And So It Is

Well, I am back in Al Birda. Someone from my poli sci class was on the plane, across the aisle from me. Sitting beside me for the Toronto-Edmonton leg was a couple which had caught Floridian retired couple-ness just by visiting their son in West Palm Beach for a few weeks. They kept asking for extra glasses of water and harrying each other about not drinking the coffee before it got cold, and are you too cold? They have blankets, I could call the girl and get you a blanket, oh here's the girl. You don't want a blanket? OH GOD only three and a half more hours, please let me not chew my own arm off. The airport more than made up for this: a choir from Namibia had also been on the plane, and was greeted by an extremely white choir doing some extremely joyful and African singing. The luggage claim area was flooded with song, it was just wonderful. Dad and Boopsie drove me home, and so my school year is well and truly over.

I would sort of like to keep blogging here over the summer, but that would be contrary to this blog's mandate, really. It's supposed to be for my Ottawa adventures, and most of my little readership has my e-mail address if they need me or miss me or what have you. I wish I had something profound to say, but since this isn't the end end, I don't really need to! Suffice it to say that so far it's nice to be home, though I do feel more and more like I have two homes. Arriving this time, I didn't feel as much as I have on past trips that the landscape was stretched and flattened, a caricatured prairie. It felt right. Spring is in the air. For now, most things are going my way. And so to bed. See you in September!

Hey, all. Well, second year is done and so far it looks like Jessica 2, Uni 0. I celebrated by having tofu and salad for dinner, preceded by part of my Easter chocolate. And, for some reason, a tortilla. One of those zombie "caaaaarbs" things, I suppose. Then I did my taxes, OH THIS LIFE OF ROCK AND ROLL. Then I completely forgot (again!!!) to call Jacob's mum to see if she can put me in touch with her friend who knows everything about the federal equivalent of the stuff I'm going to be doing this summer. Hiss, me!

About all the exclamation points and capitals in the foregoing, it's because I've been reading Dooce and I've absorbed her style. She's a very funny ex-Mormon woman who makes a lot of poo jokes. Sounds bizarre, but then so do bacon sandwiches and people eat those, don't they?

Aaaanyway. Yesterday I went out to the movies with Kyle, who was in PAPM last year but hated it and thus left (have I told y'all that before? I might have.) We saw this slightly inscrutable Bertolucci thing from the '70s. I would call it a "joint", but I'm pretty sure that term has only ever been applied to Spike Lee movies. Anyway, it was pretty good in a "what on Earth is this guy's angle? Is he a real fascist or isn't he?" way. I'd have to see it again to properly know what was going on. After the film, we grabbed a cup of java/hot choc in Nate's Deli ("You don't have to be Jewish to eat here") and had a quick chat, all very nice. Then I scampered off to a study session with Carly.

The test today was OK, though more difficult than I expected. I soldiered on through, though, because it would have been tediously easy had it been as easy as I'd thought it would be. And then I came home to celebrate, and now we have closed our time loop. Hooray! Emily and Nate have a new fridge, and all is right with the world ce soir.

Sometimes My Mind Plays Tricks On Me

Argh. What a basket case of a school I go to. I don't think I'd ever contested a mark before now, and here I am doing it for the second and third times in a month. This may reflect that I am simply not doing as good a job as I used to (not out of the question, I have been sillier this year than last year), or it may be that my professors and TAs this year are just generally more inconsistent than they were last year. One of the marks is mostly so low because I didn't report my own attendance in the time frame that the professor and TA had in mind, even though there was no deadline given. I really need to do something about these, because these two marks have the power to make my GPA even more unimpressive and my head a very bad place to be. That said, it is my experience and observation that the squeaky-but-not-rude wheel gets the grease: usually if you care enough to make the argument respectfully, you can get stuff done for you.

Nevertheless, a dispiriting kind of way to start the third rainy morning in a row, and also my third morning in a row without much voice to speak of (ha ha). This is just as well as there is nobody in the apartment to talk to. Seriously, though, Mother Nature is a tease. 23C one week, and then BAM! Three days of chill and rain and misery. That it coincided precisely with two days of quarantiney hermitdom is something I appreciate, though. Nothing better than not being fit to leave the house when it looks so inhospitable outside.

It's A Party In My Sinuses...

... and you're not invited, because there's no freaking room in them. Exam in t-minus-ten hours and this is how the universe chooses to get its kicks?

