Failure to communicate

While living with Feng can be irritating, it does provide for some good laughs. (Actually, after nearly getting fed up with his antics last week, he's back in my good graces.)

He's been super helpful when I've had Chinese homework questions for the past couple of weeks, and I've reciprocated by helping him with English words or explaining things to him...

Case in point:
He just came in and asked me what "sole" meant. The only meaning I could think of was the type of fish. He looked at me like I had two heads. I finally asked him to use the word in the sentence he was having trouble with... Uh, "Sole author" is not fish related. I started laughing - I had completely forgotten about that meaning of the word.

Status update

Just finished a 2 hour nap. Still so tired. Excuse me while I go to find a bottle of artificial tears so I can unglue my eyelids.

Mission Accomplished! (Unfortunately)

ARGH! Everytime I try to get into the on campus pub, Bomber, there's always a huuuuuge waiting line and my friends and I end up waiting in line for two hours just to give up and go somewhere else in the end. I finally broke the cycle!

Victoria, Shruthi, and I managed to get our asses over to Bomber by 9:15ish, and lo and behold, for once there was no line! We were so happy to get in without a hitch! Surprisingly though, the pub was kind of empty... Well, by comparison to a normal Bomber night. (Usually the place was packed... This time all the tables were full, but it wasn't packed.) We grabbed a table and hung around, hoping that things would pick up in a bit...

A bit passed by. More specifically, an hour later the place was still empty as hell. (Okay, maybe a third of the normal crowd was there.) We decided to cut our losses and go to another nearby bar instead, Phil's. To save on taxi fare, we decided to just walk to Phil's since it's only a 15 minute walk from my house.

Well, no sooner had we walked in, but we see that Phil's (a truly stank place) is even emptier than Bomber!!! What the hell?! We hightailed it out of there. Some guys laughed because they realized we essentially walked in and then back out. By now it was about midnight, so we decided to go back to Bomber in hopes that it would be busier.

No such luck! Bomber was slightly more busy, but barely so! We made a half assed attempt to dance with the other 20 people on the dance floor, but we realized it was futile and decided to call it a night. Thus was our night at Bomber. And Phil's. And Bomber again.

Oh, and now Shruthi's on MSN telling me to go to Revolution. I'm such a pushover! Adios!

Soggy Bottom Mau

I'm soaked from the knees down right now. That makes for a very unpleasant class. That's right, I'm in class as I type this. It's easier to have my laptop here because my East Asian Culture prof provides online slides, and I can just type up my own notes as I go. Anyawys, back to being wet. Outside it's flipping between downpours and clear air. I walked from my apartment to the SLC and it was clear as a bell. 5 minutes later as I departed the SLC, it was downpouring. I got soaked!

The term is going terrifically so far. Again I'm taking four courses:

• European Colonial History
  
• East Asian Culture
  
• Human Resources Management
  
• Advanced Beginner Chinese
  

European History is pretty intense - we're doing a lot of theoretical discussions which I've never done before, so on one hand it's a bit intimidating since I don't have the background in the theories we're talking about, but on the other it's kind of exhilarating to make the connections.

(Oh god, it's raining so heavily we can't see out the windows! And the lights are flickering from lightening! Wowsers!)

East Asian Culture is pretty much a survey course so far. I've studied all the things we've talked about before, but it's just being applied to an Asian context now. (e.g. Right now he's talking about national self-determination. Been there, done that.) Long live my laptop, so at least I can keep myself occupied for the next 3 hours.

The only reason I'm taking Human Resources Management is because my mother has been pestering (and yes, "pester" is definitely the word I'm looking for) to take it for the past 5 years. I've only had 2 classes so far, and I'm shocked to admit that it's not quite the burden that I thought it would be. Actually, in our last class, there was nearly a lynching. We were discussing the wage gender gap and one guy tried to claim that the gap existed because women were more maternal and family-oriented and men were more business-oriented. You could hear the women growling in their chairs. Myself included.

My fave class of the term must be my Advance Beginner Chinese class! I know that "Advanced Beginner" is an oxymoron, but it's true. This class is for anyone who has some experience with any form of Chinese. This means that the majority of my class either speaks Mandarin and can't write Chinese characters, or they speak Cantonese and CAN write Chinese characters. Then there's Mau who just has a smattering of everything.

Unsurprisingly I'm the only non-Asian in my class. It's okay though. I actually feel like I have a bit of an advantage because I've studied Mandarin before using the same methods we're using now, and so far our vocabulary consists of the same stuff I learned in Hong Kong, with a few differences. I was eavesdropping on some of the other students and it seems as though I'm also doing better on the oral/writing homework than some of them too. Tee hee!

I should also mention that I've finally completed my Chinese name. When I was in Hong Kong, my professor named me "Mo-Lin"... Now I have a last name, so now I'm "Bai Mo-Lin." (白莫琳) (Roughly translated it means "White Jade Forest." Ha ha!

Okay, I'm not paying attention to my class anymore. I should go back to my notes.

Grad school!

Happy news everyone! On Saturday night at 10:30pm (while I was slightly drunk) I received an acceptance email to the University of Ottawa. That's right baby, I'm going to grad school in September! I've been accepted to the MA: Globalization and International Development program. I honestly don't know that much about the program - the U of Ottawa website sucks, but I'm excited nonetheless. It's such a relief to know what I'll be doing after the summer. I hated being stuck in limbo.

To be honest, I'm rather numb to the idea of actually being in grad school - I think I'm more excited by the idea of living in Ottawa again instead. I love that city. I'm also happy because this is one step closer to my goal of getting an international job that makes a difference in the world.

While I would have preferred to go to Carleton U for grad school, I'm quite happy taking Ottawa's offer. It's rather strange for me right now about this whole Ottawa vs. Carleton thing. I can't think of a time when I wanted to get accepted to something and not gotten it. Usually when I apply to something it's just a matter of me working up courage to go for it... This time, I actually wanted into Carleton U, and despite my best efforts, I've been waitlisted until June. Even when I was applying to my undergrad schools I never had a problem with acceptance. I think Western U was the only place to waitlist me. I'm not really upset by not being accepted. I just don't know how to react. Should I be resigned? Sad? It's not like I can blame them. I'm not used to actually having to work hard to get something. This makes me wonder how I'll fare when working with other grad students... Time will tell.

Exam drunkenness

Egads. The 21st was a day of total fun. Even though I had finished my exams the day before, I trekked back to school the next day so I could work on my Hong Kong essay. I started off the day in the library, but then Victoria came to collect me and dragged me to work outside.

It was such a gorgeous day!!! We nabbed a picnic table outside the SLC and set up shop. It was hard to concentrate for me, both because of the good weather and because the sunshine made it hard to see my laptop's screen, but it was totally worth it. We were outside for so long that I got majorly sunburned - I didn't even realize it was so hot/sunny outside! Luckily the burn has faded now... But I was seriously scorched.

The plan for the evening was for Victoria to write her last exam then come over to my place so we could go out to Fubar for the evening. I ended up going home, finishing packing, and making dinner. Victoria also decided to crash at my apartment so that we could taxi it over to the bar instead of making her stay sober and driving. Needless to say, we got in a lot of pre-drinking before going out.

We met up with Sher outside of Fubar and managed to skip the line thanks to one of Victoria's connections. We had such a blast! I was already tipsy before even arriving at the bar, and within the hour I had had two more shots and another drink! There was much dancing and all around goodness.

Sher and I went to the bar again later in the evening. I had been intending to get some water but she ended up buying me more alcohol. While standing around, I saw a guy that looked kinda familiar, but I wasn't sure if it was who I thought it was. The next thing I know, I'm being tackled by Melanie and her school friend Grant! Of all the places to run into my sister! This is the first time I've ever seen her at a club or anything, so I was a bit weirded out, but it was all good. She was even drunker than I was. (Check out her porn dance shot!)

After last call Sher, Victoria, and I ended up going to Mel's Diner for some post-drinking food. After some much needed food, we went out separate ways. I think it was about 4am by the time Victoria and I went to sleep - normally I wouldn't have cared, but my parents were coming the next day to pick me up and help me move... Yikes.

All in all, it was a fantastic night! (Pics can be found here.)

Giving up pretense

I had every intention of coming to campus to work on my history paper today, but here I am, sitting outside the SLC basking in the sun with my laptop. I did some work (namely grammar) but my creativity is being sapped by the sunny rays and the fact that natural sunlight makes it hard to look at my laptop screen. Anyways...

I'm done my exams! Yay! I kept telling everyone that my last exam (Humanities) was going to be my easiest, but it turned out that it was the exact opposite. My history exam went really well - I think I did well... But I know the prof is a really hard marker in that class, so I don't know how my final mark will turn out. (e.g. I thought I rocked the midterm but only got 75% on the thing!) As for my political science exam... I walked into the room, made the exam into my bitch, and spat on it on my way out of the room. I've never written an exam essay and known my stuff so well. It helped that the prof had given us the exam questions ahead of time, so we knew what to study.

My final exam was ridiculous. Our prof told us that three quarters of the questions on the exam would come directly from our online quizzes, so we knew to memorize the questions and answers to the quizzes. The rest of the questions would come from the chapters that we hadn't covered in class. Oh my god. I sat down at my table, and within 15 minutes I had answered 111 of the 160 multiple choice questions on the exam. I could not believe how fast I went through them! LOL. Then when I went to do question 112, it was like I ran into a brick wall - that was the start of the new information, so I actually had to stop and think about my answers. I finished answer the entire exam in 30 minutes... But the pain in the ass thing was that the university won't allow students to leave the exam room until at least an hour has passed. So I had to spend the next 30 sitting at my desk being bored. (Yes I did check over my answers, but it didn't take long at all.) Oi!

