 10 am or 10 pm, you can hear my distinctive whoop, and also when, in the first hour, Jian says "Ontario, represent!" and no one cheers and then someone cheers, THAT'S ME. Or if you hear any coughing. Also me. I was hacking up a freaking lung (but quietly I hope -- sorry Kathryn, if you're reading. Not that you're reading anytime soon, because you're at Holy Fuck*).

Kathryn Borel is a producer at Q who did King's journalism several years ago. She emailed me after (somehow, randomly) finding my blog and reading my post CBC, my one true love. I got to meet her this evening and she was quickly off and away chatting with my friend Cameron who also went to the show. But I'm not that cool, so it's ok. I was mostly in a state of shock. However, I will give her mad props for doing a fab job keeping things rolling, and in high heeled boots, to, well, boot.

He had lots of fun people on the show, including Shaun Majumder and Geri Hall. I don't watch a lot of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, but both of them were very funny. I chatted with Geri Hall a little bit after the show and she was super friendly. I didn't know they taped here in Halifax, but now I do and I will definitely go see a taping, as I have now been invited by Geri Hall.

Jian is going to be on the show this week, as part of a segment called T-M-Zed. He filmed it just after breaking his finger. Below, he is acting out breaking his finger, with the help of Shaun Majumder. It involves a door at the Lord Nelson Hotel.


Cameron made me go up to him after, and talk to him. JG, that is, as his people call him. As in, "Does anyone have any gum for JG? Gum for the host?" Actually happened, after the taping, backstage. Too funny.

Here is what I said:

Jian: Hey
LC: Hi, um, hello, I, ah [STARSTRUCK], I am a big fan. (YESSS FIRST POINT OUT.) Could I take a picture? I love your show a lot, listen to it all the time, and ... I... *drools* like your style [forgets how to elaborate on this point] and, um. I'm a big CBC fan. I am a journalism student! [RIGHT, credibility.] at King's!
Jian: Oh, great. [yes, in a genuine way, not in a "oh no, more crazy you" way].
LC: So, I'll, um, see you at King's tomorrow. But I'll be late. But there. So... [to sum up] I love your show and I want to work at CBC. Someday. [PICTURE TIME]
Jian [to me]: What's your name?
LC: LC, I mean, La, um, Canadienne... yeah.
*I hand the camera to Cameron*
Jian: [to Cam]: Hey, how's it going?
Cameron: Pretty good.
LC: That picture had better be good!! No, I mean it. You didn't miss? I'm in it right?

My imagined JG reaction: *facepalm*


Not a bad picture.

*A concert I can't see because I'm not 19. And don't have a fake.**
**Jo Stockton and I know this isn't technically true, but is practically true.

Sweet Augustine

I'm having a hermit night.

I just turned down the lights, ignored my phone and curled up in bed to listen to CBC. It was part one of a documentary on Ideas that I've heard mostly before, about the Cathars, and I'm always intrigued when the adds for this episode come on -- I guess it's popular because it keeps on coming back. Though I've flicked it on several times, lending a half-listening ear to the radio, this time I was more prepared. In FYP, we're into our medieval section. Pause here while I try to think of an appropriate analogy to moving through the sections of FYP. We started the Ancient World, the Classical period of Ancient Greece and I freaked out, because I had such a thing for Ancient Greece around age 10. I was sad to see that section go, but that's only because I didn't understand how cool the medieval ages really were. We're hardcore into Neo-Platonism right now, and studying how the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths interacted and traded bits and danced around one another; Moses Maimonides's The Guide of the Perplexed was the reading for Monday.

Okay, my nerdy school moment is over, but this is all to say that I had more context for the Cathars thing this time and I lay in the dim light, cozy under the covers, and wondered how this Cathars business fits in with everything else I've been learning. I smell a post-tutorial smoking conversation with the Nodder.

The Nodder is my tutor right now; this means he is the person who spends one hour with 14 of my peers and I, guiding us through a discussion and answering our questions. His nickname comes from the fact that his head could keep time. It's a metronome for his oration. Sometimes, he'll take a two or three beat pause and collect his thoughts. He's in training to be an Anglican priest, which apparently means that he gets more and more vague every year. But not only is he somewhat hilarious, he is awesome. He revealed this to me on Friday when he mentioned D&D and I made a quiet "love D&D!" comment and he heard me. "I have a kindred spirit!" he said.

