*

Awww, Kurt Vonnegut passed away. It's been a while since I read any of his books, so I can't recall any quotes off the top of my head other than *. Here's a good one that I stumbled across today, from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the
winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got
about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies —
‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”

Thanks for all of the wonderful words.

!!!

There are some exciting things going on in my life right now, and duly, I am excited. I've finally found a volunteer program that makes my heart race with how perfect it is for me. I have travel plans. I have new books. I'm officially working part-time. I've been to the new Whitby Hooters (with old Whitby friends).

First things first: Unite for Sight. It's an international NGO that aims to provide vision health care to people in developing countries - and I've just spent the past 3 years learning about & working in the field of vision health. They have so many choices for placements - the ones I'm considering are in Chennai, India, and in Accra, Ghana. Amazing. I'm really excited about this - I have my letters of recommendation lined up and will be applying either tonight or tomorrow.

Another bonus with the program is the flexibility - they have a ton of different dates to choose from, so it will be really easy to work in my volunteering plans with other travel plans. Mark and I are almost certainly going to head over to Poland sometime mid- to late June, and spend as much time as possible getting to know his family. The family side of our relationship is currently unbalanced - he's met absolutely everyone who shares some significant portion of my DNA, and I've only met his immediate family. I can't wait to see grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.

Books: I now have a complete collection of Salinger novels. I'd read Catcher in the Rye years ago, but was recently re-convinced (Kurt tried once before, it didn't work) by Jaime to read Franny and Zooey. I plodded through it, and was won over a few pages before the end, and left with a feeling of love for absolutely every person in the world. It takes a good book to do that. Now, I'm starting on Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters.

Other: 1st weekday off is tomorrow: studying will be done. In a week and a half, I'm headed off to Ottawa to do some micro-g experiments, hopefully studying will be done there, too, but it will be dicey as my travel companions are some of CVR's funniest people. Hooters was great - we (4 girls: me, Kathleen, Andrea, and Molly; 1 guy: Anthony)had a fun time with our bouncy server who made plenty sure to only pay attention to Anthony. I guess it is the one place where you can't really complain about that kind of service ;)

According to my stat counter, I have a repeat visitor from the metro toronto police. That's odd. Hi there police people, I promise that I'm not doing anything illegal. I hope you find my lame stories interesting. Also, thanks for keeping me safe in my city, and please be mean to drivers who endanger people on bikes.

Welcome to April, sucker.

I was dog-sitting again over the weekend, which was ok, and nice for the most part. I was pretty blue yesterday about having nobody around to prank for April Fools - I could have put toothpaste or something in the dog's food but she wouldn't have gotten the joke. I complained about it to Adam, and then told him that the CN tower fell down (birds! Thousands of them! They all flew into it at once! They're ok!). I'm pretty sure that he neither believed me nor thought that it was a very funny attempt.

Later in the day (after noon! technically, April fool's was OVER), I was talking to Sharon in hopes of arranging a meet-up to see us some Ninja Turtles, when she dropped the bomb: She's pregnant, going to have a little bro or sis for Talon - likely sometime around Talon's birthday. I didn't believe her at first, but then got convinced and v. excited! raced downstairs to find her cell number, called her, and got laughed at for falling for it. Jerk. Though, I am kinda happy that I got pranked - I don't like it when perfectly good fun things get passed over.

Woo! Spring is here! Mark and I have taken advantage of the nice weather gracing Toronto for the past few days by getting our defrosting asses outside (see how I kinda made a pun about frozen assets there? and it doesn't even make sense, because we have no assets frozen, or even available to freeze - HA). Monday was nice enough that we walked home from College and Yonge, running into some old friends and seeing how happy people were to be out of winter. The reason we were downtown in the first place was to see Children of Men - an amazing movie about a dystopian future. The whole thing was beautifully shot, and believable. I loved it and am still piecing bits of it together in my mind. I think it actually came ut on video this week - it's definitely a must-see.

Yesterday, we headed out to a park and played some frisbee. I'm hoping to do a lot of that this summer.... I want to set up some sort of drop in frisbee thing that's just for fun and really unstructured. Good idea?

