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Back in Edmonton

Ok, so I promised that I'd write a blog post explaining my being back in Edmonton almost a month sooner than planned. There really isn't much to explain, but here you go:

I was going stir crazy. Not having a job or much else to do was getting to me. I tried to go out every day, but there wasn't always something for me to do. Plus, if there was maintenance work being done at the train station near my house, it was a long walk to the next one, which was less than pleasant when carrying things like groceries, so I just went to the supermarket down the street instead of going out into civilization. There was no point in me getting a job a month before leaving for Christmas, so I just kind of sat around not doing much. It was boring and depressing. Coming back to Canada, where there are people I know and I have more mobility, thanks to cars, was the best thing for me to do for now, I think. My grumpiness was starting to make me difficult to get along with, and the last thing I wanted was to strain the relationships I had over there. Plus, my dog was at home, and I missed him.

I fully plan to go back in January and get a job. I'm not entirely certain what kind of job, but having something to do and a way to meet people (plus earning money) should make things much easier for me. I took only a little bit of my stuff home with me, since I have to go back to England with all the stuff my mom couldn't ship. I'm sad to be away from Peter for our five-year anniversary, but the date's not the important thing, so it'll be okay. He and Chris are both coming home for Christmas, so I'll get to see him then.

So, yeah, nobody died or got seriously sick or injured. I just came home for the sake of my own sanity, and I'll be going back in the new year. =)

Wednesday!

I have remarkably little to do right now. I've checked out the websites I regularly read, I've dealt with my e-mail for now, and World of Warcraft is having technical issues, so there's nothing much for me to do on the computer (except blog). I was going to go out and buy something for dinner tonight, maybe get a coffee, but then Peter called and said that he was going to pick something up on his way back from class, so there's no need to do that. And, besides, my outing yesterday was unpleasant enough that I don't particularly want to repeat it today.

It wasn't that bad, really, but there were a bunch of little things that I didn't like. For instance, despite having a lid on my coffee, some of it managed to jump out through the little sipping hole and burn my thumb. The clock in the kitchen died yesterday, so I was mistaken about what time it was when I left, and I wound up getting caught in rush hour "traffic" on the tube. Holborn station was so busy and full that they had to stop letting people in for a while (this is common during rush hour), so I had to stand outside in the cold with my heavy grocery bags in the middle of a very large crowd that was doing its best to contain itself to the sidewalk (i.e., it was very cramped). Also, there was a panhandler next to the ATM when I stopped to get cash before grocery shopping, and, despite being rather poor myself, I felt bad. He didn't bug me, though, so points for him. I can just see people rolling their eyes at me for my bleeding heart. ^_^

But, yeah, not doing that today would be a good thing. ^_^

Despite yesterday being actually a rather unpleasant day, today is looking to be rather nice. I slept in, which was nice, since I didn't get to sleep until about 5am last night. When I woke up, I noticed that I seem to have lost some weight lately, which is always nice. I have a very tasty glass of Coke Zero with ice on the table next to me (I figure diet pop isn't that bad of a weakness in terms of health and cost, so I'm allowing myself if ^_^). I suspect that Peter will be making dinner tonight, which, according to the system we've set up, means that he's also going to clean (I got annoyed at cleaning up his sometimes excessive messes, so we instituted a "clean up your own mess" rule). World of Warcraft should be back up and running within the next hour or so, which is nice because it was down all day yesterday. So, yeah, everything's more or less good on this side of the pond.

Oh, and, just in case any of you were waiting for a description of the Robin Williams talk show thing, I didn't go. I felt too crappy. Oh, well. I'm sure there will be other opportunities to do interesting things. Yay, optimism! ^_^

Tea and Its Various Associations

Hello, fine people! Life in London continues to be a mixture of interesting, mundane and bizarre things. Or, well, something like that. Peter is currently talking to himself, wondering where Old Man Barlowe went. If you don't know what that means, then don't talk to him when he's wondering about it--all you'll get is a very ditracted half explanation with at least five seconds of silence in between each spoken word. It's kind of amusing, but kind of not...

