This is going to be a very long post, so I'm sorry ahead of time. To be fair, I've been doing a lot of google image search blogging instead of actually typing out what my life's been life.

So here are my hopes and dreams...

It was snowing outside this morning! This is the first time I've seen snow in a really long time- at least 5 months. Life feels strange without snow- not bad or devoid of anything essential- it's just weird to think that snow is such a rare thing here. That's probably why I appreciated it today. I like snow when it's new. I don't like snow when it's dirty and old and caked onto cars. Somehow, I don't picture that happening in Vancouver. Au contraire! I think for the first time in the history of my life, I could get to see a real, legitimate springtime with flowers and birdies and all that jazz.

We like winter and Christmas.

But we don't like exams and studying.


There was a party up in our lounge yesterday evening after the Econ final. I wasn't planning on going, but Kathleena wasn't picking up her phone (we were gonna do a 30 rock marathon or something like that), so I decided to kick around. Liz and Katherine decorated the floor lounge all Christmassy! They had streamers and snowmen and wreaths. They even posted economics jokes on the door for all of us poor bastards who had to endure the microeconomics midterm. It was fun- we ate pizza and drank rum and egg nog and talked for about 6 hours. Kim showed us her "thizzle" dance (you have to make a face like you smell piss, and it's gross, and then you get angry about it, and then you just dance all ghetto-like). Apparently, it's a major thing in the states. I love the Americas! Alex talked about Denmark, which is apparently awesome! There is no booze-tax or enforced drinking age over there, and nakedness in public places is a much more common thing. No wonder they chose to hold the whole world climate change circus/catastrophe/conference over there. We all talked about our love lives, past and present, which is always interesting with people you see often enough but don't know super well. We were going to watch a movie, but we just never got around to it, so instead, we watched funny stuff on youtube. I think this lasted until about 2:30 in the morning, and then everyone just kind of crashed.

I really like my floor- I wish I did more stuff like this earlier in the year, to be honest.

The Econ final wasn't that bad. I felt pretty good about the whole thing. As predicted, studying honestly had nothing to do with it- it was just about knowing your ass from a hole in the ground, and then applying economic theory. Some people were pretty unhappy with it, but that's how it always goes with Gateman exams. I had some moments of sheer impromtu genius, like when I suddenly decided that I could graphically show the difference between a competitive and noncompetitive firm using relative elasticity. We'll see how I actually do- there's a good chance I could be overconfident.

I forgot to blog this, because I'm just dumb and absent minded, but last Friday, I went to see Genya's choir concert. I ended up falling asleep/going into a meditative trance for some of it, but from what I remember, it was pretty awesome. You'd think that I'd be more attentive while listening to classical music after being exposed to it for so long, but I snooze off just as easily as the next guy. So much for cultural capital =(. After the concert, me and Genya and Kathleena all went down to The Naam for some late night studying/awesomeness. Originally, we were going to buckle down and study are asses off for psychology, but we ended up just talking about our families, upbringings and childhoods. I think families are a good topic- everyone has them, and usually, there's at least something about your family which is interesting or funny. I got one of those miso dragon bowls with rise and tofu and goodies. Genya got a teriyaki noodle dish, and Kathleena got one of their Naam pizzas. We were going to split a salad, but I, being the glutton that I am, ended up eating most of it. I love it because the portions are huge! Overall, I'd say it's much better to go to the Naam in the late night hours: it's much less busy, the ambiance is better, the service is better, and the food is faster. I took pictures on the bus ride home, but they were all blurry because I overexpose (and I overexpose because it makes pictures look brighter, and I am too lazy to wait for the flash to work)

The night after our Naam adventure, I ended up shipping out to Kathleena's residence for cookie decorating night (notice how all of my 'fun' excursions involve food?). That was fun too- it's interesting to watch Kathleena with people her own age, because she develops this sharp, funny, dark sense of humor that you don't really get to see anywhere else. After the food was all packed up, me, her, Toby (who was in my creative writing class), and a girl in the Opera program whose name I forget bantered for about an hour or so.

