mcollinknight

My mom and little sister came to visit me this weekend :) They arrived Thursday night along with Nic's mom and little sister, and after doing a house tour and meeting the roommates, I went back with them to the hotel and sat in the restaurant with my mom for several hours drinking wine (!) and talking about life. The following morning I went with them for breakfast pastries and we went to Chapters (I, like, live there now) before sitting in the Chateau Laurier (a v v fancy hotel) and catching sight of a Stephen Harper lookalike. We would have thought it was actually him were it not for the fact that he was walking alone, which Stephen Harper does not and would not be allowed to do. But still!

We tried to walk around the mall, but our list of things to do was a bit limited because Nic's mom has a broken foot - I had to leave for a meeting and my politics class (during which Burdz and I finished an entire crossword puzzle! So proud of ourselves...), but went to see an IMAX with them afterwards. The IMAX wasn't that good :( I miss the old IMAXes, the ones about coral reefs and rainforests and the Nile, where you get hardcore motion sickness and helicopters going through valleys and stuff. Those were epic.

We brought Nic, Catya, and Marley with us to dinner and then the Roommates and I went off to see Musician Man's show (a classmate of ours has a band - very good band - and he'd asked us to come and we were perfectly thrilled to), which was all the way out in bumfuck nowhere, but we made it! It was in a CHURCH which had been converted for the night into a SKATE PARK. Yeah, you heard that right. It soon became evident why he had asked us to come.

CATYA (via text): Is this going to be a high school party?
HE: I dunno but it's gonna be siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!

(We quoted him on that for the duration of the night, ps. No-one says that and gets away without a little bit of teasing.) It was mostly high-school students - actually, mostly grade 9 boys in hipster shirts (lol), but it was pretty cool, and their band is really good! They were the second set, so we all rushed up to stand under the stage (...pulpit?) and pretended to be bowing, lol. It was a lot of fun, and he obviously appreciated having us there (since we were, like, the whole crowd), and they were AMAZING! <3 I went for crepes this morning with the family before they had to leave. I love seeing them!

P.S. JON STEWART YOU WERE ALREADY MY FAVOURITE PERSON BUT NOW I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE. I don't think anyone's allowed to say you can't act anymore, lol. XDDD

P.P.S. I have listened to this song like 18 million times. Each time it gets more hilarious - especially because I have one that has Ryan Seacrest's radio show on either end and so I have to listen to him say 'bro' every time. Also I seem to be on some kind of Kelly Clarkson kick, which is odd as I don't normally like her style of music but I have honestly done nothing but listen and dance to it for like two weeks now.

First Things First: I HAVE DROPPED RESEARCH METHODS BECAUSE IT IS NO USE TO ME AND I WILL SOON BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR.

Aaaaaand I celebrated by spelling "celebratory" wrong in my fbook status. *FACEPALM* Wow, what a great way to start off, huh? Clearly I am destined for *~*greatness*~*

I finally had my Appointment of Doom with my faculty (and really I shall miss them, their office is in the nicest building on campus) and the lady was the most confusing person on the history of the planet, but I think I know what's going on, and I just have to fill in a form and then wait for the Administrative Powers that Be to process it and ~voila! I will be an English major. Once that happens, I can go to my new faculty and declare a minor, and in the meantime I can pick out my courses for next semester and start trying to register for them. Even though I wasn't entirely sure this weekend that it was the right thing to do, life = nothing 100% (IF YOU SPOT THIS FIC QUOTE THEN YOU WIN EVERYTHING FOREVER including ai podfic, apparently) so I just went ahead and did it, and I really just feel like a big weight came off my shoulders. *g*

I got a few midterms and assignments back, and they weren't great :/ I really haven't been putting in enough effort this semester. And, uh, I like my scholarship. So it's time to stop staring into space, methinks. I also picked up a pamphlet from the yoga place down the street and am planning on getting the arse into gear (pun very much intended) that way as well.

Marks aside, I've had a few pretty good classes recently in Contested Places (<33) because we started Territory and Territoriality, and have spent like four classes straight on Israel and Palestine, which I never felt I had a good bead on before but it's so simultaneously fascinating and sadness-inducing (studying history always does to me what horror movies do: all I can think is that yelling "DON'T GO DOWNSTAIRS, YOU FOOL! DON'T YOU *KNOW* THAT'S LIKE THE WORST POSSIBLE THING YOU CAN DO, YOU'RE JUST MESSING EVERYTHING UP! WHAT ARE YOU *DOING*!?!?" isn't really helpful).

"Virtue is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, and it is a mean because it aims at the intermediate condition in feelings and actions. And that is why it is hard work to be excellent." -Aristotle

THINGS I LEARNED FROM HALLOWEEK:
-There is indeed such a thing as too much makeup.
-That I enjoy being in-character, even if that 'character' is just a doll: I skip down stairs, hold my purse like a little girl, and do doll blinks, and don't even realize I'm going it.
-Narcissism makes for some pretty awesome photos.
-It doesn't matter what you do to your hair - the wind will fuck it up.
-The vast majority of people will never say anything out loud about weird clothes; they will, however, stare at you and silently judge you.
-The vast majority of people love it when weird things happen.
-It is entirely possible to completely forget that you're dressed like Robin Hood and wonder why people are staring at you.
-Don't take yourself seriously. You're dressed like a 6-year old doll, self. Take a chill pill.
-If I don't have a piece of clothing I need, my roommates will.
-Always wear shorts under your costume. ALWAYS.
-How to be comfortable being different/standing out/looking ridiculous in public. So what if I look like a freak show? I ~OWN~ my ridiculousness, and I refuse to feel stupid about being awesome.

Not that Halloweek is particularly profound, or really anything other than a random piece of fun for two people, but I - believe it or not - am a relatively self-conscious person. And on a normal day, I don't stand out. Nobody's liable to watch me while I ride a bus, or look at me funny in class: I've got the privilege of Looking Normal And Harmless, and I've never had that happen before. And even though most of the costumes involved us looking at least somewhat attractive, as soon as you put a coat or a backpack on and add wind and scratch your face, you're going to look silly. And people are going to think you look silly. And people are very unsubtle creatures, so you will undoubtedly know that you look silly, or that other people think you look silly. But if I'm walking to school dressed as a bowling pin and I'm grinning from ear to ear because I love costumes and being dressed up as fun, and someone walking the other way gives me a once-over (in my rain-spattered tights, red band around my head, and backpack buckles done up over my coat) and a '~Seriously? Ugh' look? And I'm supposed to feel like I'm being judged, or that I look stupid, or I'm anything less than fabulous?

Too bad. I don't care. Because I'm having the time of my life, and you're judging me for looking like the fool I love being. Enjoy your life! Because mine's pretty awesome :D

I really love today's costume because it is both low-maintenance (NO MAKEUP! I CAN TOUCH MY FAAAAACE. Oh the relief) and awesome: we all sat in formation in class as bowling pins (in all-white with red bands around our foreheads). Alas there could be no flash mobs because our bowling ball had forgotten to dress up and also it was raining like a mofo (WHY MUST IT RAIN HERE? WHY CAN'T IT RAIN IN KENYA, WHERE THEY ACTUALLY *NEED* IT?). International Relations became moderately interesting when some idiot in the back was all 'there's no reason Canada should help or have to help anyone else in the world. Like, they're in their own conflict on another continent' and then like 19 hands in the class went up and my dear Burdz was able to put my anger into words that were more elegant than my own, which was somewhere around the lines of 'Colonialism, bitch. Learn about it. Also, it's called being a human being.'

Because it is his wont, the prof only let the discussion go on for a few minutes before he dragged us back to mercantilist views of IPE (because obviously that's so much more engaging). There's been a colossal amount of stupid - and self-centred idiocy - in both of my politics classes over the past week (like, 'Canada gives so much money to foreign aid, why should we improve or give more?' BECAUSE POVERTY STILL EXISTS, DAMMIT. WHAT DO YOU THINK FOREIGN AID IS *FOR*??!). Yesterday's discussion group for Political Thought turned into a 'why poor people are poor' discussion, and even though there was thankfully none of the 'they're not trying hard enough' wank going around, there was still enough disconnection and privilege and 'well some people choose not to finish high school, you know' irrelevancy happening that it just gets hard to respond to at some point. Like, sometimes you can't even discuss things rationally (as that MTQ would say "it's like trying to do math with someone to whom 2 means 6 and 3 means paprika").

