The Peg

I'm in Winnipeg! I promise I'll write a proper blog soon, I need a reliable connection to do that though and I know if I try to write a proper post now, I'll end up missing the reboarding!

Downtown

I made it to the hostel! Everything seems nice so far, although my hands are sore from the cases. The guy on reception is also English, happy times!

Skype is not working. Apparently the server is down or something.

:D

Yesterday I managed to play 'duck' in a game of online Scrabble.

Today I managed the same without using a blank tile :D

R.I.P. Jake

So, my uPass turned up today and Martin is leaving. But today has mostly been overshadowed by the news that Jake Staines died last night.

For those of you who don't know, he was in the year above me at Chavvy Heath and was part of the music crew. He was an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist but was best at the piano. Although I didn't see him much after he left the school after his GCSEs, he was always very lovely and funny. The reports I have read on the accident names him but not the female passenger who was seriously injured when the car hit a tree in Brentwood, though I imagine that the passenger was his fiancee Holly Hayden who I also knew from the music crew.

Death is never pleasant but to die so young and at such a happy time of the year is extra sad. This is the second time since I left school that one of my peers has died in a car crash just before Christmas. My thoughts are very much with their families and close friends.

Signs of Chrimbo

I checked my post today and it was AMAZING. I had 3 envelopes! One I recognised straight off as being from my parents, one had their name on the back of the envelope and the other was a mystery. When I opened them up, I found 4 Christmas cards, each containing varying degrees of wordiness. I now feel kinda lame because my cards will almost certainly arrive late, my messages aren't nearly as interesting as some of the ones I received, and my cards are cheap and from Safeway. Yeah, Safeway still exists over here. Going from left to right in the picture, the cards are from Lauren, Ben, teh 'rents, Grandma, and Emily & Ross.

That's a cool bottle of coke, no?

Some things...

Facebook is back. Not because I want it back but because my email has decided to go horribly wrong. I've spent most of the day trying to access it, only to discover that I had no reply from the high commission. And now it won't let me back in again. So, Facebook is being used in lieu of my email account as at least it isn't broken. Yet. Twitter on the other hand will not be back, at least for a long time. Twitter was where most of the meh-ness was coming from anyway. Although I will miss talking to Suzanne and reading Stephen Fry's tweets.

I had my war exam tonight. I finished ridiculously early. So did a few people. I think it went ok. I got my journal back and it got a B. I'll probably get a B overall. I'm cool with that.

I am waiting for mother to appear on Skype. I hope she does soon.

This post contains a link to something nasty. Be ye warned!

So, last night was my leaving meal. I looked like Queen of the Skets, not because I'd dressed distastefully or had gone wacky with the fake tan, but because I was the only woman at the table. And I sat at the head of it. Due to exams/PVRA - RA stuff/me deleting my Facebook which deleted the event, there only ended up being five of us. And three of us were English. And two of us are on exchange from UEA. Ne'ermind. There was me (duh), Martin, Russell, Henry and Tom. It was fun. The general level of conversation was stuck very firmly in the gutter and this suited us all. We were trying to think of the most disgusting thing we could think of during dinner (I know, i r clazzy, no?) when Tom happened to mention munging. None of had heard of it and he refused to tell until he'd finished eating. But Henry whipped out his iPhone and told us. To those of you who do not want to know what it is, I commend your lack of curiosity. For those of you who want to know, I give you the wonder of Urban Dictionary.

Please do not blame me for any psychological scarring that occurs from reading that. I told you it was bad.

Once we'd finished dinner, we bought a bottle of rose and went back to my room for some drinks and some YouTube-ing. Many discussions were had. The 'Tom Sandwich' one being particularly memorable. I will not be repeating the contents of that on the basis that they were somewhat lewd.

Today I have been rocking out in the reserve section of the library before coming to find a 'study group' in the 5th lounge. I took the opportunity to pass the year abroad book around. People wrote nice things. Unfortunately, a lot of people decided to write on the same page as each other which makes it awkward when I put the pictures in. But I need to print those out first, which I'll get round to doing at some point before I leave.

In other news, the marks for Scan. Lit have been uploaded to my student page. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you the individual marks, only the overall mark. I got a B. It seems I ballsed up my final fairly badly. Ah well. It's a fair enough grade.

Social networking

I just deactivated my Twitter and my Facebook. Whilst these sites are meant to help people keep in touch, they have recently been a large contributing factor (I believe) to my general less than chipper feelings. I like you all very much and I'm glad that you're having fun and whatnot. However, seeing pictures and hearing about what I'm missing out on is not conducive to my stability at the moment.