Another big adventure? Last Monday (a week ago), me and Genya brought our study supplies downtown and had coffee/tea at a starbucks in Robson, stole free internet, and studied for a while. After our internet ran out, we walked down to the big HMV off Robson and Burrard. Holy crap! This place is enormous! There is a floor entire for chart hits, books, and shirts. The top floor is all music, while the basement is movies and video games. I love HMV- even if I'm not buying anything, it's a nice reminder of how much awesome music there is out there that I enjoy listening to. I think it's interesting how they're slowly diversifying out of compact discs (they had the Ghost World graphic novel for $12, which is awesome!). They obviously understand that it's a dying market.

I used to pissed about the death of the cd, but now I think I can come to terms with it. I think the era of internet music is probably going to be nicer, and much more interesting in the long run.

Anyhow, I felt old going to HMV. I spent a lot of the past four or five years coveting different cds and obsessing over certain musical artists, so HMV was sort of like this commercial treasure trove for me. It's weird to think about that in retrospect.

Other than that, I spent most of this last week studying. I had a pretty good system worked out: I sit by the pillar with my (now defunct) Econ tutoring sign and plow through my Econ notes, basically summarizing and rewriting them for each chapter. Genya is often there as well. When it is time to eat, we eat dinner/lunch. When I feel antsy, I go work out in the fishbowl for a little bit (it doesn't take long for me to get very very tired while exercising, as you can imagine). Almost nobody came for tutoring- I helped one girl out for about 10 minutes, and then Nathan and Chris came just to review some stuff, but overall, as a free tutor, I felt very under-utilized. I guess I'll have to advertise better next time.

I'm breaking this up into a few entries, or else it'll be too long.

The best feeling ever: Genuine accomplishment. Here's the story. I studied like a madman all week for Sociology. I went through the books twice each, combed my way through all of the lecture notes, taught other kids the material, and just got a really good understanding of everything. And then I wrote the midterm exam. I have issues with university exams, because you can be fine in the knowledge department, but usually you have to apply your knowledge in some way or another, which is more difficult.

But I did well. Really well.

Too bad it's only worth 5 percent of my final grade (aka: nothing).

Yesterday, me and Genya went on adventures throughout Vancouver. We went to Zulu, and I broke my anti-consumerist streak and blew $18 on this:

I also bought my halloween costume at goodwill for $5.

We ended up going to a Persian Teahouse. I figured that people drink tea at places like that.
NOPE.
That's where people go to smoke hookahs. We sat around for a bit trying to figure it out, got it, and then left.

Genya has a friend who by some strange coincidence was working the Starbucks on Davie and Denman. We all got to talking, and me and her have crazy 6-degrees-of-seperation style connections.

We ended up sleeping on the floor at her apartment, and then we woke up, got coffee and walked around downtown. Today, it is beautiful out!

God do the obligatory internet chores (which I love) ever pile up when I have spare time. Everyone is posting at breakneck speed these days and I'm just trying my damndest to keep up with it all... hoy. I'll be sad when school starts again because I won't have quite as much time to spent lolling around in internet land filling my head with useless information.

EXAMPLE: I spent several hours today just reading up all the different zelda bosses past and present.

Being coerced into more constant productivity is never fun.

Okay! Today was devoted to health and exercise!
I biked into town today and went to a few used book stores. I didn't buy any books, but I did buy a used COS album for $5


Other than that, I just basically went exploring all morning. On the way back out to the cottage though, I basically killed myself. The journey from the cottage to 'town' is fine because it's almost entirely downhill. Consequently, the return trip is a brutal physics lesson on the power of gravity over inertia. By the time I got back, I was exhausted and pissed.

Me and mom saw Harry Potter for two bucks-a-pop

Emma Watson says she wants to avoid acting and go back to school after all the HP movies are done. That would suit me just fine! As usual, these movies are all about the special effects! Yum!

Speaking of yum, my uncle treated us all out to dinner at the golf course's club house, which was very fancy and very tasty. We enjoyed some nice wine, although I am embarrassingly terrible at classily drinking it and detecting all of the hidden tastes and smells. Good wine is lost on me, but it certainly isn't wasted if you catch my drift.