After tutorial we chatted about that and quickly moved on to Star Trek and philosophy. Every day after tutorial, Nodder heads outside for a smoke, and you can catch him there for a good chat. He suggested to me the pilot of Deep Space Nine, which I watched later that day, and it blew my mind -- Holy ek-static temporality, Batman! I'm looking forward to chatting with him about it tomorrow.

I go to the best school ever. Ever ever ever ever. A woman came on a tour the other day and asked "You can come to King's and not do FYP, right?" and I was like "Why would you?" only, clearly not, since I was working and had to make nice.


Jian Ghomeshi countdown: 2 days. OH YES. I'm psyched. I will, however, have to go half an hour late (WOE) because of tour guide work. Boo.


For Stella, some (literally) gory details: Writing this post was a little painful, as my hands are all cut up. Why is that, LC? Well, you see, when you're drunk, escaping down a fire escape sounds like a good idea, and when you come to the end of the fire escape and realize there's a drop, it seems like dropping down is easy peasy. Apparently not. I had fun with the polysporin this morning, as well as with scarves to cover up the ahem, evidence, from earlier in the night. But my full opinion on hickeys is a whole other post of its own. Suffice it to say that running into my boss in the Wardroom ten minutes after the fire escape escapade was like, the worst idea ever. "HEY!" she said excitedly, "How are you?"

"I fell down."

"What?"

"Nevermind."

Arizona and Gin

Yesterday was one of those fabulous, feel good days that make me love living here.

I was going to spend the day reading like crazy and catching up on newspapers but at about 11 am I ran into some friends in a classroom. I quickly remembered this was about 15 hours into the 24 hour crash course play festival. Ian and Gordon had finished writing their play "The Musical Broventures of Tod Dwight", a Bon Jovi rock opera. Yeah, soak that in. At that point I joined in as a backup dancer/bro ho/bro/drugster. It was way more fun than being productive on a Saturday. We managed to get quite a crowd and the dance numbers were a success, except that Shot Through the Heart was cut due to technical difficulties. Obviously, I was pretty upset.

After the show (and after much cajoling), I dressed up and headed out with Mark and Marc. I was wearing the boots that have been dubbed the "knock me down and fuck me" boots by Mark. We went downtown to Nocturne, a big art show that had all the galleries, and even some stores with displays set up, open to the public at night. We heard the last song of an outdoor concert by "I see Rowboats" that I loved and we went into a cute second-hand clothes store owned by a really cool guy. He had his grandmother's entire body of work on display, and some of the paintings were breathtaking. Apparently Justin Trudeau still has the portrait she did of his father.

It was a really nice night. I was a little chilly, and my feet hurt by the end of it (these boots were clearly not made for walking), but I loved the feeling of being completely swept up in the night. When I go out I always have a plan. Who, Where, What, When, How (I'm getting there) -- before I ever left the house, I'd always know those things, mostly because my mother would ask them all. I just got into the habit of making a fully expanded plan with backups and fallbacks, in case anything went wrong. When Mark invited me to Nocturne, he didn't have any details. I can't believe I actually went. "Where are we even going??" I asked Mark while trying to decide.

"Dude, it doesn't even matter," he told me, "you're wearing sexy boots."

As we walked around downtown, passing the bottle of mixed gin back and forth, I couldn't think of any way this night could be improved by a plan.


A totally random extra bit -- the story Mark, Maximillian and I
While we walked, we wrote a story. It was a tale of international love and art. Mark and I had met in New York and fell madly in loved. We traveled the world together, making art and I became his muse. After returning to New York, he became addicted to drugs and, though it broke my heart, I left him and went to Europe, where I met Count Maximillian (played by Marc). He was a rich german count, a lover of art, and we met at an exhibition of Mark's work. Though I still loved Mark, I became engaged to Maximillian, believing that my Mark was dead or lost in addiction.

What I didn't know is that Maximillian was such a fan of Mark's because the two of them went to Art school together. Maximillian was not so talented, in the end, and his father refused to continue paying for his education there. And now, Mark and I had met again, after so many years; I engaged to another man but still in love with Mark and he waiting for me, finally off the drugs. (Maximillian is very uncomfortable with the situation). I continue to be Mark's muse, even though I won't have anything to do with Maximillian's (awful) art. Maximillian will become more and more angry and hurt, while I am wrapped up in an affair with Mark. I smell an Oscar.