I broke a plate cleaning up after dinner tonight. We have a broom, so we were able to sweep up all the shards and dust and whatnot, but we don't have a dustpan or vaccuum or anything like that. So I picked up the tiny little shards and dust with scotch tape. I thought it was a rather resourceful idea. :-)

On Saturday, Chris and I went to meet with a couple of his friends in town. They had 2 for 1 coupons for an IMAX movie at the science museum, so we went and saw a film about the international space station. It was narrated by Tom Cruise, and, despite being half price, not that interesting. Peter, who stayed home to work on a paper, had seen it before and absolutely loved it, but that's because he has a weird affection for the Russian space program, as well as space exploration in general. Afterwards, we went to Harrod's and wandered through the food halls. That place is crazy. In a good way. It has many wonderful foods, but I still couldn't find Orange Pekoe tea. *sigh* Oh, well. It's not like we actually own a kettle or anything.

This reminds me of two things. The first thing is that I had tea last night because I had extra boiled water from making Jell-o! It was a different brand, but it was still very tasty. Also, it didn't come in a powder, but intstead in gelatinous cubes, like very dense Jell-o. I took a nibble of the corner to see what it tasted like; it was slippery and not worth eating straight. ^_^ But, yeah, strawberry Jell-o for desert last night made me happy. :-D

The second thing is the escapades my mother has been having trying to ship the stuff that didn't fit in my suitcases. Long story short, she's not going to be shipping anything. Instead, I'm going to bring two more or less empty suitcases home with me at Christmas and bring my stuff to England that way. But, yeah, at first, when I left, all of my stuff was in boxes with packing peanuts and all that jazz. My mom went to ship it and discovered that she needed a copy of my passport main page and of my visa, as well as itemized lists of what was being shipped with values of everything. Cue my search for a scanner. A few weeks later, I *finally* manage to find one, and I send my the scans to my mom. My mom then spends an hour at the UPS store talking to them. In addition to all the stuff my mom got together (she even repacked my stuff so that there were fewer boxes), they needed a form for me to fill out and fax back. That was more or less ignored, though, since the shipping would cost $530. Even if she only shipped a quarter of what she was planning on, it would have cost hundreds of dollars. So, yeah, no shipping.

The reason tea reminded me of this is because my mom was going to ship me a box of Red Rose (Orange Pekoe) tea, but now I don't get any until Christmas. :-(

However, on the bright side of things, tomorrow, I am going to a taping of a talk show where the guest is Robin Williams. Chris puts his name in draws for tickets to television show tapings, and he "won" four tickets to this, so he invited Peter and I to come along with him. I've never seen Robin Williams without editing before, so it should be fun. :-) I wonder if they do an audience warm-up thing like some talk shows do. Those kind of rub me the wrong way. Oh, well. It'll be a new experience, regardless. I shall inform you all of it at a later date. :-)

Post 410

Peter's cooking dinner (I'm not even sure what, exactly), and it smells delicious. Mmmm... shallots, garlic and butter in a frying pan. =) I think ground beef in some form, as well as bell peppers, will be added. I'm hungry. ^_^

Not much going on lately. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past two years, you know that today is the US preseidential election. I want it to be over, one way or the other. Peter's going to an all-night party at the LSE to watch the results come in. It starts at 11pm, and he has a presentation to give in one of his classes at 10am the next day. I hope he's not hungover for that. =p

I was poking around in stores (excuse me, shops) today to see if I could find a knee-length coat that I liked for cheap. I found one that may have fit the bill for 25 pounds, but I decided not to buy it. I basically want a coat that I can wear over my long cardigan--it looks weird to wear it with either of my "normal"-length coats. I was at Primark while shopping, and I considered buying imitation Uggs for 6 pounds, but that store is crazy busy, and I didn't feel like standing in line to pay for shoes. I could have spent more money to make the wait feel more "worth it," but that didn't seem terribly smart to me (though they did have these cute pants for 6 pounds, and I would have bought a gloves/scarf set for 3 pounds).