The article under discussion was another of the 'Uses of a Liberal Education' series, this time by Earl Shorris, and can be found here if you want to read it.
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I'm still confused about the switching-majors thing... my appointment is next Monday, and I'm still bouncing back and forth between whether I want to or not, aghl. I just want to get this out of my life, and I know if I don't I'm still going to want it, but I'm still thinking my current degree is better for what I want to do. Let the second round of introspection commence!
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And because I'm basically spending the next 48 hours dancing my face off and dressing up and engaging in the kinds of activities that will one day make it difficult for me to run for elected office, may I wish you all a Happy Halloween. Here, have a classic Even Stepvhen on the subject. "THERE GOES STINKY STEVE!" "I WANNA BE A VAMPIRE!" "GO ON, RING MY DOORBELL!" :DD

The one above is for Canucks, here's the American link here:

As a side-note before I begin: I EFFING LOVE THIS SONG AND IT IS MY NEW ANTHEM. THE END.
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Halloweek continues to be AWESOME. Yesterday was Robin Hood (complete with construction-paper hats and feathers, as well has two sets of bows-and-arrows: one from Canadian Tire, one fashioned from random stuff in our backyard) and I had to take the bus alone again and I'm sure I was laughed at - but as soon as I came into Politics and plopped down beside Catya, all was made well. The prof (a man I despise for his horrible teaching skillz, even though he seems like a moderately pleasant person) looked up and said we had nice hats and spent the next ten minutes trying to scare us about H1N1, and the following 20 minutes actually being awesome and sarcastic and tearing people apart for being all 'well Canada gives lots of money to foreign aid' and 'I'm a student, I shouldn't have to help' and it was awesome because he just started swearing and being intelligent. But then he got boring again so I stopped paying attention.

We staged the photoshoot on the front lawn, which had trees and fences and piles of yellow leaves - and good thing we did, because when we walked by today they were blowing all the leaves away (#45 Things I Hate About Our Society: electric leaf-blowers. What is the point, you morons?) and had an amazing time.

Today's theme was Lost Little Girls, so Catya was Little Red Riding Hood, and I was Alice in Wonderland (because as you know I have the dress) - it was odd in that it wasn't immediately obvious I was in a costume, so I just got weird looks for wearing a ribbon on my head and 18 trucks of makeup. But we found a path with lampposts by the gorgeous old theatre building (all the buildings on our campus are ugly, so it was really the only option) and had another epic photoshoot with Catya's basket of cookies and rain everywhere :D

Funny story about the cookies. If you needed more proof that my house is ghetto (other than the whole in the kitchen floor and the fact that two weeks ago we had to punch 20 holes in the basement/Catya's bedroom to connect the heating system to the furnace)? I was baking cookies, whatever, and apparently the insulation melted off the coil and it started sparking and making mini-fireworks and it's all okay (I tried to bake the cookies in the toaster oven but that was weird) and we got it replaced, but yeah. This house. Is crazy.

Pictures from the first two days up on fbook, those of you who have me on there. If anyone wants to add me on fbook I can provide you with the deets - I just won't ever be putting IRL pictures of myself out on the Wide Internets.
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In seriousness now, I need opinions: tomorrow's theme is Super-Human Strength, and Catya is going to be a superhero and I will be a Maasai Warrior (because I own the shukahs and the bow). However, I was only going to change into it for the photoshoot (on a fire escape!) and not wear it to my discussion group because I'm a bit unsure about it. Because the maasai aren't storybook characters or archetypes or traditional figures open to public whoring-out (not in that sense, but I can't quite say what I mean here) like the other ones: they're people, and it's a complex culture, and it's a culture that's not mine, and I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was making it into a joke or a stereotype or just exploiting the "pretty"ness of the traditional wear, because that's not why I'm dressing up as a Maasai Warrior. Now obviously I know a bit more about the Maasai than random people in my discussion group, and I can talk about (and obviously learn way more about still, because I am clearly not actually Maasai and three weeks of knowledge is nothing compared to a lifetime) the culture and the history, but I would hate to give the wrong impression, or make a misstep, or hurt or offend anyone. So. Opinions? Should I wear the shukah and strut proud into my discussion group in-costume (since that's the whole point of this week), or should I keep it just for our own house and photoshoot, or should I not do it at all? Because I don't really know enough about issues like this yet to be able to put my finger exactly on what would be wrong with it, and I feel like on some levels it wouldn't be wrong at all, but obviously my perception of the costume is going to be different than other peoples'. (Let me know, and don't spare my feelings. If you think it's totally cool, then cool.)

For those unsure about what I mean by Maasai? I present Felix, my Maasai Warrior Husband. (Also, Felix now has FACEBOOK, WHAT. LOL FELIX.)
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TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT SHOULD I GO Y/N?

First day of Halloweek: officially a success of epicsauce. Last night Catya and I tried out our makeup and costumes, and woke up at unholy hours this morning to get it just right. I wore this dress over a red tutu and a white frilly tanktop, with white ballet tights, white ballet flats with bows, and with my hair in pigtails with white ribbon. I also did EPIC doll makeup and honestly the bus ride to school was SO MUCH FUN, I was just reading my newspaper, nothing to see here, and I would look up and people would be full-out STARING and GRINNING THEIR FACES OFF.

In Contested Places, Burdz and I sit close to the front, and today - the one day! - I put my hand up to answer the prof's question and did so while he proceeded to try to act normally but couldn't stop looking. In Political Thought, I started a tally of how many times the prof looked at me awkwardly - he started avoiding looking at me (Burdz said I was being self-involved, but I COULD TELL), and in the last five minutes I was just looking at him, head tilted, and he looked at me and I slowly tipped my head to the other side and didn't change expression and he did the most EPIC double-take of life. Muahahahaha! Arabic is such a small class that people actually asked questions, and the prof didn't notice until I answered a question and then said "What is going on here? I love your eyes!!" and Hot Boy In Front gave me like the biggest grin ever.

It was so much fun - more like a social experiment than anything (I learned that NOBODY will EVER ask you, I suppose because we're so schooled to be "oh whatever, they're doing their own thing, I won't judge"), and not only did dressing up like an awesome doll make me feel super cute the whole day, it was also so much fun to see how thrilled people get from people dressing up randomly and walking around campus. Catya and I had an epic photoshoot on the columned front of the main building (it was SO FREEZING) and EVERYONE was looking, including a little girl who like ran away when I waved at her. lol.

Tomorrow is Robin Hood and Little John for politics class, photoshoot on the front lawn with the trees, and then GROCERY SHOPPING. It's like a week of flash mobs (even though Friday is the one we've actually planned flash mobs for). I love flash mobs: just people being awesome and happy FOR NO REASON WHATSOVER OTHER THAN BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME. For those unfamiliar with the concept: Wiki tells me it is a large group of people assembling suddenly in a public place, performing an unusual action for a brief time, then dispersing. Some examples:
-designed to attract attention/publicity stunt: flash mob dance of 'Single Ladies' in London. These girls have mad skillz, yo.
-designed to make people awkward: a random one in the middle of a cafteria. Everyone is SO AWKWARD.
-designed to be cool: everyone freezes in Grand Central. (I've done this one before in Toronto, people come RIGHT UP TO YOU.)

And MY FAVOURITE (SO MANY HAPPY TEARS EVERY TIME I WATCH IT), the epic Sound of Music one in the Netherlands.

And long overdue, another KenyaTale: not a comprehensive one this time, but a straight journal entry from May 31st written on the plane from Nairobi to Amsterdam. Apologies for the purple and also the interspersed Bruce lyrics (I get maudlin on recycled airplane air :P). All the KenyaTales are here.