Tuesday follow-up

So that last minute essay of doom? Yeah, I rocked that. At about 5am in a sleep and tea induced haze I had this awesome breakthrough. I was like "Yo! Paul! I totally dig what you're telling the Romans!" and whatnot. It was fun. Hopefully, my middle of the night ideas stand up in the light of day when my tutor marks my paper. I'm optimistic.

The thing that sucked was that I slept not at all, and was planning on sleeping at 5pm on Wednesday night to make up for it... but instead I went to a party on a weeknight. Yikes, lecture sucked the next day.

Since I'm a tour guide, I get to do all kinds of fun stuff related to recruiting students to come to King's. Today we did something called a "Fishbowl" where we basically just hang out and prospective students ask us questions. After the Fishbowl, this one girl came over and was asking me a bunch of questions and I just walked around campus with her and answered questions for a few minutes. When she was leaving, she said to me "Thanks! You're... like... so friendly!" It occured to me that I'm a University Student. Strange.

Last night was a packed night of AWESOME. I'm in the Dance Collective's show, so I had a rehearsal for that, and then I went to a Cheese Party my upper year friends had. As I was walking there, I realized I was going to be the only first year there, which, anywhere else, would be super intimidating. Instead I had a lovely night and the subject of age never came up. And I ate a lot of Brie. Mmmmm....

My Weekend in Photos or How I Continue Not Writing My Essay

Friday night was Glow Bowling (Ten Pin!) with the grade eleven friends. All pictures of me actually bowling involved my looking like a fool. I did, however, miss my Geoffy vaiwy much.

Saturday night Davis had a Birthday/Reunion Party. At the end of said party it was affirmed that this would be The Last Party Ever At Davis's House. The end of an era. Though the party involved a lot of "let's see who's having THE BEST time at university!" I had fun. And I did homework! I got some pretty good quotes for my youth voting story.


As you can imagine, I missed my kitties very much. It seems that Rosie also missed me. Shortly after I returned home, she pulled this stunt. We decided she was trying to show me how cute she is, but she didn't quite fit into the purse, so it ended up being more awkward. I love her for trying.

Jubal has decided that he likes curling up with my sister's teddy bear. Here they are snuggling.
I miss Jack! Can you tell how much he clearly missed me?

Is it too late to start/ got your heart in a headlock

OK, so maybe Andrea is right. I have been neglecting the blog a little bit and depriving you (those of you who are interested) of the juicy details of my Haligonian life. Drastic measures may soon need to be taken. Teleconferences may need to occur.

I was just happy to hear from Andrea that my move to Halifax has not made me totally boring and irrelevant to all former readers. I was also happy to hear from Andrea period, who I have missed whilst a timezone away. Also, her dog.

It's true, I'm back in Halifax. The issue of giving this space a label is tricky. Yesterday afternoon involved a lot of this:

Dad: OK, so call us when you get home.
Mom: No dear, she IS home, THIS is her home. That's... the other place.

I mostly kept quiet during these conversations. My cousins, who are in the midst of their third year of university, threw me for a loop when I visited them the summer after first year. They told me they were enjoying seeing the family, but were quite ready to go "home" to school. I didn't get it... until last night, driving down Coburg, we got really excited. At King's we all piled out and attacked Cameron (the first friend we saw) with hugs.

It was pretty unanimous. We were all glad to be home. When family home is full of awkward and guilt and sad, school just feels so much more comfortable.


Right now, I'm supposed to be writing an essay that's due tomorrow. Scratch that, I'm supposed to be re-reading the text so I can write the essay about the topic I just chose. The plan is to stay up all night, write the bloody thing, hand it in, go to class, work in the registrar's office all afternoon and then go to sleep before supper and set my alarm for 8 am Thursday.

Mmm... sleep.

No more excuses! To work.

The end of turkey weekend

The other day while shopping with my sister and mom, I ran into Sarah and Davis at the mall.

"We actually go to King's, right Sarah? Like, we go to class and we live there and our friends are real and not just in my head, right?"

"I hope so."