I've also been busy saying goodbye to my various friends who are graduating. It's strange - I don't feel like it's really a goodbye - I've known them for so long that it feels surreal that I might never see them again. This reminds me of when I was leaving Hong Kong - I had a hard time grasping that I would never see some of those people again either. Anyways, Tao and I went out for dinner on Wednesday as a goodbye, and Stacy and I did the same last night.

Speaking of last night, Agnes and I decided to go see "Hot Fuzz" at the movie theatre. That movie is so frickin' hilarious. It's a British film and is totally over the top. The funny thing about the whole movie-going experience happened while Agnes and I were in line to buy tickets. I was trying to tell her about an actor in a movie and when she recognized the name, I thought her answer was sarcastic. I told her, "Oh, I thought you were being facetious!" Suddenly this guy in line in front of us chuckled, turned to me, and said, "Excellent use of vocabulary!" It was so unexpected and random that I didn't know what to make of it. LOL.

I think I'm getting a little sunburnt now. I should get going - my laptop is melting in the sun, and I still have to finish packing so I can move home tomorrow.

Fare well!

Let them eat cake!

I don't know WHAT possessed me to do this. I've only been home for Easter Weekend for about 4 hours. We had just finished eating dinner and then we broke out some maple sponge cake for dessert. My sister, mom, and I were sitting around eating and chatting... I went still.

Suddenly I took the cake that was in my hand, launched myself at my mom and smashed my cake into the side of her face. LOL LOL LOL. I of course immediately ran like hell afterwards, but as I was making my getaway, I realized my mom was grabbing the rest of the cake (3/4 of it was still left). I panicked, thinking she was going to retaliate, and grabbed at it too. I managed to snatch the cake away, but as I was running out of the dining room, it slipped off the plate and fell all over the carpet. LOL

I was laughing so hard that I was crying and couldn't talk. I'm in pain still from laughing so much.

The Bomber That Wasn't

So Wednesday was Bomber's last pub night. To make the evening more fun, the pub decided it would be a no-clothes event... Patrons were encouraged to make innovative costumes. I had managed to talk Victoria into wearing togas, but due to the sudden change in weather which brought snow and ice I wimped out.

Victoria picked me up but before we could go to her house to get ready, we had to stop off at a church so she could go to confession. I had already gotten dressed to go to the bar - so there I am standing in a church in my low-cut top and bitch heels. LOL, luckily I had my long jacket on so I could feel a bit more presentable in the house of the lord. :)

Anyways, we got ready for the bar, picked up Sher, and ran to the SLC. We got there just a bit after 9pm, but the lineup was insanely long! We waited in line and had a blast for an hour and a half just goofing around. (Check out the pictures!) Only about 10% of the people were dressed up - this group was one of the more innovative ones. We kept trying to trick people into leaving the line by loudly exclaiming, "What?! It's a 2 hour wait?!" (Actually, some girls near us nearly did believe us, except they had heard us planning this ploy outloud and laughed at us instead.)

Around 11pm we finally got tired of waiting and decided to leave and grab a bite and some drinks elsewhere. We tried going to the Flying Dog, but it was closed. So we ended up going to Symposium. Sher and I paid for Victoria since she was being our chauffeur. We had such a great time just goofing around and striking stupid poses.

One more term to go!

So yesterday was the official end of classes at UW. All my friends are so excited because they're either graduating or have the summer off to party. They keep asking me what my plans are and I gently have to remind them that alas, I'm stuck in Waterloo for yet another term. Doh!

I wasn't very enamored with my classes this term.

• My Humanities class was absolutely useless, and I told them so on the course evaluation. It's a 3rd year class, but it's stupid easy and the only reason ANYONE takes it is because it's mandatory!
  
• Introduction to International Development has been mediocre. I think I learned a lot more stuff in my Intro to International Studies class last semester that was more useful than in this one. The prof only scratches the bare surface of our topics. I guess I just don't like the feeling that I still don't know a think about international development.
  
• I did enjoy my American history class. It wasn't so much the topic that pleased so much as the prof. (No there is no innuendo there so stop snickering.) My prof was fabulous - you knew exactly what you were supposed to get out of each class and his viewpoints and presentation methods were totally effective. I would totally take more of his classes just because he was terrific.
  
• Last but not least was my Canadian history seminar. I've enjoyed that class a great deal because our prof tells us a lot of random stuff about academic life that we've never heard of before. He's also taught us how to write a damned good paper. The only infuriating thing about the class has been trying to schedule meetings with him. He never has time for his students! The one time I did get an appointment with him, he ended up missing it. I finally did get to see him, but it was only because one of the people he was supposed to meet had to cancel.
  

So now I have exams on the 16th, 17th, and 20th, and my Canadian history paper is due on April 28th. I shall worry about that stuff tomorrow though because tonight I'm going to the Bomber for the last Bomber night of the term! (Crazy! Some of the people I'll be seeing tonight will never go to Bomber again after this...)

Party hardy for a sibling

So last week was my middle sister's birthday. We had made plans to get together for dinner on Thursday, but after a mis-communication (or should I say lack of communication - something went funky between our cell phones and we couldn't get through to each other) we ended up postponing the dinner to Friday. I'm happy to report though that dinner was great - lots of fun.

Since several of Mel's friends also had parties around the same time, they decided to have a party at her place and then go out for a pub crawl. Apparently there's a clause in our sisterly contract that demands that the little sister be present for such events. I had only met two of the people before, so it was a bit awkward.

I ended up going to Mel's on Saturday evening and was there for the party. It's a bit odd seeing my sister get all liquored up with her friends. I don't really drink with her that often, and when I do it's usually with the rest of our family. So when I watch my sister get drunk and start directing porn pictures with her friends, you can understand how I could be weirded out.

Around 11 we ended up going out to the Heuther pub in Waterloo. It was a lot of fun - we all ordered food and alcohol. The best part of the evening though was that they messed up our bill and totally undercharged us. Rock on! For a group of 18 people, our bill only came to $115. I totally dug that.

Mmm, opiates

I'm surprised to report that I'm not as sore as anticipated today. My right arm hurts, and so do my legs, but my back is quite fine! Woot!

SQUASHed like a bug!

Jill taught me how to play Squash today! I cannot believe how difficult that game is - it's a lot harder than it looks. Of course, this may have something to do with my total lack of hand-eye coordination - I missed some of the most ridiculously easy shots ever! Ha ha

My best score was getting 5 points (Jill still won)... Of course, the majority of those points weren't technically valid because I'd accidentally hit the ball out of bounds but we'd keep playing anyways. So technically my highest score was like 2. :)

I suspect tomorrow (err, I guess it's today now) is going to a brand new world of pain for me. Even though I stretched before playing (thank God Jill recommended it) my back was sore half an hour into the game. Since pain usually takes a day for it to settle in, I think tomorrow will be a challenge for me to get around. :)

Oh, and I also got hit by the ball twice - both times my fault. I got hit in the shoulder because I just stood there stupidly watching the ball come towards me (remember that lack of hand-eye coordination thing I mentioned? This was more of a lack of brain function - I don't even think I tried to hit the damned ball.) I also got smacked in the back by Jill because I was too stupid to get out of her shot LOL. Yup, I definitely need to practice this game some more.

Despite its difficulty and the pain that went with it, I had a lot of fun. I can't wait to try it out again.

Impossible to understand

I can't understand my landlords. It's not the language barrier that confounds me. It's their habits. I'm beginning to wonder if they're afraid of the dark. I also can't understand how as engineers they don't understand thermodynamics. I shall elaborate. Also, I should clarify that my landlords aren't that old - they're maybe in their late 20s early 30s, so senility isn't an issue.

First of all, they're incapable of turning the lights off when they leave a room. There's a light at the top of our staircase that is FOREVER on. It's on whether they're home or not. Even if it's bright daylight out, they have to turn it on in order to ascend or descend the stairs. I'll wake up at 7am and the light is burning brightly just to irritate me. One time they also left a mini lamp on downstairs overnight. The thing was so bloody hot when I turned it off the next morning I nearly burnt myself. (They had also left their laptop running overnight... I haven't got a clue as to what prompted that.)

I also have a beef with their refusal to be responsible with the house heating. I believe I've gripped about how they crank the heat up to 27 degrees at all times and while I keep turning it down whenever I see it up there. Now that the warm weather has arrived, I've discovered a new issue. They leave the windows open while the heat is turned on... And I'm not just talking about opening up a window here and there to quickly air out the house, I'm talking "leave them open all day while the heat is set to 25 degrees."

I'll admit that I was the first person to start opening windows when the weather turned nice. But I at least turned off the heat before doing so. And when I was done downstairs, or when the day began to cool down, I closed the windows on my way back up. The next day when I came home from school, the windows were wide open, and as I mentioned above, the heat was turned up to 25 degrees. I was flabbergasted. These people are freaking PHD engineers! They should be smart enough to know that having the heat on while the windows are open is not going to do anything except contribute to global warming! GAH!

And then this evening. Oh my gosh this evening. I'm in the kitchen drying my dishes. The heat's turned on again, but whatever. Shunde (the guy) is upstairs in their room. Shuang comes home and yells his name. She leaves the door wide open while waiting for him to come down. It takes about 3 minutes for him to come downstairs. Meanwhile the door continues to stand open, sucking out all the warm air of the house. You know what she called him for? To bring in the groceries. She had brought them all the way to the top step, but was incapable of bringing them those final five steps into the house. I was beyond flabbergasted at this point. I was speechless and trying not to laugh hysterically. And the sad thing is, it only took Shunde 2 trips (hell, can that even be called a trip when the groceries are literally just outside the door?!) to bring in the groceries. She could have done it faster than him for Christ's sake!

Nothing I learned from my time in Asia can explain this behaviour. Can someone, anyone, please please please help me understand what's going on here?!