( tell me friend can you ask for anything more? )

Yesterday I accomplished nothing due to me waking up at 11:00 - I have never slept in that late, but after a week of early mornings and late nights (the late nights being no-one's fault but my own, of course. Or perhaps I could blame internet porn. LOL) I really needed the recharge. I went downtown with A-Dubs to meet Mariya - it was a mini-reunion of the Kenya Crew! We had lunch at La Marche/Richtree (all different states from different parts of the world, too much good food to handle) which in my case was a brunch of Pizza Margherita and Pecan Pie :DDD

And then we went and saw Craig! He was giving a talk as part of the Ottawa Writers' Festival because he and his brother have just finished a book called 'The World Needs Your Kid' about how to raise compassionate and aware children. I love seeing him speak, because he's just SO INTO whatever he's talking about, and it was a speech about what he does, of course, and about what youth can do, but also about his own childhood and how the things parents and teachers and mentors do help shape children who are not - as the Dalai Lama says - "dispassionate bystanders." After he was done there were some very good questions from both the awesome CBC personality/moderator and people in the crowd, including like an 8-year old who STUMPED Craig by asking him if there was one thing more he had not yet acheived that he wanted to in helping children.

When it was over we all lined up to sign things, and Craig is so awesome: he was thrilled to find out the three of us had been to Kenya together (and that we recognized Nbala from his slideshow!!) and asked us what we were doing and we talked about the MOBilizers trying to get started in Ottawa and We Day and it was just so epic because he's amazing and talked to us for quite a while before we snapped a beautiful picture and dashed off. I wanted to give him a haircut, though.

Mariyya had a car, and after we discovered she and I both wanted to see 'Where the Wild Things Are' she drove us out to the movie theatre. We hung around in Chapters (you guys. The computers in Chapters have a search function where you can LOOK UP BOOKS THAT WERE ON THE DAILY SHOW) reading books and looking at travelogues and biographies and going to the kid's section to read 'Where the Wild Things Are,' and then we went to Montana's for dinner before going to the movie theatre.

I loved the movie <3333 It was gorgeous and sad and adorable all at once. The main actor was BEAUTIFUL, he was so good! Oh my heaaaart <3 It was an amazing movie: not necessarily FOR kids (it's actually pretty scary for kids, I thought), but about kids and about childhood and about imagination and wanting and oh it was beautiful. The kind of movie that you can write essays about, with the themes and the overlapping between real life, and just the perfect little portal into that world we all once knew. There are funny bits, and scary bits (actually, it probably scared ME more than it scared any of the kids that were there), and sweet bits and sad bits, but it's just a beautiful, beautiful movie.

It was so wonderful to get back together with some people who went to Kenya and talk about things: about Felix, about the other people on our trip, about what more we want to do (Mariyya and A-Dubs are probably going to India with Free the Children this summer) and a lot of the things I don't talk about on a regular basis. I talk about world issues and poverty and Africa a lot, but not about specific experiences or what I remember, and it was great to be with people who knew what it was like. And also they're awesome people - Mariyya and I basically have a giganto list of places we need to travel to together now, haha. And as Mariyya said, "Every time I see Craig I just get reaffirmed once more in what I want to do and what my priorities should be and I feel like I'm on the right track."

WORD. Also I spent wayyyyy too much money yesterday :/ Time to read 'Nichomachean Ethics,' fun times. Also, I saw TWO KIDS yesterday just around Ottawa that were at my school outreach day. Weeeeeird. Pictures from Kenya? YES:

Today was the third day this week that I was awake before five o'clock in the morning: this time for a full day of school outreach presentations - my first! I had to get to campus, go to the office, get the buckets, and start a bus journey that lasted over an hour and a half just to get to the school. It was a hassle logistically only because I was alone with two very large rubbermaid bins that were RIDICULOUSLY HEAVY. My computer was in them, as well as sand and rocks. I carried bins of ROCKS through a bus maze during rush hour. I feel I should get a medal. Though because of that (plus waiting 45 minutes for a bus on the way back in the cold and having my arms start legitimately seizing by 5pm) I'm achey all over, I still had a really good day.

I'd forgotten - or maybe discovered - why the hell I signed up to be head of School Outreach in the first place. Even though four back-to-back presentations was very intensive and I had to make a lunchtime dash to find somewhere to buy more cotton balls for the afternoon groups, it was fun! It was fun and it was challenging and I felt good at it! Grade 9 kids aren't usually subtle about letting you know when they're not into something, and I had the rowdies and the noise and the requisite few with one iPod earbud in, but they were so engaged! And man, Grade 9s are smart! I don't give them enough credit, I think: my style of presenting is very much a "can anyone think of why...?" "who can tell me what...?" "what do you think...?" style because if I'm talking just to fill the silence I start blathering and dithering and "uhhh, uhmmmm" because I fail at speaking English coherently. And they really liked that, because if they didn't know the answers they would try to make connections, and they were really eager to prove the things that they knew.

The teacher usually introduced me as "an engineer" and then I had to start off MY schpiel with a bright "I'm actually NOT an engineer {apology squick face} but I hang out with a bunch of them so if you have any questions about engineering I'll probably know the answer!!" and perhaps because of that got quite a few suspicious questions about why was I in the club then, why was it made of engineers if that part didn't matter, and what WAS I studying, anyway? Thus they found out that I spoke Arabic and I was made to demostrate this to the class :| But the one girl who asked was all "omg you don't even have an accent that's awesome!!" so I was :DD

One thing about doing these presentations in a city like Ottawa is that there's a fair portion of the population that was born outside of Canada or whose family was or who has strong ties outside of Canada. Thus when breaking them into country groups I would always get specific "requests":
KIDLET #1: Oh can we be Somalia?
APOLOGETIC COLLINE #1: I'm sorry, I don't have Somalia :(
KIDLET #2: I want to be Korea!
APOLOGETIC COLLINE #2: There is no Korea either :(
KIDLETS #3, #4 & #5: Hey, what about a middle eastern country?
APOLOGETIC COLLINE #3, #4 & #5: I have none :(
KIDLETS: ... why the fuck not.
APOLOGETIC COLLINE: I DON'T KNOOOOOOOW BUT I LOVE YOU ALL.
KIDLET #1: Ethiopia's close enough I guess but I don't want to take it because you're not holding any money so Ethiopia's probably poor.
COLLINE: THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF THE ACTIVITY.

Oh they were wonderful <3 And crazy, and would always try to flirt with me so they could get more materials and called me "Miss" and stole money from the World Bank while smiling like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths and they were all so ADHD and really receptive and I really got comfortable in it and worked in a lot of zing-shots about poverty and why they should care and that the system is effed-up. A few in particular seemed really impacted, and a couple are sending me their email addresses :DD One zing shot in particular?

COLLINE: Around 30 000 people die every single day from water-related diseases like cholera and diarrhoea -
KID: *snorts with laughter*
COLLINE: Yeah, I know it sounds funny because you're an immature 14-year old boy, but you know why it seems funny? Because you live in Canada, and getting diarrhoea in Canada isn't anyone's idea of fun, but it won't kill you like it kills these 30 000 people a day. It likely won't be the last thing you ever do. We sometimes think it's funny because it's out of our realm of experience: it's the same thing with sexist jokes, or teasing someone about their accent because their story is not our reality. To us diarrhoea a passing thing of a day, not the biggest killer of children under 5 years old. But for these 30 000 people, that is their reality: that something that is so trivial in Canada can kill them. Something so easy to fix can kill them, just because they're poor and they're not like you.

Yeah, they shut up after that. I may have been slightly less harsh than the above sounds, but that's what I said and you know when you catch peoples' eyes and they say "Oh. Oh, I - Oh. I get it now"? IT'S FUCKING ADDICTING. I kind of like teaching, I think. I can't wait to get better at this. (And I needed this, SORELY, because the logistics and planning and stress of it just gets so consuming and stressful that you need to remind yourself why you wanted to do it in the first place.)
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Sarah, one of the other EWB execs, went as our delegate to the conference our CEO was speaking at. There was a panel about bringing back officer training to campuses, and you know what she did? When they asked for questions, she stood up and told the head of the Canadian Army to look at his panel and around the room and that she challenged him to make women a priority and focus on how to get more women into positions of leadership, because if they want to engage the general public they have to challenge the fact that she was one of the only girls there.