Being home is so beyond incredibly weird. When I got off the plane in Ottawa, I ducked into the washroom and stood in front of the mirror. I checked my hair and my makeup and looked at myself. Did I look older? Had I changed? I tried to find some concrete proof that I'd just spent five weeks living away from home for the first time. I was totally disappointed. But my sweater looked cute, so I got over it.

My mom disagreed. "You look different. Older." she told me when I came off the escalator.

The whole weekend has been one where everything feels exactly the same, but also totally foreign. I sit on the couch, I squabble with my sister, I clean the kitchen... but I don't know the jokes and there's no ranch dressing in the fridge anymore. On Friday night I sat down on the couch, my sister came up beside me and put her hands on her hips. "That's my spot! I've been sitting there." I laughed it off, but it felt weird. That's always been my spot. I missed that couch more than I missed my own bed.

Well, back to reality. I leave today at five and I haven't started the homework due... I hate essays...

A shitty interlude

This was supposed to be a post about how nice/weird/comfy is it to be home, and I was planning on writing it today around this time, after I'd finished doing my streeter interviews for journalism.

Instead, I'm going to write an open letter to the pedestrians on Bank.

Hi friendly Saturday pedestrians,

Wasn't it a beautiful day today? It was so nice to stroll along in the sunshine, stopping into stores, or window shopping, anything really to enjoy the day. Since it was such a nice day, would you really mind standing outside for an extra 4 minutes? All I wanted was a few minutes to ask you a couple questions which, really, I wanted to be asking EVEN LESS than you wanted to be answering.

OK, I understand not wanting to think about the economy or the election during your nice afternoon, and I understand and appreciate your respectful "no, sorry"s. But please, just take a second to consider helping me out? I'd like that a lot.

And if you do kindly decide to help me out, say, since you're waiting outside a bakery waiting for your wife and daughter, I thank you. However, if you are going to help me, please respect me. The following are not decent ways to treat a human being:

-rolling eyes
-laughing at my questions
-saying "that's obvious, isn't it?" to my opinion-related questions
-telling me I should switch universities to one that teaches me something

All of the above are awful ways to say "welcome back home!" and also shitty ways to treat a person.

CBC, my one true love

Even thinking about writing the next words makes me want to jump back up and continue my happy dance of a few moments ago. Who is coming here, to Halifax, to a small classroom in the J-school at King's, but the host of CBC's radio one's Q, Jian Ghomeshi. It just so happens that Q is the only CBC show I really get to listen to anymore at all, and Jian Ghomeshi is kind of a CBC rockstar and I'm kind of a CBC fangirl... well, you get the picture. Apparently, I'm such a fangirl that when I told Sarah excitedly that a famous journalist was coming to the J-school, she actually guessed correctly. I would however, like to clear up (mom) that I am not the head of the Jian Ghomeshi fan club, but I am on the exec.

In other CBC-related news, we had a guest speaker in our Lecture class, a CBC radio business reporter named Jennifer Henderson. She did kind of a cool thing and basically made a job for herself at CBC. She has an interesting story, which I enjoyed hearing, except for the pounding headache I had. Monday is a weird night to party on, but that's King's style.

After the lecture, I went over to talk to Jennifer Henderson about taking a tour of CBC Halifax, something she mentioned at the end of her talk. We ended up chatting about my interest in working in radio, and she gave me her business card and suggested I call her after the election to figure out a tour. She also gave me advice on how to get to where I want to go (ie, CBC). I'm going to actually work on joining CKDU, so I can get some radio experience under my belt. If only I had a spare second to give.

So now I have a CBC Halifax contact. Hurray! Now I need one at CBC Ottawa so that I might get myself an internship in third year...

Classical Greek Theatre and Propeller Beer

Classics in the Quad is a treasured King's tradition. Every year, the KTS chooses a Greek tragedy and it's performed outside on the library steps. When the library was built, it was designed to support these shows.

A big crowd of King's students and friends assembled late yesterday afternoon and laid out blankets cozying up together. The weather is starting to turn here and the warmth has gone out of the air, so everyone broke out the toques and mitts and woolen socks.

Everyone in the play did a great job. They've been cramming in the practices late at night to get everything ready, and the end result was great, and much enjoyed by all. We enjoyed passing judgement on the boys in their togas.

