| I had apple dumplings for breakfast so I am just about the happiest person ever. OM NOM NOM. I also remembered that I didn't actually have dinner last night - after getting home late from giftwrapping it took me a few hours to make the dumplings and it just never happened - oops. Also oops is my Arabic exam. I don't want to talk about it. Other than to say that I thought the exam was in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT location than where it was, so I spent fifteen minutes running all over campus in a white-out blizzard with no idea where to go and only just made it in time. Which kind of sucked, but it could have been worse.
SNOW HAS COME TO OTTAWA, though. It snowed a few days ago, and then yesterday was a massive dump over most of central Ontario, since my sisters got a snow day yesterday and another one today, and Ottawa got one yesterday as well. I walked to school and I could barely see or stand it was so windy. The buses had absolutely no idea what to do with themselves, it was kind of funny. Especially the long ones with what Catya dubbed as the 'bitchcrinkle' in the middle: the front section would try to pull up to the terminal, sort of struggling and chugging along, with the back end just going 'mlueaaaahhhhhhhhhh *flail*' and sort of sliding almost into other buses. Most people seemed to have their snow tires on already thought (usually when the first snow hits there's always about 1/5 of cars with no snow tires on just sort of floundering).
Giftwrapping yesterday was okay - still mind-numblingly dead, but I had a good discussion with Hart and Zila about gender issues and violence against women, and then another discussion with Hart about Remembrance Day being forgotten by younger generations. And I did the second shift with our JF, who I can't even dislike or resent because she's super nice and funny and smart, and we talked about education and children and all in all it was a decent day, although I feel like I basically accomplished nothing. ~oh well. On to more studying! And trying not to eat more apple dumplings lest I make myself sick.
Tomorrow is the last school outreach presentations of this year, 3 in one day, aieeeee. Perhaps some more West Wing will serve as a decent study break (Mrs Landingham ohmygoodness <3 <3 ALSO CJ AS 'FLAMINGO' AND DANNY'S GOLDFISH AHAHAHAHAAAA).
This entry was brought to you by MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SNOW. :DDDD | |
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| Yeah...aside from posting my picture-a-days and books read, I've haven't been saying very much. Lately, not much has been going on that can't be written in 140 characters or less on Twitter. I'm still reading LJ though, just don't have much to say. Having said that, here's an update. * We have snow! Thankfully, we don't have nearly as much snow as Wisconsin. Our area stayed warm, so we got a good chunk of our precipitation as rain. Thank God. I was able to go out and get nice pictures for picture-of-the-day. Today I went to Graue Mill in Oak Brook, and took pictures in the snow. I got some good ones. * I am sooo tired from shoveling snow today. I would have used the snow blower, but there was a lot of slush on the ground, and the snow blower wouldn't have done much good. * I've been having a lot of weird dreams these past few weeks. Last night, I had two dreams. One was a nightmare about being married to this incredibly abusive guy. I mixed some sleeping pills into his drinks and left while he was asleep. When he woke up and discovered that I was gone, he came after me. Apparently, me leaving him besmirched his honor. Okay buddy... (I got the feeling from the dream that he was a very traditional Muslim). My family hid me in this hotel, and the dude managed to figure out where I was. I dreamt he snuck into my hotel room while I was sleeping. In the dream, I startled awake to the sound of his voice. He cornered me and I ended up fighting with him. Many things were thrown. I got away and someone in the hotel lobby called the police. I hid behind the concierge's desk until the cops came and escorted him out of the building. By the time the dream ended, we were talking about me leaving the country for awhile because the guy just wasn't giving up. We were talking about either Spain or Peru. I woke up and then complained to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) doomsey that I had had a bad nightmare. He was annoyed. I was just plain happy that I had a nice, rational, normal hubby and not scary dream hubby. The second dream was an afterlife of sorts. If I had to describe the feel of it, it was a mixture of Harry Potter and art house film. Some of the images were surreal, but cool. Living people had a double because they were both body and soul. And omg! Creepy nun-like people wearing gray habits! Where do I pull some of these things out of exactly? I swear...this dream would have been perfect fodder for a novel. Anyhow, at some point, I had made some friends and we were traveling together. None of us knew exactly what was going on, but those that had been dead longer had a better idea how things worked than I did. We all got the impression that the place we were at was temporary, and that we