Sartorial Statement

Have arrived home for a Matt Chatt (Skype is so, so great). On the way home I experienced a revelation: Filodoro pantyhose, while expensive, has already saved me money because I just caught mine in the zipper of my backpack. And unlike any other pantyhose ever created, they did not run. Go out and buy ten pairs, I don't care if you're a girl or a boy.

Plunging In!

Another happy Thursday in the library! I am trying to make a policy of just going blah blah blah and editing later, because if I pussyfoot around and try to get my thoughts in order before I write anything, I will never write anything. Ever.

I've just come (well, an hour ago) from Omar/Capitao's capoeira class. He gave us some time to play at the end, and much to my disappointment I was the only girl who would enter the roda (circle). Seriously, ladies, I know it is scary and you will probably look like a tool,* but so do the boys and they seem to be having fun, don't they?

Dems debate tonight! Do you think Barry's going to bring his fangs, or be classy and Kennedy-esque? Is Hillary going to do something that causes debate about her Identity As A Woman? (Don't be silly, of course she is! Heaven forbid we judge her on her merits, rather than devoting ourselves to dissecting her gender presentation.)

*Full disclosure: I looked like a tool.

Ssssssssss.

Thesis is picking up steam! I went to see my advisor today and it was alright, actually, even though I had been dreading it to the point of declaring it a dies illae, calamitatis et miseriae in an e-mail to Matt. My advisor is very absent-minded and professorial but he's also quite pleasant and helpful, and he made me feel that I have actually made some progress. One of my goals for the rest of the semester is to have him remember my mini-thesis topic from one meeting to another.

At capoeira this week, we practiced various basic esquivas (dodges). My partners kept asking me for input, despite my total lack of skill. Perhaps I gave the appearance of living up to one of my New Year's resolutions: be competent. The others were listen carefully and absorb what you are being told and eat less junk, sleep 7 hours nightly, and exercise at least twice weekly. So far all three are going relatively well, I guess. Robert Fisk is keeping me from accomplishing the sleep-related one; I spent an hour and a half last week reading about the Armenian Genocide rather than sleeping.

At the same time as I was sleeping this Tuesday night, having surreal, horrible dreams (I had accidentally bought and remodeled the Monizes' house; I was landing a plane and my throat was numb like I'd just sucked back a glass of Anbesol), there were three Carleton students dying just a few blocks from my apartment. The photos from the crash look horrific; I didn't know any of them but I feel for their families and all their friends. One of the B.PAPMers knew one of the girls. I guess it is things like this that make us thankful we're on the right side of the dirt (as a friend of a friend would put it). I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Finally, dear Intertubes, I am going to ask you something. As I will need to entertain visitors for two weekends this term, I would like suggestions for stuff to do in Ottawa. Because I've already done almost everything. Is there a restaurant you love like fat kids love cake? What about live music? Cool stores? Pretty walks? Base jumping? Then click the comments thing and tell me all about it.

The Saddest Thing on the Internet

OK, is this satire? Sometimes it's so hard to tell:

OH MAH GAAAAAD!

My roomies went to Quebec and got engaged! This is very exciting. I'm going to post this without asking either of them because the news has already hit the Intarwubs so I feel it is non-embargoed. Anyway, it's my blog. This also increases the count of "girlfriends and acquaintances of mine who have gotten engaged since Summer 2007 began" to seven, which is pretty insane.

Naming Names on Papers, Quebec, and Roommates

Long time, no see. It turns out that working full-time and trying to write a thesis takes up a lot of one's time. Oh, and CUSE, a new semester of capoeira classes, and a busy choir schedule.

So what has been going on lately that is noteworthy? My mini-thesis continues to be terrifying, although the people at work have been pretty helpful and are interested in my research, such as it is. They provided some rather useful constructive criticism, as well. Please note that I have elected to refer to it from here on in as a "mini-thesis" so as to minimize my own fears of it.

This Friday the choir played a gig at the big swanky casino in Hull. Hey, I can still call it Hull, it's OK - technically the casino is in the Secteur Hull de Gatineau. Oh, la caprice des noms de place. So there. Anyway, I arrived home at midnight to find a deserted apartment, since Katherine and Jordan (one refers to them as a unit now: they are my roommate-unit) had gone to rural Quebec to spend a weekend at a friend's cabin. With the apartment to myself, I am pleased to report that I spent yesterday until 6 p.m. in my pajamas and cleared the living room of furniture to vacuum and demonstrate my ridiculously clumsy capoeira stylings. I also ate huevos rancheros, though sadly without refried beans. Such excitement.