I hope you can understand and respect my decision. You can still find out how I am by reading this or by emailing me, talking to me on Skype, sending me a text or writing me a letter (when I have a permanent address, that is.) None of you have been malicious or have set out to hurt me, this is just how I feel. Perhaps one day you'll find yourself in my situation and will understand why I have done this. Some of you will argue that I should reinstate my accounts as I will have greater access to my friends and family when I am feeling shitty. I argue that there's a tiny minority of people who take the time to see how I am on these sites and make sure I am ok. I suspect that these people will keep in touch with me in other ways. The rest of these sites are filled with political stupidity, ridiculous memes, and second hand accounts of how great my ex's life is. I'm glad that he's happy, I just don't enjoy not being part of that happiness. I hope this makes some sense.

There are some things in life you can change and some you can't. This situation wasn't making me happy so I have changed it.

I would just like to state that there was no single person or event that caused this, more an a accumulation of everything. I will miss Stephen Fry's tweets though.

u (shall not) Pass

So, today I was going to try to go to the aquarium. Grabbed my bag and was making sure I had the essentials - keys, phone etc - when I noticed that a very important item was missing. My uPass.

Now, I'm 99% sure I wouldn't have taken it out of my bag as I had no need to and the other items I didn't need last night were still in there. So I suspect that it may have fallen out when I took my keys out of something. The short of it is, somewhere between me getting on the no. 4 and me arriving back in my room, it's gone somewhere.

I went to campus security etc and none of them have it. If I were here for the whole year, I'd be getting my new one on Monday :( I have no intention of replacing it as I only have a fortnight left in the city. I'm just going to have to not go anywhere and hope that it turns up/go places that only require one bus so that I don't have to spend too much money/take the bus like normal and hope that there are no ticket inspectors.

Bah.

Gassy Jack

Today I aimed to go to the aquarium but got a bit lost, so I went to Gastown instead. Here I saw the steam powered clock and the statue of Gassy Jack. Gastown is named after John 'Gassy Jack' Deighton, an English bloke who ran the first bar in this area and was known for telling long-winded stories.

In other news, I got a response from Immigration NZ saying that they were unable to find my file :S and asked if I could provide an application number if known (no idea what it is, wasn't sent one) or my passport number. It was at this point that I was glad I'd had the common sense to photocopy the info page of my passport. Hopefully the will track it down.

Just had a little look on the UEA housing page as I was bored. The housing list is being released online at 10am on Jan. 18th. It seems a bit early to me, I could've sworn it used to be in Feb. Maybe I'm losing it in my old age. As soon as I post this, I'll get on with creating myself a little 'Fran needs a home' group on Facebook to start sounding people out.

Hey! It's an update!

Hello. I'm back. Here ^^^ are some photos of what I've been up to. As you can see, I have new glasses. I got them on Thursday and whilst I was waiting, I had my hair straightened. I ate my first banana and drank my first cup of green tea.

Friday was the LDOC jungle themed dance (hence why I have leaves drawn on my face.) It was certainly $10 that I could've spent on something better.

Saturday was the formal dinner. Meredith, an RA from SL invited me to sit at her table, which also had Reilly (the Tec 3rd RA) sitting at it.

Sunday I went to Capilano with Rachel, Sandra and Haitham. For reasons unknown, I found it all hilariously funny and thus spent my time on the bridge laughing my head off. As well as the Christmas lights we all saw some bald eagles and a raven. Raven :D I bought myself a pair of native design earrings and a duck finger puppet at the shop.

We'll not talk about Monday.

Today - Tuesday - I had my American poetry exam. I'm pretty sure I failed it. 3 hours, 3 sections, and I still didn't finish it. There was too much to try to remember and my brain completely failed me. I genuinely think I'd have stood more chance with a 4th year chemistry paper. Never before have I been faced with a lit. exam that I couldn't understand. I just sat looking at it thinking 'I have no idea what this is on about, what it's asking me or what I'm even doing here.' I got a B- on the 2nd essay which gives me 2 B+ grades for my presentations, a C+ and a B- for my essays and whatever I get on the exam and my participation mark. Proof that I suck at poetry and that your first degree level poetry should probably not be a 400-level one. I can only hope that I did better in the other poetry class.