would eventually pass on to another one in a hundred years or so. All of us looked like we were in our late teens-early twenties, which led me to believe that all dead souls took that form. I also didn't remember how I died. At the end of the dream, I was pulled into some kind of "support group" for people who had died young. That's where I found out that the jealous hubby from dream número uno had found me wherever the hell I had run to and killed me. Murder. Lovely.... (There was more to the dream, but...enh...don't feel like going into it right now). * So...what's with all the dreams about death and dying lately? Well, I'm approaching the two year anniversary of when I damn near dropped dead. Maybe my subconscious mind is still sorting things out. Also, I think part of that second dream might have been motivated by something I had read in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which I had been reading right before I went to bed. That's a very cool book, by the way... * cosettemonster is being barfy again. She was horking up her food last Thursday-Friday. She got better after I gave her a Vitamin B12 shot-- which is usually prescribed to animals with IBD-- but she's been puky again today. If she's not better by tomorrow, I'm calling the vet. She does have the funky kidney values, and the vet told me to watch for throwing up and loss of appetite. I'm not playing around with this. * For those of you into photography, you guys should check out the LJ community, lj_photofile. It's a cool group. Lot's of amazing pictures. I think I might post more of my stuff over there... | |
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| Теперь всё будет хорошо. Всё, всё конечно, он знает, что я его люблю, после четырёх лет знает наконец - то. Теперь можно его любить. | |
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| Yesterday, at the grocery, while walking past the lunchmeat/cheese section, I had a sudden hankering for pepperoni. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Pepperoni! is what I thought. And! It was on sale! two bags for $4 bucks and so I bought four of them (yes, yes, sudden hankering generally leads to excessive purchasing).
I shoved it in the fridge without really looking it (as, apparently, I shoved it in my cart, and on the conveyor belt at checkout) and a little while ago I once again thought Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Pepperoni! and went to have some.
And I opened it and was eating it while doing some stuff on the computer and was all "man, this pepperoni SUCKS! what the hell, I seem to recall pepperoni being all Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! and stuff and not all ugh! and dry! and like gross and all!" and then I looked at the bag and it is TURKEY pepperoni!
Turkey Pepperoni!
What the hell!?!?!? Who is the market for turkey pepperoni?!?! When is there an instance that you are thinking of using pepperoni in a recipe in the first place that you then think "oh! let's make it 'healthy' instead! we'll keep the nitrites but make it dark meat turkey"?!?!
::holds hand up in forestalling gesture::
I don't want any logical hoopydoo about the pros of turkey pepperoni here. I want pure unadulterated sympathy that my Mmmmmmmmm! Pepperoni! urge netted me 24 ounces of "70% less fat than regular pepperoni"!! | |
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| De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté, 太扣人心弦，太感動人，太刺激人！沒想到啊，那麽的精彩，那麽 強烈的戲劇性。影片完結字幕升上去后，仍久久坐在座位上，腦海仍然徹底沉浸在主人公的 内心世界 中。那麽多複雜的内容，都天衣無縫地連成一体，強烈地激發你的同情和想象。連續四部電 影，三部 都是這樣驚人的極富個性的傑作，Jacques Audiard的確是位傑出的導演。非常遺憾這回沒買到他最新 的《先知》的票。     | |
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| First exam is tomorrow - Arabic. I'm feeling unprepared, mostly because my vocabulary is non-existent, but I'm not panicky about it. I had a giftwrapping session at the mall (EWB's big fundraiser this year) so I was there most of the day, but I could study a little because only two people came to the booth (one old guy bartered us down. Who barters charities? Really?). I have another session tomorrow, and had to scramble to find another person since one cancelled. In the beginning we knew that just our exec team couldn't fill all the shifts, and we recruited members, volunteers, friends, randoms... who are now ALL cancelling, right left and centre. So it ends up being our exec filling those shifts anyway - which we don't cancel, because we know there's no-one else to be there, but no-one else seems to think of. I'm fine, but I feel bad for Chris, because he organized this whole thing and is basically there for 4+ hours every single day and has like four more exams than the rest of us. I LOVE THE WEST WING <3 <3 CHARLIEEEEEEE I LOVE YOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. *ahem* I'm such a fan of banter and emotion and I also ship Charlie/Zoe and I'm very much enjoying this show because of that. I had the song stuck in my head today, so I went looking for t he one short from Paris Je T'aime and fell in love with it all over again. It's so simple and kind of funny, and ends up being very very beautiful without trying too hard. I've been playing a lot of piano recently, and looking for new songs - mostly because parties