The library is now closed.

Remember this post back in February? The one with the picture of the ridiculously large amount of books on my desk? Yeah. That's no longer the case.

I finished my research for my Hong Kong paper tonight! Yippee!!! I have 33 pages of pure quotes and research from all my resources... 33 pages of single-spaced research at that. And it's all for a 30 page paper that's going to be double-spaced and have footnotes! YEAH baby!!!

Winter strikes again

I used to be a big fan of winter. I loved the bite of the cold air, the pristine white fields surrounding the land, watching other people suffer. But I have to admit, I'm fucking sick of it now. LOL. Ever since I came back from sub-tropical Hong Kong, the cold has been an absolute bitch! And the way it keeps being a cocktease just makes it worse!

For a couple of days this week, the weather was AMAZING. It was so warm the snow was melting. I could walk to school with my jacket undone, etc. It was gorgeous. And it was that way yesterday morning - I walked around campus content as could be... But by lunchtime you could barely see across the street from the driving snow flailing us! By the time I left campus, I couldn't see where I was walking, snow was clinging to my head, and I practically had to climb over the snow drifts to get home. >:( (It didn't help that I was starving and sore from weightlifting and the vaccine I had just been stuck with.)

Other amusing happenings yesterday:

When I was in the SLC having a quick bowl of soup prior to going to the gym, I was watching people set up informational booths to promote things. Suddenly two people at one table get up and start doing random dances. And damn they were good. When I finished my food, I got up and wandered over there, but they didn't have anything signs - just a TV showing people doing ballroom dancing.

I don't like approaching tables in the SLC just in case they try to sucker you into buying things or are crazies who are advocating something I don't agree with. I ended up doing two laps of the SLC before I finally approached the table and asked them what they were promoting. Turns out it was UW's Ballroom Dance Club! Before you know it, I had signed up as a member and paid for waltz, jive, and rhumba lessons. (See? They suckered me into buying stuff!) The guy I signed up with was named Jesse. Today was supposed to be my first set of lessons, but with the snowday, they've been canceled. Whoops!

After signing up for the lessons, I had to scurry off to my weightlifting class. It's amusing because the instructor calls a few of us her "regulars" because we haven't missed a class yet. That makes me happy for some reason. *flex*

After our class was done, I then went to pick up a prescription for Gardasil I had ordered. (It's the new vaccine against the Human Papillomavirus virus - the one that causes some cervical cancers.) It was up to me to take it to health services to get it injected, so that's just what I did. For some reason, this needle hurt a hell of a lot more than normal. Well, maybe not a lot more, but it hurt more than normal.

I stuck around health services for 15 minutes afterwards just in case I collapsed before making my way home. As mentioned, my walk home was not pleasant. By the time I got home, I was dripping water EVERYWHERE. It was ridiculous. The snow clung to all materials, especially my hair.

Several hours later I was all snuggly from having a shower and being in warm clothes. I had vowed not to leave my house again, but alas, twas not to be! I had just gotten up from my desk when I saw a car right outside my house. It was stuck in a snow drift literally right across from my front door. It became apparent that they and the people who had stopped to help couldn't push it out, so I decided to do my good deed of the year.

Mau goes tromping downstairs, dons her boots, and goes outside to offer her help. The weirdest thing of all? The person stuck was Jesse, the guy who got me to join the Ballroom Dance Club. Ha ha. Even with three of us pushing, we weren't able to move the car, but luckily another car pulled up and offered to help pull the car out of the ditch. While they were waiting to find rope, I ended up going back instead (I was only wearing a sweatshirt).

While I was making myself some hot chocolate, I kept watching out the window to see if they were successful. Another car came by and offered the use of a shovel to help dig the car out a bit. That was what did it. Shovelling coupled with 4 people pushing got the guy moving. He stopped about 3 feet away and thanked everyone who then drove off. He got back in his car and started to drive away again. But he couldn't. That's right, the car got stuck a mere 3 feet away from his original place. LOL. So I went back outside and helped push again and this time we got him on to the cleared part of the road. LOL. (This entire ordeal began because he had pulled over to make room for a plow.)

Thus was my yesterday. While I was trying to read my textbooks later that night, I actually ended up putting in my ear plugs because the rain hitting my windows was ridiculously loud! Oh, and today's another snowday! YAY!

Hill of death

The day after I arrived at my parents house for reading week, I decided to hop on their treadmill (aka: mom's clothes hanger) for an hour before they woke up. Since I hadn't used it in a loooong time, I decided to set it at a really easy pace. I pushed the "lower" button on the incline setting, and set myself an easy speed.

Things were going good. I was definitely sweating, but not out of breath, so I decided to do a two minute sprint at 5mph. That's when things went terribly wrong. By the end of my first minute, I was gasping for air. 10 seconds into the second minute, I was trying not to fall over. I managed to finish the sprint, but by then my lungs were bleeding, I couldn't get enough air, and even though I kept lowering and lowering the speed, I was still gasping.

I decided to take a short 5 minute break and got off the treadmill. As I was about to get back on though, I noticed something. The treadmill had a definite incline on it... That's when I realized that the "lower" incline button actually lowers to back of the treadmill to CREATE an incline. For CHRIST'S SAKE! Every other treadmill in the world raises its upper portion to create the hill. No wonder I was so damned exhausted - I was running uphill the entire half hour! Needless to say, I immediately corrected my error and did my next half hour at an easy pace. LOL

Reading Week

I finally got a reading week! This was my first reading week since first year! (In my second year, I was working at Bruce Power, in my third year I was working at Business Objects, in my fourth year I was in Hong Kong!) It's horrible to say, but I got more work done this past week than I anticipated. (Meaning, I actually did a little work as opposed to none at all.)

The week was super relaxing. I have a switch in my brain that flips on and off whenever I go home. The moment I step into my parent's house, I start gorging on all kinds of junk food. It's ridiculous, and even maddening. When I'm in Waterloo, I live like a monk - no (well, nearly no) sweets, chips, etc. Heck, I've been carting around a box of popcorn for 3 houses now! When I was at home, I had cookies, chips, nachos, pizza, pie, ice cream, etc. Yeesh. Oh well, it was bliss. :)

I spent a lot of the week watching movies and relaxing. My mom and I also went to see the movie Music and Lyrics. It was cute. :) We also rented movies like School for Scoundrels, Mistress of Spices (terrible), and the Protector (so terrible it was hilarious). The week kind of melted all together because I was so relaxed. I just switched from shopping to watching TV to playing on my computer to eating. Fabulous.

Yesterday was also my mom's birthday. I bought her a hilarious card that mocked her techno-incompetence (turns out my oldest sister bought her the same card). I then gave her money for a new curling iron (she needed one, and I didn't know what type she used). I also bought her two sticks of deodorant. I know that seems like an odd gift, but she made such a fuss at Christmas about not getting some (it was on her wishlist - none of us daughters remembered though) that I went and bought two to compensate. :)

My crowning gift though was a bowl of random chocolates. Scattered through the chocolates were a bunch of little notes I had written, reminding her of some of our funnier moments in life. For example, I mentioned a time when I was 5 years old and gave her a gumball that I had rolled in air freshener. She did know this of course, and popped it in her mouth and of course gagged. I don't know what possessed me to do that, but it has become a favourite family story. I also mentioned when we went to the flea market near my hometown. She had been bugging me and bugging me to go (it had been years since we last went) and she finally took me there without my permission. The flea market was SO scummy! Everything in there was from the 70s and ridiculously expensive. She was so disappointed in the place, which allowed me to mock her endlessly as a result. :) The stories went on and on, but you get the idea.

Melanie also drove up to visit my mom for her birthday, so we all ended up going out for dinner and flaking out that night. This morning we went to my parents' favourite breakfast place and relaxing for the morning. Mel ended up driving me back to Waterloo. We had an absolutely wonderful ride and had a lot of fun in the car. :)

I know I had some other funny stories to tell, but I'm getting tired and apparently can't remember what they were. Now, it's time for more reading! (Darn, I was about to type "it's time to go to bed" but it's only 9:30pm! I have to do some more reading! Doh!)

Boo to testing!

Back in January, the Department of Foreign Affairs came to UW to give a talk on their post-secondary recruitment campaign. I've always been interested and to be honest, smitten, by the idea of working for DFAIT, so I applied for several jobs at the department. To do so required a mad scramble to assemble an updated resume, create a short essay (and I mean short short short) detailing my leadership experiences and so on.

The recruitment campaign also requires its applicants to write several exams at the school on a specific date. Since Agnes had also applied to the same jobs, we went together. This meant that we appeared at school, on a Saturday, at 7:15am. Egads! I was so freaking exhausted. At least I got to eat though - Agnes just rolled out of bed and came to pick me up. Hee hee.

The exams were neither hard nor easy. The first one was a generic exams testing your logic and school smart skills. They included questions that needed you to find number patterns, rotate figures around, word similarity questions, and evil evil questions that required you to create formulas to math problems. Those last ones were deadly. I hate math! The second test was a "situational judgement test." Essentially it gave you a bunch of scenarios and asked you to select the most effective as well as the least effective response. This sounds easy enough, just use your common sense and answer! Not so! Some of the potential actions you could take were pretty similar, or difficult. And in the example they gave us, we knew they didn't want the goody-two-shoes answer either (e.g. "Gee, my coworker is doing something wrong, so I should run and tell my boss." Wrong!) The final test was a written communication test. They gave us a 4 page booklet and we had to summarize its contents in 450 words. I don't know how I did on it... I think I might have been a little too concise in my writing. :S

Luckily the first two tests were multiple choice, so they were graded fairly quickly and I'm happy to say I got decent marks on them. I still have to wait for the written test to be graded. And the pain of all this is that I might not even be qualified for the jobs I applied to. The descriptions said I needed to graduate by June 2007... But I won't graduate until August 2007. Hopefully I'll slip through the cracks. Even if they do decline me though, it's good experience for when I apply next time. :)

Funny email

My sister sent the family the following email. It's subject line was, "Death in the family." It was too funny to keep to myself, so I have posted here so that all may enjoy the hilarity.

