Psych Exam at 8:30 this morning.

Here's the problem: I think I'm sick.
I had major issues sleeping all night (not good for the day of an early morning exam), and right now, my throat feels like an angry, swollen phlegm factory. I checked my forehead, and I don't think I have a fever or anything, but my joint feel find of cold and strange like they always do before I get seriously sick.

I would take some of the random cold pills dad and mom got me, but I don't want to end up getting extra-dopey for the exam.

Best case scenario: I write the exam, do fantastically (because I know this shit inside and out), go to the university market, buy a case of lozenges, go back to my room, take some kind of random placebo, take a nap for a few hours, and wake up totally cured!

Worse case scenario: This persists past Saturday and cuts into my precious, hard-earned, break-time.

At least it's not the swine flu, right?

Happy Friday the 13th!

I wrote my psychology midterm today. I felt good about it afterwards, but then again, I've felt good about basically every non-econ test I've written this year, and the results have been consistantly mediocre. University's kind of a doozy like that. Other than that, I spent most of the day cleaning my room, and then lounging around like the lazy guy that I am. Genya came over and we watched Paprika! Everyone loves Paprika- it's such a trip.

There are several possibilities which could occur- or not occur- over the course of the weekend.

1: I could finally catch up on all of my Economics notes, type them up, gain a greater understanding of perfect competition and monopoly revenue curves, ace the online quizzes and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

2: Me Jean and Genya could rendevouz and eat...
a) Sushi
b) Cafeteria Food
c) Vegetarian Food
d) Whatever

3: I could go to the bookstore and use the rest of my flex points to buy christmas/hanukkah gifts for my family at the expense of my regular diet pop fixing.

4: I could actually do the readings for sociology, and type up today's notes (I may actually do this tonight)

5: I could meet up with my cousin at some point.

6: I could cook food at my aunt's house.

7: I could go the library and get a head-start on my term paper.

8: I could download music:
-Allison by Slowdive
-Crystal Castles
-The New Tegan and Sara Album
-I'd Rather Dance With You by Kings of Convenience
-I Say Fever by Ramona Falls
-The New Peaches Album
-Black Sea by Fennesz
-Whatever

9: I could sleep in, and try to remember my dreams.

10: I could vacuum my room.

11: I could shower on a daily basis, like a normal human being.

12: I could find my old to-do list, and then do it.

I am addicted to the internet, and there is black sludge building on my windowpane. I took my psych midterm today, and it was fine. I think I'll get at least a B+ on it... maybe higher- who knows.

The rest of my day, I sat around doing nothing. I am going to try to write out my Sociology notes before 6:00, but I have become mindblowingly lazy over the last couple of days, so even that might be a bit of a stretch. And how am I spending my precious, limited time? Reading food blogs and listening to all of the pitchfork artists (the xx, volcano choir, memory tapes, neon indian, yacht, etc) on youtube of course! Don't judge- I don't watch TV, so I've got to have at least ONE vice. Better that I'm a lazy conformist with bloodshot eyes than a serial rapist or a University of Western Ontario Security Guard

This is going to be a very relaxing weekend. Kathlena had a German word for the kind of comfortable coziness we all like to enjoy, but I forget what it was. I have a few goals for the weekend (fix up my two essays, complete some subject reading), but nothing too backbreakingly difficult. Tomorrow, my aunty is taking me to see a play in the evening. I think I might just have a lazy tea and reading day on Sunday if I can get all of my essay work finished by then.

And we're back!

As I've witnessed, I've become very very bipolar (not diagnostically, but I don't know another way to describe it) at University. Half of the time, I'm dour and depressed, the other half of the time I'm a perfect ray of human sunshine.

I had some coffee today, and now I'm really happy. This is self medication, and it's negative- that much I'm sure of. But that's not the point.

The point is that I've found myself a hobby: namely, becoming a guinea pig for psychological experimentation. I've already been a human subject for two studies, and I've got a third and fourth one coming up. For whatever reason, it's just very pleasant: being asked to complete all of these bizzare procedures, and then being thanked and valued for somehow helping someone discover something about the world.

I think I'm going to arrange a meeting with my psych Proff and see if there's any way I could get more involved with experimental psychology at UBC.

That can be me 'getting involved' for the time being.

Today is gorgeous outside.

I had breakfast, cleaned up my room, and then decided to go on a bicycle adventure. I just sort of puttered around and looked at all of the beautiful houses and tall shrubs around town. I eventually made my way to the beach, by way of Davie Street, where some big gay street festival was going on. I dug into my psych textbook and lolled around in the shade for about two hours.