I was so excited for the whole day. Not only was Classics in the Quad day, but it was also the rugby home opener, and a big group of us decided to go over to the field with our "fun flasks"* and cheer on the boys. We beat Holland College by like 50 points, and it was the biggest turnout for a King's rugby game in ages.
Don't we look festive?

*There's this Gilmore Girls episode where the whole family goes to the Yale Harvard football game, and there's all these traditions and cheering and warm hats and mitts and the "fun flask". It's one of the best episodes.

writing a paper, gonna take all day, writing a paper, gotta get an A

If I got an A, I would flip and freak out. It would be incredible.

I have these cousins. I have these awesome cousins. I have these awesome singing cousins.
They recorded a song Jonah wrote* called "Writing a Paper" and I came across it today as I was setting up my laptop to work on my essay in the library. I played it over once and laughed (silently) really, really hard. The rest of the day it played over and over in my head. I shared it with the friends I was working with and they also laughed. We've been singing lines back and forth today -- mostly the one about procrastinating. So, here is some love for you, Jonah. And Nathan too. The harmonies were wildly popular.

*****

Now it's story time! This is the story of Evey's first tour.

Early last week the registrar's office let me know that my training to be a tour guide would be on Friday and part of this training was going on a tour with one of last year's tour guides. Just before lecture started, I chatted with Brandan, my co-tour guide, and he mentioned something about showing his room on the tour. "Will they want to see my room?" I asked him, quickly thinking about the shitty state of my room, beds unmade, crap everywhere and my roommate's empties sitting out. "I dunno," he said, "They probably would have asked."

I let it pass.

After lecture I met with the tour guide to start the tour and she informed me that yes, we would be looking at my room.

I immediately started to freak out. I tried to breathlessly and quietly explain to the guide that my room was in no state for showing. Could I go fix it up? I mostly got a no, stay with the tour to learn how to do it. My anxiety increased.

Once we hit the library, I knew that we would be going to my room next, so I took off for my room. I don't think I breathed for 3 minutes straight as I ran around the room. You know that cartoon where the kid shoves everything in his closet and under the bed covers? That's exactly what I did. I finished just in time to graciously let the tour in. Phew.


I tried watching the American presidential debate last night. A bunch of us wrote out words to drink to while watching, but they weren't saying our words and just repeating "Wall Street" and "Main Street" over and over. Bo-ring. So I stopped watching.

This is the second FYP essay weekend, so I should try to accomplish something before I goof off for the night at nine. I'm at 618 words (yessssss).


*I think. Am I right Jonah?

The L Word Theme Song Is Stuck In My Head.

I love lecture. Every morning I wake up, down some food and caffeine at breakfast, and head to the FYP lecture hall with every other person in my programme. It feels so good, sitting all together in this room, some of us listening, some having done the reading, all of us super tired, trying all together to hold the thread of the lecture. Sometimes we're good, sometimes... not so much.

Today in lecture Davis and I got bored. I somehow managed to keep decent notes, but my mind was wandering... it happens. So I looked over at Davis and she wasn't really taking notes, so we played the BEST lecture game: Pick Out The Hot People In The Room. I spend way too much time staring. Today was an especially fruitful day; many people were looking particularly smokin'. Plato: 0, FYP hotties: like, 50.

Sundays are for cleaning up

So, I promised pictures, and I finally cleaned my room enough to take some. I know it looks like a disaster, but for me... it's pretty good. Yikes, I have to impress prospies with this...

I'm pretty happy with it. I put up my photo wall today! It's much smaller than I had first imagined, because I have way less wall space than I hoped for, but I like how it turned out. I just keep looking over it, pick over every memory. It feels warm and familiar.

Boob Tatt

Some of you may remember that when I was in Ohio, I crashed a "Boob Tatt" party where everyone drew fake tattoos onto their bosom. It was weird and awkward and funny. I thought it was a good idea for a party. I filed it away for future reference.

Because of that experience, I laughed out loud this morning when I woke up and found a sharpie tattoo on my boob.

I had completely forgotten that I let Gordon draw a pirate-y tattoo on my chest in the middle of the night. There is quite a posse of tattoo-ed victims of Gordon from last night.

Last night was the Middle Bay Cops and Robbers party -- which coincided with International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I rocked it in my pirate garb. I even had a sash which held my keys and my phone all night. I love it when costumes are utilitarian!

