Hallowe'en!

Hi folks! It occurs to me that I haven't updated in several days and, as I am presently avoiding work (that should really be the title of this blog: Presently Avoiding Work), I thought I'd throw a little post on here.

Hallowe'en is awesome so far. It's been a very social weekend, probably something to do with the lunar eclipse. I've been feeling sort of bipolar -- always either up or down, no real medium. Right now it's raining (again) so I'm closer to the down side, but liff goes on. It certainly has been doing so this weekend. Friday night I went out for Katherine's birthday (every Katherine in Ottawa seems to have red hair) with a bunch of her friends. They're awesome people, and we have all these friendly Toronto vs. Alberta and Journalism vs. Public Affairs faux-threatening matches, complete with faux-ghetto cries of "word to your mother!". It's rather amusing, though it may not make sense to, you know, sane people. We went to this very strange Italian restaurant, which is decorated like some kind of Renaissance Faire, complete with murals of wenches and drunken monks. The food was good, and someone (me) cleverly thought to bring balloons and birthday candles for our amusement, so Katherine somehow wound up tied to about six balloons and was forced to take the bus like that. Thank God it was Hallowe'en weekend; we would have gotten even more strange looks had it not been.

Saturday night I went out with Bev From The Floor (FTF -- hereafter anyone From the Floor will be referred to as such)and Jacob to a house party at Kate J's. Kate's mother and my mother work together, and we're in the same program but she's in second year and has her own house now. She's very nice, and the party was perhaps boozy but nothing terribly illegal went down (and if they didn't want minors to drink, they wouldn't have such a high drinking age, would they?). It was full of second-years and loud music, and there was dancing and carousing until the wee hours, etc. etc. We crashed there and walked back this morning.

I really have to go do work now. Alas! and farewell.

El Presidente

Today was quite awesome on a number of levels. I got some actual work done on my poli-sci essay, bringing my total number of pages of factoids and ramblings to six! Oh, glory! I was able to amuse myself in economics by means of Cheerios drawings, a demonstration of the clear advantage of Cheerios over lesser cereals (I am looking at you, Corn Flakes!). And, oh yeah, incidentally, I got to see the President of Mexico speak. A few days ago I got an e-mail saying I was on the waiting list for the event, and I was one of the last people they let in today. I'm just glad I only overslept half an hour, instead of forty minutes! Anyway, it was very cool. He radiates optimism and charisma and has a fabulous mustache which looks as though it wants to burst its well-groomed confines and run, unfettered, through the wilderness. President Fox is all over the free-trade issue, and is an incredibly enthusiastic cheerleader for it. He steered clear of thornier issues less flattering to free trade, such as my mother's question: "Whither the Mexican middle class?" I do not know. But I do know that Mexico is starting a pretty big new health insurance program, and that now it only takes two days to register a business in Mexico, instead of several months (I guess if you cut off everyone's coffee breaks and siestas, then you're halfway there...).

As the Mexican delegation left, I was one of the kids pulled aside for a possible photo op. I proved insufficiently pushy to get close to Fox (hey, it's not like I had any trenchant questions) and in any case, any pushiness I could muster was more than outmatched by that of a klatch of moustachioed Latin media and diplomatic types. One outstanding man, dressed in Crazed Hiker style with Gore-tex pants and wearing a straw fedora with feathers in the hatband, was pushier than I and was heard to yell from the edge of the scrum, "President Fox, do you use solar power in your wonderful country?" He caught my attention, for some reason. Perhaps it was the knee-high socks.

Went rock climbing again Monday night, and it was quite awesome. I managed to get up a rather difficult stretch, the one on that 5.10 wall that threw me so badly last time. Once that was over, though, I didn't have the strength to get up the rest of the wall, so the difficult bottom two-thirds about did me in. How vexing. Oh well, next time perhaps. I was able to do a 5.8 route, though. Routes are exercises in willpower, because there are all these perfectly serviceable holds on the wall, but you can only use the ones with a particular colour of tape on them, regardless of whatever beautiful hold is temptingly in range. In this case, it was red, so I had to recoil from the green tape. It was quite the good time. I am also learning to tie my own knot, and hopefully to do it properly.

West Wing tomorrow! Hooray! And I am also going out to Old Navy with some of Les Girls to find a white dress shirt. Good luck, me. It is, once again, far too late o'clock. Goodnight, moon!

Yum, Yum

This French project ate my weekend. It is eighteen pages long and one of the girls in the group didn't get her stuff to me so I could check it over and integrate it with the rest of our stuff until after midnight. Jessica is tired and she is cranky and her essay still hasn't gotten anywhere because this damn French class is taking up all her time on tedious busywork.

