Random Friday Thoughts

I'm obsessed with Cuba. I don't even want to know what portion of my thoughts have been devoted to it. On the upside, its a really GOOD thing to obsess about, and Mark has found us a really sweet deal. In a month and a half, I'll be here, with some of my favourite people ever (!!!):



Also: for the past 5 months or so, my high-school friend Anthony and I have been trying to hang out & catch up. Well, last night we went to see Snow Patrol (on tickets that did not have bar codes, but apparently had watermarks - something thats really funny when it's mentioned 18 times) and had a fantastic time. He's also hooking up a wonderland trip with other high school friends, who I miss very much. Yay! Snow Patrol were pretty good, and it was pretty funny seeing the singer repeatedly clucth at his heart during sappy parts - on the RIGHT side of his chest. And it was FREE!

Tonight I'm FINALLY going to have dinner at Fran's Diner - hooray!


(HAVANA!!!!)

Live it Out

What a weekend. I've finally caught up on sleep, after Friday (up at 5am, up till 2am), Saturday (up at 9am, up till 3am), Sunday (driving all day) and yesterday (up at 6am - guh). Last night, I spent some nice, quality time with my good buddy, rip van winkle. He took me to Australia, and even though the plane ride was a bit jumpy, the sleep was refreshing.

Coherence now: The weekend with Sharon was awesome. It ended up being just the two of us on Friday, which was great because we very rarely have one-on-one time. We talked a lot about Rafa, she showed me photos and videos, and even though I saw a bit TOO much, I really liked seeing how well they related and how happy she was when she was with him.

On Saturday, we woke up with just enough time to get T to his hockey game, the last of the year (!) and I got to meet his girrrlfrienddddd (teehee). Met up with Megan afterwards for some Barakat shawarmas, and gossip, and feeling bad for Megan with all of her work left to do. Then Sharon's party! I made a cake, Paula and I made a giant card, and everyone wore ring pops. Like all of Sharon's parties, we ended up leaving to go to a bar, where much debauchery ensued.

The peer pressure shot:



This hat really got around:



Girls nights out = awesome:



Girls nights out = even better for boys:



John made sure we got home ok, but damn was he tired:




I also ended up with an INSANE amount of pictures of Sharon making strange faces. I think they will come in very handy at some point.

I went home on Sunday for Dad's family birthday dinner, which meant some of my favourite food ever. I can't wait for my leftover shipment!

Do the Whirlwind!

I honestly feel like I'm a whirlwind. A whirlwind with bags under her eyes, but a whirlwind nonetheless. This last week has been the best sort of busy, with loads of family and friends, and good news; this weekend has more fun ahead for me.

Last night, Mark and I went to Whitby with my mom to surprise my dad for his birthday. He's pretty smart - he'd already guessed that I'd cme out for his b-day, and the sneaky guy even fgured out we'd picked up a Nano for his birthday (I take no responsibility for this - I have absolutely no idea *who* might have been stupid enough to register it with his email address and NOT think that Apple would send an email... I swear it wasn't me....). It ended up being a very fun night, I DD'd for my dad and his drinking buddies, and thus got to experience what it's like to be part of 'guys night out.' It was even worth having to get up at quarter to six today.

Tonight, I'm off for a 'girls' weekend in London, where I will get to see Paula and Sharon again after far too long of a hiatus, and celebrate her engagement like the whirlwind I am. I'm hoping to grab Megan for lunch at some point during the weekend, and eat some Shawarmas. Then it's back home for more Birthdad fun on Sunday!

on that note, it's time to get some work done, and I hope this works:

Architechture in Helsinki - Do The Whirlwind
Buy It!!!

me encanta el camion que tu me tocas

Wow.

So last night I checked the computer before bed (I'd left messenger on and about 10 people who I NEVER hear from had messaged me - apparently setting your nickname to Snakes! On a Plane! makes you very, very popular...) and one of the messages is an extremely long conversation between Paula and Sharon. Long story short: Sharon is getting married in Cuba in May.

Wow.