Tuesdays are less fun for me than other days because World of Warcraft is down from 1pm to 7pm for maintenance. This would be 6am to 12pm in Edmonton, but, alas, time differences make things less convenient over here. That's actually what got me to decide to update my blog, was that I had nothing to do for a while before dinner because WoW is still down. ^_^

I can smell the red wine Peter's added to our dinner. He's bought a fair amount of alcohol lately, but it's been cheap. Three little bottles of wine for 10 pounds, and 8 big cans of Strongbow for 4 pounds. That's even cheaper than the 67 pence cans of beer that I've seen littered around here on Sundays. >.<

Speaking of people being stupidly celebratory, Guy Fawkes Day/Bonfire Night is soon, and people have been letting off fireworks in anticipation. They're loud and annoying and have startled the hell out of me when I've been outside and able to hear their full impact. The dogs in the neighborhood don't like them, either.

I have "official" dates for when I'll be in Canada over Christmas. Peter and I arrive at about 2pm on the 20th of December. Peter hopes to leave on the 8th of January, and I hope to leave on the 15th. The departure dates aren't set in stone, since Air Canada no longer does an Edmonton-London direct flight ever day, but only 3 days a week now, I believe, but that's more or less when we'll be around. Peter has to get back in time for term to start on the 12th, but I want to spend a bit more time at home, so I'm leaving later. Yay for being unemployed! ^_^ It gives you so much more flexibility with your schedule.

Okay, I'm now paying more attention to the smell of dinner than to writing this blog entry, so I'm going to stop writing and go poke my nose into the kitchen. Mmm... =)

Long, Random Post

It is the day before Hallowe'en. I should buy a bag of candy in case we get any trick or treaters, though I suspect we won't. Oh, well. More candy for us. ^_^

Things have been puttering along over here. I have signed up for National Novel Writing Month. I have no idea why it's called "National," since it has a very obvious internation focus. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it is an event where, during the month of November, you write a 50'000-word novel. According to the welcome e-mail they sent me, I'm supposed to tell everybody that I signed up for this so that the fear of public humiliation will keep me from quitting in the second week. I have a rough idea of what I'm going to write about--who knows, I may even put it up for download if it ever reaches the stage of "readable."

I went and bought a toque today. I couldn't find gloves that I liked for a reasonable price, though, so I think I'll go to other places next week and poke around. I also bought a new mouse for my computer because the one I add was finally starting to give up the ghost after more than three years. The new one is rather small (though not the smallest the store had, by far), and has a rather short cord, but all that really means for me is that there's no long cord to get tangled in, so yay for that. ^_^

Peter had his first big presentation on Tuesday. He says it went well. I don't particularly want to know what it was about. It seems that his introduction to Economic History is very heavily weighted towards the Economics end of things, and everything he's talked about reading so far has been horrifically boring to me, so I kind of try to avoid it when I can.

I found my watch today, much to my surprise. I thought I'd left it at an internet cafe, but I found it under the cushions of the couch. Figures. ^_^

I think we finally have more or less everything we need in terms of housewares. There are a coouple of things that we could use, like another pot and some more dishes, but the basics are covered. This is partly due to the trip I took to Ikea on Saturday. That trip was quite an adventure, but many things were accomplished, so I'm okay with getting lost repeatedly and walking a rather long ways lugging a big bag full of rather heavy stuff.

I called to set up online banking yesterday. I set it up maybe two years ago and then never used it, so I had to set it up again. It was an 800 number, but you pay for those the same as any long distance number from the UK, so the phone call cost me a small fortune. :-( The end result was that I realized just how much money I've spent in the last two months. Initial expenses suck. I have enough money to cover past Christmas, but, after that, I really need to get a job. That was the plan, though, so it's not like I'm shocked or disappointed or anything.