Other than that, I still have to finish up my poster of mom, and I have to apply for my work study job. There's also a note-taking position I can apply for which pays quite well, considering I am planning on typing up all of my notes for posterity's sake anyways. I might as well get paid for something like that if I'm going to be doing it anyways.

Dear Gabi: I couldn't get all you can eat with you... so I went out and got it with my mom instead.

Advice for anyone:

NEVER get all you can eat sushi with a person who
1- Doesn't like sushi
2- Isn't really very hungry

It was delicious, but really, I ended up eating all of the sushi intended for both of us, because my mom didn't want any. Ah well; live and learn.

If anyone cares, I really spat in the face of Judaism last night. I broke Kosher in Sssssssstyle:
-Prawns
-Scallops
-Squid
-Octopus

So now that's good and done!

In keeping with the theme of Japanese, sea-related things, me mom and Rebeccah went and saw Ponyo.

It was a bit too much of a kids' film for my liking, but still lots of fun. I like his darker films better, to be perfectly honest... oh well.

CDS: I made a list of things to download, as I am trying to be a cheap bastard, but I ended up spending some of my hard-earned moolah on some local artists who I am unlikely to be able to find in Van-city.

and


Last night, my mom and I rented Paris J'taime

I love shorts. I loved this movie. Simple as that!

This is what is coming up in my life:
-Fundraising Casino Tonight @ 6:00
-Gigantic 35.5 hour workweek starting tomorrow

Time is moving forward too damn quickly. Luckily, working as co-op makes it slow down practically to a standstill! =D

5/6 of the Real Situation:

Sunday

Sunday: Day of the day-trip.


To Note: Sunday was the first day of what is slowly becoming a week of pretty horrible weather here in Calgary.

Basically, before all of the family drama in my life surfaced itself, it was somehow agreed that dad would drive me and Kevin up to Edmonton on the 31st, we would stay there for two days, and then mom would pick us up on the Sunday. Naturally, it didn't exactly happen that way. I think partially out of some sense of guilt, and partially for her own benefit, my mom promised us that we could do a day trip up to Edmonton all together on Sunday, so that is exactly what we did.

We were supposed to wake up and be ready to go for 8:00. It didn't happen like that, surprise surprise. We were actually up and ready to go faster than mom or Rebeccah, which is unusual considering what time we finally got to bed at.

The trip over to Edmonton was uneventful. We stopped on the road about halfway in to talk to Sarah. This is the first of what is sure to be very few calls home they allow her to make. I got about a minute in. It was nice to talk to her, if briefly. I'm still resentful about the whole thing.

Me and Kevin mostly just slept in the backseat. We chewed some gum too, and listened to a combination of Joanna Newsom (our choice) and Kelly Clarkson (Rebeccah's choice).

Arriving in Edmonton, we naturally headed towards the most obvious tourist destination in the city.


And what did we do there?

We mostly walked around. We visited the giant HMV.

Kevin got:


I got:


Then we left the mall and had a whole fiasco with google maps trying to find the Urban Outfitters. After a lot of confusion, we went to a Starbucks for directions, and were informed that the store was back over in the mall. Pshft.

Urban Outfitters:
Oh my god. Where have you been my entire life?

I LOOOOOVE THIS STORE. I'm not even all that into their clothes- I could just spend ages going through their furniture, and books, and technology and shit. For one, they have those headphones that I love, but aren't available at London Drugs anymore.

Kevin Purchased:
-Cardigan
-Black Jacket
-All about us book (AKA big book of memes)

I got:
-Big encyclopedic book of knowledge
-College book of helpful information


We went to whyte avenue, but we were all shopped out.
I got an adbusters backorder for $5, and a Vice magazine for freee!

Dinner at Glenn's.

Having to pee desperately and painfully all the way home.

Sleep.

Everyone in the family is friends again, but things are going to get tight after tomorrow, because my dad is leaving for Toronto. On the bright side, my aunt is sacrificing vay-cay time to return to Calgary and help my mom out (because if mom takes any more time off of work, the corporate part of her soul will initiate less-than-peaceful protests).

I think it's been Friday since I last blogged. So like what are my hopes and dreams? Let's work backwards.