Sunshine, We All See The Same Sky

Hey, a good day today: lots of sunshine and studying. I sat on the lawn and then in the Loebeteria. Katherine and then Jesse joined me for political economy studying fun, and it was ever so much more entertaining than studying alone. Plus, Jesse and I got to make fun of Katherine for, uh, being from Toronto and caring about real estate. And she got to make fun of us for thinking about oil price shocks all the time. Mike and I went for a run in the afternoon, but I have so thoroughly lost my hot-weather running skillz that I only made it about 5km. It was 23C, people! In April! But to be fair, I did do the round trip from school twice today, once at a run and once at a walk. Katherine and I went for ice cream before she headed off to her French exam, like ya do in summer. The nadir of the day was sitting on an anthill by accident, then moving to another tree with another anthill at its base. Apparently anthills come standard with the trees at school now.

Today I picked up my last public affairs short essay, and it seems that I can cross off "write a paper I actually like" on my Big List, entitled "Things To Do This Year Or By The End Of 2006 Anyway". Not only was it a fun paper (hooray for abstract essay topics!) but it was also one I actually felt I'd executed pretty well. And, as a bonus, Rob the Awesome TA of Awesomeness, attached a ream of his recipes to my essay: mint-cured salmon, lobster and red pepper bisque, cardamom ice cream, and banana spice cake, as well as the recipe for the walnut and fennel seed biscotti he brought into class. Apparently Rob used to be a professional chef, and still cooks part-time for various families. As I was picking up my essay, I also found out that one of our admins, Rose, has a catering service on the side, called Rose To The Occasion. Hee.

Windup

The school year is drawing to a close. My second-last and last exams are looming, one much more threatening than the other. I'll survive. Katherine's leaving before I do, I think she's taking the train out Saturday. So I'll have the place to myself for a while -- whatever shall I do? I guess I'll experience the bachelor(ette) lifestyle. I'll have to do something wildly exciting to celebrate. I'll let you all know, but I suspect it will involve eating tofu. Possibly an invitation-only interpretive dance/kickboxing event, too. Only one invitation will be issued, and it will be issued to me. Aw yeah.

After those exams, there will be summer. Don't quite know what to make of that. I'm just hoping to be awesome or at least good at my job, do a bunch of running without injuring myself, hang out with the old gang, and maybe squeeze in a vacation.

Mixed feelings about this year as a whole: in some ways it was better than first year, in some ways it was worse. On the whole, I think last year was more satisfying. Now, we've all settled into the routine of university more and things don't seem quite so novel and wonderful. The two Franz Ferdinand concerts and OK Go have been definite high points, and going to the McGill Outdoors Club weekends was awesome as well. I loved my spring break, even if it was shorter than planned, and our late-night Ramones dance parties. I took advantage of my age by voting for the first time and attending some good parties. I've gotten closer to some of the guys and gals in the program, and have found them to be excellent people. I've finally met Jacob's Faye, Katherine's Claire and Dan, and a few of Emily's friends from the Hammer. I've kept myself out of boy trouble (go me!). Jeanne's Wildfire show was awesome. And on top of that there have been simple things: I spent some contented hours sitting in my room looking out the window and went for some really nice runs, ate some delicious food and had some good conversations, rewatched West Wing and memorized Eddie Izzard routines ("do you have a flag?"). Seldom have I slept less and thought more about sleep; we'll have to work on that next year, among other things.

Yesterday I went for Indian food with Kyle, which was very nice. He was in B.PAPM last year but didn't like it, so he's taken a year off. He's a very meditative type of person, which is excellent, and we had a good old chat about the ethics of ethics professors (minimal, we concluded) and what our families are like and things of that nature. All good. And I appreciated that he was very sanguine about my unfashionable lateness (traffic jam in Little Italy earlier in the day threw off my entire schedule). I did miss the political economy study session going down chez Emily, but I made it up tonight with Blanca, some other guy from our class, and, for a bit, Jesse.

Speaking of political economy, this exam is giving me the willies. But there was a bright spot today: I got the essay remarked by the prof, and he raised my grade to an 82. This pleases me greatly because I had a B before and was not amused. My TA seems to be a very hard marker, and to have given out participation marks more or less at random. Some people got lower than I did after speaking more often and submitting more mini-assignments than I did. But then, I can't help that I'm prettier.

This stopped being about winding up the school year a while ago and started being about the petty details of my life. I'm tired and the BBC World News on CKUA sounds very soothing (probably because I'm not paying attention to the words). I think it's time for bed. Night, all!