And then I peed at a starbucks.




I am very very happy. When the sun shines in Vancouver, your forget about death and reading and papers and depressing things. Life just becomes good.

Electrosurgery isn't so bad. It's kind of painful, but oddly satisfying- it sort of harkens back to the days when my acne was so bad that I literally considered burning my face off just to get rid of it all- there's something very pleasing about hurting your facial blemishes.

Or maybe I'm just weird like that. It feels like vengeance though, I swear. Anyhow, any bit that got zapped is gonna look like shit for the next few days, but then my bumps will all disappear...

and I am stoked beyond belief for that. Come June, I am going to look amazing. Maybe I'll even get a new style of haircut or something.

The music theory exam was shorter and easier than anyone expected, but I still finished with only about two minutes to spare. I'm not very fast at music theory. I think I did pretty well, though. I guess I'll find out soon.

I didn't do very much for the rest of the day. I suggested bad poetry day to Ms. Parker (who loved the idea, and is of course, going to do it), and booked an appointment with guidance for next Thursday to send off all my UBC crap.

So that means I have to get whichever scholarships I'm working on in order by then too...

And I also have to finish my psych project by Thursday... so I'm going to try my best to get it all done Tonight. You can chekkit out if you're interested, but it's pretty dry stuff.


There was DRAMA at work today... oh man was there drama.

EDIT: Is it just me, or does QC's Dora's new haircut make her look hella like Emily Rozitis used to look?
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1311

I am in the middle of a psychology project

and you can check up on it right here: http://community.livejournal.com/jakedoespsych

Other than that, today was fucking cold. 6.5 hours was far too long to work out there.

And I have the exact same shift tomorrow. I am unimpressed.

My dad is in Toronto. Mom is taking care of us, and she lives too far away to do anything. Because of this, my activities for the last two days of winter break will be:
-Work
-Psych Homework
-Scholarship Apps
-Model UN Research
-Eating
-Sleeping

And that's about it. I swear my life used to be more interesting than that.

HAY!

Remember how I made that whole list of discs I was giving that one guy?
Well, he listened to them all, and replied:
I'm sorry for the delay- but I wanted to more or less listen to all the cds before getting back to you on it!
The Faint- wasn't too impressed, but I might be interested in listening to some of their older material.
All three Hybrid albums- definitely solid. I highly prefer electronica to techno, but this is exceptional.
Vitalic- Really great! I especially like Polkamatic and Poney Pt. 1.
Rossz Csillag- Probably will always be my favorite by V-snares, or one of my favourites in general. Pretty much every song is amazing.
Mezzanine- I don't think trip-hop is my kind of genre.
Miss Kitten- Also not really my thing, but I don't hate electroclash!
Primal Scream- Sorry, last negative response, but I couldn't get into it, except for the second song- I love the use of sitars!
Rest of Venetian Snares- Love them all. Except for Winnipeg. I just kind of see it as a joke. My brother and I raved to it earlier yesterday!
YosepH- Really cool. It's going on my iPod.
All the Radiohead- Again, not really necessary to lend to me, because they've already been some of my favourites for a year now!
Dresden Dolls- Took a bit of time to warm up to, but I was surprised I liked it! One of the songs in particular had really funny lyrics...
Squarepusher- Always a good time. I really want to get the album "Music is one rotted note".
Nine Inch Nails- I think Perfect Drug Versions is the weakest NIN release I've heard, but then again, nothing Reznor's ever done has been bad, so again, it's going on my iPod.
Boards of Canada- I love Geogaddi and Music Has the Rights... the EP wasn't necessary because I already have Headphase on my computer which has Dayvan Cowboy on it.
Amon Tobin- Rules. My favourite is still Foley Room though. I want to get his Bricolage and Permutation albums (both were scored a 10 and a 9.8 by Pitchfork. Shut up. I know I'm a sheep.)
Fennesz- Also really cool! I didn't think ambiance of this type was possible...
Wagon Christ- More or less okay, but still good enough to rip onto my computer.
Plaid- I love it. Squance is probably the best song from it.
Aphex Twin- 4 is one of my favourite songs. The rest of the album is great too. Do you have any more Aphex Twin?

That's about it- the only one I haven't listened to yet is Plastikman. I will tonight once everything's quiet and eerie, like you said.


I saw doctor derm today, and he was NOT impressed (I didn't think my acne was that bad... whatever). He asked me if I wanted to go back on accutaine, and I told him that I did not. And then he asked me about tetracycline and shit and I told him no way ho-zay. So we're doing mix and match topical creams, and we'll see how that goes.