Aside from the normal concerns (he'd better treat her right), I am SO excited for her. The last 5 months of conversations between Shar and I have basically been laden with her gushing about how amazing he is, about how he makes her feel loved and beautiful and happy. I'm hoping that he'll continue to do that.




For those of you who don't know Sharon, she is brilliant and talented, a loving mom who has managed to do more in the 6 years that I've known her than I could hope to do in 15. She is one of those people who you know can actually do anything she sets her mind to, because you've seen it happen again and again. Congratulations Sharon!

Snakes! On a Plane!

"Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) and Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), FBI agents, escort John Saunders (Mark Houghton), a former mafia member to testify in a highly publicized case. In the course of a flight between Hawaii and California, an assassin releases hundreds of poisonous snakes in the hope of killing the witness." (Wikipedia)

Right. Because the best way to kill your target is to let loose loads of snakes. Guns were soooo 2005.

Seriously, go watch the trailer: Snakes on a Plane

MTL, an update

Megan just posted this, and I felt it should be up here as well. Best (drunken) poutine ever. Just look at that cheese string! And my head is the wheel of a race car!!



PS - Paula now reads this! Hi Paula!

I woke up thirsty...

I can't get over how much I'm loving the Islands cd I bought on a whim in Montreal. About ten seconds into the first song, I'm smitten. I love everything about it - the tone, the crazy multi-instrumentation (I think all the indie heavyweights have been brought in to contribute: half of the Arcade Fire, Jim Guthrie, Micheal Feurstack aka Snailhouse, plus many more that Im forgetting), and the lyrics are some of the best/cutest/most entertaining I've ever read. It carries some of the same themes as The Unicorns' Who Will Cut Our Hair when We're Gone?-namely death and being cute - while still managing to sound very different. Really, it's just fun to listen to.

Other than that little love-in, not much is happening. I had a great weekend, lot's of walking around in the sunshine, hanging out with good people, and adventures in cheese. I gave blood yesterday for the first time in probably 6 years, and it went really well - seems I've gotten over that whole 'fainting' thing. It was definitely worth it, since I'm a huge fan of that peach juice they give you with oatmeal cookies, and I guess the knowing that someone might carry around my red blood cells and be really happy about it is also pretty good.

A Dog-in-a-Bun Sort of Day.

Thanks to the awesomely long sleep and the cheery songs my itunes has been feeding me, I'm in a fantastic mood. This kind of mood (yes I know I've posted it before, but it really is timeless):



And for once I feel motivated! Yay! This motivation is being fueled into creating some really fun mixes, and into explosive sneezes! I;m also looking forward to the weekend, where the only plan set in stone is a peanut butter soup party at Jaime's, possibly featuring ANTM. And if I'm really motivated, some spring cleaning will be done!

Woo!

Three Cheers for Whimsy!

Last night ended up being pretty awesome - I wasn't looking forward to Pyramid Culture, after Mark's 'meh'ness about them, but we ended up really really loving them, and I found myself wanting to be in their band. I'm sciencey, and hey - they still have some room for blue or yellow!

I'd read on You Ain't No Picasso that for their Lexington show, Of Montreal came onstage without Kevin Barnes and played some organ-y music, only to be joined moments later by their beutiful frontman, who was wearing a wedding dress. Mark and I were talking about that on the way to the show, my thoughts were that it was something that was probbably a one-off thing to spice up a special night but something he wouldn't do every show. Mark Disagreed. He was right.


(I had to lift this photo from someone on stillepost since I forgot the camera like the crazy scatterbrain I am)

Of Montreal were fantastic, like always. I have great respect for anyone who is deleriously happy for prolonged periods of time and shows it off by dancing and grinning and generally being a boost to everyone around them. I guess that's how I sum up the show. Musically, it wasn't quite as good as when I've seen them before (Like, on a report card they'd get an A + rather than an A++), but that may be due to my wierd bout of self consciousness, or the bigger venue, or possibly a mild slowdown in tempo. Whatever it was, I was very happy staying till the end and danced myself silly too. Combined with the sushi dinner and me managing to get at least a little bit of work done, I'd say it was really good night.

International Women's Day

... was brought to my attention by Grigori, who came by my lab today and gave out chocolates to every woman in it. How sweet is that?