Today:
I work from 4:15 until 10:15. I do this so that my polite, manly co-worker Justin can go to the Stampede and watch Taylor Swift (T. Swift, as he calls her) sing about boyfriends, love, etc. I do this because $60 has never sounded nicer.

Edna reveals that she has two mentally disabled children. I ask her what they have, and she explains that no one is really sure. Just that one of them is twenty-something, and deaf dumb and blind. Kind of like the Cocteau Twins song, but with diapers. Every day, I am discovering that seemingly normal people all have different battles they fight and crutches they lean on. From no-one-in-particular's point of view, the whole thing probably looks pretty funny.

After work, I broke a ceramic mug.

Before all of that, I biked from my mom's house to my dad's house and got pissed on by mother nature.
Something similar has happened every day this week. Don't believe a thing about the supposed drought we're experiencing. It is a lie.

This morning, I made bread from scratch at my mom's house.

It is Ciabatta bread, and the small portion I had was quite tasty.

-----------

Yesterday:

I enjoy a relaxing bout of Driver's education in the evening. I literally sleep through most of it, missing the life-saving public service announcements courtesy of Australia. This can end only in my death by drunken, sleep-deprived, distracted car-crash.

Me and my mom get into a fight in the morning, but talk it out after driver classes.

Graham and I go on adventures, including:
-Vietnamese Food
-Searching Through Recordland (DON'T GO! Most disorganized, user-unfriendly record store I have ever been in. Claustrophobics beware)
I get:



Graham gets the first Prozac album.
-Jumping on Graham's trampoline (Graham can do fancy tricks, while I am very good at hurting myself).
-Bikes
-Talking

We used my newly acquired bike map to find Inglewood. It was the map's christening.

-------
Have you noticed how bad my tenses are throughout this post?
-------
Monday:
Dentist in the Morning
Denny's at Midnight

And in the middle, I am sitting in my Kitchen covering a box with tin foil while listening to CJSW. The box is going to become the official thought-box of the North American thought bank's Calgary branch. I am going to go downtown sometime later this month and PAY people to THINK. Ingenious, no?

I phone in to the radio station requesting that they play 'I'm not done' by Fever Ray, and they play it. I feel like a million bucks.

Gabi takes me to see simple plan. It costs me $0

Dear Gabi: I am not an enormous fan of simple plan, and would probably not have seen them twice if it were not for you. It should bother me that I have seen them more often than I see bands I actually listen to, but it doesn't. It's always a good time- I especially enjoyed watching the kids fight each other this year.
----------
The Weekend:
I drown my identity diffusion in good'ol-fashioned labor, and IT WORKS. Go figure...

Thankyou Calgary Public Library

Sorry- real life has been better lately.

Tuesday, I got into a big fight with sarah, so I went off on an adventure with my bicycle. This adventure took me to the library, where I took out about 15 discs from the beginning-part of the alphabet.
So far, I have ripped these:




And then in my angry-fury, I discovered that the bike path to nowhere land actually takes me to my mother's house in the span of about an hour... which is fascinating, and opens up a whole new world of living-space opportunities for days I don't have work or school.

I drank half my body weight in diet coke that night.

Wednesday, I went to chapters and read random bits from the books they had lying around.
Some japanese kid traded me a munchlax via wifi


Life is fantastic, basically.

I got these a while back, but never posted about it.





My cat just shed all over my keyboard.

And that's the end of the library

Graham is over right now. We are both too tired to function.

I had plans today.

I was going to be a good lil boy and study for biology, and then get some scholarship applications started before working for 6 hours.

But instead, mom took me and sarah to Art Central. So we walked around and went to the washroom at the Bay, and looked at flowers, and paintings, and got coffee.

We talked about our futures, and watched people out of the corner window. My mom is started to get all of these white hairs. I think they are very pretty, and mostly my fault.

That was the gist of my day. It's all amnesia after that.

I'm not going to valedictorian. I was disappointed yesterday, but I'm happier today, because it means that aside form having to play in the band, grad is going to be very slack for me.

Since we last spoke, I have ripped two more disc on to my computer. I am pretty slow at this.