It is Monday morning, and Jessica is displeased.

Capital, Capital

Once again it is far too late. Funny how "far too late" comes around once a day. But hey, Mallory and I had to watch Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, okay?

It was necessary. Not to mention awesome. Those are seriously excellent movies -- even the violence is cool, and we know that the Jessica is not all about the violence in film. But it's different when you have a tiny man slaughtering away with a giant axe and then somebody practicing archery in a deadly manner and inventing snowboarding, all at the same time. It's just cool. And then there's the whole saving-the-world-from-Ultimate-Eldritch-Evil angle, which is just too much fun for words.

The science of the (im)possible test

Have a feeling I screwed up my political science exam but good. I got there a few minutes late (I always think that dumb class starts a half-hour later than it actually does! It's a good thing I decided to come "early".) Not feeling so confident just now, but it will all come out in the wash. The midterm's only worth 15%, so there will be plenty of room to fix my mark.

However, I am thrilled to report that I have also got mail again! A very nice Hallowe'en card from Grandma, a few newspaper clippings, a note, and some amusing playing cards from Mum, and more newspaper clippings along with a quintet of very excellent notes from Jeanne-Marie. I am so blessed to have people who actually bother writing to me, particularly as I am an extraordinarily unfaithful correspondent.

That said, this game is evil. It is "the thrilling web-based adventure in which a curious little monkey commits horrific crimes against humanity!" It's not graphic, except in its descriptions (and some of the monkey's crimes really are quite funny).

Wingly Goodness

West Wing is officially still my favourite show. Not that there was much concern about that, but The Daily Show is closing fast, it seems, with its heeelarious take on Zell Miller at the RNC. Anyway, The Premiere was great. I'll recap it quickly some other time.

Tidmerms

The Mom-requested midterm update: My head is spinning a bit because of the volume of history I have just spewed out. It was crazy, I just kept babbling on. Hopefully the "babbling" passes for structure, and I didn't betray my ignorance by spelling things wrong. Misspelling Russian names is excusable -- though I did add a dash of authentic Slavic flavour by insisting on spelling Peter "Piotr" and Alexander "Aleksandr". This may be incorrect, but don't tell me it's less fun than Pete and Al. History exam was not too shabby, I think, and the econ seemed to go well, too. No entertaining stories to tell about that one. Hey, it's the Dismal Science, what do you want? Time will tell about the marks for those, though I do feel relatively confident. Now only the really scary one remains: the Science of the Possible, a.k.a poli-sci.

The real excitement in my day, though, is the West Wing premiere, in just five short hours! Will President Bartlet create peace in our time? Will Josh and Donna just get married already? Will Leo relapse into alcoholism, now that John "Helicopter" Wells is in charge? The tension grows!

The Wash

Midterm season commenceth. Fortunately, midterm season also terminateth Thursday, so hopefully I will survive. The agenda for the week? Tonight: study. Tuesday: economics midterm and study. Wednesday: history midterm and studying. Also some freaking out. Thursday: weeping and terror, followed by (and possibly accompanied by) poli-sci midterm. Anyway, I think I'm in okay shape for the first two. The second one I am not sure what to expect from, so I am slightly terrified. Anyway, it'll all come out in the wash. This is my mantra nowadays.

The weekend was pretty calm, just the way my parents hoped my university weekends would be. I did some work on my Big Essay, studied for my tests, and vegged. Sunday night I went to Jacob's for a study session-slash-West Wing marathon. It ended up only being one episode, plus dinner and a movie with his parents (who are very nice and quite funny as well) but the history studying was worthwhile. It made me feel very obsessive-compulsive, though, because I realized that I need to have a date for every single occurrence. I am slightly hell-bent on memorizing said dates, and have had some minor successes remembering the dates of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the date of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo (June 28, 1918, which is St. Vitus' Day). Go me...?

Here's to a prospective lack of failure!

Foxy laundry!

Foxy Lady is the best song ever.

Well, I have been very lax in updating this blog. Dreadful business. I must speak with the manager about this. It's been quite busy around here, and I'm taking a short unauthorized study break to do a bit of an update. Basically, my life is boring, aside from the magic of Jimi Hendrix. I have been sitting in my room quite a lot and not doing much of anything besides the occasional bit of schoolwork (my econ assignment is almost done! Hooray!).

Had a very satisfactory "study party" today with Katie-or-Kate (not yet sure which she prefers) and Lynn. Not to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing, but I don't think the econ midterm will be so terrible. Hopefully I will remember to think things through clearly and it'll be okay. The only one I am really afraid of is my poli-sci midterm, particularly as I'm not very sure what the content is. The prof is being very mysterious indeed. Crazy man.

