http://xkcd.com/603/#

This has got to be my favourite xkcd comic ever. Technology's going to be cool! The future will be okay! (The future has always been okay! Except for short moments in human history when the future was really fucked up, but even those wrongs were righted eventually!) Except for climate, of course. I'm so glad there are happy intelligent people out there. Or maybe this is just growing up - it's kind of scary, but I'm seeing everyone around me become productive members of society, and seeing everyone else become...adults. Perhaps one day I shall be a real person as well.

Done packing. Moving in six hours. Can't sleep.

My counsellor says that I should just accept all of this because all of this - the sleeplessness, the brainsickness, the discomfort - is only appropriate given my situation. I think for once I'd like to be inappropriate. Maybe I'll sleep on my awesome new mattress for the entire afternoon tomorrow while everyone else toils away at my belongings. That's unlikely, but it's a nice thought as hours of sleep possible before The Move dwindles down to five hours and fourty minutes. At least I truly understand what jamais vu means, having finally learnt  "ne...jamais" 
. Like je ne voudrais jamais dormir. Only...not.

Sleep time!

And so it's started, checking out places to rent, my father and I. Hopefully we'll find someplace that isn't so expensive that paying off a mortgage seems a more appealing option.

Recounting some of the better things that've happened in the last while, since I'm not taking this Having Fun business seriously enough:

-Went to the art gallery with Ethan to see the Vermeer and Rembrandt show. It was a total misnomer as there was all of one Vermeer piece (something that measured less than 60x60cm no less), but it was pretty awesome. Seriously, after the Dutch masters, I could see why no one wanted to still lifes anymore. They'd perfected it, so it was time to move onto other things. Like maybe the eventual paintings of iPods and aging computers and iPods and environmentally-friendly wines and such. Anyway.

Their camera obscura set-up was pretty cool as well, though if anyone wants to go to the art gallery I suggest going after the 30th, as they're opening up the 2nd and 3rd floors then.

-I flew a kite on Sunday!

-I watched Ironman! It took me a while to realize how much I liked it since I went through a bit of mental trauma right after, but I've got to say, Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Stark was one of my favourite renditions of a superhero ever. Good snappy dialogue, cute flight scenes, and it's nice seeing a superhero have a day job that requires ingenuity for once.

-I also watched Slumdog Millionare! Lack of reality/believability be damned, it was an adorable movie. I think sometimes we in the West have a nasty habit of appropriating other cultures so we could express our most ridiculous fantasies (seriously, would that kind of story fly if it was set up in the slums of Chicago or something? also re: primitivism fallacies) - but man, the soundtrack. And the dancing. And Jamal! It was all kinds of awesome.

-I finally have a new cell phone! It's the Sony W580i, which is oddly not as great as the last Sony Ericsson I had (w660 or something like) because it lacks an autofocus camera and LED light, but it does have  a nifty pedometer. (Which, incidentally, measures how far I walk, not the concentration of 4chan users in any given area.)

I don't exactly like UBC per se, but there are things I enjoy about it. Today, I've enjoyed:

1. Pigeons walking around in the SUB. Seriously, bird-watching while it's raining! I love it!
2. Ogling our fine, fine swim team while they warmed up. Swimming for free was also highly enjoyable. Showering with naked old women...not as much. I know I'll be there one day, but it won't be for another 30, 40 years! (I hope.)
3. The beautiful, empty libraries during the summer time. The re-arrangeable desks. There's something evocative about desks that are free for re-arranging; I once spent a good thirty minutes making various odd geometric formations of desks in Buch D when I was supposed to be studying for finals. Maybe it was an hour. Whatever it was, it was fun.
4. The nice drivers on the C22. Seriously, nice folk.
5. The awesome scenery.
6. Being able to walk home from campus proper.

Wait, I don't actually enjoy walking home. The scenery around Wesbrook Mall's a bit lacking, and when it gets dark I don't exactly feel like going through other routes, or having to climb fences hidden in forests. But it'll all be over soon! I'll move out in a month and a bit, and it shall be graaand! Or just...another expensive, cramped box in the most expensive part of town, but I ain't complainin'.

Aaalright. And it's almost time for bed so I can get up in time to study for my French exam tomorrow. Learning to conjugate 'etre' for the...5th time since I was 10? Awesome stuff!

-I'm switching my major (yet again) to Art History. Hopefully for the last time as this brings me to a total of about 140 credits for graduation.