I continue to discover things about London/Britain that I find odd. Of course, now that I'm writing a blog entry, I can't think of any, but I assure you they exist. >.< Okay, here's one: Every shop has a security guard. Like, I walked past The Body Shop today, and the security guard (who looked very bored) was straightening one of the displays a bit. I've accidentally asked security guards for help finding an item in the store. I don't get why they're all over the place. I remember once, when I was working at A&B Sound, a co-worker paged security. I knew the procedure ("Mr. Black to [department]."), but I'd never actually seen it done before. I was floored to see a security guard come upstairs. I'd worked there for months and had never seen a security guard in the building. I wondered where he hid. I still have no idea. But, yeah, security guards in every shop make me vaguely uncomfortable. At least they're unarmed (or they appear to be) unlike some I've seen in South America. :-S

I'm waiting for Peter to get home. He should be home any minute. He has a seminar at 5 (or is it 6?) in the evening every Thursday, and they'll often go out afterwards, so he's usually home around 8 or 8:30. He doesn't have classes on Fridays, though, so maybe I'll get him to go out for lunch with me or something similarly fun and financially irresponsible. ^_^

It's started getting cold overe here. There was sleet/snow on Tuesday night. Hence why I bought the toque today. It's a good toque, from H&M, and it very closely resembles one that Joyce tried to get me to buy (also from H&M) a year or two ago, except it has a more solid knit and no sparkles. ^_^ Peter and Chris both got caught in the bad weather on Tuesday. I was out earlier in the day, and while it was raining, it wasn't nearly as bad as it got later that evening. Peter had to wait for a stalled train to get cleared off the tracks for half an hour in the nasty weather.

Peter and I are going to buy an esspresso machine machine soon, courtesy of his very generous father. I was joking yesterday that owning such a machine would give me one less reason to leave the house, but I greatly look forward to having easy access to caffeine that isn't ludicrously expensive. For example, they sell refrigeratable lattes and mochas at the supermarket, but they're very pricey. Same with the chillable drinks from Starbucks or other cafes. Speaking of cafes, I've discovered a place that I like better than Starbucks. It's called Caffe Nero. For some reason, the British spell it "caffe," with two fs and a downward-pointing accent (accent grave, for those of us who speak French) over the e. It looks so... wrong. But, anyway, Caffe Nero does superlative espresso. I go there when I want a treat, because they don't have the option anywhere on their menu for anything but whole milk. ^_^ I assume you could ask for low-fat milk, but they'd probably give you a disappointed look if you did.

Oh! That's another thing I find odd over here. There's no such thing as 1% milk. You can either get 2% or skimmed. Or whole, of course. And cream comes in containers like yogurt. The milk thing had Peter and I at odds for a while, but I relented and now we buy 2%. Which we need more of, come to think of it. And jam. I should write this down on an actual piece of paper. ^_^

We finally sorted out all of the money stuff from our initial expenses and groceries and stuff, so Peter and I are square, except for the fact that rent is due today. It's direct debit from his account, but I still have to pay him my share, of course. My third of the rent is 404 pounds per month, roughly $800 Canadian. Despite the fact that this place is within the budget we decided on, that number seems high to me. London is expensive. :-(

Another thing I find odd: Counsel tax (basically municipal tax, paid to the borough you live in for infrastructure) is assessed for six-month periods, and you pay for those six months with four monthly payments. So, basically, you pay every month for four months, then they leave you alone for two months. Rinse, repeat. *shakes head* Only the British...

I think I've rambled enough for now. Peter still isn't home, so I think I'll go read. Hope everybody at home is doing well. I miss you guys!

A List of Things I Find Odd About London

There are pigeons without any green on their necks (or anywhere else). In fact, there are many pigeons that have a great deal of white feathers. I wasn't sure they were pigeons at first.

The fine for taking public transport without a valid pass/ticket is twenty pounds. The fine for spitting your gum on the sidewalk is eighty pounds. Priorities much?