Also, I got my first Christmas card. It was from my grandma. More cards are welcome :)

Ok. I've spent the afternoon looking at flickr etc and unfortunately they have tiny upload limits unless you buy a subscription. You'll just have to wait until I come home to see my photos. Well, maybe not. I am going to see if I can put together little slideshow videos and put them on the tube of you.

Also, is it just me or does Julian Assange look like a more sinister version of Simon Yaxley? Judging by the fact that Jess re-tweeted that comment, I'm going to say no.

OH! I've managed to start making little videos for each month. Here is the first.

R.I.P. Glasses

My glasses are broken. I believe the technical term is 'fucked'. As you can see, the bit that keeps them on my face has broken off.

I am suitably unimpressed.

Most disgusting drink ever.

There is coffee in my tea.

What the fucking fuck?

I asked for a chai latte. Chai tea with frothy milk. I saw you put the chai in. I saw you put the milk in. I don't know what button you were meant to press on the machine but somehow or other you have put coffee in my fucking tea.

Goddamnit, it's cold outside and I was looking forward to that. I'm not going to come back and shout at you because it is cold and my room is warm.

Grrrrrr.

It other news, I got my travel Shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots shots everybody!

Fire!

Ok, so I'm finally back in my room having been barred from it for the last hour. As I was going to dinner, the fire alarm went off. I carried on walking and got myself some burritos and pilaf. Mmm. I then went to the Vanier Vibe meeting where Michelle gave me my t-shirt for free to say thank you for my work :D (Mum, note: that's a smiley face.) After the meeting I went into the main bit of the commons block and it was full of Tec residents. It turns out the alarm had gone off a second time and that we weren't allowed in until the firemen had made sure everything was ok. Heard a rumour it was caused by someone burning incense. We shall see. The sprinklers in my room didn't go off so all was good. Whilst waiting to be let back in, Martin gave me gum and Tom gave me little minty chocolates that look like Minstels and taste like After Eights. Nom.

Lulz

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/DUBdUsQumj0am0nB?cmpid=ey_fb_self

Bahahaha

Snow and Ice

I've been fairly slack about this, I know. I'm still umm-ing and ahh-ing over whether or not to go to class tonight. The weather has been firmly stuck in the minus figures for a few days now. If I haven't spoken to you and told you, we have snow. Vancouver rarely has snow and we're currently about 10 degrees less than we should be at this time of year - yay! According the weather site, by the time I get to class it should be -9 and by the time I leave, it should be -10 :S lots of black ice for me, yay! I might see what it's like when I go for dinner and make my decision based on that, but on the basis that I am in my room with the heating on wearing snow boots, longjohns, jeans, a thermal top, t-shirt and a hoodie and I'm still chilly, it's not boding well. At least I'm not in Calgary, those poor mofos enjoyed a high of -23 today! It's set to drop to -28 this evening. Sod that. EDIT: Just popped to the bathroom, which has no heating. Holy mother loving Christ was it cold in there. On the plus side, the paper towel dispenser is working again...

What have I been up to?

Well, Friday night I bought some wish cranes before I went to Pride where Martin and I manned (perhaps an ironic choice of words?) the drinks table for an hour. Our very lovely RA Haitham turned up too and amused us greatly with his mildly drunken antics. However, nothing could be funnier than the man who complained to us that the bar staff had refused to serve him because he was too drunk. He asked us which society this was for and was rather shocked and surprised when I told him it was gay pride. Apparently the drag queens (it was drag night) weren't a clue for him. There was melting-as-soon-as-it-hits-the-ground type snow when I arrived at Pride but when I left, we had snow. And lots of it. In hindsight, the hill I decided to do a snowroll down may have actually been a staircase. My bad. When we made it back to Vanier, there was a rather large snowball fight. During said fight, I removed my glasses and put them in my bag. At some point, presumably when I took my keys out, my glasses fell out of my bag...

...don't worry! They were a bit bent but I found them and dug them out of the ice on Saturday afternoon and took them to an opticians where they were fixed for free :D following this, I went ice skating at the UBC rink (why yes, we have an ice rink on campus. This is Canada, after all!) I went skating with Michelle and her residents Drew and Camille. I realised I didn't know what size my feet are in Canadian sizes so I tried a 5. This turned out to be far too small so I went to ask them for a 6. Unfortunately, the only had a 6 in hockeys. I was rather impressed though, both the hockeys and the figures were in pretty good nick for death wellies. I didn't stack it. I've still got it :D