P.S. I'm quitting school to become a lighting tech/groupie. Just so you know.

I: Arrival

Let the fun begin! The train out was lovely: we didn't have to get up too early and still got a full day in Montreal. Katherine's high school friend Dan picked us up at the station. After lunch we met Fluffy the millipede, who is just charming. Dan's a really nice guy, on top of being considerate enough to let two vagrants like us crash in his res room. In the afternoon Katherine and I tooled around Montreal (Dan was studying). We found a really awesome travel book emporium and a beatnik record store with a section of "Various Moog" and about a frillion Nana Mouskouri LPs. After refreshments and a quick nap in a coffee shop, we took the Metro (like big girls!) to CEPSUM for the Great Lining Up, only to find that about 150 other people had gotten there even earlier. Evidently Montreal people are hardcore about their concertgoing. Above: I represent the huddled masses yearning to be free at the feet of James McGill, while Katherine poses like a grownup.

II: Concert-tastic, Slightly Spastic

We got in and got a decent spot on the floor. The Cribs have a really cool logo, so... I took a picture of it.

After a relatively short wait, the Cribs came out and did their stuff. We'd been expecting to like them and we weren't disappointed: they're really good live. Their drummer is a total madman; he bounces up and down constantly and his hair flicks magically back and forth in time with the music, even when he's not moving his head. It's weird, man.

They converted a lot of people in the crowd. I distinctly heard someone to my right say, "the Cribs? Who the fuck are they?" but by the end of it they were cheering. The set was short and sweet and pretty well awesome.

After the Cribs, Katherine and I left the pit. We figured Death Cab for Cutie would be more "strummy-strummy-la-la-sad-sad" and we weren't all that interested. But we were wrong about Death Cab: I'd expected to sit out their set in protest, going "meh" on the sidelines. They were actually very good. I'm really glad we were up top, because the lighting design and set were really trippy, better appreciated from a distance. They all seemed rather sweet, too, always thanking the crowd and doing nice intros to songs. They sounded much less acoustic and sad than they do on CD, which was a very good thing for the size of the space. Katherine turned to me at some point and said "I find myself liking them against my will." I was willing, but surprised, to like them. Thumbs up, guys. And the Sad Trees in the background were really cool. After Death Cab went off, I took advantage of the turnover in the crowd to move into the pit again. Katherine, who is sensible, stayed up top with the purse and my jacket.

I made my way down to the floor and spent a while miming that I was looking for someone situated deeper in the crowd. This was a lie, of course, but it got the job done! I made myself reasonably comfortable and waited. Franz Ferdinand took the stage and launched into "This Boy", one of my favourites of theirs and a good dancing song. The crowd was awesome. Clearly people had not just come for Death Cab; there was a lot of singing along and everyone seemed... well, about as excited as I was. Franz played "L. Wells", which is a new song that I'd really wanted to hear live, and it was amaaaazing. They messed around with the beats of songs a lot, a few things sounded almost more R&B than the recordings (sounds weird, I know, but trust me). They've also started doing little noodley bits, changing chords and putting in solos or vamping for just a little longer, and it was a really refreshing change from the last time I saw them. The style was still really tight, but they all looked incredibly comfortable onstage, like they were really having fun, and I think the sound reflected that. Andrew Knowles is a new addition: he's been their drum tech, stand-in drummer, and keyboard player for a while, but he's also doing more drumming (two-drummer stuff as well as standing in when Paul's playing guitar), and was included in the intros, so I guess he really has been promoted to full member. Long story short? The set rocked.

This photo had to go in because it's the only one I got of Bob playing: see him at the right? Shortly after this, I got into the pit and was too busy dancing to take pictures.

The pit chewed me up and spat me out. It was awesome, actually. It's bizarre how much fun it is getting thrown around and sweated on by strangers. By "Michael", the second-last song before the encore, I had been ejected into the third row. Here, Andrew continues to work his crazy magic while Nick, Paul, and Alex play on. The introductions during "The Fallen" were pretty fantastic: the entire band just got much more into the showmanship than they had in Toronto, so Alex was prancing around the stage speaking at length about each member of the band. "This boy with the angel face! -- this man who breaks hearts, with each note he plays he breaks a heart! -- this man who leaps about with so much energy!" Could have turned out cheesy in the hands of someone less awesome, but the audience was wildly into it. My favourite intro was for the drummer, Paul: "this man at the back with the beat-a! the beat-a! the beat-a! The man with the gap-a in the teeth-a!"