H'okay, that's enough for now. It's time to get back to analyzing frustrating data, wrapping my head around bootstrapping, and other fun stats stuff.

Hola!

¡Hola amigos del Sharon! Aquí están las fotos de su boda.

HAHAHAHA

Seriously, LOL.

Pot Kettle Black

I guess before I get on anyone's (*cough* Megan *cough* Sharon even though you're in Cuba) case about not blogging recently, I should at least get one post in myself this week. I haven't felt like writing much lately, mostly because I'm franticly trying to find some meaning from the data I've gathered over the past year and am getting slightly despondent over the fact that I may not be able to write a compelling story about it. Such is research, I guess.

On the upside of things, I had a reconnection with one of my favourite people from high school this week. Through the all-popular facebook, I started catching up with Smitha. We'd been pretty close friends in grade nine & ten, and ended up drifting apart a bit by the end. Well, needless to say, we both ended up on facebook and found that we still have so many similar interests, and on Wednesday night I met up with her to chat over coffee and then later check out Basia's show with Sarah.

I had a really amazing time, and I must say that as much as I love Mark (and I love him to bits!!) it is so nice to have amazing girl (and other) friends in my life with whom I can go out and have a ton of fun and feel comfortable being a bit silly with. I am constantly amazed at the accomplishments of my friends (grad schools, publications, conferences, amazing jobs, putting out cds etc) and feel lucky to be close to so many talented people.

Also: today is my dad's birthday (happy birthday!) and Im going home for the celebratory dinner and then to dogsit while the parents take off to barbados. I'm only slightly jealous.

A Terrible Grace

Anyone familiar with my building at York knows of the tunnel. This is an important tunnel - it connects us to the building housing the Tim Hortons, oh, and a library. A miracle of modern construction, the tunnel (built about 5 years ago) floods with water every time it rains. While coming back from Timmy's this morning, large coffee in hand, I was trying to maneuver around the folks given the task of mopping up the water, and ended up slipping in the massive puddle that I didn't quite step over in my pretty new shoes. I ended up doing the splits (I'm not wearing something split-friendly today), BUT not only did I not fall, I didn't even spill my coffee. My clumsy years have finally paid off! I can not not fall! And I can do it all with a terrible grace. Unfortunately, this also means that I don't get to sue York for damages and retire at 25.

Give me my hour back.

(will you let me keep the sunshine?)

I really, really love my friends. I've seen/talked to/heard from so many over the past few days that I'm almost feeling full of friends (a hard feeling to reach). Friday was spent with some unexpected wine, and newer friends. I somehow managed to convince people (me + wine interaction, I think) to come down to Lee's Palace to see Rock Plaza Central for an evening of robot horse rock, and it was amazing. People are fun (7 years of psychology summed up right there folks!).

I headed out to Whitby on Saturday, with a brand new batch of chocolate-ginger-grapefruit cupcakes and headed up to Mike's party with a whole bunch of old friends for some bonfires and milestone celebrating. I'm starting to feel fairly unaccomplished, like the letters following my name pale somewhat in comparison to the tangible accomplishments of my friends, who are getting good jobs, buying houses and starting families. I just hope that somehow it will be worth it, that I won't be just another Simpsons joke.




Other good things: Mark and I found some great cds at Deja Vu - Sunset Rubdown, Pele, and a find by Mark that I'll likely never remember the name of, but is good nonetheless. We took Indy to the Lake for some running around and stepping in mud. I tried skipping stones, with little luck! Mark took some really nice photos in celebration of the first really nice day of the year, and hopefully I can post those soon. Last night we got back to Toronto, and had dinner with Sharon and 24 with Maggie. A good weekend all around, and even though I'm tired for this week, I only have to make it through 3 more days before the next one :)

International Women's Day

To all of you ladies out there, happy day!

VAGINA

Three high school girls were suspended last week for saying the word vagina during a reading from The Vagina Monologues at a literary night. Apparently, the girls had been asked to not say vagina, and disobeyed the order.

OMG kids in the audience might have heard the word vagina!

GASP!

Next thing you know, people will realize that IT IS A BODY PART. Vagina is not a swear word, it's not inappropriate. Do people really want their kids to grow up not knowing proper terms for body parts? Should 15 year old girls go the doctor and call it a hoo-ha?