---

PEPPY
a.k.a. "the little red rocket", "lama's rocket launcher", "the death trap" , the "Hi-I-Wanna-Die"
February 1998 - February 2007
Odometre reading: 330,899 kms.

It is with a heavy and sad heart that I send along the news of the passing of everyones favorite vehicle, Peppy. Peppy in all her shiny, red splendour came into our lives on a cold February day and it is fitting that she leaves us in the same way.

Peppy saw me, and numerous others through 9 years and almost always got us to where we needed to go. Along the way she kept me safe through 4 years of traversing some of the busiest highways in Ontario and I thank her for some of my exemplary driving skills because of it. ;)

She survived a brutal break in (we're still both in therapy), numerous major operations and overhauls (thanks Wolfie), long trips up north when no one thought she could make it, WAY too many lacrosse games, mocking from the family (she knows you guys loved her!), do-it-yourself body work, ONLY one speeding ticket and one parking ticket, overstuffings like you wouldn't believe from camping trips and Christmas goodies, DUCT TAPE, being on palliative care for the last 6 months and finally: a system to system shut down (who knew an automatic could drive like a standard!).

Although Peppy is still slightly chugging along (literally) she will be officially heading to the Great Scrapyard in the Sky tomorrow. I bid her a heartfelt adieu and thank you.

On that note it is my extreme pleasure to announce the arrival of the newest member of our family. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome: Silvercuda!!!
(oooooo, Baracuda!)

She's a sleek and stylin', saucy silver lady. Although she's got a bigger ghetto bootie than Peppy (ie. 4 doors) she's alot younger being a child of the new millenium- 2001 to be exact. With low kilometres, all the right parts in the right place (and in new/great condition) and an amazing price, she and I knew we were meant to be together.

Silvercuda made her official debut to the world this morning and so far has gotten rave reviews- YEAH! NO DUCT TAPE (black was never her colour anyways), no stalling/chugging/shifting gears unexpectedly- she drives as smooth as she looks.

So, please help me in welcoming Silvercuda to the family. She can't wait to meet you all and she accepts 'car shower' gifts in the form of cash donations, chocolate and fuel injector cleaner. ;)

Love you all!
Mernie

Ps. I was told by Scott and Mau that if I named a silver car the "Silver Bullet" I would be disowned- APPARENTLY that was too white trash... ooooooo Silvercuda!!!

A library near me

Is it possible to measure one's intellect by the amount of books they have borrowed from the library? If so, I'm getting to be a freakin' genius!



(This mountain of books looks a lot more impressive in real life than in the picture. :( )

Must register to comment

Okay, after having had some really weird comments on my blog lately, I've decided to make it so that people cannot post comments anonymously. Mainly because I want to know who the hell writes things like this:

"A cool blog about females at the gym. So nice to read that you didnt give in easy to that chick but took a fight with her untill she finally got of the machine.

That bitch probably needed a beating too, and cool that you almost was ready to get into a catfight with her and kick her ass. I guess she didnt think you dare to fight her at all, but that bitch meet a tough lady."

Catfight

I nearly got into fisticuffs with a girl at the gym today. I had signed up to use a specific elliptical machine at 11:15, and when that time came around, there was another girl on there. I figured she was just finishing up her exercise when I saw that she still had 30 minutes to go.

I politely tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she was nearly done (meanwhile I'm thinking: Get the hell off my machine bitch.) "What?!" She asks. Duh. Turn off your MP3 player. I repeat my question. "What?" Turn it off. Not just down. Ask again. "I've got 30 minutes left."

I pointed out that I had signed up for the machine at 11:15 yada yada yada and then her friend beside her jumps in and growls, "Well someone must have erased her name!" Bullshit. I was in the gym before these bimbos arrived and I had watched them look at the reserve boards in utter confusion then hop on whatever machines they saw handy. You could tell that they weren't happy that I was facing them down.

The chick on my machine got off finally, grumbling and rolling her eyes to her friend. I nearly pounced on her then and there.

Not Sesame Street's big bird...

So there I was walking home like normal. I was listening to my MP3 player, just concentrating on keeping my footing. Suddenly, this massive bird (probably a falcon or something - it's wingspan was the length of my outstretched arm) swoops down from behind me, misses my head by like a foot and lands beside me. I cursed and nearly about jumped out of my skin! The stupid featherbrain then just sits there and watches as I try to cajole my heart out of my throat.

Stupid animals.

My feelings in a single syllable

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, it's procrastinatin' time

I'm on my blog quite a bit lately. It must mean that I have something due soon. However, my parents no longer have the right to bitch at me for my procrastination habits. (A fact I'm sure they're going to ignore.) Apparently my father found an article that found that people who procrastinate are something like 10% more efficient when they do finally work. I wonder if I can find that article... Maybe I'll get it framed.

I went to donate blood today at UW. The day didn't start off well for anyone. I slept through my alarm clock (again) - I'm going to have to test it to make sure it's functioning - maybe I just keep turning it off and forgetting.

I made it to the donors on time though. Unfortunately they were late in setting up due to the weather and traffic. No problem! That just gave me time to go get food. I was just sitting down to eat in the SLC when suddenly this weird buzzing sound starts, but it was intermittent, so we all just sat and stared at each other for a moment... But it continued. Fine, guess it's a real fire drill after all! We all filed out into the cold and had to stand around for 20 minutes while the firetrucks came and gave us the all clear to go back in.

While waiting for the all clear though, I was slightly annoyed by the one group of people I saw. They decided that it was too cold to wait outside like the rest of us, so they ended up going back into the inner set of doors of the SLC. Maybe this was smart thinking - after all, in all likelihood, it was a false fire alarm... But what if it hadn't been? I kept hoping the fire was real and was going to suddenly erupt and toast the twirps alive. I'm not irritated. Really.

Of course the alarm delayed the blood donors even longer for setting up, but soon all was good and I was zipping through. This donation went a lot smoother than the last time because I had all the places I had visited written down a piece of paper. Yay! Even the donation went very well. It took me about 16 minutes to donate my share (I found out the average time is 10 minutes), and since I had warned the nurse that I tend to have complications from donating (aka getting woozy"), she made me stay laying down for an extra 5 minutes. I think that really did the trick, because I only felt mildly shaky instead of wanting to keel over afterwards.

Stacy managed to find me at the donors (I was like 15 minutes late in meeting her due to all the delays). We ended up going to her new house for lunch (ha ha, it has retro 70s carpets!). I managed to con her into going to the mall so I could do some quick shopping and to see a movie.

We ended up seeing The Children of Men. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Stacy found it too violent for her tastes, but I felt the violence added to the atmosphere of the film. The premise of the film is that one day, for no reason, women stop being able to have children. For 18 years, no new children are born, and then suddenly a young woman gets pregnant. The movie is interesting because it shows how both humanity and certain individuals react to the dying out of the human race. I thought the entire film was very thought provoking and profound. I recommend you go check it out.

Finally!

In 2004, I didn't get any days off of work because we had good weather all winter.
In 2005, I had a full academic year because none of the typhoons escalated to stage 3.
In 2006, we didn't even HAVE snow.
Finally, in 2007, I got a snow day! Yay!

Public Service Message

I would like to take a moment to promote the environment.

DON'T WASTE ELECTRICITY! DON'T THROW OUT RECYCLABLES! WALK INSTEAD OF DRIVING!

The winter thus far has been pretty damned freaky. For my pals outside of Canada, I should mention that we've had little to NO snow so far! Normally by the middle of January, we're buried in several feet of the stuff! Right now though, you can still see the grass.

Our weather is NOT normal! It is an effect of global warming. I'm beginning to get really freaked out by how rapidly the changes are occuring, and it's infuriating to see how people don't care. For example, since I moved into my new apartment, I've turned the heat down by 7 degrees (no one has noticed) and I'm constantly closing windows that people leave open. All of these careless actions waste electricity which contributes to global warming.

I think what drives home the effects of climate change for me has been watching the Canadian Geese on campus. Normally the geese leave Waterloo in mid to late November. this year though, they're still here! The migration progress is important to their development - that's when the new adults learn where to fly on their trip down south! And I keep being concerned that the weather might change suddenly to have "real" Canadian weather, and the geese that suddenly have to fly South will starve on their trip. I don't know if all of these ill omens will come to pass, but it concerns me. Several days ago, Waterloo was hit by a cold spell, causing snow and ice to form. While I was walking home, I was struck by seeing a group of geese walking across the ice of Columbia Lake...

If you want to know more about how you can stop global warming, see the following movies/sites!

• An Inconvient Truth - A great film that explains the basics of global warming.
  
• Climate Change Canada
  
• Transport Canada's Climate Change website
  
• Natural Resources Canada - Climate Change site
  

Memories of Asia

Living with my new housemates has brought back a lot of memories from my exchange. Mainly it's due to the familiar smells - they don't cook often, but when they do, it smells like I'm back on the streets of Mong Kok with the various odors wafting around. I love it (even when I hate the smell).

Another amusing memory that they've brought back is of traveling in China. One of them, most likely Shunde, likes to hoark in the bathroom. The sound of it reminds me of walking the streets in mainland China. Part of me is vastly amused by this, even while the hairs on the back of my neck try to stand on end.