The street signs are large (about 2 feet by 1 foot) and posted on the sides of buildings. The signs that look like street signs in Canada are direction signs telling you which way to go to get certain places. For a while, before I found the street signs, I knew where I was going, but never where I was. It was confusing.

There are many places that seem to do two kinds of business: sell souvenirs and unlock cell phones. I have no idea why these two things go together so often. Also, I'm not entirely sure why networks lock cell phones to start with when it's so easy to unlock them, especially when it comes to pay as you go phones.

Speaking of phones, the cell phones here are much cooler than in North America. You'd think that the states, at least, would be gadget-crazed enough to sell more of these, but it's not the case.

Some people don't understand my accent. I called to register my phone with Orange, and the guy I was talking to had to have me spell out my post code using the "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc" alphabet. There are some people I don't understand, but that's largely because they omit half the syllables in what they're saying--I'm not entirely sure how someone who's fluent in English wouldn't be able to understand me.

All of the service vehicles and garbage trucks and the like are Mercedes Benz. I knew this before coming here, but there's still a little moment of cognitive dissonance every now and then when I see one.

Considering how much you hear about "Tandoori takeaway," I was surprised to find out that the chain called "Curry's" is an electronic store, much like Radio Shack or The Source. (They have really nice power adapters that are more compact than the ones I bought at home, in addition to not buzzing and being cheaper.)

People here love musicals. Like, cheesy musicals, like Andrew Lloyd Webber. If everybody who went to a musical more than three times per year changed one of those trips to the opera, I suspect the income of the opera would more than double.

I think that is all for now. I'll actually tell you what's been going on in my life in a couple of days, when there'll hopefully be something of substance to share. ^_^

Pictures!

Here are some pictures of our new place. Enjoy. =)

This is the entryway of our flat. I really like the hardwood floors--very pretty. =)

This is our living room as seen when standing in the doorway off the entrance "hall." Chris pointed out that the place is a bit of a mess, but oh, well. ^_^

And the living room again, as seen from the entryway to the kitchen. All that Ikea furniture... The windows/doors look out onto a canal.

This is the canal. It's not that spectacular, but it's what's outside our window.

This is a duck on the canal. Ducks are the most common birds on the canal (pigeons don't seem to like water), but I've also seen geese and swans swimming along.

This is the view if you look at something other than the canal. Kind of boring, generally, but it's interesting to people-watch.

This is Peter and I's bedroom. The clothes on the floor and the piles of stuff on the dresser are all his. ^_^ If I had turned around from here and taken another picture, you would have seen the world's smallest shower stall. Ironically, the shower head is high enough for Chris to stand under it, but the stall isn't big enough for him to actually moves his limbs enough to wash himself. ^_^

Lastly, here is the kitchen. I have pointed out the things about it that make me happy. ^_^ We desperately need garbage cans/bins, though...

And that's all. Well, except for Chris' room, but whatever. ^_^

Real Update

Ok, so here's an update that doesn't centre around my internet woes. I hope you all find it entertaining and enlightening.

The buskers in the tube stations are pretty good, for the most part. The weirdest I've come across so far was a banjo player singing in a language I'm 99% certain wasn't English. The two best so far have been a girl playing the guitar and singing a very pretty song with a very pretty voice, and this guy playing jazz on a steel-string guitar in a very evocative manner. I wanted to stand around and listen.

Public transportation for me costs 110 pounds per month. That's for the monthly pass, which is considerably cheaper than doing it any other way. I want my next place to be closer to downtown so that I only have to get a pass for zones 1 and 2, rather than 1-3 like I have now. I don't think we'll be in this place for more than 8 or 9 months. I don't think we'll keep the flat over the summer. I don't know what Chris will do, but I don't think he wants to stay where we are, so a change of location may be in order. Hell, I'm still hoping that Peter and I can get student housing next year. Yay, cheaper and better location! And no ginormous security deposit! ^_^