Then she sat back down and the HEAD OF THE CANADIAN ARMY basically offered her his job. No word of a lie. George (our CEO) told Sarah afterwards that if it hadn't been almost over he would have stood up and offered her his seat on the panel. SHE'S MY SUPERHERO, Y'ALL <33333
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I also love Roommate Catya because she and I are doing HALLOWEEK. That's right. SO MANY COSTUMES, EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK. Tuesday we are being Robin Hood (her) and Little John (me; I was going to be Maid Marion but we decided that then EVERYONE will assume we are lesbinic together), Thursday she is being Little Red Riding Hood and I am being nothing because dressing up to sit around the house is lamesauce, Friday ALL OF US are being bowling pins (all in white, with red bands around our foreheads) except for Val who is the bowling ball and we are going to have EPIC FLASHMOBS of her running us down and us scattering out of Politics class and then reenact it all over campus. As for Actual Halloween, Catya and I are going as the Misfit Toys from that Rudolph claymation movie: I am the polka-dotted elephant, and she is King Moonchaser, the lion governor of the island who has epic hair and makeup (seriously, it's such an aamzing costume). We were going to make Nic be the abominable snowman with us but he has decided that Aladdin is cooler. Pffaah.

GUESS WHAT I'M DOING TOMORROW. OH NOTHING. JUST SEEING MY BOYFRIEND CRAIG KIELBURGER. <3333

ETA: sorry about the layout. It's having its time of the month (note: not a metaphor) and I'm trying to fix it, but it's either this or photobucket stuff all over the place. Just add ?style=mine to the end of the URL (if the URL already has a ?, put &style=mine instead) to view the entry in your own, less effed-up, style.



it's my 1000th entry shit yeah that's like one thousand entries or something, i don't know

You know what that means. Oh yeah.



OH YEAH.

PARTY POST! LET'S KNOCK THIS PLACE DOWN.

( This is the first administration that has called it out and drawn it out from implicit to explicit – it has consequences that I think changed less about the United States one could argue what India would do there vis-a – I gotta – India – you can figure out, figure out the rest of that sentence, how’s that? )

Last night I pulled my first-ever all-nighter in an attempt to write my theory paper for International Relations, which was a success in that I managed to remain relatively awake, got three hours' sleep and am sure there are no spelling mistakes. Other than that it's anyone's guess because I stayed up with Catya, whose essay was definitely much more in-line with what I think the prof wants than mine is. But I'm still not in any kind of state to speculate about whether mine was or was not good, lol.

I'm feeling pretty horrible for having dropped the ball on some EWB stuff - I had to confirm some presentations (five of them in one day at the same school this Thursday) before I held the volunteer training sessions, and I put off investigating car rentals until today (to be fair to myself, the only time I could have done it would have been before last Friday, but I still should have done it earlier) only to find out that EVEN WITH a copy of my parents' insurance and EVEN WITH the university's corporate account and insurance policy, I still have no possible way to rent a car because I'm under 21. Which not only puts me in the unfortunate position of having to cancel a rather large committment only two days before, but means that I will personally be unable to facilitate or even book any presentations outside the immediate downtown area or bus range for this year. We could eventually get a volunteer who has access to a car, but since this year all the booking seem to be large-scale, I feel that's an unfair thing to ask of someone to dedicate an entire day of their time and use their car when they're just getting involved. I feel pretty unprofessional about it - thankfully Mama Hen is being awesome about it and talking about 'identifying root causes' (ohhhhhh EWB). I can't even be happy about having my Thursday back yet okay so now they're renting a shuttle to drive me out there? IDEK. And I have to cancel my Friday appointment with the faculty to do presentations then, too. :( :( I WANTED THIS TO BE FUN, WTH.

I'd arrived at the conclusion that I wasn't going to apply for the Junior Fellowship (summer volunteer position with EWB in development sectors in Africa) - I'm going to be starting a new semester and changing programs so I have a lot of personal introspection already going on, EWB is already more than I can handle time-wise, the craziness it would bring to me and my belief that even if I were somehow miraculously to get it, I wouldn't do a very good job. But our current Junior Fellow (who I've been communicating regularly with, and am one of the only members of our chapter to do so) sent me the following email:

"Dude. Tell me you're applying for JF. 'Nuff said."

So. There goes that, I guess. (!) :/

I'm still reading The World Without Us - it's taking me a long time since I only get to read little snippets on the bus every once in a while (and, uh, during IR class) - and I'm currently reading about all the nuclear reactors, power plants, uranium, and all the other crazy toxic chemical stuff being held all over the world, and it was shocking and almost terrifying to hear about all the unnatural things we've created, the averse effects they've had on the environment already, and how we're using things we have no idea what to do with and how most of this stuff is going to be with us forever. FOREVER. GEOLOGICAL TIME.

( more thoughts on the book )

I am really enjoying my Political Philosophy AKA Socrates class, mainly because of the prof who is SO BIZARRE and yet SO AMAZING and I just cannot get a handle on who he is and it bothers me (TONGUE RING?!?). There have been a few moments in that class recently...

PROF: but Plato distinguished between real and unreal pleasures. He says that what we think of as pleasure is really just relief from pain: eating is a relief from the pain of hunger.
STUDENT #1: But what about sex? There's no real opposite to that, so it would discount his theory, right?
PROF: True. It's like tickling, you know, a kind of purely physical thing.
CLASS: That's not what you really mean.
STUDENT #2: But wouldn't sex just be the relief of the pain of being horny?
CLASS: ...
CLASS: *uproarious laughter*
PROF: That makes sense. You've got an itch, you gotta scratch it, I guess. I'd never thought about it that way.
JOE WILSON CLASS: You lie!
CLASS: ... and what do you mean, you guess?
PROF: So this is awesome. I'm going to move on.

MORE QUOTES FROM PROF OF GEEKY MYSTERY:
PROF: There was also Pythagorus, who we all know as our dear friend rom lousy high school math classes.
PROF: People who like shiny things like democracy.
PROF: *pauses* Do I smell a candle? Or am I having some kind of stroke?
PROF: You can tell this is older - these are dated fonts. (it's like, Garamond. lol)
PROF: Being a prisoner is rarely the best thing you can be in a society.
PROF: It's not like I spend any of my time outside, I don't know why I'm so excited.

BURZ: Do you think he uses ancient greek pick-up lines?
COLLINE: This ain't a material reflection, baby... it's a true form.
BURZ: You and I would make only gold-souled children.


Now, in Links I Have Stolen From everysecondtues :
-An amazing picspam of women farmers around the world, with a link to an op-ed by Hillary Clinton about global food security (OP has a note about the view of farming internationally as a predominantly male vocation, though the reality is the exact opposite).
-To mock, or not to mock? The problem with poking fun at mistranslations between English and asian languages.
-A boy's life: transgendered children. I posted this article last year, and while it is a bit long, my roommates and I were discussing it the other night so I thought I'd post it again, since it's still very interesting and thought-provoking.

Off to finish answering EWB emails, read new fic, and fill out applications! And then sleep. SLEEEEEEEEEP.

Poll #1472892 This is a tag about tagging
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

What should be the tag name for all entries about my household of awesome?

What book are you reading?

I baked a scone today (and thus got into a pronounciation debate; mostly because I apparently also pronounce basil and cumin oddly). My roommates are continually amazed at the number of things I make "from scratch." I started to say "how else am I supposed to make it? I don't think they make instant scones-" but then I realized that I live in North America, and thus any thoughts that begin "they don't make instant ___" are foolish and untrue.

This is why I like going to grocery stores whenever I visit the States. Spray cheese in a can! Baconnaise! Oh it is endlessly amusing what you/we eat. Val and I also examined our jam jars closely to see whose had the least chemicals (I win muahahaha!), and were amused that the jars basically said "this is not a significant source of, well... anything, really."

I used to say I couldn't cook, and I still like to joke about it, but I've been realizing that's not exactly true. Or it is, but not to the extent I've always believed. If I can make awesome spaghetti sauce from scratch, I don't think I can claim FAIL status anymore - as I once did, hoping that Craig Kielburger would really like carrot cake. I still don't really like it, especially in our small kitchen, where all preparation, cooking, and eating is done on the kitchen table amid plates and newspapers and computers and chaos (especially when baking from scratch, which requires like a kajillion incredients). However, I have had successes, including winning a prize for raspberry jam tarts on Pi Day (homggggg Pi Day) - which, admittedly, was won more for my dorkitude of putting the Pi symbol on each one, but still! I think it counts. And now thanks to jessica_june I have a failsafe cupcake (and icing!) recipe (though I have been informed by the roommates that it is necessary to put food colouring in the icing because it otherwise "looks like someone jizzed on a cupcake"). Admittedly my strengths are mostly limited to desserts and sauces, but it will come, I suppose.
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My roommate Nic is off to Montreal for a SOLAR PHYSICS CONFERENCE. We were like a bunch of proud mamas, all "have fun!!" and waving him off (poor fellow. It's his fault for living with five crazy feminists who revolutionize the way he views the world girls). Seriously though, solar physics? Buddy's a genius.