But if it fails, I'll totally start up accutaine over the winter break. Who cares about the dry horribleness and mood swings. Perfect skin for university would be worth it, I think.

I'm done studying for psych. I hope the test is easy.

We are watching 'bend it like beckham' in psychology right now (for our unit on gender issues)

and we stopped it right after the part where Kiera Knightly was like "You Bitch."
I thought it was daaaaaaaaamn funny.

I had sectionals in band. I already know how to play the bass, thank you. I have started coming up with ideas for a new song where I pluck notes out on the bass and sing along. It will obviously take me forever to get it together, but it could be very cool if I can figure it out.

We had a test in social studies today. I hope I did ridiculously well so I don't have to do many rewrites on it. Even 5 rewrites for the last social studies test was mentally taxing. I wrote seven pages, and I didn't even get all of my marks back... I don't think I could handle doing that again.

I sat in on the French 30 Challenge Meeting today. I did not understand any of it, except the part where she explained that their french mark could be used to replace their math marks, because they all got very excited for that. Then Gabi bought me french fries! <3 her and Mr. McCrae conversed about macbook technologies, and I just didn't say anything because I didn't want to make myself look like an idiot (which I am when it comes to computer technologies)

In Journalism, I have finished my massive interview article with the scarlett drama kids. It takes up an entire page in the newspaper. I am very impressed. I have, once again, salvaged the fine arts section of the paper. Tomorrow, me and carly are probably going to go upstairs and take pictures of kids working on art so we can just fill up the second page with those, instead of writing extra articles like we did last time.

Me and Ashley has a deep conversation about meaningless casual sex and abortion. It was pretty intense.

Um...

My cat bit my dad yesterday. Hard. She drew blood. He will definately have scars.

Jazz is fun. Me and Aaron Maddick are such smart-asses. Whatever. We're the rythmn section, so we should be, at the very least, awesome.

After eating dinner, I biked to tramps and after about a half hour of browsing through names of people I had never heard of, I found a farmiliar name.



which I then bought on a complete whim. It reminds me of cross between metric, woodpigeon and country music. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I'm still listening now, and I like it.

I got full marks on my last psych test. That's a nice thought.
Other than that, nothing happened today. The student ambassador person from UBC emailed me today, and now I've got yet another link to a bunch of scholarships I can/should apply for. Ugh... too much work. I'll start tomorrow... or something like that.

Me and devon spent most of today eating. We figured we may as well go down to kensington and eat lunch out, and I suggested we try eating ethiopian food. Little did I know that apparently, ethiopian food takes FOREVAH to make. I think we spent an hour and a half in the restaurant, and by the time we were done, we had just over an hour before we were schedualed to eat sushi dinner with devon's folks!

So we ran to TD, ducked into the lacoste, gawked at the prices, grabbed a flyer, and then high-tailed it back down to where the sushi place was.

AND AT DINNER, DON & BRYAN GOT ME AND DEVON SIGNED COPIES OF SHINE, BY JONI MITCHELL!

And singing cards. It was very emotional. I have two signed Joni Albums now. I should start a collection...

Instead of doing homework or anything healthy afterschool, me and sarah went to chinook centre,

and I bought a new pair of pants

and a cool shirt which has a big pouch bit in the chest- it's very unusual.

and


and


and then instead of doing homework when I came home, I ate chips
and updated my livejournal
and went on nex

so basically, here I am doing psychology homework, which I truly, truly hate. After midnight. Fuck me.

Look, I'm on livejournal instead of studying for psychology

I think there is food caught between my two front teeth. I'm not sure really.

The beginning of the last year of my public schooling hasn't exactly been horrible, but it hasn't been completely inspiring either. The first day was just a mess of going to from place to place and taking attendance.

Psychology: It won't be horrible, but to be honest, art would have been a lot more fun. There are some kids I know in the class, but no one I really hang with outside of school, and no one super hot either (always a factor). The teacher's alright- less energetic than Ms. M, but less crazy as well. We'll see if this works out in my favor...

I kinda blacked out a bit while reading about right brain left brain experiments where there cut the corpus callosam and show people pictures and whatnot. I just started feeling all dizzy, and I had to kinda tuck my head in and get some blood to it. I hope people didn't look at me all weird... I wasn't really paying attention. Then again, if I'm a freak who has fainting spells, I doubt anyone in my psych class will care...

I reread it and band and it didn't bother me, so maybe I was just low in blood sugar or something.