It was a decent party for sure, and the best part was how excited the Middle Bay boys were about the party. They try so hard. And we love them.


In other news, I got a job as one of the two FYP tour guides! I'm very excited to have this job, not only because it means money, and it gets worked around my school schedule. I'm also excited to be able to share King's with prospective students. I was a tour guide at Lisgar, basically doing the exact same job, and I loved it. I love interacting with people, and I'm really loving King's. I'll be that person that they remember who showed them around and (hopefully) showed them how awesome King's is.

There was a lot of hardcore competition between the dozen or so of us who tried for the job. My roomate and I both went for it... and it was a little awkward when I got it and she didn't. We aren't, like, BFFs, and sometimes it gets awkward. Luckily I spend more time in Davis and Seana's room down the hall than in mine. It's a really big room. We're getting a coffeetable!

Not Reading

Here is what we do at King's. We read. Often outside on the quad, when it's nice. Those are my friends chilling and catching up on some Odyssey.


I have decided reading is for the lame. And those who are keen. So I will blog instead and not do my reading for tomorrow. Lecture seems to be a lot of recap most of the time anyway, so reading is not always necessary. Just recommended.

In the in the interest of not reading, I went shopping this afternoon with Davis's roommate. We hit up my favourite consignment store here (hello two dollar prom dress last year) and I found a lovely sweater for two dollars in the sale bin.

I pulled out a twenty to pay.

"Oh," the owner said, "I don't think I have enough fives..."
"Oh... I just used up all my change..." I replied, feeling awkward, trying to come up with a solution.
"You know what," she waves her hand, "just give me a twoonie next time you're in, if you remember. I probably won't."
"Oh... are you sure? I definitely will, I mean..."
"Yeah, don't worry about it."

I feel very shitty about it, but I will pay her back asap.


Toga party was not really the best. I stayed sober (no matter my best efforts) and so helped out some significantly less sober friends. I ended up on clean-up crew and at the thank you pizza and beer party (with last week's Odyssey lecture-er, randomly enough. Actually, the chaplain also stopped by the toga party when it was in full swing. The girl I was taking care of fell over into him). Upper years and I get along really well... but what else is new with me, really?

I'm in a little downer mood today, missing my home and my family, and then I watched Pulp Fiction, which was depressing, a little. My mom sent me a care package and I got it today with Season 1 of Battlestar, some Ottawa U newspapers and a new one of my favourite tank tops, the last one of which I wore out. My mom thinks of everything.

An Email To A Friend Which Has Become a Blog Post Since Time Runs Short Here

I hope this email is relatively coherent; last night was the first FYP sunday.

See, as you've heard, we're in FYP which is 4 out of 5 credits this year. It's nice and comforting and familiar because it's like high school. Every morning we head to the same room and see the same people and are all able to relate. I enjoy that a lot. The papers also recall high school. Some people talk about their psych classes or whatever and they have like three assignments all semester, but since this is 4 out of 5 credits, we have an essay due every two weeks. Last week was spent procrastinating by most people; everyone was always asking everyone else how their essay was coming, either because they were afraid or they wanted to brag, or they'd already exhausted the typical lunch line opener, "How was your night last night?". That one is always fun.

My brain is totally fried and it's because of FYP Sunday. I was so good last week; I started my essay on Wednesday and I was done by sat night when we decided to go out. I was all set. And then the freakouts started. Sarah, Davis, Davis's roommate Seana and I were all majorly stressed and freaking out. There are so many stringent rules about formatting and everything with the papers, and we were just all so worried that high school had permanently fixed "POINT-PROOF-SUPPORT" essays into our brains. This is something that all the teachers here hate. But I digress. There was a lot of stress, and not breathing and freaking out, and then I decided to hate myself and take my essay over to something called "Study Snacks" where upper years edit FYP papers. People were coming back with their papers ripped apart and a whole essay to rewrite at 11 at night. My essay was done, I took it to a friend who is in second year, and he edited my paper and liked it, and I didnt need to overhaul! ...but I did have edits to do, and those took a couple hours. The moral of the story? No matter how hard you try, you will always be up late FYP Sunday.