CATYA: When I came out of the shower I just stood for like ten minutes in front of Nic's room because he was listening to the most beautiful piano music. I was going to ask him what it was - I just had to know - but. Well. I was wearing a towel.
COLLINE: I know. I keep forgetting he's a boy.

NIC: This seems to be a constant theme in our house.
COLLINE: What does?
NIC: The smell of tacos.

WHY HAVE I NOT COME UP WITH A LEGIT TAG FOR THIS HOUSEHOLD YET? NEXT POST'S A POLL ON THE SUBJECT, I SWEAR.

And because I'm now addicted to Hugo Chavez "singing" and it makes me a nerdy sort of happy, I present to you the news, auto-tuned. As soon as Obama starts singing I just... lol forever. And Keef. It's dumb, but it made me laugh.

I have wasted a rather spectacular amount of time this week - Thursday was meant to be Figure Out My Life day, but apparently you have to make appointments far in advance to talk to the Faculty, so I'm going back next Friday; I had a meeting with the Faculty of Engineering for EWB, and spent the rest of the afternoon... well, I don't really remember. Friday I spent most of the day on campus even though there were no classes, giving presentations for EWB. After all my scrambling to get French presenters, only two people came to the French presentation, and only four to the English presentation. :( It's nobody's fault, but it's still kind of disappointing.

What was cool about the presentation was that it was in a legit classroom/auditorium in the Engineering building, which is all new and fancy and big. I was wearing clicky-boots, and using a GIANT-ASS SCREEN and a remote, and a prof gave me a microphone to wear, one of the ones you clip on. I didn't end up using it because I didn't need to (and it's sort of hard to have it hanging off a dress, lol), but it was really cool. I felt all *~grown-up~* and *~professorial~* and *~authoritative~* in such a big classrom where my boots made echoing noises and... well, it was a cool feeling XDD

Last night it was Coyote's birthday, so we all headed over to his house and then downtown. I was kind of 'eh' on the bar (other than them playing 'Single Ladies' and Catya dragging me to the bar and us ROCKING THE F*** OUT) until the live band came out, and then it was EPIC. The band was really great; since it was for a dance floor, they were playing songs everyone knew, but AWESOME songs (Semi-Charmed Life, MGMT, The Fratellis). Catya manoeuvred us to stand in front of this GIANT FAN so our hair was blowing everywhere and we knew ALL THE WORDS and Stefan was so excited to hear every single song. Oh it was epic.

Today I slept in, rushed to campus in order to get to GoENG Girl, but as soon as I got there, Polly said 'I hope you brought your homework.' It was DEAD, apparently the big rush of people was in the morning and they were all in workshops so we were just chilling out. I was kind of angry that they hadn't let me know and just told me not to bother coming in, especially as I don't exactly live close to campus. Not to be helped, and it was nice to see Polly, but it was kind of a waste of time. I wasted more time at the library not writing my essay, and then at the grocery store. It's 5:30 and I haven't even started the exercise for Research Methods that's due on Monday, or the Politics paper that's due on Tuesday. I've been lazy and apathetic towards assignments before, but these ones are just... they're USELESS ASSIGNMENTS. The essay is just 'take two theories from the textbook and explain them to me.' Basically it's an exercise in 'how well can you use a thesaurus to rewrite the textbook?' And the RM one is all about variables and constants, shit I learned about in GRADE FREAKING SEVEN. Any coincidence that the same prof is teaching both courses, and they both suck? I am so over this semester, and I don't like that feeling. At ALL :(

I was expressing my frustration at the textbook (the chapter on Constructivism, which I'm guessing is new, is FULL of typos and the author keeps using 'I' randomly and not backing himself up and it's annoying and unprofessional at the same time) with one of the new members of EWB, who did his first degree in English and PoliSci.

NEWB: Was it written by Collins? I bet it was. If you ever hear anyone complaining about a PoliSci text, Collins wrote it.

I need to get over my ugh-school mood ASAP or I'm going to end up losing my scholarship or losing resolve altogether - I guess I've gotten used to enjoying what I study, and being substantially busier this year than last is meaning that I haven't done a single reading in... I'd say over two weeks now :/ SELF, GET OVER YOURSELF. LOVE, SELF.
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I learned today from The World Without Us that on the DMZ between North and South Korea, 'large loudspeakers atop South Korea's positions have blasted regular insults, military anthems, and even strident themes like the William Tell Overture across the divide.'

WHAT?! LOL. That's amazing. Like two kids in the backseat of the car trying to piss each other off by humming loudly or putting their fingers slightly on the others' "side." LOL X A MILLION. Way to stay classy, S Korea. I like it.
---------------
I am ridiculously excited for Toy Story 3. Honestly, I hate sequels but those movies are so good and just <33333 I can't believe I was only 9 years old when the last one came out, especially since I can remember it so well.
I really want to see The Men Who Stare At Goats, lol. History geekiness+comedy+George Clooney? YES??!
Also, even though I never read Where The Wild Things Are, every review and preview and glimpse I've gotten of it is just making me need to see it more.

So I have come to the conclusion that I don't really know how to deal with stress. This seems odd to me, as this is not the first time I've been stressed, and I'm obviously still here and mostly sane, so I've obviously dealt with it (after a fashion, at least) before in a somewhat-satisfactory method. But I think I just suck at it, if the past 2-3 days are any indication (sobbing, making like 18 private LJ entries using my rage icons, and eating vast quantities of food are Not Very Helpful Coping Mechanisms, Ever). Like, not only am I just not the kind of person who knows what to do, but it doesn't seem to be something I'm learning particularly well, since I KEEP GETTING STRESSED and then I KEEP BOTTLING IT and then I KEEP BURSTING INTO TEARS ALL THE TIME AND ALARMING PEOPLE.

Well, okay. Slight exaggeration. Not all time. Just during the exec meeting, and then while walking across campus, and then again after a phone conversation.
CHRIS: I think you need to go do something not stressful right now.
COLLINE: Can I fall asleep on the office couch?
CHRIS: Yes.
COLLINE: *does not fall asleep, but decides to do inventory instead*

I am now at the point where I can critically examine my stress, and not just... well, stress about it. And blame it on me just generally being an emotional person, or not hating disappointing people, or having some kind of VORACIOUS APPETITE for signing up for EVERYTHING EVER, but when things blow up am I not particularly good at just dealing with the issue.

The issue of the past couple days has been 1/2 EWB/School Outreach, 1/2 Life Plans/University/Homework, and a little bit of everything happening at the same time. Today? I had two midterm exams. Neither of which I got to study for. Which has never happened to me before: if I haven't studied for a test, it's been because I decided to play Sims2 instead, not because I genuinely had no time in which to do it. I haven't done a class reading in over two weeks, and I'm a little unsure of what exactly catching-up strategies are. You think I'd have figured that out by now. Guess not.

Thankfully the S.O. stuff is seeming more manageable this evening (BARELY), or at least I have some sort of plan for the next two weeks. And my tear ducts seem to have stopped going off every time I open my School Outreach email inbox. I wish I could direct this into some kind of piano-playing, kick-boxing whirlwind of emotion-siphoning, but I have a feeling I'm not that kind of person, either. So at this point my strategy is 'Man Up, Work Harder, Cry Less In Front Of People.' Let's give that a whirl.
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Mission: deal with stress and get back to being 100% happy in a maximum three-day period, if only because I am *NOT* making my 1000th post a whine-fest, dammit!

Side note: Saturday I get to volunteer at GoENG Girl, an awesome conference/thing trying to promote Engineering (or even just math and science) to girls in Grades 7-11 at which one of my awesome presidents is speaking. Considering only like 10% of our university's ENG students are girls and that the faculty doesn't even sell ENG clothing in girl's sizes, I'm thinking it's an awesome event; it's hard to want to go into something like that or stay in something like that if it's an All Boys' Club (and ENG culture at Canadian universities is INSANE, it's very male-dominated). Even though I'm just Being There all day, I'm super psyched for it because it will be Smart Girls Being Awesome All The Time, basically. And Also Proving Larry Summers Wrong (because Larry Summers is a Super-Huge Dickface, and I don't care who knows it).

