Thursday I skipped out of poli sci and packed up for an Easter weekend at Katherine's. Emily is seen here with the packing.

Nate is awesome, and drove us all the way to Toronto, and his girlfriend Emily, well...

Emily is hot.

Cool graffiti on the fringes of campus. I took a walk down before French class to photograph it, and then a run back so as not to be late for French class.

The Ganja

"Recent work on people who give up a heavy marijuana habit seems to show that they suffer anxiety and loss of appetite." This according to the Economist. So, gosh: not being chemically mellow means anxiety (hey, I'd be anxious if my friend Horace the Elephant disappeared), and the disappearance of the munchies counts as loss of appetite? Tell me why we pay researchers money, again.

Slam Dunk

I just realized that our men's basketball team hasn't lost a game in three years. Holy. Pretty unbelievable, eh? When that streak ends, there will be wailing and weeping. Anyway, coming back to ME, I have no idea what's wrong with this site lately. I posted a word quiz that I took and since then everything's been all messed up.

Song du jour: "Every Day I Love You Less and Less", by the Kaiser Chiefs. This song is devoted to whatever is ailing my blog template.

Formatting Blues

Baaaah, I have no idea what that word quiz did to my blog, but it's all brokeny now and none of the margins are where they used to be. Maybe another post will fix it? Let's hope.

Spring, Sweet Spring

Spring, as my choir song says, is the year's pleasant king. I'm psyched because it's nice out and I get to wear a skirt and paint my toenails. In fact, I am doing the former and have just finished doing the latter. Joy! Today's public affairs lecture (Keynesian economics and associated thought systems) was interesting, but the lecture theatre was devilishly hot. We had our break and I nearly didn't come back in. Katherine commented to Emily, "she's like our puppy. We could just open the doors, and let her run, and run, and run!" I laughed and continued running up and down the stairs. It's amazing how good a little sunshine feels. "It's been a long, cold, lonely winter. It feels like years since it's been clear."

This weekend was good. Friday night I went to Jacob's for Saint Patrick's Day festivities -- we sat and watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Steph. Steve and two of his friends were around for a short while, but had other parties to go to (or had to go home, I don't know) and left after a little while.

This is from the same night as Emily's photo, below. Rocky Horror Picture Show and then out for dessert at Zak's diner. Here we see me and Yuna waiting for the bus in the Rideau Centre McDonald's (it was cold outside).

Emily's photo debut on my blog! She's got rhythm, that girl. Katherine looks on in horror.

"REALLY Lebanese Food: Home of the Garlic King!" This was just too good to throw out without memorializing. Wearin' a chef's hat with a crown over it? Audacious fashion choices, Your Pungent Majesty!

Hunting Season

The hunt is on for an apartment. Last night Katherine and I went to see our first one, which was quite good for practice in seeing apartments but which we would not take were it the last apartment in town. It's in a pretty nice neighbourhood, but each floor has a different base smell, and each tenant's room had its own patina of smell over the base. The paint was peeling, the floors were basically wooden slats, and there were broken-down spare mattresses standing in the stairwell. What's worse, it wasn't even really an apartment, it was a rooming-house. You can't call something an apartment unless it is a self-contained unit with a space approximating, I don't know, a living and dining room. What this lady wanted was a way to rent out three crappy, overpriced rooms for the trouble of one. Anyway, long story short, I feel sorry for the guys who agreed to live there and pay extortionate rent for a dire little series of rooms. Phew. Rant over.

Anyway, other than the apartment hunt, life is pretty quiet. I have plenty of schoolwork to keep me busy. Sunday I went snowboarding, I've watched some good movies with friends, and this weekend I met a second Jessica and Katherine and a second Mike B. One of those meaningful coincidence things -- I should get the Existential Detective Agency from I Heart Huckabees on it. Actually, I should have them come work for me because Lily Tomlin is priceless in that role and it would be beyond cool to meet her.