April Fools Day:
The only reason I remembered it was today was because I read the newspaper comics before going to school today.
I am too un-clever to celebrate April Fool Day.
We played our instruments out of tune in jazz band today, and that was about as tricky as I got.

The Collective:
This is making me anxious and stressed. I had this vague Idea that it would take care of itself to a greater degree. We only have one more scene to teach, and then we can move into run-through phase, and put some tech in. Ashley was feeling this "I don't care/like it" vibe from the kids though, and I'm starting to feel it too. It is making me VERY uncomfortable. That, and not having enough time to rehearse. I would really like a solid couple-of-classes. No fun warmup. No wasting time, just rehearsing. Christ....

This is the large part of me which is a control freaq talking.

On the positive side, we have a game plan, we have our masks, and if we can actually get our group focused, we just might pull it off. That and the tableaus are fantastic.

The Holocaust
We are reading 'Night' and watching 'The Pianist'. My dad loves holocaust literature, and I do not.

School
I have been using my livejournal to post homework a LOT lately. I'm sorry about that.

The Life
This is our first week back, and it is going by blissfully quickly. I forget everything that happened on Monday, except for the fact that Sarah ran away whilst my mom drove me to my bass lesson, and my dad ended up going to bed later than I did, which is a once-in-a-lifetime-occurrence these days. I stayed up pretty late doing work for the collective, to boot.

Tuesday was the day I forgot to bring keys. After calling my parents, who were not about to drive down and let me in, I ended up going to the library and crawling through the CD section. It seems that in my pre-recession capitalist fervor, I forgot about the endless possibilities inherent in borrowing library CDs and ripping them to my computer. I could have saved hundreds of dollars if I had remembered that last year.

I think I ended up taking out 15 or so. I also started reading some Margaret Atwood.

Philosophically, she is completely the opposite of Ayn Rand. Everyone calls her 'Canlit', which I've never really understood. I don't find her books to be particularly 'Canadian'. I would consider the fact that she is a Canadian author more coincidental than anything else.

So far today, I have ripped:





Sarah came back. We watched television at mom's house this evening. I drank diet raspberry soda. What else is there?

Hello Start to my free life! Only one more half-day to go until all of my obligations completely disappear for a week.

25/25 on the Hamlet essay. I'm happy!

Dad read my play today and told me that I was a creeper. I think that was the point.

I shaved this morning, but I must have missed some spots.

No early morning band rehearsal for anyone today.

I finally paid Emily for the limo.

It was parent-teachers-interviews today, and for once, I definitely did not show up. Instead, me and Brent went slumming on 17th. He ended up getting a red-brownish leather jacket, and a grey zip-up hoodie. I was going to buy clothes, but then decided against it. I'll probably get a union jack tank top at the rocket once they get a small size, though, just so I can pretend to be all British, when in reality, I'm very NOT.

We went to megatunes. Brent got


and I got


we met up with dad, sarah, and kent. The three other kids got bubble tea, and I went to the car. I only like the smoothie part of bubble tea, but not the bubbles. Brent is the same way, he discovered.

We went home. I did some chores, and then tried to help with dinner. I was mostly useless. We ate dinner, then Ari Cohen (who is Jewish, and an old family friend of ours) picked us up and took us to the house.

Best open mic night ever. Par nothing.
Everyone who played just sounded great for whatever reason.
RockPaperSafetyScissors is having a show at the house next Friday evening. I'm going to try and go. SOMEONE SHOULD COME WITH MEEEE.

Now, I have made a fruit crumble for devon and her family to eat tomorrow evening. It has two kinds of apples, two pears, and two bananas, as well as 2 varieties of sugar. It is a crumble of 'twos'

It smells really good, but I have to put it away and go to bed now, or I will be unable to stay up tomorrow with devon and her fam-jam.

HA, as if I ever have troubles staying up...

I have spent basically all weekend eating junk food and playing fire emblem.

Fiora is a tank-girl!

She rains stabby death on my computer-operated enemies.