Social Studies: There are 14 kids in this class. It is a gong-show. I love it. Patterson is his usual self, and I am pretty excited for my first ever assignment. I need to pick three controversial cases (ie: Robert Latimer, Sue Rodriguez, Etc.), write the extreme individualist point of view, the extreme interventionist point of view, and then my own point of view. I'm getting stoked. This is an assignment you would have liked, graham.

everyone talks at once. I get to sit by devon.

Lunch: I visited Mrs. Hendry (who is a hippy girl, and is only subbing this year), couldn't find gabi, so I just walked around the school like a loser.

Band: I did my psychology homework. Caitlin is the only other double bass player left, and I don't really know her, because she was in grade 11 last year.

Again, week one is a major gongshow. My dad bought 8 SUTP coupon books, and I looked like a loser carrying them out of the music office.

Journalism: They talked about how it's all gonna go throughout the year. I'm scared. There are major afterschool commitments. On the other hand, Sarah is there, and so that's fun. I told Ms. Parker I could edit stuff if I had to. Everyone else there knows more than me except the 10s...

I am going to do articles on
-The fall drama show
-Cool places to hang out in calgary
-Hanmade Clothing (me and sarah are doing this together- we are going to interview Hannah Grant over the weekend)

I think sarah is going to write an article protesting animal testing.

I'm tired, but I think I'm going to get started on at least something to prove that I'm not entirely lazy. (I am)

Last couple of days have been alright.

Wednesday: I had to wake up at 9:30 so I could bike down and meet mom for lunch at the earls downtown. I got there way early, but didn't know it, because I didn't bring anything which would tell me the time. I am obviously still stone-aged. I went and saw my psychologist afterwords, which was fun. It's dawned on me that I don't really see him for any particular reason anymore. I'm not really feeling stressed, mentally strained, or alienated. I think I just see him because it makes a good day trip. There we go again- me wasting my parents' money.

Thursday: This was registration day. All of the kids look exactly the same, except a few who dyed their hair. This is my course selection:

Semester 1:
period 1- Music 30 Mr. Brown
period 2- Journalism (I just got it switched from a spare to that today)
period 3- Psychology 30 Mr. Berry
period 4- Social Studies 30AP Mr. Patterson (This course is going to break me)

Semester 2:
period 1- Biology 30 Ms. Gallant
period 2- Drama 30 Mr. Jack
period 3- Spare
period 4- English 30AP Ms. Parker

I have to phone Devon to see if she has any courses other than band and social with me. Gabi has no courses with me... =(

After registration, Gabi and I went down to Kensington and checked out the new AA there. She ended up spending about $250 in new clothes, while I didn't get anything new (I already went back to school shopping with Sarah on Monday). I am actually shopped out right now. I don't think I could try on more clothes even if I wanted to.

We got Nellie's (we always do this. Nellie's is good!), and then Gelato, and then I got my hair cut again...

( It's not that different )

I went to the house in the evening. I was kind of unsure about going, but I ended up having a great time. Ashley Sevick was there for the first time ever, so we chatted, and she introduced me to her artist friend linda, who had a lot of art supplies there, and generously allowed us to draw things in her sketchbook. I ended up changing spots with amber and going second last, which was actually great. I love playing to an almost empty house. The last song was really pretty- Becca sang, Maggie (from A [Soh-Shul] Art played guitar, and dean morrison did background harmonizing... it was truly epic. By the way, A [Soh-Shul] Art are having their final concert ever at the house on Saturday starting at 8, and I can't go, but if you're reading this and you can go, you should, even if you've never heard of them- they're really good.

That's ashley on one of the really nice seats.

I watched Amelie with sarah that night. I think she liked it.

Today: I went and got my spare changed for Journalism. I had left my bike at the school yesterday, so I just walked over and it was right where I left it. My bike is breaking. The chain keeps slipping off when I go uphill, so it's like *crikknnk nknknk crrnk cenkrmrk* when I'm peddling uphill. It only does that in gears 6 and 7 though. Once school starts and I need my bike as much, I'll get it fixed. I went and visited Gabi at Costa, and met Monica. Monica is really nice. I ended up going to chapters and getting the Miranda July book. Gabi is reading it right now (for a change, she is borrowing a book from me instead of the opposite...).

Last thing I did before work was finish up the decorating and packaging of Kevin's Birthday things, and then I got dad to drive to the post office. We had a very nice German post-mistress instruct us on what we needed to do- basically you just fill out some addresses and have to buy the package. She checked, and it should arrive right on the 4th.

Kevin: In case it doesn't, your item number is 336 707 465 CA, and I think you can track it at the Canada Post website, or if there are major delays, you can call 1888 550-6333 toll free to find out what the hell is going on. I don't think there should be any mix-ups though.