Sunday was the Canucks game. I got to the game and went to take a photo and realised that I'd left my batteries in the charger. Doh. However, Rebecca and Alannah remembered theirs so I can show you one of their pics. One of the girls who was meant to come with us left it too late and didn't make it to the game :| The Canucks lost (as did the Ducks :() but it was really worth going to. Very much a sensory overload. I'm going to look at going to Anaheim to see the Ducks when I'm in LA. I bought myself a Canucks top. I don't have a photo of it. The v-neck comes down a bit lower than I expected so I may take to wearing a tank top underneath it, not that anybody is likely to see anything I'm wearing under my ski coat these days :D

Yesterday I got a message from Jack. This deserves its own paragraph because it's not a very frequent occurrence. He's not been having a great time of late, which makes me ungeng (don't ask. He'll understand if he's reading this.) Witchers on the other hand have many exciting things ahead of them. They are due to be recording an album over Easter which will be released by NrOne Records, so they are frantically attempting to write enough new songs for this to work. Now may be a good time to remind a certain Mr Kavanagh that he once promised to write me a song in 3/4. They have also been having video production meetings (I've heard a rumour that the video will be for 'Stars' which is funny because I had an idea for a video for 'Stars' and I can't remember if I told any of the boys or not. If it involves a beach at night then I most definitely did and they are thieving gits :P) I've also heard rumours about small UK tours and a Witchers/Gravedale High show. I seem to missing all the good shit. On the up side, by the time I get back they might have more band privileges that hopefully Jack will let me abuse. I'd like to think one of them would reward my band loyalty. Plus ones and free drinks are ALWAYS good.

Today I handed in my second symbolism essay. I had some printing issues but hopefully JXC won't mind. After class I then went to Tim Hortons and got a hot chocolate and a triple chocolate doughnut, before waiting for one of my lecturers for 15 minutes before deciding I really didn't want to spend any more time waiting for her to turn up to her scheduled office hours. I then went and had a mooch around the Nitobe Memorial Garden.

I think this is all. Now to add photos!

EDIT: The images were taking ages to upload so I went for dinner. Based on that, I now give you Today's Top 5 WTF?! Moments

1) Watching a girl in stilettos with no tights on walking over the ice outside Buchanan (the arts building.)

2) Guys in purple morphsuits running through the cafeteria, throwing leaflets at us and shouting about the AUS No Pants Dance on Friday.

3) The following conversation:

Me: Could I have a slice of two cheese, please?

Cafe Staff: Is it a bit cold outside?

Me: Just a tad...

4) Watching students trying to skateboard through the snow.

5) Overhearing people saying that this is the worst winter for 25 years.

British Columbians seem to be taking on a very British pastime - discussing the weather. I had a chat with the ladies in Hubbard's about it. We're all agreed, it's damned cold for here (I can't really say damned cold, look at Calgary!) According to here, the coldest Vancouver has ever gotten was -14.5.

With regards to the pictures, I have many more. During the exam period I will spend a free day uploading everything to a flickr account or similar and I'll upload people photos to Facey B.

I'm forever drinking bubbles

Today has been a fairly relaxed day. We continued watching Antichrist in scan. lit. today and we have about 10 minutes left to watch on Fri. To be fair, our lecturer has warned us before the really nasty crap has happened so if we wanted to look away, we could. I sat and watched it all (I would.) The bit that I thought would weird me out the most actually wasn't the one that did. The girl who I was next to (this is going to sound really bad. She's always really chatty with me but I don't know her name :S) didn't watch the bad parts and still got fairly freaked out. As we were leaving, she asked me if I wanted to get a cookie. I said I had a lesson to go to but she seemed pretty weirded out so I thought I'd better. We ended up getting bubble tea, which turns out to be really nice. After tea and hugs she seemed better so I walked her to her class. As it turns out, mine was cancelled so my little adventure was fine. I think it's always good to stick around with someone when they've seen something a bit fucked up. Hence why I stayed up 'til about 5am talking to Inigo and drinking champagne with him after the bridge incident.

After this, I wandered to student health services where I booked my next appointment and asked them about vaccines. They gave me the number for the travel clinic, so I'll ring them up, make an appointment, and then bankrupt myself. Pretty sure vaccines aren't covered by my insurance, but I'll wave my iMed at them anyhoo. They also sell mosquito nets and repellent. Booyah.

Following this, I went to Staples, where I got myself a new webcam (the other one was spazzing out and killing my laptop), a new usb cable for my MP3 player so I can now transfer music to it again, and some paperclips. On my way home I passed CopySmart who were advertising the fact that they do passport photos. Grr.