-My dentist tells me that my teeth have been wearing out a bit because I grind/clench them in my sleep. The good news is that most of this is reversible with care and Sensodyne, and it's nice that my teeth don't feel tender when I eat chocolate anymore. The bad news is that I've got to limit my sweets intake to before and after meals. ?!! If I could just eat proper meals all the time I wouldn't need sweets.

-My art history grade is in at 65%. I guess they marked my incomplete term paper and gave me the mark - which is...nice of them (considering that the essay was worth 40% of my grade). This is the lowest grade I've received in any arts course, so it's a bit of a shock, and makes me feel like all sorts of fail. I mean, sure, I've been dealing with a lot, but most of it was in my mind and I should've been able to finish this essay as I've never had issues finishing essays before.

I should probably talk to an academic advisor of some sort before making any hasty decisions about switching my major, because at this point I'm only running on a perhaps unwarranted belief in myself. I think I've only been preparing my whole life for a fine arts degree of some sort all my life - all those artists I memorized for fun, all those art history books that I've been reading, all the art theory I read for the lulz, but...I don't know. 65% isn't a great sign.

-My father's returning from China on May 5th, instead of May 23rd as he originally planned. I guess he changed his plane ticket to an earlier date like I asked, buying an entirely new ticket, just because I hinted at some issues with my mother. I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing anymore. Maybe I'm just crazy. Wait, no, this is the woman who woke me up to ask me what kind of vitamins she should be taking, after then asking me if I'd like to go to a party with her and play with her, like she always does, then going on to ask me for advice regarding her marriage and career. I'm not the crazy one here. This is the woman who's never taken me to a single medical check-up in my life, forgotten to get my dental work done for a good four years, amongst other things. Well, here's to hoping all goes well when father returns. *fingers crossed*

It's been 4 weeks since all of this started. Funny, how long 28 days can be.

And I've another 7 days to go until Thursday again. I really hope this is the end.


My eyes are dry. My contacts aren't going to fit well tonight.

So here it is, the last day of school. As I'm sitting in Barber beginning the drafts of a paper that should've been finished today, people are out and about drinking and partying, celebrating the end of a term filled with academic stress and learning or partying and cramming, depending on which you'd prefer. I'm a bit jealous - I kind of wish I were out partying and drinking, even though I don't drink anymore. It'd be nice to be out dancing with friends, at least.

In some ways, it's fitting that today marks the end of a sort of a learning for myself as well - learning about my mother, my family, and myself. At least for a while; art history calls.

For a while in the past few days, I've been feeling the heady rush of falling in love with myself, but I think that's stopped now. It's enough to know that I've got an interesting life story that might help me into art school one day, but it's even better knowing that everyone has a story like mine. It's...amazing how much I've learnt in the last two, three, four weeks, and I couldn't have done it without all the help I've received - help from friends, help from my counsellor, help from the receptionist who gave someone else's counselling appointment to me so my counsellor could help me. People just...have me amazed.

As I finished the last of my lunch today, a crow approached me. For a moment I was flattered by the idea that the crow enjoyed my singing, but then I realized that all it wanted was my lunch, so I left my lunch. Lo and behold, a feast for crows - potatoes and chickpea chili. I'm not even sure if crows can digest potatoes and chickpeas, but it must be better than their standard diet of Dorito chips and french fries from what I've seen. There's still a lot to learn for me; I mean, I'm not even the crazy crow lady of campus yet, though that would be all kinds of wonderful if I could domesticate the crows around the SUB. Not the least so I could invoke the crows and look like a crazy anime opening sequence.

I wish I could quit this journal; I wish I could talk to everyone who I keep tabs on with this journal the way I'd like, but I realize now (only after 7 sessions of counselling, eh?) that people might want to keep tabs on me this way as well. It's...well, not the most ideal, but neither is a lot of life, and a lot of things are new to me, so here we go! 

I can't fill you all in on the recent developments in my life, but I at the moment I'm "working hard" on an art history paper on German Expressionism and its relation to modernity - how the start of all those ugly primitivist paintings had an actual place in art as a reaction against the overly idealized academic art of the late 19th century. I mean, sure, the primitivists lead to their own sort of dogma in the end, which cumulated with Those Ugly Art Buildings That Shall Not Be Named And Torn Down Too Soon, but they tried to find something purer and more ideal. As an art historian I've got no place to say this, but regardless of the political justifications for it, their art was pretty damned ugly. I'm kind of sure they failed on the grounds of having ugly art, though I've got nothing to back that up aside from personal opinion. My highly valid personal opinion, I might add. I've got all of one course of art history under my belt! Moving on...