always seem to end up in my room and then everyone's drunk friends start playing songs I always wanted to learn and playing them 8 times better than I can, so I now have 'Don't Stop Believing' (oh be quiet), 'Winter' (Tori Amos), 'Romeo and Juliet' (Dire Straits/The Killers), 'Badlands' (Bruce Springsteen :DDD), and 'Mad World' (<333333333333 MAD WORLD). Most of what I know is not pop-culture, but more classical - not strictly classical all the time, but nothing most of my friends recognize (random Hungarian pieces [ Two Guitars is SO MUCH FUN even if I've been playing it for like 8 years], Oscar Peterson [watching this makes me cry], Beethoven, hymns, Canadian celtica [ aha this song is so crazypants I love it] Debussy [ wins for most ridiculous song title ever], random other stuff) and I think it'll be fun to know how to play things that people know and love, not just that they might be vaguely impressed with if I ever played them right, lol. I don't consider myself 'good' at piano, but I know it and I love it and I don't necessarily embarrass myself. And it's SUCH a major outlet, one I didn't have last year and that I needed really badly. YAY FOR AWESOME BIRTHDAY PRESENTS. Alas though, I have been learning Comptine d'un autre ete: l'apres midi (Yann Tiersen <3) and it's going well, but I fear I will never play it as well as I did a few weekends ago. It was past midnight, during a party, and Kat and Chris and possibly someone else were in my room. Chris told me to play him a song, but I was drunk (hee) and there was no chair. I turned it on and crouched awkwardly on one leg so I could reach the pedal, and I played it. I wasn't sober, and my leg cramped, and I was hunched awkwardly and I hadn't warmed up, but I honestly don't think I've ever played that song better. I have yet to recreate it. Also: what sucks about playing Christmas songs is that it's really only appropriate to play them for one month a year, and everyone expects you to know them, but when you haven't practiced them for 11 months how are they supposed to sound halfway decent? By the time you get good at them again it's time to put them away. BOO. Plus I have a gorgeous version of the First Noel (also Do You Hear What I Hear for being ridiculously fun to play). I love playing piano :) I love working on a song, and I love not working on a song, just playing it once or twice through each time and leaving it for next time and getting better at it over months and months. I love going through phases - like the time when I tried to learn every ragtime song ever, or when I became obsessed with hymns; I had a wonderful piano teacher who asked me "what do you want to play?" and then brought me random things, the theme song to M*A*S*H and Pachelbel's Canon ( still probably my favourite song in the world to play) side by side. I love working on tiny tiny things in songs that you'll never ever get to tell people or that they'll never notice (like how ' I Will Wait For You' is supposed to sound like a carousel, all tinkling almost-out-of-tune and pausing at the big notes before falling down again), and twisting things around ('Londonderry Air' as jazz-like? Yes please). It's fun and it can be as easy or as hard as I want or need it to be. I'm not as good as the people in the above clips are, but I have all my life to be when I just play for myself and anyone who happens to overhear on their way to the kitchen. | |
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| The book: Our heroine must get something that was stolen/rescue someone in the stars and befriends the constellations, specifically Orion, who at one point sits her down on some moon or something far from Earth and she sees abover her *another* dome of stars, even though she far far far above the Earth, and orion makes some kind of comment on how at any point when we look up, no matter how high up we are, there will still be a dome of star above us. There may have been something about heaven in there, too.
The song: sung by a young woman, possibly with a band/accompanement. lyrics: blueberry skies. if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger (the chorus was several of these figures of speech).
halp. | |
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| Ran the 26.2! I have a life again! The marathon was amazing, but I don't think I'll ever run another, at least not in the next few years. I gave up three nights during the week and every Sunday since June to train for this thing. Meant lots of cold running up and down Ashby Ave, disappointing dinners because I'd be too tired after driving back home to cook, and Sundays devoted to waking early to run for hours and then going to San Ramon so Randall can see Gramma. Six months of that is enough.
I'd rather spend that time now at some part time job making extra cash so I can stop feeling scared when it's time to pay bills and so I can maybe pay my student loans. I don't like being poor, especially since I consider Gramma to be near death's door and if she's gone, I'm out of a job. Sad that I think of it that way since she's like family to me, but proximity does not equal emotional attachment, and I'm fairly certain the woman would drive me nuts even if her brain was fully functional.