Speaking of which, my application made it to the embassy. I had an email from them asking me my immigration status in Canada, how long I was staying, and whether I was going back to the UK before I came to NZ :S Hopefully they'll decide I'm all good and give me a visa and my passport back.

I am meant to be interviewing Henry in a bit for the Vanier Vibe, so I am currently watching youtube videos of Alan Cumming as the emcee in Cabaret. Yum!

Harry Potter tomorrow night at midnight (argh!), Pride on Friday (Martin & I have volunteered to man the drinks table for an hour...this could end badly) and then going to the Canucks game on Sunday. Busy times!

EDIT: I forgot to post this before I went to interview him, so the interview is done. Now to transfer to my laptop, make an article out of it, and the possibly edit out the shit bits and upload it so that people may listen to it.

Retrospectively murdering Wallace Stevens

I wish I could. It's nothing personal, Wallace. I actually quite like your poetry and I think it's a shame that I'd never heard of you until I came here. However, two of my courses are teaching your works at the same time which means that I have a Wallace Stevens class every day, as well as two essays on you. Thus I am having an overdose of you and wouldn't mind going back in time and murdering you, though if I had a choice of murdering any poet of your generation, I'd probably take out Ezra Pound because A) He was nasty Nazi piece of shit and B) He inflicted T.S. Bloody Eliot on the world.

That said, if you don't mind coming back and explaining what the blind parakeet means, that'd be really helpful. So far I've found a critic who thinks it's God and a critic who thinks it's the sun. I don't think it's either. I think it's a critique of the American audience being blinded by the flashiness of prose and ignoring poetry, or it is just a blind parakeet.

Sorry Wallace.

Love, Rubber Duckie.

P.S. Did you know that I have a friend who named their son Eliot after T.S.?

Bleh

I should be working today but it's not going well. I had a list of what I wanted to accomplish each week and it hasn't really happened, so I think next week I'll have to do two essays instead of one. Worse weeks have happened.

There are currently three problems impeding my work:

1) NZ stuff. This should be fairly self-explanatory as to why it is causing problems.

2) I have two essays on the same poet basically asking me to write about the same thing. Except one is longer than the other and I don't think the department would be too impressed if I hand in the same essay for both classes, especially if they run it through Turnitin. With that in mind, I've asked one of the lecturers (ie the nicer, more lenient one) if I can write my essay on a different topic and I'm waiting for a response from him before I start writing this.

3) I decided I'd start writing the essay I'd planned to do next week. Then I realised I didn't have a fucking clue what they were on about. This is what happens when you change lecturers with one month of the course left. I will have to track her down and see if she can get it to make sense. I'll also try to make sure I teach her how to attach files to emails. Dear God, the woman is computer illiterate.

I'm going to try to fix one of my stories so that I can send off my creative writing application...

Hell mofoing yes!

I have my confirmation of study! Hallelujah! Praise be, testify, testify!

In other lol words, I can haz visa now.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

More Marks

I got a B- on my symbolism essay and an A- on my war presentation. Booyah?

In other news, apparently some of my classmates didn't realise that I'm British.

I also don't remember my own name. The prof. was giving back our symbolism essays and said 'Francesca.' There were a couple of awkward seconds before I remembered that was my name. I very rarely use that name so it was a bit unexpected when he used it.

And this brilliant conversation from last night:

Nicholas: Fran, by any chance do you like ducks?

Fran: Yes, what gave it away?

Nicholas: The earrings, the desktop background on your laptop...and the fact that you just said riduckulous.

Fran: Did I?!

Stephanie: I thought that's what you said!

Marks

I got a B-/B on the midterm I thought I'd completely cocked up and I got a C+ on my first poetry essay. Should be getting my first symbolism essay back tomorrow. I don't write well about poetry so I'm not too bothered if I don't do that well in those two modules, I kind of expect it.

What sarong?

Here is a picture of me wearing my sarong. Obviously when I'm in Fiji I won't be wearing it with jeans and a hoodie but you should get the gist.

I have finally finished booking up my travel shizzle.

Sex with your advisers and other occurrences

It's not what it sounds like. The equity committee (of which I am a member, I've just never gone) puts this on every year. 6 advisers, 3 of either gender, form a panel plus there are a couple of other knowledgeable people ie a nurse and someone from the sexual assault support team for when the advisers can't answer. All through the week a box has been left in the commonsblock for people to leave anonymous questions and these were then asked to the panel. It was funny and educational and I think when I return back to EA I shall try to persuade the powers that be to let me put on something similar, only calling it sex with your classmates (because who actually has anything to do with their resident tutors at UEA?) Any volunteers for the panel?