I wondered if this was a sign of the fall of feminism, but then realized that a real sign would be people ignoring things like this. Shame on the principal of that school, and thank you to those girls for disobeying a ridiculous order and for believing in your convictions enough to do so.

Dentists and Taxes

I've realized that I'm not very good with those things. THIS IS ABOUT TO CHANGE! I have already (!!!) completed my 2006 taxes, almost 2 months before the deadline! Tonight, I will do my 2005 taxes and be all up to date. No more will I be ms. late taxes. And tomorrow, I'm going to my surprise (I booked 9 months ago... my memory span has been approx. 1 week lately) dentist appointment, even though I no longer have coverage. Hooray for responsibility. Also, I purged my personal files last night and found my long lost twi... birth certificate. This is a bold new page in my life - to celebrate, I'll make myself a heart-healthy dinner and go to bed early.

This is the type of blog post that happens when you only have a Monday and a Tuesday to write about.

In Wednesday news, I've spent quite a bit of time staring at the beautiful world map hanging in the office. I've getting drooly and my heart rate rises every time I think about the possibilities for next year. I can't wait to see a little bit more of the world and experience other cultures. Does anyone know of good (reputable) aid organizations that focus on health or women?

Another weekend has been added to my list of good weekends. Unfortunately, there was no Paula sighting (does this mean 6 more weeks of winter? I hope not.), but fun was had at Sharon's party anyways. We played headbands (I refuse to spell it the silly, copyrighted way), and I had a tremendously difficult time guessing who I was. According to Talon, I was a boy, and there was a shark and a tank in the picture. My name started with C, and ended with a. Yup, Cuba. Apparently, pictures of people trump names of countries for deciding between "who, what and where."

On Saturday, Mark and I lazed around all morning, and then spent the afternoon at Starbucks with coffee and reading materials (the New Yorker anniversary edition was AWESOME, I'm so glad that I caved in and bought it). I've decided that I officially love David Sedaris, and I wish somebody would introduce me in the way that he introduces his characters. To cap off a lovely day, we went to the Bloor to see Volver, which was wonderful and very, very beautifully shot.

Yesterday, Mark and I made cupcakes (chocolate ginger with grapefruit frosting - yum!) and headed down to Kensington to meet up with Ryan, Jenny, Jen and Matt for some sushi, and later some movies at Ryan & Jenny's place where we ate the aforementioned cupcakes.

And best of all, today I got my purring ball of fur back - thanks mom!!!

A question.

I've just realized that I have no idea where I'm going to be this time next year. In all likelihood, I'll be somewhere in the GTA, but that really isn't a given. I hope that I'll either be somewhere doing some good, or just returned from doing some good - but really, who knows?

Where do you think YOU will be this time next year? What changes/experiences are you hoping to have between now and then? I'm curious.

Bon temps à Montréal

Mark, Jaime and I have returned not much the worse for wear from our mini-trip to Montreal. This one was slightly less whirl-windy than usual, the result of taking it easy and doing whatever rather than planning for every minute. We stayed in with M's homemade brownies and generously-poured 'drunks' and had a great night talking and peer-pressuring M into facebook.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and we took advantage of the mild (only -5!) weather and walked around the Plateau, listening to the church bells (they ring every hour, on the hour, for an hour!) and trying all sorts of delicious things readily found in the Mont. Seriously though, Mark had a BOWL of gourmet, organic, single plantation, 70% cocoa hot chocolate. Realizing that hot chocolate should be consumed in association with going skating, we headed to Parc Lafontaine and talked ourselves into spending $14 on skate rentals (way better than a movie!) and strutted our stuff around the ice for a while.

Last year:


This year:



Feeling good after our little bit of exercise, we headed back to M's place, grabbed a Jaime and a Dave, and ate some more brownies pre-dinner. Yum. We headed out to L'academie with Erin, Sebastien, Elodie and Dawson, and splurged on deliciousness, followed by more deliciousness at Rockaberries (mmmm... I'm really glad that I made mark get that crumble!). I may have eaten a bit too well - upon getting to the bar, I promptly fell into a state of barley awake.