Now I finally have the chance to enjoy my apartment too. I usually went straight to Randall's after work for running and even if there's no run, I spend way more time at his house than my own. It's expensive, especially since my utilities bill will go up since it's cold and getting dark early, and for all the money I put into it, I really need to spend more time there to justify it. I need to try harder to find a place in Berkeley once my lease is up- I don't like Fruitvale and the noisy douchebags who blast their stereos loud enough that their cars actually vibrate.
The Peet's on Telegraph and Dwight is hiring, as is an animal shelter in downtown Oakland. The animal shelter has the option of going full time which I would love, but since I have to assume that I'll be in CCSF next semester, it's best I stay part time so I'll have time for an internship.
Ugh, it's one of those logistics periods again. I'm ready for routine. - Mood:Left knee combustion in 3... 2
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|  . . . and then it set.. | |
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| ETA: NEW HALLOWEEK PHOTOS ARE UP ON FACEBOOK :DDDI ACED TWO FINAL PAPERS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :D :D :D Well, okay. Not *aced*, but I did proportionally well considering the whole time-it-took-to-write-them thing, and I am pleased with the results. Not what I would LIKE, but good nonetheless. I went all-out Hollywood on my conclusion for Contested Places, and cited the quote as Romeo Dallaire, personal communication November 16 2008 and the TA wrote "WOW, REALLY!?!?" beside it, LOLOLOLOL FOREVEEEEEEEER XD I have been augmenting the nonstudying with episodes of the West Wing, since I've wanted to watch it basically since RBR started, and it was my mission last summer, and I finally have high-speed internet and a tiny amount of time to watch it. I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT. IDK, I don't like Martin Sheen's prez so far... his little speeches about Ancient Rome etc are interesting, but he's very preachy and ~above it all and oho-aren't-I-profound, idk. JOSH LYMAN <3 <3 <3 I really love CJ and Sam and Charlie as well, and it seems so very fast-paced, even though they talk a lot and things don't happen a lot - but I guess that's ~life in the White House. The dialogue is awesomesauce, and I've already almost-cried once, aha. I'm about four episodes into the first season since last night (because doing budgets sucks, and I needed a distraction). My first exam is on Wednesday, and I'm very nervous, because while I know Arabic, my vocabulary isn't up to snuff and I'm relying mainly on feeling it out or knowing certain parts, not knowing the exact rules. Tomorrow is going to be Studay Extraordinaire Day (+ yoga + baking apple dumplings, om nom nom) with Marley. YAY for loffly v-gifts of snowflakes!! Though, uhm, not like yesterday morning. When I decided to check ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ontd_ai and then was part of a group that sent novelized over 15000 snowflakes, lol. It was sort of epic. Her poor inbox :( Her profile is nice and snowflakey though! ------------------- Had my last Contested Places class today - I love that class, I've learned so much (both information and knowledge) and the prof is amazing. The past few lectures, though, have been about Gender and Space, with case studies on women in public space in Afghanistan and a little about North American cities called Gender and Geographies of Fear. It was really really interesting, and delved a lot into theory, but was also a section that relied on class participation a lot. And when there's open class participation in a discussion about gender, sexism, and/or Afghanistan? There's usually fail. And fail there was. SERIOUSLY. As I was saying (mostly jokingly) to Catya, I have a new rule for second-year university classes about gender issues: MALES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK, JFC. Or I guess they can, so the prof can slap them around a little and thus prove how stupid most of the questions are. Some guy in the back had to go and say that there are services available to help women in Afghanistan, but "~~studies have shown" that a lot of women don't use them, or won't, so they must *like* living like that, right?? And anyway it's all religion, because Saudi Arabia has things like that too! >:( NO. SIT DOWN. MAYBE THEY DON'T GO TO THE POLICE BECAUSE THE POLICE WON'T BELIEVE THEM. MAYBE THEY DON'T REPORT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BECAUSE THEY'LL GET BEATEN EVEN WORSE. MAYBE THEY DON'T GO TO SHELTERS BECAUSE MALES GET CUSTODY OF KIDS. But whatever it is, don't you ever DARE say it's because "they want to live like that." (Also fyi it's not religion, it's the male patriarchy in a culture where men's honour is tied to women's bodies so women are treated like a resource. IT'S. NOT. RELIGION.) A few other students countered well to that, and then the prof walked up to the guy (the prof is like 6 foot 2 and the student was sitting down) and said "if I was your husband, and I was slapping you around for