Geneva Has A Lot To Answer For

Another quiet week of school work and work-work. It hasn't been bad, really, and any time I start getting aerated about the amount of writing I have to do in the immediate future (actually, in the immediate now) I just remind myself that I went to Montreal and out to some shows, and that I totally deserve any amount of library time I'm putting in now.

The New Jersey gang can get ready for a good weekend December 14-18. Why? Because I'm coming! I talked with Aunt Marie earlier today and she says it's OK, so I've booked my plane ticket. There are babies to meet and other exciting things to do. It will be beyond weird in some respects because it's been such a long time since I've seen most of them and there will be no parental backup information bank to remind me who works where, whose children are whose, and what stories I've forgotten. Such is the journey into adulthood!

Sunday Night Is Facemelting Guitar Solo Night

Zep and Floyd, how I love thee. When the Levee Breaks and Comfortably Numb are two of the best things ever.

Also pretty awesome is this: free TV on the Internet. Jay showed it to us when he was over with Yuna for their business group meeting with Katherine and Emily yesterday.

Spent most of the weekend in school mode, oh glee. Though really I am the Procrastination Queen, I don't know what I'm whining about. Anyway, I got my geography essay done and submitted it online fourteen whole minutes before the deadline. Well done, me. I've started my international affairs paper and am feeling cautiously optimistic about it, though one of the books I checked out is about conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War and had all the words to the Fixin' to Die Rag as a dedication in the front, so then I had that stuck in my head for three hours. Thanks, Country Joe and the Fish. And now, while I'm on a roll, I'm going to go write my penultimate business assignment.

Show It, Long As God Can Grow It

My hair!

Oh, Ha Ha

If I had a nickel for all of today's tasteless-but-still-kind-of-funny internet cracks about Trent Lott now being the minority whip and how that's a job, Trent, not a weapon, I would have... well, at least two nickels that I know of.

Had a nice run with Jacob tonight, though really contacts are superior to glasses in humid weather. It was the first time I've broken 7km in a while, and I think I'll be a little sore tomorrow, hooray!

Katherine has been doing her economics assignment and fielding calls from Kelly, because econ is a group undertaking. I have been not doing econ, since that's the class I dropped, but rather working a bit on my geography essay. The next two-and-a-half weeks have me writing three papers (!!!) but I am confident I'll get them all done somehow. Mostly I'm just not going to leave the library on weekends, and hope for the best.

Katie tells me that she and 21 of the high school gang (I didn't even know we had 22 in the high school gang) hit Sunshine this weekend for some blissful early season action. Mad with jealousy over here; I think she said it was 90 cm base and 20 cm fresh or powder! If that's what it's going to be like then bring on Winter, I say! Enough with the cold November rain.

Raining Again

30-Second LifeBlurb: Further rain today, hiss! Entire city acquiring SAD all at once. Choir performance with huge massed choir was good; girl high school choristers (choristeresses?) slavering over percussionist Nick Halley was sad spectacle, particularly as he is too old for, well, anyone in a youth choir. Various term papers apparently going nowhere, but am trying again for the one due on Sunday, which I think should be fairly easy. Possibility of faculty going on strike - negotiation period expires at 2 a.m. tonight. Should I cross the picket line?

People who have made me laugh today: Katherine, Emily, Lindsey, Jenn, Jacob, Jay, in roughly reverse chronological order.

Rip Through the City on a Saturday Night

Ah, Saturday night in the library. Have just come from Thai food with Alison (in town from Guelph), Heeya, Mal, Nicole, and Kaija (spelling?). All are well. Mal and Alison got piercings in the afternoon -- ear-ring for Ali, eyebrow barbell for Mal. Despite some peer pressure I elected not to join them, though I must concede that both of the newly hole-punched look lovely.

Novemberism

The afore-promised touring diaries from our 14-hour minibreak.

On the bus, ready to go!

At Metropolis. This is such a cool theatre -- the interwebs (those trustworthy sources) tell me that it has been there since the 1800s. Evidently people in the 1800s were a little slow, because they put the bathrooms on the top of four floors.

The opening act was the folky and terrifyingly thin Alasdair Roberts. He has a very lovely voice and sang many a traditional Scottish song -- a little slow compared with the main act, but still beautiful.

And now I think I will just throw photos all over the place; most of them don't need an explanation. Suffice it to say that the show completely rocked, and I knew this for sure even before they came onstage because the music between the sets was Peter and the Wolf. Omens don't get much better than that. Katherine and I both went preparing to be whelmed (not under, not over) but came away with big smiles on our faces. Not liking their particular brand of embarrassingly over-the-top, folk-tale-like music is like not liking pie: you come face-to-face with it and you just can't say no.