If you were wondering

what kind of day it was

it was this kind of day.









( ... )

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving <3

I'm trying to use today to prepare for next Wednesday's EWB meeting, when I have to train people how to lead School Outreach workshops (brief background: this year I am one of the VPs for my Engineers Without Borders chapter, and head of School Outreach. That means that I am in charge of advertising, booking, organising, and presenting a variety of workshops and presentations designed to get high school students engaged in international development and poverty issues [as well as engineering as a possible outlet to creating change]. We have 3 main presentations: Water for the World [about global water systems, issues around water conservation and access to water], Food for Thought [about the global food system, global hunger and food/resource inequality], and Energy Matters [about rural energy systems, different kinds of energy, and how electricity and energy relates to development]. My goal for this year is to establish a solid base of volunteers and presentors, which means attracting and recruiting them, training them, keeping them engaged and involved, and booking presentations for them. I'm trying to do this for our French and English sectors, which has gotten more difficult since my Director for the French presentations mysteriously disappeared). And I'm slowly freaking out about it.

Mostly because I already have presentations booked; not a problem, because most of those I can just present myself and it's not a big deal, but we have two coming up next Friday for all the Grade 12s that will be visiting the school, and one of those is in French AND I HAVE NO FRENCH PRESENTORS. No experienced ones whatsoever. Ahhhhhh. IT'S NEXT FRIDAY. And even if there are interested and competent people who come out to the training session next Wednesday, that's only two days before so there's no way they would be ready or comfortable and I'm not throwing anyone into that situation. I have a few email addresses, but it's still very alarming. NOT TO MENTION LAST NIGHT, when Hart told me to "not freak out" and then showed me an email from the faculty wanting us to do an all-day event for 150 students. NEXT WEEK.

Uhm, no. Thankfully Hart agreed with me that we didn't have the time or the resources (or the time to GET the resources), but now they're trying to book it for two weeks away and that's still too soon and I'm freaking out because I can't do that. I just -- I can't. I would need SO MANY volunteers that I just don't have... okay actually I'm looking at it again and if it's on a Thursday I'll just do the whole thing, I can probably get a few volunteers, it'll be okay, but... ahhhhhh. Crazy. I think I really underestimated the amount of time this would take. Not to mention that it's not like I'm old hat at these presentations EITHER. I can't effing do public speaking, what is this? How the **** am I supposed to inspire Grade 8s? What is this?

</freakout>

Never mind. I've got it covered. I can do this. Fight fight kill.


I'm also fairly sure now that I'm not going to apply for the JF. I'm going to do the application process, but I know that in the slim event I were actually chosen, I would not be ready. Since I just figured out that I'm going to have to stay at university for five years, that gives me a few more summers to try my hand. We had a big meeting/presentation on the overseas stuff last night and it was incredibly inspiring and invigorating and awesome. I stayed behind afterwards to talk with one of our new members, a very awesome fellow from Out West who did his undergrad in English/PoliSc, and is now getting a second degree in Civil Engineering. We had a great conversation about politicization/americanization of universities, riding bikes in the cities, people getting sued, and how bridges in Quebec always seem to be falling down. He also mentioned his fiancé (second 'e' not there for a reason, ahuhuhuhu), and idk what it is, but whenever people talk about 'my fiance' and get all happy and goofy about it like they just still like saying the word, it makes me 15 different kinds of happy and squishy for them.

By the end of it, though, I was literally hopping from foot to foot, I had to go to the washroom so bad. I know this is TMI, but I was - no hyperbole, no word of a lie - doing the dance that four-year-olds do and he didn't notice. Lol. I got home and had a dinner of cake (I have awesome roommates) at 10:45 pm (such is my life). I also found a lovely package on the kitchen table!

CATYA: So you got a package! I'm sorry, it's been in my mouth. I bit it. I was trying to carry a lot of things inside. Then I saw that it came all the way from Thailand and I really don't want to know what it's touched along the way. So I regret that.

It was indeed from Thailand, because Kaz is awesome. The jewellery! The earrings with little giraffes that I managed to break don't worry about it I'm just stupid, I'm going to find some glue! The green tea! The cat purse! All the postcards! And the gorgeous cabochon ring... there is a funny story about that. I was just so pleased to see it that I picked it up and shoved it on my middle finger to admire. And then I realized that it felt a little tight. And that it would probably be better on another finger. Alas, the ring decided it liked where it was and that it did not wish to come off. Ever. I spent fifteen minutes and nearly half the butter we had trying to get that thing off. I was sort of panicky at that point, thinking it was going to have to get cut off, but it did (eventually) come off, and now I have a very swollen finger. But now I know that the ring is going to go on a different finger.

CATYA: So I've decided that you and I are going to have hardcore workouts this year.
COLLINE: And why have you decided this?
CATYA: Because you're a tank.
COLLINE: Owie. My finger hurts.

It is 12:00. I have put on Real Person Pants (by which I mean a skirt) for the day, but am still in my pyjama shirt and the school outreach planning scared me so I think I shall take a break even though I have not officially started. Pff, semantics. And then back into the fray. *crosses fingers*

ETA: YOU GUYS. LOOK AT THIS JACKET. LOOK AT ALL THE PUNS IN THE DESCRIPTION. I must have it. Lol, my nerd is going overboard here, I love modcloth. (For those who do not understand, look up the song 'Holland, 1945' by Neutral Milk Hotel and then understand that Stephen Colbert has good and weird taste and that the song is about ANNE FRANK, and then twig out nerdily at how awesome modcloth is.) That is all.
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I know this is posting overload (well... not really) and I have an essay to edit and Arabic drills to do, but I've been trawling through the university's website and planning my sparkly *~ALTERNATE MAJOR CHOICE~*, and I have come to three options:

( Clothes don’t make the man, God does. Stop taking credit, my pants! )
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Today I had an EWB meeting with someone from National Office (our awesome chapter buddy); it was really fun actually. He's a great guy, and it felt like just chatting, but it was about EWB and overseas stuff and plans for School Outreach (and further plans for advocacy). It made me start thinking about seriously (as opposed to just Far Off In My Mind) applying for the Junior Fellowship (JF) position: months of intensive preparation and ID studies followed by 4 months in Malawi/Zambia/Ghana doing ID work in agriculture/water & sanitation/good governance/infrastructure followed by months of advocacy back in Canada. It's very unstructured, very intensive, and VERY challenging. I'm not entirely sure if I should attempt it this year: I'm almost certain I wouldn't get the position just because I'm only in second year and I feel confident that I don't have the knowledge base or the maturity (lollllllllllllz) to do it yet, and if I *did* happen to get it, all the self-discovery that would come with that plus all the 'agh life! agh future!' problems I'm having with school would probably not mix in an unstressful fashion. But I still really want to do it, this summer or a future one. I have also been examining my options for next summer:

1) A full-summer intensive program/internship. Ones I am considering applying for (but which I am fairly certain I wouldn't get - that's not me fishing for compliments, that's me being realistic): Internship at the Canadian Embassy in DC (!), Editing Internship for National Geographic, Free the Children Internship, EWB Junior Fellowship - Suggest me another one? Please? I wouldn't make any money, but I would get to travel and learn COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF SHIT.

2) Spent the first 5 weeks in an Arabic Immersion Scholarship in Tunisia with the university, and either come back and work or spend several weeks in J'Explore, a French Immersion Scholarship someplace random in Canada (paid for by the government, hellz yeah). I wouldn't make any money, but it would help augment the languages (which I reaaaaaaaaally need, especially in French, ESPECIALLY if I'm considering dropping it from my official studies) and it would be fun and I'd get to travel and make COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF NEW FRIENDS and take COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF PICTURES WITH SCENERY IN THEM.

3) Go home to Muskoka and spend the summer working and doing another Shakespeare play with Robin. I could theoretically do the Tunisia thing and THEN go home; I would either work at the Toy Store again (easy, I know it), or I could work in a restaurant (more hours, make more $$), or I could work for my MP and volunteer at Legal Aid Ontario (what I really want to do). It would be frankly *really* nice to go back home for another summer and be with my family and my home friends and my lakes and forests and puppy dogs and my car. I don't *need* any of that, but I sort of selfishly want it and there would be COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF IAMBS, TOYS, RIVERS, AND FAMILIARITY.