In art lessons I'm just finishing up a really exciting sketch of a...I don't even know. It's probably the second sphere/cylinder/cone group that I've done - I might fail at conic sections, but at the end of all this I'd probably know how to draw them backward, forward and inside out. The size is .9xmx.7m or something ridiculous like that, and I'm already on my second or third 4B pencil. At some point I've got to find a job that doesn't have a payscale of 1hr = 2 pencils, because that way leads to Starving Artist Land faster than a slippery slope argument leads to reductio ad hitlerum, and we all know how bad that is. Or should, anyway.

Finally, I've been doing some of my ballet exercises again - it's nice to feel sore all over again. I've no idea how I'm going to pick up dance after all these years, but I'm going to try somehow. I'm not sure how my life will look like in two months, or the next school year - I'm not entirely sure where I'll be living or what I'll be studying - maybe nothing will change, and maybe I'd have moved out and changed my major to art history, but for now I'm just enjoying the fact that I'll be sleeping well tonight. So here is closure. And here I am, moving on.

Oh no. I've caught The Emo.

Hey, central banks, remember when interest rates were cut super-low? Before the subprime mortgage crisis? And all the banks like, became desperate for revenue because no one was investing because the interest rates were so low and no one was getting back their money's worth?

Remember banks getting desperate enough to lend to the subprime group because they were the only like, high-yield (and thus high-risk) group?

Remember that?

I'm sure it doesn't really mean anything, but I'm kind of worried.

Note to self: don't expect to bake and frost two cakes with different kinds of filling and fiddle with roasting squash and peppers in less than 4 hours next time.

Just...don't.

I'm going to Cancun until the 28th! Wish you all sunshine and mojitos until I get back. <3

I wasted my sleep by getting up to do my prelab, then I realized that I had until next week to do the lab.

ARGH.

...yay! 

Food time now.

I've been cleaning my room again. I've thrown out a large garbage bag of paper recycling and still can't tell anything constructive that I've done! Yay! My head is aching, my joints are sore, and my muscles cramped from the mental fatigue of figuring out what to do with the paper records of the last 8 years of my life! Yay!

I am shedding.
It is painful.

But I will make it through.

Instructions:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (Go to the original post for Wikipedia links if you don't know what something is.)
4) Italicize ones you haven’t eaten but want to try.
5) Leave the ones you haven’t tried, but are indifferent about.



54.5/100, a large part due to being Authentically Chinese™ and partly due to living in Vancouver, otherwise I'd never had half the stuff on there like Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and hare and chitterlings. Eggs Benedict will be mine once I find some cured ham/Canadian bacon.

I picked up a copy of Just Desserts: The Unauthorized Biography of Martha Stewart at whim in the abandoned books bookshelf in the foyer of my apartment complex today, and discovered that my deepest fear is turning into Martha Stewart. Or just turning out to be a horrifying monster and finding it all very justifiable. I'm sure she's not as horrible as the book makes her out to be, but it's all quite...frightening, when a person can be so blind to their own faults.

Sleepytime!

Alright, after that note (yaay I've had two hours of sleep since then!), see you all July 4th. (Or sometime thereafter.)

Last I checked, LJ was blocked in China - perhaps it won't be this year, but otherwise I'm not dead, just firewalled.

Teacups and saucers are infinitely superior to coffee mugs. Everyone should drink their coffee out of teacups and saucers from now on. If the stupefying logic doesn't speak for itself, let me present to you a few good reasons:

1. The teacup looks prettier. You can't argue with this one. Alternatively, if you're some sort of ignorant philistine pig type, you may be swayed by reason:

2. You can balance cookies on the saucer. Not only cookies, but chocolate bar wrappers, crackers, chocolate foils, half-eaten apple cores, or any other such refuse that results from your late-night essay writing. Think of the possibilities! Slices of cold cuts, cheeses and crackers can now accompany you from your kitchen to the comforts of your computer, all balanced on the same plate that carries your drink, so you can have one hand free to hold that book you were supposed to read last week while you carry your provisions on the other. And when you finish, you can carry all your junk with you back on one plate. Plus, it constrains your serving sizes, so you don't even have to worry about gaining weight! Unless you're just carrying over saucerfuls of chocolate, but no-one carries saucerfuls of chocolate around - that's just silly. (Unless you're me. But you're not, so it's all right! :'D)

3. The teacup carries with it a long and proud tradition of snobbery and imperialism, things you need in ample doses when dealing with English essays. You must match those literary critics snob for snob, yea, and you must oppress those words and make them work hard. For today you write, and tomorrow you fail if you fail to write well. Plus, teacups are light enough for one to curl out their pinky, so when someone rudely interrupts one's essay-writing time, one could look severely over their teacup and - I know this sounds slightly obscene, but it is justified - point one's pinky at said intruder.