The final similarity between my apartment and Hong Kong is the random miscommunications that occur. One specific instance comes immediately to mind. I had gone to the gym one morning, and when I returned, I started chatting with Shuang. I told her in Chinese that I had gone to the gym, but I guess I said "gym" wrong. She proceeded to repeat the word back to me, then she kept saying something in Chinese that I couldn't understand. I kept replying, "I don't understand" in Chinese. After literally 2 minutes of this, she finally looks at me and says very slowly in Chinese, "I'm speaking English." That's when I realized that she had been spelling out, "G-Y-M" the entire time. I had been confused because the letter "G" sounds like the word "ji" in Mandarin. LOL. When I finally realized what was going on, I was laughing hysterically and embarrasedly. :)

New everything

It seems as though yet another new term has begun. I'm enjoying my term so far. My new apartment is a lot nicer than my last one which makes a big difference. My landlady/landlord are from Wuhan China and they're so nice! They keep trying to talk in Chinese to me. I'm able to understand a lot of what they're saying, after I stop to think about it first. I'm also picking up a few new words, and relearning stuff I had forgotten. There's another guy living in the house, a second year who lives in the basement. He seems nice, but I rarely see him or talk to him. I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd either.

My classes seem a lot duller than the ones last term. I'm taking a lot of required courses that I missed while off on co-op and while abroad. Therefore I'm taking the continuation of my Canadian History Senior Seminar, American History since 1877, Arts in the Humanities, and The Global South.

My history seminar seems really interesting so far. My prof for that course is also the Dean of Arts, and he's very enthusiastic about teaching us how to write a proper history paper. The course requires that we write a 25-30 page history paper using lots of primary sources, and give a 15 minute oral presentation of the paper. Yikes! That's not the difficult part though. The hard part of this course had already passed - choosing a topic! We were allowed to choose ANY topic we wanted from Canadian history. That seems easy enough, but how do you know what you can talk about for 30 pages???

I ended up choosing to write about the Suez Canal Crisis. I figured that was something I'd be interested in, it was international in scope and so on. However, after our second lecture meeting, I realized just how many primary sources (original documents from the event in question) the prof wanted, and I also realized that I didn't feel like reading through a bunch of old government documents on the topic! By the time the lecture was over, I had decided to switch my topic. I'm now going to write about the experience of Canadian prisoners of war in Hong Kong in 1941. Ha! Now there's a topic I'm interested in!

I don't have much to say about my American History class. So far it's pretty mundane. Essentially I can take anything I've learned about in Canadian history and substitute "America" for "Canada" and get it right. Let's face it, Americans did everything before we Canadians did, and earlier too! I proved this point in my first discussion class when I drew upon my knowledge of the Canadian reform movement and simply applied it to the American context we were talking about and got kudos from the prof. Ha ha. Little does he know...

I had been pretty worried about my Arts in the Humanities class. I've heard terrible things about it from all my friends who've taken it - they've said it's boring, useless, no one goes to lectures, etc. Essentially the course covers the topics of humanities in every major culture/age in history. (e.g. We've already moved from the Paleolithic period to the Egyptians to the Greeks.) While I'll admit that the course is dry and not presenting any amazing revelations, the prof is funny and enthusiastic about teaching us. (e.g. When discussing the unification of Egypt, the prof flashed a photo from the Scorpion King and mentioned the legends behind him. He also recited Egyptian love poetry for us.) Time will tell if this turns out to be the terrible class everyone has told me it is.

As for my final course, The Global South, I'm enjoying it, but having a hard time with it. The course is essentially an introduction to International Development with a focus on Kenya, China, and some South American country I can't remember. It's neat because we're learning the background as to how the world has become so screwed up. However, I'm having a hard time because the prof has a thick Russian accent and is very soft spoken... The accent isn't as much of a problem as the soft spoken part is. I'll be following the lecture easily, then suddenly I'll miss something she says and have a hard time getting back on track.

Okay, I guess this is a good enough summary of my life so far. Make sure you check out my "Holiday Summary" post below that I just put online. :) I'll add some more funny stories and a few more posts that aren't novel-length when I've had a rest. :)

Holiday Summary

Okay. I started this post back while I was ON vacation, now it's time to finish it!

It seems as though Christmas vacation has nearly finished. I can't believe what a sloth I've been! (Well, it's not that surprising, but I do wonder how I haven't gone insane by doing nothing day after day.) I can't even tell you the highlights of my days because they've all blurred into one generic sense of deja vu. I get up around 10, sloth around my room, eat, talk with my parents, eat, play on computer, sleep.

Melanie was down for several days. We had a good time together - she can't do too much since she's on her crutches, so I would cater on her hand and foot. (Well, most of the time at least. There was an incident in Staples when she smacked me with her crutches which caused me to place her goods in the middle of the aisle and walk away. Tee hee - watching her try to hobble on her crutches and carry her purchases was amusing.) I also had to run around on Christmas eve and try to buy all her last minute gifts for mom and dad.

Christmas day itself was a lot of fun. Mel and Scott came over later in the morning to open presents (they had gone to Scott's nephews' first). I had to play "Santa" this year (Santa = the job of the person to hand gifts out). Normally Mel does this, but her knee made her incapacitated. I can't believe the amount of stuff I got this year. Maybe it seemed like more because I didn't get any gifts (except in the form of cash) last year, but I was happy. I got all the major things on my wishlist, and a few unexpected ones as well.

One gift that I gave to my parents made me stupidly pleased with myself. We're always joking that my parents' house is so cold, that penguins would shiver if they entered it. Therefore, we're always buying penguin themed Christmas decorations as jokes. Well, I found the most ADORABLE stuffed penguins! There's two penguins, hugging each, wrapped in the same scarf. They were so cute, I just had to buy them.

As mentioned, I can't remember what I did for the rest of the holidays... I went to see the James Bond movie again, as well as see The Holiday with my mom. That latter was very cute. :) I also did a lot of cooking. One of my Christmas gifts was a Thai cookbook, so I made a beef soup recipe from it (delicious), as well as a Lemongrass chicken recipe (very NOT delicious - it smelled like a cat had crawled into my marinade and died). I also did a lot of baking at the beginning of the holiday. Since my mom's a diabetic now, I didn't bake as much, but the one thing I'm proud of was my Polish apple cake! I had to wing the recipe while making it (e.g. one step called for melted the "Fleichsmanns butter," but it didn't indicate how much (since it's sold in two small tubs)... Turns out you should use both tubs, not one.)

I have to admit, by the time my vacation was over, I was happy to go back to school. I was actually getting bored of staying at home and watching TV/reading. I never thought I'd feel that way!

I ended up moving back to Waterloo on January 2nd, the day before classes began. My housemates were home and helped my dad and I to drag my stuff upstairs. I had been told when I agreed to live here, that I'd have my choice of twin or queen bed. I had chosen the twin bed... And when I got here, it turns out I was getting a queen! This posed a slight problem since I didn't have queen sheets - my sister had bought me twin sheets for Christmas. I ended up having to go to Walmart and buy a new set of sheets.

After a bit more shopping, my dad dropped me back off at my apartment to finish getting settled. I tried to make my bed using my new sheets... I couldn't fit them on the mattress! I stretched and stretched the sheets, but they would not fit! I double checked the packaging on the sheets and yes, it said it was for a Queen bed. After a few more struggles, I checked the label on the sheet itself - it said it was a twin! I went back and looked at the packaging... Some doorknob had messed up the packaging. On one side of the plastic it said the bedding was for a twin bed, but the other side said it was for a Queen. Doh!

I ended up hopping back on the bus to go return my sheets and buy an actual set of queen sheets. An hour later, I had returned home and was again putting the new sheets on my bed. Only now, the things were massive! My mattress was wallowing in the material! I finally had to get out a measuring tape and physically measure the mattress. It turns out that I have neither a twin nor a queen bed - I have a double! Doh! I was slightly bitter about all the time wasted searching for sheets.

Probably later

Sooner or later I'll get around to updating this thing.

Exam goodness

Egads! I had my final exam (in international studies) yesterday and I forgot to mention possibly the funniest exam story EVER in my entire academic career!

So the professor managed to arrive 5 minutes before the exam began. He started handing out the exam papers and booklets. First off, he didn't hand out enough papers so my row didn't get any exams. No problem, hand goes up, I get a paper, life is good.

I begin to read said paper. Dear god! It's talking about pollution in a factory in Ontario. I'm totally freaking out - I can't think of anything this has to do with International Studies! I then tried to peek at the girl's paper beside then I realized her exam sheet and mine don't look alike. I raised my hand and when the prof approached, I asked him if I had the right exam.

He starts giggling hysterically and snatches it out of my hand. Apparently he had given me the exam for his Business Ethics class. Oh my god - I had never been so terrified in my life! LOL And apparently the girl beside me only received half the exam paper instead of the entire thing.

Anyways, after the exam, I ended up going to the mall, bought a random book (from the romance section!), came home and FLAKED OUT. It was amazingly wonderful. (The flaking, not the book.) Later that night, after Tao had written his own final exam, we ended up going out for a couple of drinks at Caesar Martini's. That's a pretty swank place. I liked it a lot! And then today, he and I went for dim sum at Cameron's Seafood Restaurant. I am now so full that I feel like bursting!

Complete!

Yeah baby! I'm done exams, I've got a place to live next term, and my prof has apparently just tossed my reference letter into the mail! Life is GOOD!

Axl Rose you are not

Dear Bryan,

I'm pretty sure you're aware that blasting your music past midnight is a no-no. It's very distracting. What's even more distracting is you singing along to the music. Your musical talent is disgustingly lacking and your voice sounds like a 3 year old with a cold.

Regards, your upstairs housemate,
Maureen

Mmm. 3am McDonald's.

A big thanks goes out to Victoria for inviting me out last night. She rounded up a bunch of her friends and we all went to Revolution for a night of dancing. Even nicer - she (well, her friend at least) got 3 of us in there for free on the guest list. Woot.