4) Stay in Ottawa and spend the summer working - I'm considering retail stuff like the bookstore (!) or one of the Scottish pubs (because it'd be fun, profitable, I would have really nice calves by the end of it, and I could abuse the brogue), as well as Real Person stuff like... well actually I don't really know. I could also volunteer at Legal Aid Ontario if I stayed in Ottawa, and I would also make money. It would be really nice to stay with the roommates when there will be COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF TIME IN WHICH TO HANG OUT AND WATCH MOVIES AND PLAY SOCCER AND GO HIKING AND SPEND ALL OUR MONEY.

Oh life why you gotta be so complicated so many choicessssss.

For some reason my iTunes thinks it can "shuffle" through an awful lot of Christmas songs today. IDK what's up with that. Oh and clearly I lied, as there are no KenyaTales. I still have to do that and my big Thanksgiving post (YAY Thanksgiving's this weekend! Turkey and apple dumplings and family and I get to drive through the provincial park with all its gorgeous fall leaves :DDDD).

self-serving MEME! What would you like to ask me? What would you like me to write about? I've got things I talk about and things I don't, and if you've ever wondered what my thoughts on toast were, say, or what I would name my hypothetical band or children, or my thoughts on nuclear proliferation (I'm sorry, I'm still a PIDSSA student, I can't pretend otherwise for too long). Last few times I did this it lead to a rather lengthly and awesome debate/talk about universal healthcare and me talking about West Virginia and Lal making me choose between Jon and Stephen, so I'm glad to proffer myself again (that and I really don't want to finish editing my essay). If you don't know what to get your 5-year old nephew for his birthday, ask away! (I have no thoughts on yaoi, just to hit that one out of the park before it is pitched.)

In another of life's weird acts of synchronicity, I spent the bus ride back home reading about giant beavers and paleolithic tigers, to discover two of the roommates (Marley and Nic) in the other room watching Jurassic Park. I was reading about mastodons and the like because a few days ago I bought 'The World Without Us,' by Alan Weisman (TDS interview with him here - alas, there's no comedy network version, but I thought I'd at least link the Amurrcans).

It's a fascinating book (and really well-written; or at least entertainingly-so) about what would happen if tomorrow, all humans just vanished, Rapture-style (or, uhm, Raptor-style. Whatever works). What would happen to the cities, the forests, the animals, all that C02 up in the atmosphere; and how long it would take, if ever, for our marks on the world to completely vanish.

It's also a really fascinating look at various cultures and historical happenings (for lack of a better word) over the years, especially of things I'd never heard of: the genocide of the Zápara Indians of South America, the Białowieża Puszcza (a piece of virtually untouched ancient forest in Europe, a last remaining scrap of what used to cover from Siberia to Ireland. Also really fun to try to pronounce), and the aforementioned giant creatures (sloths as big as cows). The section on all the creatures that have gone extinct (with the point of what species might come back, and what species we have put too far on the path to extinction already) was fascinating: picturing gigantic short-faced bears twice the size of grizzlies, a 10-ton mammoth, an animal 'looking like an armor-plated Volkswagon.' Just... COOL. Picturing my (distant, I'll grant you) ancestors facing those bears before crossing the Bering Strait or figuring out how to hunt lions twice the size of the ones we know today - that's pretty stunning.

I was also struck in particular by the section of the disintegration of cities and how comparatively little time it would take. Less than three days before the complete flooding of the New York subway system (even today, if you leave the pumps off for half an hour the water rises to a level where trains can't run) and the demolition of the city from underneath, the cracking and shifting and heaving of pavement. It's fascinating and harrowing and scary all at once; not least for the mental pictures it gives, but for for all our building and concrete and immovable objects, the marks we've made in cities for hundreds of years can give way so quickly. How close things like the subway systems are to constantly caving, how quickly people move every day to keep us that few hours away from collapse.

"...water would start cluicing away soil under the pavement. Before long, streets would start to crater. With no one unclogging sewers, some new watercourses form on the surface. Others appear suddenly as waterlogged subway ceilings collapse. Within 20 years, the water-soaked steel columns that support the street above the East Side's 4, 5, and 6 trains corrode and buckle. As Lexington Avenue caves in, it becomes a river. [... ] In the first few years with no heat, pipes burst all over town, the freeze-thaw cycle moves indoors, and things start to seriously deteriorate. Buildings groan as their innards expand and contract; joints between walls and rooflines separate. Where they do, rain leaks in, bolts rush, and facing pops off, exposing insulation. If the city hasn't burned yet, it will now. [...] Plugged sewers, deluged tunnels, and streets reverting to rivers, he says, will conspire to undermine subbasements and destablize their huge loads. In a future that portends stronger and more-frequent hurricans striking North America's Atlantic coast, ferocious winds will pummel tall, unsteady structures. Some will topple, knocking down others. Like a gap in the forest when a giant tree falls, new growth will rush in. Gradually, the asphalt jungle will give way to a real one."

What was also very interesting were his various hypotheses for global warming: even with humans gone and our massive carbon output stopping tomorrow (no cars, factories, breathing, or felling of trees ANYWHERE), what we have already put in motion will carry itself out. That's pretty fucking scary, considering that tomorrow millions of people will STILL be driving cars and pumping out waste and cutting down trees. By "carry itself out," though, I don't mean *~APOCALYPSE~* - he estimates it will take about 1000 years for the ocean and the earth to turn over and cycle out most of the excess carbon dioxide already trapped in the atmosphere, but that still won't reduce it to pre-Industrial levels. To get to pre-human levels, it would take about 100 000 years. That's CRAZY. Even crazier when you think about the fact that the Earth is not actually going to get that opportunity. Eek :/

And, of course, the usualy period of about 12 000 years between Ice Ages has already passed: normally, we'd be expecting another glacier over North America, oh, any day now. Which was also interesting to think about, considering humans haven't really made any plans for the earth's natural cycles of freezing and thawing and relocation of habitats. We just built our cities and assumed that the climate we had was here to stay; we're not really the type of hunters-and-gatherers who can pack up and move on and adjust with the way the Earth was built to work. A bit cool, but a bit not.

It's a very interesting mix between scientific non-fiction (like some extensively-reasearched massive National Geo article) and very gripping and personal writing. A section I found beautiful and striking: "Olduvai Gorge and the other fossil hominid sites, together comprising a screcent that runs south from Ethiopia and parallels the continent's eastern shore, have confirmed beyond much doubt that we are all Africans. The dust we breathe here, blown by zephyrs that leave a coating of gray tuff powder on Olduvai's sisals and acacias, contains calcified specks of the very DNA that we carry. From this place, humans radiated across continents and around a planet. Eventually, coming full circle, we returned, so estranged from our origins that we enslaved blood cousins who stayed behind to maintain our birthright."

Overall, it's so-far been a really fascinating look at the effect humans have had on the world: both in things like climate change that have so profoundly changed the swing of the way the atmosphere around us shifts, and yet how quickly all the things we build and accomplish can wash away, how the ultimate power here isn't ours, but the natural changes of elements: water in streets, animals and trees re-colonising what was taken, the shift of the forces at work on a massive planet too powerful for sidewalks and copper wiring.

And I'm only on page 74. Phew.
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I've also been watching Reel Bad Arabs, a documentary about the portrayals of Arabs and Middle Eastern culture in movies (particularly Hollywood). It's simultaneously disgusting and very interesting; most of the movies I haven't seen, but for the ones I have (like Aladdin, say), it's quite an eye-opener to the ways discrimination, stereotype, and outright fear and hatred can work its ways - unconsciously, and sometimes frighteningly consciously - into our art and perception of things and people.
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Oh, and I have decided that I am going to have 3 girl children: the oldest will be Enelerai, and the two youngest (twins) will be Emoryjoi and Motony. Thoughts? :D

Another KenyaTales post to come tonight or tomorrow.

ETA: STEPHEN HARPER PLAYED THE PIANO TO A BEATLES SONG AT THE YO-YO MA CONCERT.

.... WHAT. THE. FUCK.