4. College students really need a better image. None of this hippie bonfire-burning unhygienic lazy slob stereotype! We are college students, and proud, and we will take that extra thirteen seconds necessary to grab that saucer and put that teacup in its place.

5. God I need sleep so badly someone please take away the rest of the 1500 words I need by 9am and give me a blanket just a blanket and some quiet and peace and no more school my blood's entirely replaced by coffee now and my sanity went 'on vacation' and never came back and I'm listening to Arashi on loop and I haven't had an uninterrupted period of unconsciousness exceeding six hours for the past week and I'm starting to think that I should just drop out and join the Marines or run away to run some runway model running camp - O, God, no more school please. Someone help me.

So I was thinking...it'd be good to take my morning coffee in a teacup in class, complete with saucer and all. It'd be all sorts of sustainable, plus stylish. Trumps travel mugs any day, at any rate - why aren't there travel teacups with saucers? I detect an untapped into segment of the market here. Hey, guys running pet insurance ads on my facebook? Give me a teacup and saucer deal, and I'll give you my money. Any day. For real. Alright, back to work.

I was going to pull this meme out earlier, but cloen  beat me to it. Ah well.

January: My head is ringing; I have a fever. I completely messed up 2006 and I want to go back and redo it from scratch.
...I am weak.
February: A quote I stole from Red Hen Publications' Deconstructing Hermione Granger: "Sometimes, as the wise man said: the price of getting what you want is that of having something that you once wanted." Obvious, but I sometimes act as if things are otherwise.

March: So I was thinking about what I would, or could write in my letter to get into ENDS (Environmental Design = Pre-Architecture).

April: I need to get around to reading a few books, and so I have this list of re-reads (i.e., books that I haven't touched for five years or more):

May: George R. R. Martin is a master storyteller, and quite possibly the best I've ever read. He's good—good. But I still prefer the soft satire and optimism of Pratchett to Martin.

June: They blocked LJ in China. D: I did not know this in advance, but am faring alright with a paper diary and digital camera. I got my hair cut, and it's...still long. :D

July:...Came home exhausted... Felt cleaner and lighter than I had in ages.

August: A work in progress.

September: Uh-oh. (Haha, how apt.)

October: (It was too good to be true.) *sigh* The opportunity cost of an engineering degree just went up. Instead of 5 years, I'd be in school for 6 years...

November: (Bubble, bubble, please don't burst.) Life is treating me very well lately.

December: News Flash: Divorces are bad for the environment.

Interesting year. Sort of summed it up really, really well. There goes my attempts to sum it up better.

Life is treating me very well lately. And as such, I want to write all about it. I want to write about the amazing time I had at Calgary, I want to write about that Aussie girl I fell in love with (platonically speaking), I want to write about the interesting Cajun/Creole foods I had, I want to write about the banquet at the zoo, I want to write about how in love with life I feel right now.

But for some reason, one of the things that I had wanted to write about has become something I don't want to write about. Because I'm afraid that the moment I write about it, it'll all...burst. So suffice to say, everything's just lovely right now, and I feel amazing. (Despite all the all-nighters and cramming and so on.) Everything feels so good, I'm afraid to even look deeper and find that nothing was there at all...so I'm not going to look too deeply into it.

Mm, ice cream floats.

It's kind of odd, but very nice, how well-adjusted I feel lately.

And I've come to terms with my own volunteering activities; I feel like volunteering has become a part of my life now. Thank you, BC government for opening my eyes. Volunteering feels good, because it feels like I'm actually doing something constructive, however small this is. I feel like a model citizen of some sort. Environmentally friendly! Still supports the meat industry! Likes to volunteer! Is liked by small children! Paints in her spare time! Is studious and fairly intelligent! So well-adjusted she's like...boring.

That's what I feel like, I guess. I feel boring. I feel good, but I feel boring. Is it so boring that the world's so amazing, though? This morning, I couldn't help but to smile as I walked from math to the bus stop, because I felt so happy about the peace of the morning, and that I finished math, and that I have such an amazing math professor who assigns such interesting math questions (god I sound deranged), and that I have such amazing friends.

...good grief, am I still drunk? But, yes. Life is good. I'm on excellent terms with my mother. And everyone. I feel just as close/distant as I wish to be with everyone, and to some degree I'm deathly afraid that things will change, but I feel amazing. I can't imagine what next year will be like; I hope that I become even hipper and happier (is that even possible?), and that I'd like myself even more next year.

Bubble, please don't burst.