I ended up being up until seven, so right now I'm functioning on basically no sleep (1 hour). Adrenaline is fun! And caffeine. I was helping a friend with his essay and goofing off and hanging out and it was probably a bad call... but it was fun. I'm in university! I'm meant to sleep poorly and do crazy shit and do whatever I want...

But what makes FYP sunday all worthwhile is FYP monday, where we party. Mondays are a big party night here, since Tuesday is the day we have off FYP. I have the most class on Tuesday since I'm a Journalism major, but not until the afternoon, so plenty of time to sleep off FYP monday festivities. Tonight is a big toga party in Chapel Bay, and it's been a big deal for a week. Every floor and bay had to chip in alcohol and stuff -- I was impressed with their level of organisation. Radical Bay and Chapel Bay have been fighting over who gets to be the party bay, and we in Alex Hall are just enjoying the free booze and fun times.

Well, I have to run to my Tutorial, but I'll write you next time about the toga party and how that goes! Maybe I'll get some sleep. Maybe.

The Epic of Internet (in which Evey's internet struggles mirror slightly the Epic of Gilgamesh)*

First, I expected the internet to do my bidding, and to just WORK. It must do my bidding in all things so that I might goof off and watch TV and msn with far away friends. But as days wore on, I came to understand that the internet is important and requires my respect and far from goofing, it is required for things like printing my essay. So I ventured through the underworld of maintenance. And it was dark and I could see nothing around me. Until my neighbour lent me her extra cord. I'm still waiting for maintenance. UGH.

Alright, that was silly.

Hurray internet! Here, I will catch you up on photos.


This is me being MATRICULATED! At King's one of the ways in which we rock is that students are members of the university. So last week, I put on my formal academic gown and walked over to the chapel and signed the Matricula. My name is there! I have this image of someday, my great-great grandchildren will search for their roots and go to King's and look in the Matricula and see my name.

We've been assigned our first essay and I'm totally freaked out. I have to write, and be smart, and have a thesis and... I am totally clueless and don't know what to write. There are several stages to Evey Writing An Essay, and I'm still in Denial. I foresee it lasting until later on tonight, when I will need to get to work.

Enough lollygagging on the internet. It is time to get some reading done before my Journalism class -- five hours of classes on a day the rest of the program has off. So. Fun times.

I just got a phone call and a package arrived for me! I will go and fetch it.

*It's a stretch

University lessons

I have a bad habit of getting very emotionally attached to my stuff. That's why my dorm room is crammed full of various books, CDs, and posters that I like have with me. I freak out when I lose anything, because it's worth so much to me emotionally. Some people think this is weird. Others would call it unhealthy (probably rightly so). This is why I was so afraid of doing laundry - I love my clothes.

My wardrobe is a carefully assembled collection of pieces that make me feel good. Each one has a purpose and a story. My Westfest T-shirt I bought on sale after Andrea's concert that makes me feel, okay, well, cool. My fancy jeans I bought on sale with my mom while visiting King's this past spring. The vintage skirt my favourite babysitter gave me when I was still in public school and continues to be a staple of my wardrobe* How I feel depends a great deal on how I feel I look, so clothes are important to me.

Today was the day. Sarah and I made plans to do our laundry together so she could supervise med since I had never done laundry before in my life. Not once. This is a valuable skill to have, one I likely should have acquired years ago, however, did not and now I'm here. I gathered my dirty laundry, my quarters and my book and met Sarah in the laundry room. What I learned: laundry is not so scary. Well, the final load is in the dryer right now, so I could have just shrunk all my underwear very very small, but those are easily replaced. Everything I cared a lot about I hung up on my lovely, old, wooden drying rack my mother passed on to me (and which I'm very attached to). It's drying as we speak.

It was a light load, since I haven't been here long, but I have a question for next time: can I put jeans in the dryer? Sarah did, but at my house we hang dry almost everything. That's ok with t-shirts, but hang drying jeans will take forever... and I don't want to leave my jeans unattended in the laundry room overnight.


*It's a wrap skirt, not a magical growing skirt as might first be assumed**
**I always assume magic when I don't understand something! Like, for instance, calculus.

Sunshine

I'm in a good mood today.

Maybe it's because I just had my third day of classes and my lecture and tutorial seem totally manageable. When I got here, I was very, very afraid. This is UNIVERSITY. Smart people go here. It's an intense program. What if I can't keep up with it?