The most interesting thing I learned last night? The wellness centre in the student union building sells sex toys. Not something I've heard of at unis before lol.

In other news, yesterday I got an email from U. Vic. saying that my application had arrived and they should let me know within a week whether I've got a place.

Today I received an email back from Immigration NZ saying that I did indeed have to apply for a visa before I arrived. Shit. Funnily enough, I REALLY don't want to have to send my passport off in the post in a foreign country.

As of yesterday, I have been here 2 months. As of today, Paige is 21. I'm sure she's having fun in The Mischief right about now.

The eh- team

I believe I owe you an entry.

So, Friday I had my pre-1900 midterm, and I think it went horribly wrong. Oh well. Friday evening I went to the Pride Halloween party with Dan and Martin. This turned out to be epic fail as Martin was ill so I had to escort him home. It took forever and I ended up taking a tumble whilst trying to prevent him bombing straight for the stairs by Xwi7xwa library.

Saturday was my designated day of the cinema. I got to the bus loop a good 50 mins before the film was due to start and I still missed the beginning. WTF?! I got to the bus loop and saw the 17 leaving but there was a 4 there so I was happy but the driver was having a break so I walked to the other bus loop to see if the 84 was there and it wasn't so I went back and the 4 had gone. Eventually the 84 turned up at 3:30 and the film started at 3:50. When I got there, there was a bit of a queue but I got my ticket at bang on 4 and went in and the film had started and Lisbeth was talking to Dr Jonasson. Hmm. I can't say much about the film or else there's a danger that my mother will fly over here and push me off Grouse Mountain. All I'll say is, if you get annoyed when fairly important things are changed, this will annoy you.

Sunday I decided to go to the Museum of Anthropology where I saw many awesome things and took many not so awesome pictures (MUST GET FLICKR) I also bought my mother a massive book, and myself some jewellery and a sarong. You may well be thinking 'WTF?! You live in Canada. In the Winter. Why do you need a sarong?' Well, because I'm going to Fiji. In their Summer. And I want to visit Sri Siva Subramaniya temple, the largest Hindu temple in the Southern hemisphere, and for that I need to be covered up. After my trip to MOA, I went out for dinner at White Spot, where I suspect I ate something dodgy as I spent a fair amount of Monday expelling the diplomats (do you like my new euphemism?)

Nothing of note happened yesterday except for the fact that I attended the most pointless lesson ever.

Today I got my Scandinavian Lit. midterm back. I got an A-. Yay!

EDIT: Just submitted an online query to immigration NZ because apparently we British are allowed to stay for 6 months but I have no idea if I still need a visa/permit to study. In other news, I've been deleted by a couple of people who I thought were fairly good friends of mine and I don't think I've done anything to annoy them. Can't say it makes me feel any better over here, knowing that people I give a shit about apparently couldn't care less about me. Cheers.

OMFG!

This post will be brought to you in block capitals because if I could, I would be shouting it over the phone at you:

OMFG! THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST IS RELEASED IN CANADA TOMORROW!!!!!!

TOMORROW!!!!

I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING THIS WEEKEND!!!!!

Witchers and Witches

Today I went to Dollar Plus and purchased, for the grand total of $11-something, my Halloween outfit. I then added stuff I already had and some experimental makeup. Raelyn has taken a photo for me.

Now, my question for you, my readers, is this: To false eyelash, or to not false eyelash?

Here's hoping there's no lesbian vampire killers at the Pride Halloween do on Friday...!

Oh yeah, the title of this blog is a play on the caption on the 'Witchers and Watches' photo from the Paris trip. This blog has nothing to do with Witchers.

Woo!

I didn't fail my war lit. midterm. I got a B-. I'm cool with that. I got 4/5 for the first section and 10.5/15 for the second one.

Now to not fail the one I have on Friday...

Thunderbirds are go!

Last night I went to see the Varsity basketball. It was UBC Thunderbirds Vs Saskatchewan Huskies. Seara invited me and we went with Russell and Sandra.