$*_@&#$)_@#(*_ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY DID I NOT GO AND WHAT IS UP WITH THE WORLD. WHAT. WHAT. STEPHEN HARPER. PLAYING PIANO. WITH YO-YO MA. AND SINGING. A BEATLES SONG.

BRAIN CANNOT COMPUTE. story here. youtube here. whaaaaaaaaaaa.
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Today I had the first documented nap of my adult life. I napped as a child, of course, but I can't really remember ever taking a nap or legit going to sleep in the middle of the day before. If I lie down I tend to just get drowsy and spend the rest of the day even more tired. However: when I got home after spending the morning volunteering and delivering flowers for EWB's mums drive, and almost an hour on the bus getting back (it's been a while since I've had a busfail, I was overdue), I was ridiculously tired and I knew I wouldn't get any work done at all in that state. So I bundled into my bed in the sunlight, all my clothes still on, and had one of the most delicious early afternoons of my life. Happiness is a warm sunny bed with a breezy window and orange pillows <333 (If I'd had a kitty to snuggle with it would have been perfect)

Part of the reason I was so tired was last night: a looooong EWB executive meeting at a pub, and then home for a party. The meeting was great, and I honestly don't mind that it was so long, because it's such a good group and honestly? I learned more in the four hours sitting around a table and eating a burger than I have in a month of five classes. No word of a lie. We were meeting to assess September, but also to do some visioning - lots of people had amazing ideas, and it was such a great experience of building something, everyone putting things together and feeding off of Chris' energy and everyone's brilliance <33 There was also some great discussion around the 0.7% campaign and other ID stuff that I won't go into, but just... guh, I love EWB.

As we walked to the bus stop, Mama Hen asked Chris and I if EWB was important to us. That too was a really great conversation - though when she asked me, she stopped and said "Oh right, I forgot - that probably opens up a whole big book for you, doesn't it?" You betcha. But we talked anyway, and then I kept walking in the rain.

I think I either caught a chill waiting for the bus in the rain, or I ate too much at dinner (okay - I *definitely* ate too much at dinner), but when I got off the bus and walked the few blocks to the house, by the time I got inside my hands were shaking and wouldn't stop, and I felt sick and disoriented. The house was already full of people in their finery, and I deked into my room to get dressed and look semi-presentable. I nearly stabbed myself with the mascara brush because my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I didn't end up going out to the bar with them because Val told me it wasn't worth it if I got sick; the hour or so I spent at home with everyone - Nick, Coyote, the Roomies, Shah, various other friends - was great. In particular when a Journey song came on and we filmed Coyote singing along to its entirety, complete with at one point a lime green feather boa (until he fell into the door and hurt his head).

The mums drive was fun this morning, especially since the weather was so great. Most of the flowers had been ordered by real estate or financial agents for their clients, so nobody knew who the flowers were from or that they were coming and were so surprised. One little old lady kept saying she didn't want them, and we kept having to tell her they were free, and when she saw the agent's business card on it she got so happy and delighted. It was adorable :)

And then I wrote an entire essay on Socrates in the space of two hours (was the nap a factor? WHO KNOWS. OR CARES). BOOM-SHACKA-LACKA-BOOM.

( favourite Socrates quotes below )

To-Do List for Tomorrow:
-moar dishes
-edit the snot out of my essay
-do Arabic homework and edit Marley's Arabic assignment
-play piano
-sing along to 'The River' (because it's too late to do it now)
-bike ride?? (ask Val to bike with me)
-don't eat nachos for dinner
-go over to Mariya's and watch a week's worth of TDS/TCR and behave like this :DDDDDDDD

Last entry I mentioned an article by Mark Edmundson that I found really interesting and had a big impact on me - however, I posted the wrong one. The one below the cut is the correct one - I'm going to remove the previous one tomorrow, so if you want a copy of it, C&P it before then. Both essays can probably be found on your school library's database, though. There's plenty to agree or disagree with, but a fair portion of this rings true, at least for me.
( if you give yourself over completely to a subject you'll be rewarded with insight beyond what you individually command )
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Yesterday I lost and then somewhat regained my faith in humanity just a tiny bit. That sounds dramatic, but y'all have probably gathered that I'm prone to histronics. Yesterday was the first discussion group for my Intro to Political Thought (aka Socrates) class, in which we were discussing the above article. As I said, I found the essay had lots to talk about and a lot of valid points, and I came armed with notes about the nature of education, etc. And then I sat, as one person after another, all around the room, basically reaffirmed all the author had noted about the *~*~youth of today~*~*
"I'm just here to get a job" "Why do we have to study Socrates, anyway? What relevance does this have to the real world?" "I'm never going to use this in life" "Of course university's been commericialized, it's nothing but a job factory anyway" "I know there's some bad stuff in the world but we in North America have it pretty good. So what if I just want to get a good job and make lots of money? Does that make me a bad person?" "It's the media's fault" "I don't see why this guy thinks it's important to question everything" "Isn't it easier to just sit back and go with the flow and just get easy marks?" "I feel like undergrad is nothing anymore - if you want learning you have to go to grad school"

I just... I forgot about marks for a second and I couldn't say anything, I didn't want to put my hand up because I felt more than a litle bit of despair that these people are my classmates, my peers, my cohort, my generation. I wanted to respond: "you should be here to learn how to be the kind of person who doesn't just get a job, but claims it and runs with it" "our revolutions, our constitutions, our art was built on Socrates, was built on great thinkers" "the act of you coming to university was basically an admission that you know nothing but want to learn something; so try to learn, not to be a self-fulfilling prophecy of 'this gives me nothing.' Of course it can't, if you don't let it" "want more" "you know WHY humans are better off today than they used to be? Because we strove. Because we wanted more than just a good job. We didn't get here just to stop here" "take responsibility for your own actions and your own shortcomings" "but shouldn't it be something? Shouldn't it be more than nothing? Isn't that the point, to want more than we're getting and to challenge and question what you're given?"

And then it just devolved into a senseless yelling fest when one guy compared Socrates to Jesus and said 'I'm just a s***-raiser like Socrates; I can see why they killed him!' and I just sunk deeper into my chair while the girls beside me rolled their eyes. It made me a little bit angry, but a LOT bit sad. I know all people aren't like this, but I think sometimes I get so caught up in my EWB friends and my own group of people that I start to form an opinion of Young People based on them and them alone, and I forget that this whole other crowd exists.

I left the portable (yeah, my discussion group was held in a portable. I got the *~AUTHENTIC~* elementary school experience) and walked to the library only to realize that I'd forgotten my purse in the room. I booked it back down the campus, and found the room empty - no people, no purse. Now, I leave things places all the time; I'm a scatterbrained reverse-Kleptomaniac. But this was the first time something hadn't been there when I remembered to go back and get it. Thankfully I recognized a guy outside the portable who told me some girls had found it and were taking it to the lost and found. After my heart rate (my cell phone! my credit card! my bank card! my ID! my Chronicles of Narnia chapstick! [you know you want it]) came down a little bit I went and got it.

Life Updates
-We were going to see Yo-Yo Ma tomorrow (oh yeah, we're cool) but alas there are no student rush tickets. Oh well, more essay time. Tonight we are going Out On The Town and I have been loaned Val's purple Sexytimes Dress (as Catya calls it). This is in celebration of actually having a house of six people, ALL OF WHOM are single. Misery loves company? lol jokes

-I have finished Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World, which was amazing and I loved it. For any other Shakespeare dorks out there: READ THIS BOOK. Guh. I was expecting it to be very dry, but he has a very interesting style of writing and I learned a LOT from it (mainly that I've only read a handful of his actual plays, lol). YAY for geekery and beautiful books.

Linkage
-bookshop has a wonderful essay on the whole Roman Polanski business and its consequences and roots in our culture.
-'In My Language,' an electrifying short film created by a woman with autism who speaks through an automated voice (like the one I wrote about in 'The Thing'). As the summary goes: 'The first part is in my "native language," and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.'
-Worldometers: keep track of the world's population, how many computers were sold today, and how many days left until the end of oil (and watch how quickly the ticker for 'people with no safe access to drinking water' moves upwards).

Some Quotes (most of which I heard last night at 'The Last Lecture,' some of which I just love):
"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." -Stephen Hawking

"But we are born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses." -Robert Ardrey