Falling into a routine has helped. Waking up, getting breakfast, going to lecture and meeting up with my friends. Then discussing lecture, eating lunch, going to tutorial. After tutorial I have my time to do whatever needs to get done. Right now it's been a million different errands I need to run, phone numbers I need to call, people I need to talk to, etc.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because my room is finally cleared up. I'm working on a system that will work well for me, and I'm not completely finished yet, but last night I stayed up until 1:30 am clearing up and reorganising my room. Now I walk in and feel calm.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because this morning when I woke up I turned on the CBC and listened to the news and it made me feel... safe. It's familiar.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because it's another gorgeous, sunny day outside and after I finish writing this I will go outside to read on the quad.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because I won beer last night at the casino night I enjoyed way more than I thought I would.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because I'm incredibly lucky to have my two best friends here with me supporting me, holding me, laughing with me, crying with me.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because I'm not thinking about the two 6:30 am practices for rugby next week, or the pain that much of my body is in because of rugby and instead basking in the alien but pleasing idea of me on a university varsity team.

Maybe I'm in a good mood because I had eggs for breakfast. I love eggs.

This weekend I'm skipping the last Frosh activity ("Beach Day") and sleeping in and chilling and reading and settling into my new space. Nesting. Also, ignoring the fact that we've been assigned our first essay and it's due a week from Monday and I'm totally stumped. I'm hoping the ideas will come, cause in case you didn't know, the Epic of Gilgamesh is totally awesome. I'm guessing I'll be spending a lot of time inside once the remnants of tropical storm Hanna hit Halifax since I don't have my rain boots yet. And it's gonna be yucky outside.

But today is for the sun!

A vicious attack

Last night I was violently beaten up by Rugby.

Technically, I was the one who elected to try for the girls' varsity rugby team, so it was self-inflicted, but I still felt like a group of hooligans had been at me with bats when I woke up this morning. Big ones. Probably made of metal.

It didn't help that rugby came at the end of a long day involving waking up early to make it to breakfast, a wonderful lecture about traditions at King's*, and a three and a half hour long trek around Halifax disguised as a "scavenger hunt". By the end my legs were ready to fall off, but then... rugby! I sat down on my bed and briefly considered taking a nap instead of going. I seriously weighed the idea in my mind. Then I dragged myself out of bed, pulled on some workout gear, and went to meet the team.

Instantly, I was pretty terrified. I haven't played rugby in two years, and I haven't been doing much physical exercise lately either. There had also been horror stories told to me by my Frosh leaders about fitness runs up Citadel Hill. If you've been to Halifax and seen the Citadel, you're probably cringing right now. Unless you are a runner, in which case I envy your cardio abilities a lot, because by the middle of the rugby practice, I wanted to lay down and die. Actually, the low point came while lying on the ground in the middle of a "jump up off the ground and sprint" drill. I almost puked, provoking a yell of "If you have to puke, puke, but just run!" from the beast coach Ronnie. Yikes. I tried to make up for it by focusing and yelling "LEFT!" and "RIGHT!" really loudly to get the ball. Since the team is so small, they don't do cuts; if you show up to practices, you're on the team, basically. Hopefully.

After rugby, I was seriously considering bedtime, but most of the girls from the team were heading to Retro Night at the campus bar (the Wardroom), so I hurried back, took a shower, donned some retro gear and ran off to a party. Now, for those of you doing the math, this means I'd missed dinner, I was dehydrated, and now I was drinking. This adds up to the killerest hangover of my life, mixed with every muscle aching. I spent a good chunk of today sprawled in various places, trying to work up the will to move my body.

And tomorrow is the next practice! Hurray! So after my first classes tomorrow, I will run to the shops to grab a mouth guard, some socks and a nose stud to replace my ring which I will get out of my nose... somehow. I'm incredibly anxious about tomorrow: starting lecture and tutorial, getting everything ready for rugby, keeping up with frosh events... Things no longer get scheduled for me. Things overlap and I just gotta choose, because no one is going to schedule it for me. It's all on me.




*ok, so maybe it was a propaganda speech about how awesome we are. The thing is, we are. No lies there. None of this scary U of T "FAMOUS PEOPLE STUDIED HERE" business. We are just legitimately awesome. Clearly.