For my part, if you're a woman, and you're reading this, I hope you're having a wonderful day filled with self-confidence, happiness, and love.

<3

Jen

Need some fresh air

So I'm still feeling as out of it as I did yesterday. I'm not really sick, but I'm trying to blame everything on my minor sore throat anyways, becuase I can't *really* be this vacant. Today hasn't been quite as bad at making me feel like a doofus as yesterday was, but I'm still feeling that way a little bit. I managed to sleep in, which wasn't totallly my fault, but untimately is, and I was late meeting some people who are touring the school hoping to geta good impression. I just felt like I let Fran down a bit... not much, but in combination with yesterday I just feel a bit useless. I might just be sad about Edgar on 24 though... R.I.P.

Things cheering me up:

Sunshine! I just want to get outside, AND it's giving me a bit of motivation to get things back on track and fill my head with science and knowledge.

Islands! The new cd is so good (you can click on it on my sidebar to get to their myspace page, which has a few songs for your listening pleasure - it's on the lower right of the listening section!)

Mark! Even if he makes me sleep in, I still love him to itty pieces.

Montreal Bagels! Still a dozen and a half left!

To my chicas and my chicos

Wow - today was far too hectic. I got into work nice and early, despite my slowly worsening sore throat that made last night kinda not fun, and my things to do list just keeps growing. I sat in on a job talk this morning, met someone who may do her Ph.D. in the lab, and at four I'm going to go invigilate some exam. I had a nice late lunch with Jaime, although when I got back, I found that I was late for an appointment with a subject - he wasn't on my handy-dandy calender, meaning that I wasn't prepped. Oi. Things got a bit calmer, although I'm pretty happy now about being home, curling up with some soup and watching the 24 double-feature.

Now, here is my MTL update (please also go see Megan's site, because I'm sure she will have much better pictures than I do). Instead of doing my day by day, all I can really say is that it was awesome. I'm pretty sure my brain would explode if I tried to relive everything in written word. Seriously though, Megan is the bestest to go on a road trip with seriously - BFF OMG! It was her fantastic idea to fill the driving part with teen quiz magazines, in which we found out that generally, we're pretty mature fourteen year olds, and that we're the type of chica's who have closets crying out for shrunken jackets (I'm so sorry closet, I never knew...).

Jaime and James, if either of you ever read this, thanks for being awesome hosts and tour guides! I must say that I've never been to a bar that fancy in my entire life...

I think the very best part of the trip was feeling like I did some actual bonding. It's so nice living with Mark (and being home to him and Annie) but I seriously miss girl time and girl moments sometimes. So Megan, thank you. You are one awesome Chica and I'm looking forward to visiting you next year already! (Not implying that I'll not be visiting you before then!) I think there should be many more late night giggle-fests, and I'll try not to tease you about your camera-happy ways (now in Sepia!).

After all was done (including the van dying in Cobourg... not so good news on that front...), it was so nice to be home to Mark, Annie, and THIS. I feel utterly loved and important.


(ps - the chicas and chicos refers to the infiltration of 'hip' words from the quiz magazines that filled the road trip)

The Gun Show.

This is friggin' COLD:



And this is awesomely HOT:



Montreal has been tres, tres fun. With many random acts of violence. Why did she hit me? I was closer. Road trips should happen every day.

Montreal won't break us down

Of my 28 hours in Montreal so far, Megan and I have been standing/dancing/walking for probably half of them. I'm exhausted - M just told me how to say that in French, but since I'm exhausted I've forgotten already. It's been pretty great, I feel like we've done so much already, but we're not even halfway through our visit. I've done some shopping, have had cafe au laits, and have generally just immersed myself in having good times with the divine miss M. Tonight might feature jazz-bar and Erin, tomorrow will feature vieux montreal and a nice night of cooking to thank our helpful hosts, and we will possibly get to see Basia.

I have a couple new cds that I'm excited to listen to: Islands, purchased at the Metric/Islands show last night, and also another cd purchased on a whim that I'm hoping will be good, and I won't say who it is because I'm saving it as a surprise for boy-M.

Now, it is time to have a rest and possibly a nap.

<3