The night was fun. I had a good time hanging with the girls - with the exception of Victoria, I only knew one other girl, and I had only met her a few days ago at my Canadian government exam. I have to admit though, I'm not a huge fan of Revolution. I like people watching there, but otherwise the music kind of bites. The people were for the most part in a great mood and were really funny. There were two fights though. We ended up leaving the club at around 2:45am. I think that's the latest I've been up in a few months!

So what do 6 hyped up girls do at 3 in the morning? Go to McDonald's of course! LOL - trying to get our ordering done was a task in itself. But the time we got to the ordering speaker thingie, Victoria was laughing so hard she couldn't speak, so Venus had to take over. Even then it was a painful process. Venus apologized to the guy through the speaker, "Sorry, we're a little crazy in here" and we got the reply, "Yeah, it sounds like it."

With 6 of us illegally smushed into a 5 person car, we needed to find some place to eat our food. (Only the drive thru was open, not the restaurant part itself.) While arguing over where to go eat, two of the girls had to go to the washroom so we stopped at a Tim Horton's. We began arguing over whether we could eat our McDonald's in the Tim Horton's... Well, apparently the two girls who went to use the washroom asked the staff there if we could do it... Then next thing I know, we're eating McDonald's take out, in a Tim Horton's at 3am. Too funny.

My feet have the plague!

Ewww. Stacy and I went to look at an apartment yesterday. There were two apartments - one upstairs and one downstairs. Ewww. I don't think they've cleaned either at all since September.

There were dustbunnies lining the upstairs hall that threatened to swallow me whole. And I'm pretty sure that when I ventured into the downstairs bathroom, the toilet tried to reach out and grab me. Seriously! There was MOLD growing in it. MOLD! Not just dirt... Actual mold. It was revolting.

Stacy and I ended up fleeing upstairs ahead of the landlady. I laughed because we were both scraping the crap off our feet before putting on our shoes.

On the plus side, when we mentioned our err, disgust, with the common areas, the landlady agreed and mentioned maybe something could be worked out. Unfortunately I received an email from her husband today and all he's offering is a $50/month discount if one of us cleaned the common area, or $25/month off if both of us cleaned. This would be a sweet deal, but the apartments are already overpriced. And I don't want to be in charge of cleaning up after such pigs. Plus I saw a bong in the basement downstairs - that's not a smell I want to live with. :S

Oh happy day!

Today was my Canadian Government and Politics exam. I did terribly on it. Luckily, I wasn't the only one. I discussed the exam with a few of my friends, and eavesdropped on other students - we were all surprised by the exam. How so? Well, the midterm in that class was insanely hard - I've honestly never had such a difficult midterm (and a multiple-choice one at that) in my life. Therefore, we were all expecting something similar for the final.

Alas, twas not meant to be. Instead, the questions were ridiculously easy (list these, list those)... Unfortunately I hadn't really studied for that kind of test, or studied hard at all (see? I'm taking SOME responsibility for this). And then there was a final essay question. I don't think I've ever written an essay with absolutely no substance behind it. There were lots of pretty words, but no meaning to them. I actually read the essay question first, muttered, "Oh shit" out loud, then went back to the fill in the blanks questions.

I don't know if this exam was difficult in itself, or whether I've just been spoiled by all the other profs. Normally professors will focus on either the textbook, or their lecture notes for the content of their tests. This prof though expects us to know both (hence the stupid question regarding the Privy Council - it was mentioned in like, ONE paragraph in the entire 400 page textbook. How would I know to memorize that one small section???). While one part of me is like, "Yeah, it's fair of him to demand that," the other part of me is like, "This isn't like all the other classes I've ever taken?! What the hell?!" So there's pros and cons to his style... I just wish there had been more tests and whatnot, so we'd get a better feel for what he wanted in his essays, etc.

Anyways, I exited the exam feeling like shit because of the piss poor job I did on it. Then I remembered that I needed to pick up my marked paper for the same class. We had written this paper back in November and it was only returned today. I entered the classroom that the papers were in, grabbed mine, and left again because I didn't want the prof to see my reaction or talk to me when I looked at my paper.

Out in the hallway, I ignored any comments he had written on my paper (a book review), and skipped straight to the marking sheet. 95%. Eh? No. Something must be wrong. So I flip back through the paper trying to find comments. Nothing is written except for a request for an example at one of my arguments. I honestly could not believe that I got a 95% on my paper. I was so convinced that something was wrong, that I actually went back into the classroom and asked the professor to confirm that the mark was right. LOL. He assured me that it was and sent me on my merry way. I STILL can't believe it! This paper is worth 40% of my final grade! (Which is fantastic considering how poorly I did on the final exam.)

The most amusing thing about this paper is that I essentially wrote it the day it was due. And I was in one of those headspaces where I could only stare at my computer screen in dismay. I had NO idea what to write. I remember that I was so frustrated that I just began to type up random crap. I deliberately avoided discussing two whole chapters because I had no clue as to what the author was talking about in them.

So yay me! And, since I'm so damned pleased with myself, here's the essay I just talked about. (Minus its cover page and works cited page.)

♪ Why'd you have to go make things so complicated?♪

Jill - I totally stole those music notes from your blog. :) And the song title idea... Mwahahahaaa.

Anyways, regarding my laptop, I ended up calling HP and they sent me a box for my laptop so I could send it into them for servicing. Amusingly, they spelled my name wrong on the box. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Maureen Darrow now.

That's not the point though. Nor is there really a point. I just felt like sharing this with you guys. Since I'm going back home soon, my parents and I figured it would be best if I just had my laptop shipped back to Owen Sound instead of Waterloo. At first I was just going to slap on a big sign to my laptop saying "When fixed, send this laptop to this address blah blah blah."

Luckily I figured I'd phone HP to make sure this wouldn't cause any problems. Gah. 20 minutes later (10 of which was spent listening to some terribly cheesy/funny hold music), and now they're sending me a new box with my old and new address on it yada yada yada. I think the guy also attempted to slap me on the wrist for the havoc I created on his "logistics team" but I couldn't understand him. Neener.

So it looks like I'll have the net for a few days more. This isn't good for my studying plans...

Must... Not... DESTROY!

Today is the closest I'll probably ever kill Bryan. Thank God - well, Bryan had better thank God, that Agnes woke me up before he did.

I was woken up by Agnes' moving around in the kitchen around 8:30. Less than 15 minutes after I dragged my butt out of bed, music starts BLASTING from downstairs. I can hear the lyrics, and feel the thump of the bass through the floor. How fucking rude do you have to be to play your music so loudly before 9am?!?!

A pleasant day indeed

Hoorah! I managed to guilt my mom and dad into coming to visit me this Saturday. ("I miss you guys!") Suckers. Little did they know, I did it all for free lunch and help with Christmas shopping. LOL. Just joking.

We had a terrific time together. My dad was dropped off at Chapters as usual. My mom felt guilty about leaving him there all day, but Melanie pointed out, "John? Bored by being at Chapters all day? Hell, he's probably so happy he's doing snow angels!" This was greatly amusing.

We girls ended up tromping down to Fairview Mall do try to get all of our shopping for the people living up North done. Since Mel had hurt her knee and was on crutches, mom and I got her a wheelchair for our shopping expedition. Wow! I think I need to go shopping with people in wheelchairs more often. I was pushing Mel around and we had people constantly leaping out of the way in the aisles. It was fantastic! This was espcially amazing since it's Christmas time and a Saturday - the mall was busier than normal and we still had great luck.

There were only two times when we had issues. Once, a couple of teenie-boppers accidentally hit Mel's leg causing her to yelp and her leg to spasm. You could tell the girls felt bad, but what could they do? The second time was my own fault. I wheeled Mel into the elevator and while I was trying to manoeuvre her inside it, I accidentally knocked her foot on the wall. Whoops. She forgave me though, so life was good.

Possibly the most shocking part of the day was dinner. My mom actually suggested we go to Cameron's Seafood Restaurant again! My mom did! My mom! Holy crap! I swear my jaw nearly hit the ground. Despite my surprise, I jumped on the chance. We met up with Scott at the restaurant and had another amazing meal. (My sibling wasn't too keen on the chinese brocoli though.) I had a great conversation with our waitress - I had ordered our rice in Cantonese (at my dad's badgering), only to find out our waitress spoke Mandarin. So we chatted for a few minutes. She was very impressed, and I was very pleased with her being impressed. :)

Afterwards my parents took me grocery shopping quickly and then we returned to my house. I had been excited to go back home, because Bryan had been gone the night before and I assumed he was gone all weekend. Alas, twas not meant to be. In fact, not only was he home, but his friend had moved in too. Damn. So now I'm crabbed out and keep catching myself deliberately finding reasons to be annoyed with them. Not that they've done anything (well, Bryan did blast his music for awhile, but that's nothing new). In fact, the house is a lot prettier now that the new guy had moved in. He's got all kinds of shiny cookware, garbage can, etc. I'm a little shocked - first of all, I can't believe Bryan has a friend who's so tidy, and secondly, how the hell can a student afford all this stuff? Dad? Never complain about moving me around ever again - this guy brought a huge TV, a couch, microwave, plates, etc, etc, etc. Egads!

Anyways, Agnes returned home and she brought me a gift! The recipe for her mom's apple cake! It's funny to read the recipe because it's translated from Polish, and her mom makes it from memory without measuring stuff. So when I read "1 cup of flour," she means 1 coffee mug of flour. :) (She even included that little explanation on the side of the recipe. LOL) I can't wait to try to make this baby! I seemed to be anxious to bake anything, because I ended up also baking a quick batch of shortbread cookies. They are very tasty.

Gnawing on rubber

Before I forget, I MUST recount this story.