Graham:Have you written that epic angry-make-Diamanda-Galas-Turn-Pale song yet?

Gabi: Have fun reading it. I didn't mention this, but practically everything in that book is sexual in at least one way... O_O

Lauren: Hope you had a safe trip back home! How's the mix sounding?

Emmjay: I'm really interested how fashion school (and life) in Toronto is gonna turn out... it sounds intriguing so far.

My cat shat her fur today and made a huge stink, so I no longer am letting her in my room/touching her.

I am listening to Gabber Music.

And it is making me happy, probably because it is complete sonic trash. You have to be in a certain mood to apreciate gabber.
http://www.radioblogclub.com/open/50228/thunderdome/3_Steps_Ahead_-_Thunderdome_7_Megamix
The first track is just a huge long super-fun gabber mix.

Is it bad if I actually can't remember anything about my real life past yersterday. I think we all have memories which simply terminate trivial things after a certain amount of time unless they contain something particularly traumatic.

I visited Gabi at her work on... wednesday I think. It was fantastic. We just chatted and stuff, and she had the circle rollers all color-coordinated, just like American Apparel... except at Costa, which is just cool. We got subway and purdy's ice cream bars (she got the vanilla one with sprinkles. I got the chocolate one with nuts. Again, Gabi likes white things and I like black things. It's messed up. At least my cd player isn't black anymore. It's blue. That was a long parenthesis)

Oh, and because I am a hopeless overspender who has drained about 300 dollars from his account in the past two weeks, I figured I may as well continue the trend, so I bought this!

And to tell the truth, I thought I was gonna love it a whole lot more than I am... I loved the first one. I was all like "Yah! Viera Assassins!"
And I thought this one would be cool because there are new races and classes and whatnot, but the whole shop system and map system is way different, and to tell the truth, the gameplay feels a LOT more restrictive now. The last one was mostly centered around customizing your clan and coming up with the kind of strategy and fighters you wanted to have, and they gave you enough room to take care of that. My complaints about this one:
-The bazaar item system: GOD! What a pain in the butt. I don't get to just have better weapon selection at points in the game, I have to get items and trade it in... it's stupid. Not to mention they give you practically nothing to start off with.
-Why is the map so damn big, and why are the days working all weirdly now

I dunno, maybe I'll get into it if I keep playing it, but so far, not terribly impressed.

Hokay. Thursday, I was supposed to meet with this psychologist lady at this downtown day care centre to discuss careers in psychology, so I took my bike on the train and then biked down to her centre, but she was super busy, so we reschedualed, and I just biked around downtown for a bit, which is always fun. Unfortunately, it leads me to record stores, where I actually can't stop myself from spending.

This is still in it's wrapping. It's a sad sight to see.

This on the other hand is all I have been listening to for the past half week. I think it's great electropop, and I can now apreciate it because I'll actually listen to male singers (as opposed to last year when I wouldn't have)

But yah. Then I biked home and got sunburnt. Again. Allison Graham showed up at the house for final farewells. Lot's of dyke drama went down. It was awesome, but apparently, it got violent so not cool. A girl named.. Tiff I think complemented my playing and asked if I listened to rufus wainwright. I told her that I didn't, but all of my friends do. It's sort of a lie, but I know that graham is really into rufus... so maybe it counts. She made me smile in any event, so now she get's to be in my livejournal. Oh what a place of honor...

And then today, Me and Blaire met for lunch at good earth, had expensive soup, and talked for about two hours. I love that gal- she is just so funny and fun to talk to. We went for a walk around the resevoire and chatted some more, but then I had to work.

And work sucked. I was the only service clerk closing with more than a months worth of experience. I hate new employees- the only people who know how to do shit are the ol' school kids who've been there at least since before new years. Scarlett at least was there for a few hours. I love her- she's such a space cadet. I think we've probably had some sort of sexual history on an alternate universe though, because whenever we talk, it's super awkward and I'm not really sure why...

There are mosquitos in my house... fuckers >=(

Continuation from yesterday

( And now the real play starts )

I had a psych test easy. Unlike all of the previous ones under the 'personal psychology' umbrella, I felt like I actually knew the answers to this one which is probably a good sign. Other than that, I'm going to try out for badminton team. Even if it proves to be a scheduling nightmare and logistical impossibility, tryouts are always fun because you get to play against lots of people. At the very least, I'll get ENDORPHINES out of the whole experience.

My kitty doesn't like being upside-down cat, which is unfortunate. Yah, I just posted a picture of my cat. I'm a livejournaler!