The weekend at home was fun, although it is a little odd being on my own again after four days of total immersion in an insanely social atmosphere. I don't think I was alone for more than an hour. It was awesome. But now I am sitting in my tiny box of a dorm room again, and Indra's watching a movie on her computer, not that we talk much anyway. Actually, she's a dream roomie if you want a quiet one. She hardly ever speaks and we don't argue over domestic issues, e.g. "You didn't clean the Big Pointy Orange-Cutting Knife and I saw you using it!" "Nuh-uh!" I do wish she talked more, sometimes, but it's probably better this way. Nobody distracts me but me, and I do a pretty good job of that myself.

Today's lesson: Allow at least two hours for laundry, or else you will have semi-wet clothing spread over your bed in a pathetic effort to dry it out after its insufficient time in the dryer. Alas. I am not a domestic goddess after all.

The Not-so-Great War

Productivity is highly overrated. Today I have been to an economics lecture and tutorial (both of which I left more confused than I was when I entered), typed up my history notes, and typed up my public affairs notes. And hey, it's only 5:30! Just look at me go.

The Internet is a bad, bad time-waster, and e-mail is the way that its devilry invades your heart. BAD INTERNET! BAD!

Yesterday night I went rock climbing, which was fabulous fun. I may have to go again just to sort myself out on the 5.9 wall that I tried and at which I failed miserably ("I'm supposed to reach what hold?!"). I did a 5.7 easily, though. The best part was probably dangling upside down, though. You know what was in my head, don't you? Yes, you do. Oh, yes you do: I am Spider-Woman!!!

In other news, we have started World War One in history class. This is very depressing. To showcase how depressing we should find this, Professor Mayer insisted on showing us a grim video full of graveyards and grainy footage of horribly young men being shot down by people they had never met. This, of course, made me cry and people from several directions proffer tissues, which were appreciated because I have run out and am too lazy to go buy any. When I get back, I will go shopping. This will make me a better roommate, also, because I have been very bad lately in terms of eating Indra's fruit and dried mango slices. It is not my fault that they are delicious. And hey, whose idea was it to make a tres ghetto bowl for said fruit, and out of whose old cereal box was that bowl made? Oh, yeah: me, and mine. Don't tell me I'm not a good roomie.

Lovely day for an unexpected delay!

My, what an exciting day I had Wednesday. The bus drivers were conspiring against me, for some reason, with the result that it took me three hours to get to Rideau Centre for a piddly errand and back to campus, rather than the usual hour or so. Miserable. Anyhow, on the ride, I jotted down some things that made me smile or think well of the world:

- The Hellenic Community Centre, the Temple Israel, and a bible chapel all in the same block.

- The realization that a month in the city does not a city-dweller make, and the accompanying realization that even if it did, I still might not understand the public transport system.

- A quick trip through the Corza Italia, with its many delicious and/or kitschy restaurants (and one lonely Moroccan restaurant).

- An Indian woman in a full sari, three elderly Koreans, and two piratical-looking men, all on the same bus at the same time.

- The enchantingly semi-run-down brick townhouses near Preston and Elm Streets.

- Driving past some farmers' fields, causing Alberta flashbacks and feelings of superiority (our fields are bigger! And wheatier!).

- The discovery that the houses in Nepean are quite nice.

- The possible exception from the previous rule of a large, gated, villa-style house with what appeared to be a large triangular Rubens painting over the garage. Very tasteful, folks.

- Two sightings of very cute babies, one with proud grandfather in tow.

So, you see, despite the low point of the voyage (waiting, with clipboard, in front of the Cuban embassy for half an hour for the errant #5 bus) an unplanned delay can prove quite pleasant. Well, until the Cubans come in the night for my clipboard and my life.

It also led, indirectly, to what I spent this morning doing. See, if I hadn't had those dreadful things happen, I wouldn't have had to go to a make-up history class Thursday night, and I wouldn't have run into Jacob, a runner from my Public Affairs tutorial, and he wouldn't have tipped me off to the race I ran this morning. I really miss racing, and maybe next race I will actually be, you know, competitive. Today's was a short 10km (closer to 8, I heard) over some mountain bike trails and ski runs (!) in the lovely and autumnal Gatineau Park. The terrain was what they call "technical". This means, in essence, lots of things trying to scratch you and to twist your ankle, which is what happened to Jacob. Finished anyway, though. Crazy man! It was quite the fun (as they say), and the fall colours are coming in really well, making a pleasant setting for extremities of pain.