I believe I mentioned it already, but to recap, I went to the dentist several weeks ago and found out that I've been grinding my teeth a lot in my sleep. The dentist suggested I get a mouthguard or retainer thingie to wear at night so I wouldn't damage my teeth anymore.

I finally ended up buying a mouthguard and accidentally melted it partially during the forming process. (One side is slightly lumpier than the other, but it serves its purpose despite its flaws.)

I ended up wearing the mouthguard that very night. When I woke up, I was like, "What the hell's in my mouth?" and proceeded to try to chomp it out whatever it was. That's when I clued into fact that it was my mouthguard... Yeah. Here I am, chewing on plastic at 8am in the morning. I was pretty amused by the situation.

Birthday Dinner

First of all, I must share with you a hilarious conversation that went on in my Canadian Government class today. :) We were discussing the pros and cons of the new Liberal leader. My class is 260 people, so the prof and student were having to yell over like 20 rows of chairs.

Prof: What are some of the pros and cons of Dion as a leader?
Student: He's a Frenchy!
Prof: You must be from Saskatchewan.
Student: No...
Prof: Oh, it sounded like you had a Saskatchewan accent.
Student: Actually I have a retainer.

We all burst out laughing and you could tell the prof was flabbergasted. It was hilarious. The girl actually got applause from the class for her quick reply. LOL

Anyways, it seems as though I may have killed my laptop's LCD monitor. Last night about one fifth of the screen decided to go slightly dim and nothing I've tried has rectified the situation. I'll try calling HP tomorrow and troubleshooting it with their IT support, but I've been asking for help on the HP forums and so far it seems as though the only solution is to send it in for servicing. Doh! I think this is a sign I shouldn't be playing games on it and should be studying instead. My parents will be pleased.

In other news, Saturday was mine, Agnes', and Rana's birthday bash. (Pictures can be found here.) It wasn't really much of a bash - all of Agnes' and my friends ended up bailing, so it was mainly Rana's friends. :) Oh well, we still had fun. We were supposed to go to Mongolian Grill for dinner, but there was a 40 minute wait, so we went to East Side Mario's instead. Afterwards we ventured over to Symposium for a couple of pre-clubbing drinks. I think I'm still partially blinded by all the photos that were taken! We ended up going to Revolution for dancing... That was my first time in Rev. I found it fun, but I wasn't too keen on most of the music. Overall I would describe the night as a success.

The name is Bond, James Bond.

I'm pleased with myself. I made homemade tea biscuits for the first time yesterday. Err, I guess I should say that I made the tea biscuits correctly for the first time. (The first time I tried making them, I accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder... They were inedible.) I didn't know how much/little the dough would rise though, so my biscuits ended up being ridiculously tiny. (They look like little discs.) Oh well, now I know for next time.

I've had a pleasant few last days. Most of my classes are done now. I have two on Monday and then I'm done for the term. My final History seminar was especially fun. I was in charge of leading the discussion... Well, procrastination ended up striking and I didn't finish doing the readings for it till about an hour before the class began. :) We ended up having a good conversation though - we got on to a lot of tangents but that was good because it meant I didn't have to talk as much. :)

Yesterday Stacy and I went for some more apartment hunting. The one apartment seemed nice, but the roommates were totally not a good match for us. They were kind of ditzy and you could tell they'd party a lot. The second place was an absolute ghetto. I have low standards, but not THAT low! The first thing we saw upon walking into the apartment was a mountain of empty old pop cans (at least 100). Next! The final place we saw yesterday was really nice but too too expensive. Oh well.

Our plan had been to go see Casino Royale last night. Unfortunately the bus was about 15 minutes slow, so by the time we arrived at the theatre, the movie was sold out. We ended up bumming around the mall which was nice - neither of us get off campus as much as we should. I ended up phoning my pal Victoria and seeing if she wanted to come and see the 10 o'clock show with us. She agreed and then we went!

Casino Royale (the new James Bond flick) was so much better than I anticipated. I heard lots of good things about it, but I honestly did not expect it to be THAT good! There were NO gadgets in the movie, the dialogue was witty without wanting to roll your eyes, and the action sequences were (as one newspaper put it) "gritty!" Can you tell that I loved it?

I was especially amused by Victoria's reactions to the movie - she hadn't seen a James Bond movie before, and she has become a total convert to them. LOL. She was freaking out the entire time. But it was totally warranted. The film kicked ass!

Tonight's the "RAGNES Bash" - a bunch of us are headed out to Mongolian Grill for dinner and drinks to celebrate Agnes', Rana's, and my birthdays. (Our b-days were Nov 22, 29, and 24 respectively.) I intend to have a good time. :)

Prof quotes

I believe that I've mentioned that I adore my International Studies Prof. He's hilarious and swears a lot in class. This evening I wrote down some of the things he said to give you an idea.

Discussing the midterm results:
- "Two of you were tied for 94%. One of you should have gotten 95%, but I don't know what the FUCK you were thinking!"
- "In the definition questions, DO NOT USE 'etc.'!!! Don't fucking put it in a defintion question! Can you tell it bothers me???"
- During class, while he's coughing, "Gotta pop a pill. Not a good one unfortunately."
- Discussing a book by a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, "Apparently all these NGO types fuck like bunnies."
- "When driving, don't you wish your car would shoot out missiles?" (I can't remember what we were talking about at this point... I think it had to do with world government.)
- Discussing having people join a united world government, "If they don't want to be a member, then fuck 'em!"

Papers = done!

Woot! I just finished the last of my papers! It was technically due this morning at 10:30 in class, but the prof hangs around the school until 10pm, so that's the real deadline. I should probably mention this paper was a book review... And that I finished the book this morning at 8:30am. And that I wrote the entire paper today.

It was harder writing about this book in comparison to my last one. This book was about global modern slavery whereas my last one was about genocide. My biggest problem with this current book is that it inspired no passion in me. I didn't have the sudden urge to get up and fight for the rights of slaves. The book I read on genocide though - that one actually made me cry and feel angry, etc. etc.

Anyways... Now I have to cram down a bunch of readings for my history seminar on Wednesday (err, the one that I'm leading), then I'll be finished for the term! YAY!

On to other news... I'm a HAG! I turned 23 years old on Friday! LOL. I actually don't care about my age - heck, I didn't even realize that I was going to be 23 until my mom mentioned it. I mean, I knew it was my birthday, but I never really associated myself with a new age.

To celebrate my birthday, my parents came down to Waterloo (actually they came down because my dad had an optometrist appointment, but I'm sure they would have come down on the weekend anyways). We had lunch and then I dragged my father off to a public seminar on Canada-Taiwan relations. The seminar wasn't what I was expecting - it was mainly a lot of statistics, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Afterwards, we met up with my mother and sibling. Melanie managed to tear something in her knee so that she has to wear a brace and hobble around on crutches. I accused her of trying to steal my birthday thunder. Tee hee.

Anyways, after a short argument, and an attempt by myself to strangle my mother with my scarf, we all went to Cameron's Seafood Restaurant in Kitchener. SO FREAKING DELICIOUS! They had REAL Hong Kong style BBQ Pork!!! I honestly nearly wept with happiness. It was so delicious! Mel, dad, and I shared a variety of dishes while mom kept to her bland-Canadian-style Chinese food. So sad. Amusingly, Mel badgered me into ordering a veggie dish... But to her dismay, it came with deep-fried tofu that I absolutely adore... But she did not. However, I also experienced some dismay in that the dish also came with chinese mushrooms and various other fungi. I'm not too into mold thanks very much.

The rest of my weekend passed relatively quietly. I spent all of Saturday doing laundry and procrastinating on my paper, and the procrastination continued on Sunday as well.

Anyways, I'm starving and am going to go die now. Bye!

University Life

Agnes just forwarded me one of those emails, "You know you've been in university for too long when..." and a couple of them really stood out and made me laugh. Here's my edit of the list...

1) You'd rather clean than study especially if an essay is due.
2) "Oh shit how did it get so late!" comes out of your mouth at least once a night.
3) Parents' cooking becomes something you desire, not avoid.
4) You schedule your classes around sleep habits and soap operas.
5) You live for getting mail.
6) Looking out the window is a form of entertainment. (Even more true when it's done at the Dana Porter Library.)
7) Rubbish cheap $1 shops are so cool.
8) The weekend lasts from Thursday to Monday.
9) Highlighters are the coolest things on earth.

And now for the "Before I came to University, I wish I had known" list (Mau's edit)
1) That it didn't matter how late my first lecture was, I'd still sleep through it.
2) That if you wear polyester everyone will ask why you are so dressed up.
3) That you can know everything and fail a test.
4) That you can know nothing and ace a test.
5) That Psychology is really Biology, that Biology is really Chemistry, that Chemistry is really Physics and that Physics is really Maths.

And here's the "Top 10 Reasons that University is like Elementary school"

10) You cry for your mother.
9) You cross the street without looking for cars.
8) Snack time is a necessity.
7) You bundle up for the outdoors without caring what you look like (because everyone else looks as stupid as you do).
6) You stay at home and play games with your friends.
5) You wear your backpack on both shoulders.
4) You wear big mittens.
3) Playing in the snow is a legitimate activity.
2) You take naps.
1) You look forward to cheese toasties.

There you have it. I found these to be pretty damned laughing (especially the one about looking out the window as a form of entertainment, and the dressing in polyester one.)

And, if you haven't guessed, this is merely one of my ways of procrasting on my historiographical paper. Now, back to work!

Proof that I should have been a Political Science major...

Oh my gosh. I'm so confused. Confused but happy. We FINALLY got our book reviews back in my World Politics class. (It's been over a month since we submitted them.) I got an 88%! Yay me!