everything you said, and you live with my parents and I, and I have the power to take away your children any time, and my brother's a police officer, what are you going to do? It's not about liking situations or being used to situations, it's about the limits you have in society to determine your own actions and future and the difference between legal equality and the facts on the ground." And then while talking about North America and why males are more likely to report assault (or I think it was something about more males going into situations where assault was a possibility? idk), and some guy in front of me says that women are "more naturally fearful." It was at this point that Carl had to tell me to "settle down, Tiger." >:( NO. MAYBE WOMEN MIGHT BE MORE *AFRAID* TO WALK AROUND ALONE AT NIGHT, BUT THAT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY KEEP GETTING *RAPED*, NOW ISN'T IT? The prof answered that with a "well males are more likely to be idiots, yes," and then told us about how he got mugged in Washington for being an "idiot male. Trust me, no woman would have got mugged the way I got mugged!" In the previous lecture, the prof asked us how we defined gender or gender roles in society. Of course, most people in the class misinterpreted the question as "tell me society's gender stereotypes." When we got to the sixth one for men, which was someone saying they provide for and protect a family, the prof said "look how we get to the sixth one and still no mention of being a father, of caring for children. Think we would have gotten past three for women without someone bringing up the caring of children?" The prof was amazing at countering people and facilitating discussion, but it was a discouraging class nonetheless for the way people refused to come up with their own thoughts on what defined gender. And of course there was the class where someone asked if "racism ever existed in Canada." (Oh, honey. You need to leave the house once in a while.) Now, I'm just a wee baby feminist who's made some pretty bad fails of her own, but I think the problem here is that there's a lot of ugly stuff we carry around with us that isn't acknowledged, isn't talked about, and people don't know it's wrong, or they don't know why, or they have a sneaking suspicion it's wrong but won't ever air it out for fear that it will smell bad. Canadian society has this veneer we're proud of, this politeness and niceness and ~tolerance (and tolerance SUCKS. Since when is that our ultimate goal?) we like to be known for, and I think that comes with a lot of fear of offending people. Which is a good thing. No-one likes to be offended and no-one likes to offend other people. But the problem is that we get to thinking that open conversations about how racism and sexism hurts people hurts people even MORE, so we don't have those. It's not nice to talk about. It's not nice to say that it's there ( but it's there). And our reaction to learning that it's there is to smile nervously, shrug and say that it's terrible, isn't it, but what can you do?
I'm generalizing here about my Canadian observations, but I really do think it's a problem, because if this class is the first time people are talking about institutionalized racism, or how *~*~MULTICULTURALISM!!~*~* doesn't always translate to the ground, then some pretty ugly things are going to come out of that discussion. Because people haven't been told they're wrong before, because they've never said it before, or never knew they thought it before. And then instead of worrying about offending people you actually do. Either that or everyone talks about how men are strong and Bring Home The Bacon, because they want to answer the question correctly for Teacher even if they know, they KNOW that's not what defines men, but they have some misguided notion that's how society tells them it defines men, and really what other alternative is there? What other alternative is there to having concrete notions of what we should tell women and men they are in charge of acheiving with their lives?
Well, there's the alternative of fluidity, that I can be me and you can be you and Shafiq can be Shafiq and Kathleen can be Kathleen and we can learn to live with each other and have the freedom to accomplish what we want to accomplish, and who we are as a person can be entirely based on our interactions with each other and our experiences of common humanity, on our own definitions of strength and weakness and honour and success.
But that would be difficult, wouldn't it.
... wouldn't it?
- ::*believe vs think, abuse, afghanistan, anger, awareness, braaaaaaains, canada, deep thoughts, episodes of systematic fail, feminism, fiery change!gusto, frustration, girly talk, inconvenient truth, intellectual brawl, irant, loss of faith in humanity, me to we, politics, problems, professors, racism, rahm emanuel, respekt, review:tv, righteous social anger, romeo dallaire, saucy authority, this administration, unfulfillable dreams, violating academia
- Location:a contested place
- Mood:angry
 - Music:Mouthful of Diamonds - Phantogram
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