Thursday: Party day. I basically am the most terrible party planner in the known universe, but it was fun anyways. 3 people showed up, all at different times.
-Me and Gabi did breakfast at Nellie's, and took pictures at South Glenmore Park, then we went back to my house and she helped sarah clean her hair extensions. I starting making pizzas, and we cleaned out the basement
-Gabi went to work, so I made more PIzzas. Brent came over, so I finished making pizzas, and then me and him and sarah goofed around for a bit. I think we played picture consequences, sexually harassed people on sarah's msn, and generally cussed a lot, while drinking flavored water from Costco. We watched perfect blue

Which was very similar in Spirit to Paprika IMO. Good movie. I am posting all of these anime pictures in my livejournal. I am such a GEEK.
-After that, we ate pizza
-Then we watched 13, and about halfway through, graham showed up, so I got him fed, and he played the piano for a while.
-And then Gabi called, and was on her way, so I put another pizza in the oven, and when she got to my house, everyone came up and sat around the kitchen and talked and ate food.
-But then Gabi had to go home, so we said goodbye to her.
-After that, me and sarah and graham and brent played story-consequences in the kitchen for an hour. I'm gonna post those gradually over time on here.
-Dad drove Brent home.
-Me and Sarah and Graham went to the ice rink so sarah could have a good smoke. We talked for a while.
-Then we went back, and watched Charm school and took shots of Vanilla-flavored Vodka. I thought it tasted like gasoline. Sarah and graham are better than me at drinking anyways

Friday:
-Graham woke me up, and played the piano for a bit, but then he had to peace because he has auditions.
-And so I ate muffins.
-And played fire emblem
-And finally sent in the Dupont Challenge essay. If I win, me and Mr. McKillop get a free trip to Disneyland, which is sort of awkward. I still hope I win. =P
-I walked sarah to work, and then trained downtown. I got me this using gift certifimoney

-Called mom, and we had dinner downtown, then we went to her house where I played fire emblem all night

Today:
-Orchestra in the morning
-Opera with Devon in the evening
-Fire emblem and eating junkfood in between

See the pattern?

Hopefully, I can beat the game before I have to go back to school. Otherwise, I'm basically hooped in terms of attention span

Things I buy with unreal money from HMV:







Yestadah: Was boxing day. Boxing day is the best day of the year to work at a grocery store, because nobody shows up to buy any groceries, and you get holiday pay just basically doing nothing.
Dad made pesto sauce, which is my favorite food of life. Me and him and sarah went to Chinook mall, which surprisingly closed at 7:00. We saw Benjamin Button, which was long, and good, but sad.

The Ballet dancer looked like this girl who used to play viola in CYO.

Todah: We cleaned the house for two hours, and then had the brownlees + jim cohen over. We had dinner/lunch, which was delicious. Devon got me a custom-made thermos with pictures of the two of us all around it for christmukkah! I got her 'the mysterious production of eggs' by andrew bird, which I understand she has been wanting for a little while. It was lovely. We talked about her grandmother a lot, and then about food, and then about who is dating who at our school (I rarely know, but she fills me in).

At work, some lady slipped a $20 bill into my pocket as a tip. I told her she didn't have to, but she insisted. It wasn't until an hour later that I checked it, and realized that it was twenty dollars, which is ridic-you-luss for a store that isn't even supposed to accept tips.
Co-op was great! No one was there, so we just mopped and talked about the other employees.

I might clean my room tonight. We'll see how distracted I get...

( Carbon Copy )

Today was my second day of musical fun.
I had rehersal in the morning downtown, and I went down early and shopped a little.
It wsa cold out, but there was this nice greasy sunlight, so it was okay. I got some things for myself:




I got gifts for devon and gabi as well, so now I don't feel completely selfish.

The concert was okay. It was probably too long. We had pretty boring peices this time around, and I was not impressed about that to tell the truth.
Fun fact: The one opera singer looked like leslie hall. She had the hairdo, the sweater, the pudge and everything, only she sang opera.

I had dinner with mom, dad, and rebeccah. I think it would have been nicer with just dad, like we originally planned it. Mom wanted me to disinclude him. What!? Um... I've had dinner out with dad about half as often as with mom, because he isn't too lazy to actually cook dinner most of the time. W/e. She didn't fight me on it, which I'm glad about.

AP night tomorrow. I will be addressing the asian invasion.