All this banality does not concern me, though, since I'm looking forward to several visits on the horizon. Mom is coming out to Ottawa next weekend and will bring with her several pairs of pants that I forgot when I came back from Christmas break. Bless her. Two weeks after Mom's visit, Matt will spend a long weekend with me. I'm pretty psyched for both of these things. To celebrate, the weather has suddenly (finally!) gotten really wintry again. My face almost fell off from cold on the way to the library today.

Happiness

I found a 10m long puddle! I ran through it! Four times!

Life does not get any better.

Hark The Herald Festive Things

This Christmas was a good one. What follows is a massive regurgitation of events and meetings because I have been running around like mad seeing friends. I finally got to attend Ingrid and Les' carol singing party, after three years' absence because of bad exam schedules. My nuclear family went to The Nutcracker and I fell in love all over again with the music from the Arabian dance. A very nice boy I'm getting to know crocheted me a scarf - this elicits different reactions in Easterners and Westerners, weirdly enough.

It was a very big trip for sportiness; I was entirely justified in lugging my massive chock-full bag of gear across the country, because I used every last item. Waking up at 3:00 a.m. to catch the Magic Bus gave me a chance to put in a great day of snowboarding with Matt at Lake Louise. One of my fondest memories of this day is the fall I took in an area just below an avalanche zone, and my subsequent decision to shout "FUCK" at the top of my lungs from underneath the snow. Fortunately there were no casualties. Katie took an afternoon to give me and Keith the ski instructor treatment; I am now semi-competent on snowblades. I also went skating twice, once with Matt (again, nobody died despite our decision to use the roped-off pond) and once with Becca, Diane, and Becca's newly-arrived Kiwi, whose name is Alex. Laura looked on and watched the New Canadian Moments as Diane and I taught a Caribbean man to tie his skates properly while his two kids dangled happily from other skaters' arms. Becca coached Alex through his third-ever skating expedition. Fun fact: in New Zealand, ski hills are called "ski fields", despite the unpromising horizontality that term implies.

Further athletic pursuits were undertaken when Katie's family let us look after their puppy over their three-day ski holiday. Gromit is a two-year-old Labradoodle and a ball of energy. He was in extremely good spirits the whole time and reminded us how much fun it is to have a dog. However, they're also a lot of work and impossible to tire out, so I don't know whether a new puppy is in the cards for the Alberta gang this year!

There were less health-oriented festivities as well. Earlyish in December, Mike had a joint birthday party with a few of our high school classmates. Attending that was actually a little weird for me because it was full of people I hadn't seen in years, to most of whom I had never been particularly close. Becca, Laura, Diane, Matt, and the gang went out dancing one night to celebrate Epic: Respect The Ave IV. Super-good times, though bittersweet for me because Matt was going to Mexico on a family vacation the next day. In related news, Mexico is totes boring and not nearly as much fun as I am. Right? Oh, and I hung out at Tom and Paul's a bit too - the New Year's party I dropped in on at their friend Lindsay's place held a high concentration of nice, funny people I hadn't met before, so hopefully our paths will cross again. Tom introduced me to the film Monkey Shines. Watch it if you wish to be instilled with an abiding fear of capuchins and genetic modification.

Colleen and I got to see each other too, hooray. She, Katie, and Keith went out with my family for an early birthday dinner for me. Katie and Colleen also rolled around on my last day in town to have mahumbah. And I met Tawnie for lunch, which was super because I hadn't seen her in a while.

Retail therapy was high on the list of things to do, so now I have some excellent additions to my wardrobe for starting work tomorrow. Scary but exciting.

Finally, it seems that everyone in the universe is getting engaged, which is really freaky but also kind of heartwarming. I hope you have enjoyed this crazed melange of half-digested thoughts. If not, suck it up.

News Snippet

Before I do a post about My Special Christmas Vacation, here's a thought about security: you know things are bad in your country when people are fleeing into Afghanistan.

Also, I'm excited for New Hampshire.