I just wish I knew why my paper was marked so highly. I honestly honestly honestly thought I'd do really poorly. It was written during my "week from hell," and I distinctly remember freaking out when I realized that I had done the paper differently from how the prof wanted and trying to scramble madly to rewrite several pages. It came to the point where all I could think was, "Well, this will have to do. I can't give this paper any more time."

So there you go. I got a stellar mark but I don't know why it was given such a good rating. I think I'll have to go to the prof and ask, otherwise my next paper will be a disappointment for him.

We all fall down

Ugh. I hate donating blood, but if I don't, I'll feel like a total ass to the rest of society. I went to the donors today between classes. I figured that an hour and a half would be PLENTY of time for me to give blood and get to my senior seminar. Wrong!

Turns out they had to do an inquisition's worth of paper work due to me going off to Asia. Apparently most of the places I travelled to (including rural Hong Kong) were areas where I was at risk of malaria. Ha. That was unexpected. My poor nurse was having a terrible time trying to figure out where I'd been to - I couldn't just name the major cities I had travelled to - I needed to know the Chinese provinces! Ugh. Of course I don't know the province names! I actually ended up leaving her half way through and running to the washroom I was in there for so long. Luckily she has assured me this is the only time I'll have to give so much information - the next will go more smoothly. She even jotted down the information for me to hand in next time. Yay her.

Anyways, I donated the blood. It took forever because I have small veins. By this time, everyone who had been in line BEHIND me had already donated and left. After the pulled the needle out, I got to sit up.... Then I had to lay back down because I was feeling sick. They did the whole elevate the feet thing, ice cloths, etc. I feel like such a putz for caving into a little blood loss. LOL

I ended up being half an hour late to my senior seminar. Luckily the prof didn't care. Yay her.

Oh, and check out this video. At first it's funny, but then it kind of inspires you. Kiwi

Memories of Asia

Oooh. I'm excited to see the movie, "The Painted Veil"!!!!!!!!

It's filmed in Guilin, China - a place I went to in December 2005. It's got such a beautiful landscape! I actually watched the trailer for the movie first and immediately recognized it - China's Guanxi province is the only area in the world to have the mountain formations it does. So pretty!

Plus I'm psyched because the movie also features one of my all time favourite Hong Kong actors, Anthony Wong.

So excited...

Gourmet feast

Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! I finally subletted my room! Yay! That's right! This weekend I showed the house to two groups and within 3 hours, one of the groups had returned and we haggled out a price and signed stuff and now I'm free of this hell hole! If you can't guess, I'm rather ecstatic by this turn of events.

Not much to report lately. My cold knocked me on my ass again - I keep having relapses. On November 5th, some students vandalized the school. I've never seen the movie, but it was a reference to something from the movie, "V for Vendetta." I have NO idea how the students accomplished this, but I thought it was pretty damned impressive. :)

On Saturday evening, I ventured out to Melanie's to sleep there overnight. In exchange, I had to cook Mel and Scott an authentic chinese meal. Well boy did I go crazy! I made not only Chinese, but Korean, and Thai as well! Check out my gourmet meal! In the picture you can see my attempt at making Mapo Dofu (a recipe Peggy taught me but that I haven't tried to make until now... It turned out okay - it wasn't as "wet" as it should have been... And I don't think I used the right sauce on it), Fried Chicken with Almonds (one of my fave Thai dishes), HOMEMADE springrolls (see below for a story about THOSE), and Sesame Asparagus. Frickin' AMAZING man! Mel was my grunt worker (aka chopping girl) and I did all the cooking.

As for the spring rolls... It's been awhile since I deep fried anything... And when I was in Hong Kong, I used chopsticks to do all my stir frying. Well. I goofed. I had the oil too hot, so when I put my first spring roll in, it immediately began to burned - oil was flying all over the place. I had to yank the pot off the stove, but with the spring roll still in it, the oil continued to sputter all over my arm. I was freaking out from the pain, and because the spring roll was turning from pasty white, to tan, to charcoal. I finally got a fork and managed to toss the damned thing out of the pot. The end result of it is below...



Mel and Scott could not stop laughing at this poor pathetic excuse for food. It honestly looked like a turd sitting on the counter. LOL.

Except for the spring roll incident, the meal was excellent. Scott also finally used his spicy peanut oil that I recommended to him. It was funny because before he had tested it, he got some on his finger and without thinking, licked it off. He immediately turned red and began coughing. Hee hee. He can't say I didn't warn him!

Anyways, that's about it. Agnes and I rented The Lakehouse tonight (Keanu? Can I have your babies?) Prior to watching it though, I decided to try a recipe from my health magazine. It was supposed to be this icy banana/chocolate smoothee thingie (consisting of chocolate soy milk, cocoa, and bananas, mixed in a blender). Well. It was banana-y. That's about all I can say. LOL. Agnes took a bite and then stopped and watched as I ate it. It's kind of indescribable.... But I ate mine anyways - it was healthy. Not bad... But no flavour beyond the bananas. LOL

That's weird. I mentioned yesterday that when I woke up, I immediately wanted to die from being sick. I spent most of yesterday wandering around in a comatose like state. This morning I feel 110% better... I just find it odd to have such a crazy turnaround. I still need to take some Dristan, but I feel much better than before. Rock on.

As for last night, I dragged my comatose butt back to school at 8pm with Agnes. It's International Education Week here at UW and thus the school has organized a gazillion little booths/activites for the week. Last night, they had a journalist named Seymour Hersh come and give a speech entitled "US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib to Today."

I had a bit of a hard time following the speech, either because I was medicated or because I was sitting to the far right of the stage... It could also be that the guy wasn't a public speaker per se, he would mumble and change his pace of talking, but the parts I did catch were neat. He pointed out various things about the Bush administration and pointed out the outright lies they've made, etc. etc. He started off his speech by giving us the bad news (there are 803 days left of the Bush reign) and then the good news (tomorrow, there will be 1 less day).

Agnes and I arrived rather late to the lecture hall, so we had to make do with the first two seats we could find (they didn't open up the balcony until afterwards). I was getting kind of annoyed with the older gentlemen (sitting by himself) beside me because he kept fidgeting and making noises. Finally he turns toward me and asks, "I'm a reporter from The Record [the local newspaper], would you mind telling me what would bring two young people to an event such as this?" Ha. Before you get all excited (like I did), no, the guy did not try to interview Agnes and I, nor did he quote us. Instead we just chatted and then got on to the topic of exchanges because his son wants to go on exchange to Paris. Tee hee.

Okay. I need to go out and buy some medicine and bus tickets now. I have a dentist appointment in 2 hours... Bleargh!

Oh no! I missed my first class of the semester! Oh well. I woke up this morning and wanted to immediately die. My throat was so sore, my body ached, and I was exhausted. I got up long enough to brush my teeth, then I called it quits and crawled back into bed. I'm up now though, and I'm dragging my butt out for my second two classes today. Yay me.

The funniest thing EVER happened to me today.

I was having a nap at a personal study desk on the main floor of the library today. Suddenly, something moved nearby me and woke up me. I glance up and see that a guy has sat down at my desk (and this desk is only meant for one person). I said "Hi" and glanced around, saw a girl standing around the corner of a book stack and then put my head back down and ignored him.

I figured that either one of my friends was playing a prank on me, or these two people were being assholes and trying to make me move from my seat so they could have my desk. I decided to ignore them and pretend to sleep.

The next thing I know, the guy picks up my book and starts reading it. (My eyes are closed, but I can hear him doing all this.) When I don't react, he picks up some random papers on my desk, starts rifling around in my pencil case. I refused to rise to the bait. He picks up my book again and I finally give in.

I raised my head and just said something to the effect of "Yeah, if you aren't asleep yet, that book will knock you out." Then I put my head back down and the guy replied "Yeah, looks like it."

He then gets up and leaves the table (my eyes are still closed) and the girl follows him away. Meanwhile I'm thinking, "What the fuck?!" I open my eyes and watch them wander away. By now I'm totally freaked out. I get up, find and tell Agnes about my episode. Then I see the couple sitting with a Chinese girl. I sent Agnes on reconnaissance (aka: walk by them and eavesdrop) and apparently they're doing some kind of survey).

Well, that answer didn't suffice for me. After the couple left the girl, I ended up going up to her and asking what their deal was. She starts laughing... Apparently they're a couple of students in Speech Communication classes performing experiments on how people respond to having their personal space invaded. LOL

I had kind of expected this to be the case, since I had this experience once before in first year where a random guy came and sat with my friends and I in a cafeteria. (Of course, we just assumed that he was a friend of someone at the table.)

So there you go. I got punk'd by Speech Comm students!

It seems as though all I do on here is bitch about my housemates, but I can't help it. I want to KILL THEM ALL! (With the exception of Agnes that is.)

Part 1) As previously mentioned, Agnes and I went on strike against taking out the garbage. I finally ended up writing a snide note and taping it to the front door officially pointing out that we would NOT take out the garbage anymore, followed by another note explaining proper "Take out the garbage" procedures. Well, finally someone took the hint and the garbage has been removed. I shall have to create a garbage week roster so that this won't happen again.

Part 2) Bryan had been leaving his multitude of dishes on the counter for the past several days. When Agnes and I came home today, the first thing I noticed was that they were gone. Yay! Then I went and peeked into the sink to make sure they just hadn't migrated down there... Fucking hell. Yeah, he washed his dishes, but he left all the debris at the bottom of the sink - and there was A LOT! And when Agnes confronted him about it, he blamed Matt and Margaret... But I know that it was his mess. Matt and Margaret of course denied it was theirs as well.

Bryan and I avoid talking as much as possible now. We'll say hi if we must, but for the most part, we just try not to be in the same room together.

Bitch session done.

Oh. And I finally bought a UW hoodie. This has made me happy. I don't feel like typing anymore, so I'll leave off here.

Farewell!