I'd never seen basketball before. My knowledge of it was based on PE lessons which generally involved at lot of people clawing at other peoples faces. Sandra spent a lot of the match explaining it to me and discussing the relative hotness of the players. This was tricky because I didn't have my glasses on, so everything appeared in a sort of soft focus. My favourite was no. 7 Alex Murphy, but as I reasoned with Sandra, they were all about a foot and a half taller than me (ok, the Thunderbirds website says he's only 6ft 1, making him the second shortest on the team. There you go.) My father will get this reference: the UBC coach looked like the fat doctor.

During the half time break, I went to the beer garden. As I may have mentioned to some of you, beer garden is not what it is back home. A beer garden over here tends to be an unlicensed thing behind a table where they pull out cans from a box and give them to you in exchange for a beer ticket. The ones I've been to before have had a couple of drinks available. This one gave me a choice of Molson Canadian, a lager, or nothing. I'd already bought my ticket so I didn't have much choice. I thought, ok, I'll take this back and share it with the others. This is when I saw the 'NO BEER PAST THIS POINT' sign, so I was forced to gulp back the stuff.

UBC were getting absolutely owned until the third quarter when they pulled it back and took the lead. During the third quarter break, they had the captain of the women's team seeing how many shots she could score in 30 secs. For every one she got, UBC athletics would add $100 to the amount already raised for the Think Pink breast cancer campaign. She scored 16 baskets (though I only counted 15) so that was good! UBC then had the lead until the dying seconds of the game until a dodgy decision by the ref. gave the Huskies two free shots and they scored both of them. We ended up losing 96 - 97 :(

We all agreed it was a great evening out and are planning on going to more events, especially the football, if only so Russell can explain it to me. As far as I can see, they took the shit bits of football and rugby and made a sport out of them. Whatevs.

Free is not always good

There's a free gig going on in the ballroom at the mo. It's about halfway through. I went to the first half. I propped up a pillar. I did not have a pint in my hand. Sad times. In fact, there were no drinks there.

So I went to Hubbards and got a slushie in the hope that my brain might be able to pretend that it was a daiquiri, like at the Gravedale gig at the Queen Charlotte. This is hard to do when there's no rum (why's all the rum gone?!) It's also hard to do when the band is crap and the only people you know at gig have either been roped into doing security or they walked in and walked back out again. I know it's a free gig and I know they're just local bands but seriously, I'm not a musician (well, my GCSE certificates beg to differ, but hey) but I know the following:

- Most alternative bands have the following four components - singer, guitarist, bassist, drummer.

- The singer is called the singer because they sing. You are mumbling. Therefore, you're not a singer, you're a mumbler. Seriously, I cannot understand a single word you're saying. If I wanted to listen to mumbling, I'd just record a conversation between me and Jack. I don't mumble...apple crumble.

- You sing into the microphone. It pics up the vibrations of your voice and makes them loud. You have the mic at a reasonable distance from your mouth and all is good. You don't have it so close to you that it looks like you have magnets it your mouth/you're performing a sex act on the mic. This also means that I can't make head nor tail of what you're saying.

- Finally, the singer (NOT mumbler) should be louder than the rest of the band. I want to hear the damn lyrics to get a gist of what the song is about, I can still hear the drummers syncopation/the epic chord sequence/the earthquake inducing bass underneath your vocals.

I don't expect bands to be perfect, especially not at this level. My God! I don't think I've seen a Witchers set where something didn't go wrong, and I've seen them twelve times (count 'em.) I do expect to be able to hear you though.

Oh yeah. Don't tell anybody but a certain rather sexy band from East Anglia had a meeting tonight with a record label. Ssh!

Whales > Wales

So, I went whale watching on Sunday. I nearly missed the shuttle bus because I got lost after I got off the UBC bus. Anyway, we drove to the village of Steveston, which is in Richmond. Richmond is the city next to Vancouver. As in, you drive over the overpass by the airport and you're in Richmond. If this were England, they'd probably be the same city. Anyway. En route we passed the Olympic speed skating rink which is being turned into just a normal rink and they're building luxury condos next to it, in case you were wondering.

On the boat I got a seat near the front next to one of the sliding windows (the windows slide up so you can get a good view) and the people behind me were British. I say British, it was a man and his daughter and he was Chatham but had moved to Maple Ridge 15 years ago so his daughter was Canadian.

Anyhoo, we pulled out of the harbour and went around a bit. We saw some snow geese, seals and a bald eagle, but no whales. This was a worry. Then our on board biologist said they'd heard there was a lone male whale at so and so, so we were going to see if we could find him. Turns out there were quite a few. We also saw some diving ducks. Anyway, whales. They were orca whales and I tried to photograph film them but my camera died so I tried to use my phone and it was hard because they're moving and I couldn't see because of the glare/I wasn't looking through the lens. Sorry about that. If you could insert a memory card into my brain I could show you how cool it was.