In other news, I'll be going away to Toronto for Easter (hooray!) to stay at Katherine's house and eat her food and make her show me around the city. And then that week, Chris, Colleen, Aine, and Niamh plan on coming up to see Ottawa. I cannot think of an uglier time than early April to come see Ottawa, but there's always lots to do, whatever the season. So it should be fun despite being unscenic. Nancy left a very nifty guidebook called Secret Ottawa, and I'm sure that when I have class they can just adventure on their own. They are good at adventuring, besides being tons of fun to have around. I don't have any exams until April 14, so I'm not too worried about the few days of studying I'll miss.

I suppose I should go do some of that "plenty of schoolwork" now. Bah!

You know this boogie is for real

Once more, apologies for my slacking in the blog department. I haven't been particularly busy, it's just that nothing all that special has happened. I'm currently in the throes of finding an apartment for next year. Tomorrow Katherine and I go to look at our first one. We think it's in a dodgy part of town, but I can't remember exactly where the dodgy part of town starts and ends. In any case, if it is in some kind of crazy gangland where your bike will get stolen if you leave it unlocked for three seconds, we just won't take the apartment!

This weekend was fun, if not especially productive. My poli sci essay is all handed in, so I kind of took a mental vacation. I'm happy to report that my snowboarding skills have taken leave of me completely, and I have never landed so few of the jumps I attempted. Although I did land flat on my back like an overturned cucaracha several times. Anyway, I went with Mike B. and his friend Mike B. (I am not joking) and it was a lovely Sunday. Next Sunday I plan to go to church with Natalie, as an experiment. She's Mormon, and I'm not planning on converting but it sounds like an interesting afternoon, so I'll tag along. She says her congregation isn't mad for the evangelism anyway. I have no fears of any fundie craziness, because Natalie herself is far from being a fundie crazy. In fact, she is a lovely girl, and has a good, tolerant head on her shoulders. And you can tell her mother I said so.

Also great fun this weekend was Friday night, when I met the other Jessica and Katherine, who are Emily's friends from Hamilton. They came up for the weekend and went out to see a production of Fame, during which time Emily, Katherine, Yuna, and I watched Rocky Horror and then had a dance party of extreme hotness. We have the moves, what can I say!

Today's public affairs lecture was kind of tedious, because we're getting into the development of concepts we already covered in econ, but Professor Carmichael managed to save it with a great story. He told us about the spooky, dark, creepy basement computer lab at the school where he did his grad work. He was down there a lot with his punch-card computer program (for 'twas back in the day) but didn't like being there alone because there was always this disheveled man with a toque and an umbrella, muttering by himself among reams of computer paper. Years later, Carmichael was shocked to see a photo in the paper and recognize the scary computer lab man. Upon recognizing him, he read that this man had received the Nobel Prize for mathematics and was, in fact, John Nash. Whoa. Anyway, I thought it was cool. But now I have to leave behind Professor Carmichael's story-telling prowess and go to French class. (As an aside, Carmichael has been known to go off on two-minute rants about how awful Scotland is. "Scotland has the worst brand of Christianity in the world! Presbyterianism is... Calvinism without the fun! And the food is dreadful." It's grand.)

Goings-On

What a lollyblogging kind of week. I haven't updated because nothing terribly exciting has happened -- political science essay past due, cross-country and choir practices, another NAC performance (actually, that was terribly exciting!) and miscellaneous other fun. The Keener Squad and Notl went out to the Bayou on Friday night and had some tasteful fun. Line dancing, anyone? And life continues as per usual. I got my midterms back and have no complaints about my marks. Not all that much to update about. Tonight was nice, though. I went running with Jacob and then to his house for "people food". After an inordinately large dinner and some wine-tasting with his mum, I went back to the dorm.

Now to kick this little head cold. Rarr!

Coolosity

Today I got to sing with my choir at the National Arts Centre, with the NAC Orchestra, and it ruled all. I mean, I wasn't good or anything, but at least I got to impersonate a loon and wear a kicky white puff-sleeved blouse with velcro fastenings, paired with a red dress with a sash. And it was for the children, so it was worth it.