Sunday morning included a sleep-in, some poutine for Mark, and a duct-tape wallet, and only semi-sad departure (see you in a month and a half, M!). Hooray for road trips :)

New shoes!

I can't wait for warm weather to be here. I will bike around in skirts and cute shoes all day long.

Thursday side of the street

Today has me thinking that I should completely redo my schedule and not work before noon. My Thursday night class has allowed me to start at noon rather than 9am, and I have had the BEST day. I woke up easily, before my alarm. I puttered around the apartment and hung out with Annie. I picked up my new jeans from the tailors, and was not rushed or late on my way to York. At work, I've been motivated, and productive (well, not RIGHT this moment) and feeling perkier and clear-headed than I've felt in weeks. Hooray!

Also, great things have been happening today. I was flipping through my Eye weekly on the bus and came across this picture, accompanied by a full-page article:



That guy there on the left? That's Michael. I met him through Mark, since they are and have been in many bands together. He is hilarious, and that photo made me laugh out loud on the bus.

A couple of minutes later, I *just* missed a call. When I checked my messages, there was a very urgent one from John. He was frantic, saying that it was of utmost importance that I called him back immediately. So, without even bothering to search for my long distance calling card, I called him. And asked whose house was on fire. Apparently, there was no real emergency, he just wanted me to call him back that day so he made it *sound* urgent (note to us - this may solve the all-too-common problem of trying to get in touch with him, just leave messages sounding like you're hanging off the side of a cliff and he's the only one who can save you).

His question: what is Sharon's new contact information?! "I can't find her number and I NEED to call her because it's almost her birthday!!!" I laughed at him and told him that he's going to run into problems if he uses facebook to manage his life. I reminded him that her birthday happened right before we went to Cuba, therefore, is in May. All because Sharon listed some random day in February as her birthday.

Lol.

In other news re: goodness, Mark and I watched Broken Flowers and Saved! last night. While he favors the former,and I the latter, they were both really good and worthy of watching. Saved was absolutely hilarious, and made me like The Macauley again. We managed to watch both of them in one night even though my Yorkdale stop turned into 2.5 hours rather than 0.5 hours. I scored though, using my Bay gift card to get some sweet tops, a skirt and a pair of jeans on really good sales, and I got the cutest ever black leather flats. I want to go back and get them in gold. I need to post pics so that everyone can agree that they are the cutest.

To top off a great week: I had the Best. Sammich. EVER. It was on dark rye from Kensington, and was topped with brie, tomatoes, avocados, and a slice of prosciutto. MMMMMMMM. In unrelated news, I'm getting fat.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope that everyone finds the Mark to their Jenny!

Plans for today include eating yummy cookies packed into my lunch, and kid-watching. Not in a creepy way... in a helping out with homework and bribing with boardgames sort of way. Mark and I may find some time to watch movies and cuddle. It's going to be an experience.

Much love to you all :)

Here goes.

At the moment, I'm killing some time on campus waiting for my night class (back in class! yeah!) and I figured there was no sense attempting to be productive. Also, my mom thinks I should blog more. Here goes.

Mark and I went to Edo again last night with some of his friends as a winterlicious thing. Now that w'lish is almost over, I'm feeling a bit bad because I didn't end up going with the people I'd originally planned on dining with. Jaime & Sharon: Next time! Edo was really great (again) - they really go the extra mile, and every course is consistently great. I'm SO glad we switched out reservation from the restaurant with crappy reviews. I know that winterlicious is supposed to be an event allowing people to try fancy restaurants on the cheap, but really - very few of my friends would normally even consider paying $25-35 for dinner, and wouldn't consider those prices to be cheap. And looking at my account balance, I shouldn't be paying that much for dinner either. However, I think when I am in the mood to pay those prices, I'll be going back to Edo. Yum.

Superbowl weekend was really good - turkey chili was consumed (and washed down with too much rum for my head to handle) and I paid attention to only about 5 mins of the game, as usual. Sharon's house is looking really good these days. I can't wait for housewarming fun!! (Housewarming fun x2! Ryan and Jenny are also warming up their awesome new place TOMORROW!)

Also: you know you're in Forest Hill when you walk past treehouses with Satellite dishes.