In addition to skillfully playing every instrument under the sun (viz. violin, hurdy-gurdy, banjo, mandolin, Moog and other crazy synth things, accordion, double bass, cello, slide guitar) the Decemberists get 10/10 for audience interaction. During 16 Military Wives (very catchy) they did the usual "which half of y'all sings louder" contest for the "la-di-da, di-dah, di-da-di-da-di-daaaa" section. They had people form a circle for a danceoff. They stole a cell phone from someone, dialed a number at random, and sang to whoever picked up. At some point in the encore (the encore, yet!) they did a sort of 1066 And All That history of the Founding of Montreal, and encouraged people to form up in groups of Huguenots, redcoats, and "Native, uh, Canadians" and re-enact the battle. "The Huguenots are coming down the river in canoes! Yes, in their nimble birch bark canoes! They spot the redcoats, and attack! And the Native, uh, Canadians see the melee and want in, too. They just... well, they attack everyone. And then are obliterated by disease and two hundred years of oppression." That pretty much says it all.

And so, I return to my essay, and then to work tomorrow. Alison is coming to town from Guelph, I may get together with her and Mal. And a bunch of the choir folk are going to be having a party over to learn the music for the Sankta Lucia concert. James' band, the Red Light Saints, are playing Zaphod's on Saturday. Elliott Brood is doing a show as well, and Kyle wants to go. Darnit, why do people I know have to continue doing cool things when I have work to do? An embarrassment of riches, truly.

Free/Three/Tree

Man, sometimes I wish I was a linguistics major. I picked up a really cool book entitled English Dialects while I was in the library looking for materials on the WTO (I know, yay). Its introduction starts off going all the way back to pre-Anglo-Saxon times. Imagine all the words that have been born, and grown up, and died in that time. A lot of the rest of it consisted of maps of England showing different pronunciation zones for particular words, like where the locals would pronounce "f" instead of "th" in a sort of Cockney way (it doesn't just happen in London!).

Back to econ. But later I will post some really good photos from the Decemberists show in Montreal on Sunday, which was so far beyond awesome that I just have no words. No wait, I do: fantastic! Ultra-cool yet whimsical! Ironic yet heartfelt! It was lovely. They played a lot of things from their most recent album, which I had not yet heard but am now very glad to have bought. We started off standing in the second row. However, Katherine worked her way up to the front row in time for Colin Meloy to fall to the ground in front of her, sing to her, and muss up her hair. I don't think she has quite recovered yet, frankly.

OK, now back to econ.

Make No Whistle Or Thou Will Be Murdered

Well, I'm postponing the joys of International Monetary Problems for another year after failing it. For once I have met my own expectations -- one key way of telling whether a test has gone well is whether you erase and rewrite nearly everything you have written and then have to go sit quietly in the basement of the library for half an hour immediately afterward. My usual method of giving up is just not even starting things, so actually capitulating in mid-semester is a new and exciting way to bomb out. Anyway, I'll try it again later. In the meantime, I guess that's one less final to do.

Why is there another fly in my room? I am not a dirty person. If you'll excuse me, it's killin' time.

1000 r.p.m.

By "r.p.m." we mean "scheduled events". I'm very excited this week to report that I have:

Been to the Death Cab for Cutie concert - so many, many fourteen-year-old emo kids! Katherine and I were two of the eight people there old enough to have a beer to enjoy with the music. Death Cab is genius at making you hover just at the border of crying, with that uncomfortable tight little bubble in your chest. Their music is simultaneously lush and simple, and their lyrics are gorgeous;

Experienced Katherine's birthday. It was quite small, but a couple of people went out to Barrymore's after a failed attempt to visit Saunders' Farm. Apparently anywhere outside of Ottawa is Amish country and everything closes at five on Sundays even when it is clearly stated on the website and in telephone conversations that they are open until eleven. Hiss. But there is still birthday cake and many exciting things happened;

Passed my economics midterm quite handsomely;

Handed in an international affairs mini-paper (5 pages only! Hooray);

Attended the Rocky Horror Picture Show and had a fantastic time, despite the sad absence of Jacob due to a scheduling mishap involving me being an idiot and him not being home to receive my phone calls to change plans (Goodbye, all this! Hello, oblivion!);

Worked an insane day at the Solar Conference, which is going quite well so far, I believe, but I'm not in today. Poor Krista and Sharon are going to have to do without me not knowing where anything is or how to find registration packages;

Gone to classes. Yes;

Anyway. This weekend there are further birthday parties, because apparently in order to be my friend you have to have emerged from the womb within three weeks of Hallowe'en. And on Sunday Katherine and I are going to Montreal (!) for the day (!!) to see the Decemberists concert (!!!). We'll be back that night, though, because the buses run until midnight.

And here are some pictures. First, pumpkin carving:

Death Cab for Cutie:

We are emo:

K-dawg's birthday (here, Jay displays classic traits of pyromania):

Anyway, I'm off to the National Library to perform for choir! Toodle-oo, all.