Afterwards we had half an hour until the shuttle came back so I went to a candy store and bought Wonka bottle caps, which I hoped would be like Fizzy Jerkz. They're chalky rather than hard boiled and not that nice. Gah. Knew I should've gotten Jolly Ranchers.

In other news, I got my mark for my William Carlos Williams presentation today. I got a B+ which I'm reliably told is good. I'm also told that the magical 2.75 average I need is roundabout a C+ or B-. Let us hope that I continue this. I'm currently 'writing' the essay for that class, due on Monday. I've written the introduction. It's taking a while because she wants me to use a different citation system to the one I'm used to. The general gist of this essay is: I hate William Carlos Williams. We both hate T.S. Eliot. I discuss why WCW hates TSE so much and why he attacks him in Paterson. This could be fun.

New Zealand still sucks

If you didn't see my mini rant on Facebook, I just got an email from U. Vic. saying that I hadn't been accepted into halls. Funny, that. So now I've been waitlisted. The upshot of this being that I can now apply for all of the halls instead of just three. So, now all I have to do is wait for people to drop out/cancel their application so that a space becomes available and then hope that the hall manager picks me to take their space.

I can see this going horribly wrong. Still, I'm not there until February so there's still a fair bit of time in which spaces may become available. I'm not impressed with this pretty shoddy system though.

EDIT: Oh, I didn't get my midterm back because the lecturer was ill and forgot to bring it. She also didn't bother teaching us so just let the two groups do their presentation then sent us home. What. A. Waste.

Gah

It's all going a bit wrong at the moment. I'm trying to battle through it but I feel like the tiniest thing may make me snap. Just saw an email reminding me to bring my copy of Jarhead to class tomorrow. What copy and how is this a reminder? Last class she said we'd be doing The Wars. Unghhh.

I'm meant to be getting the results of my first midterm tomorrow. If my current state of being emotionally challenged continues and I get bad results, I may actually burst into tears. I'm sure that'll suitably freak out my classmates/lecturer.

Giving Thanks

Well, there you have a shitload of pictures from Thanksgiving, and there's a lot I left out. I really ought to get a flickr account or something. As usual, it's in reverse chronological order, so from the top we have:

- Wilson on a highly dangerous contraption taking down the decorations.

- Jason cutting pumpkin pie.

- House president Scott at the head of the table.

- My second plate of food.

- The table set up before people came in.

- Henry putting up the decorations.

- Scott trying to get brown sugar and marshmallows to melt over the sweet potatoes.

- Casey basting Cuntfuck (Scott's name.)

- Jason checking on Bitchtits (Scott again.)

- Joey's cupcakes.

- Aisha making the cranberry sauce (which is really nice on mashed potato!)

- Martin layering the lasagne.

- Me frying the eggplant and zucchini (or aubergine and courgette as normal people call it :P)

- Martin making the bechamel sauce.

- The eggplant and zucchini as chopped by me. I knew you wouldn't believe it so I took a photo.

There are many videos. The first can be found here and the rest can be linked to from that one, as well as all my other videos.

In the end there were about 30 of us and the majority were people from Tec but we had the odd person from elsewhere. It was certainly a fun day. I kind of wish we had something like this back home. Possibly have a Thanksgiving dinner with my housemates next year. Perhaps not.

In other news, my copy of 'Paterson' finally arrived today, almost a month after I ordered it. I am not impressed.

My appointment with the Dr today went well. She commented on how well I looked and how much happier I seemed, and I am a lot happier here. I do get the odd moment but for the most part, I'm good. I will certainly miss the people I've met here when I leave. It makes me sad when I hear things from other people who're abroad about how much they're hating it. As much as it must pain Jack to admit that I was right ;-) I'm glad I went abroad single. This is just my perspective but I can see people having a tougher time than they need to abroad because of the people they've left behind, and I do wonder if in a couple years they'll look back on it and think that they wasted a really good opportunity. I don't know. I think I'm becoming more like a tree and less like grass, to borrow Sarah Garland's analogy. The wind is still buffeting me but it's swaying me less, and I'm glad of it. I'm also glad of Inigo and our typically bizarre conversations and messages. Don't worry Norwich, we'll both be back and then it'll be Frinigo time *does the MC Hammer dance*