The internet connection on my phone doesn't tend to work at home because the signal is too weak. I guess that's ok, though, since, generally, I want to use it when I don't have normal access to the internet, which I will at home by Monday (knock on wood). So, unfortunately, I can only access my e-mail once a day, still. =(

That episode of Heroes I torrented? Yeah, it was password-protected. Grr. Anybody have a copy they can send/upload for me? *hopeful smile*

I miss my dog. Dogs are allowed on the tube, here, and I was watching some guy pet his bulldog-looking pet today, and I missed Farley very much. I saw a pigeon yesterday, and my brain did something weird and I smiled at it and nearly called it "puppy." *sniffle*

My bedroom back home is being transformed into the guest room, and my car has been sold. I guess I can't go home now. ^_^ I'm actually feeling pretty good about being here, though, so it's all right. Now that my foot is feeling better (the pain is almost completely gone), it's easier to walk around and go do stuff, so I've been going out by myself while Peter's at school. It's been good. =)

I think that's about it for now. Hope you guys are all doing well. =)

Update... Or Not

I'm on my laptop at an internet cafe, attempting to torrent last Monday's episode of Heroes. It's not going well. It's been about an hour, and it's only 23% done. This is frustrating. Despite the fact that the wifi is free here, I don't really want to be sitting here for terribly long. After all, I have to make soup tonight~! ^_^

So, yeah, internet cafe still. We should have internet at the flat a week from tomorrow. The runaround we've been given when trying to get an ISP has been crazy. From the beginning:

We did some "research" involving a free newspaper and decided to go with Virgin.

Virgin told us we need a land line to get DSL. We called BT to get a land line and ask them about their internet packages. Virgin was half the price because did didn't come with things like a PVR, which BT's package did.

The land line takes 48 hours to become active, and Virgin won't talk to us until then.
After 48 hours, we went back to Virgin, and they told us that it'll take another 48 hours to become fully active, and to come back then.

Chris buys his iPhone and discovers that customers who have mobile with his carrier get a deal on broadband. And, unlike with Virgin or BT, you can pick up the equipment at the store, rather than having it mailed to you (which takes 5-14 working days).

We go talk to this carrier (O2), and buy a modem/router. We're given instructions on what to do when our land line becomes completely active. All's good. Right?

Wrong. Once our land line is supposed to be fully active, the O2 stuff isn't working. We call BT--the land line is in fact fully active. We call O2--turns out, the area in which we live is oversaturated, and, until they get new equipment installed, they can't take any more customers here. WTF?! There goes our 10 pounds/month deal for 16 meg DSL...

Back to Virgin, who will charge 18 pounds/month for up to 8 megs. Now, however, they want three years' worth of UK credit history, which none of us have. WTF?! There goes that...

Back to BT, who will charge 25 pounds/month for up to 8 megs with unlimited downloads (a must). This also gets us a bunch of stuff we don't need, like a PVR box for the television we don't own.

We go and return the modem/router we bought from O2, and, just to double-check, we pop into a Virgin store. They're confused by the three years' credit history requirement, and call customer service themselves. The same customer service line that told us we don't qualify told the Virgin sales rep that the credit history is not in fact required, and we're good to go.

We sign up for Virgin, and we're told that it should kick in by next Monday. The equipment will be mailed to us in 5-14 working days. So, providing that nothing else goes wrong, we'll have internet at home next Monday at the earliest.

Did that exhaust you as much as it exhausted me?

Ok, so I'm tired of typing (between this, e-mail and MSN, I have been typing for the past hour and a half straight), so I'm going to forego the rest of the update and just go home. The Heroes torrent can keep going tomorrow.

Post 404

Owowowow! My foot hurts! Did I mention that I hurt my foot on Friday? Well, it hasn't gotten any better, despite staying at home all day yesterday so that I could rest it. Walking downtown is far less pleasant than it should be. I'm starting to get vaguely worried.

So setting up a new house from more or less nothing is time-consuming and difficult. We bought a toaster on Monday for £6, so I can now have toast. We still need garbage cans. And food that isn't starch or seasonings. Our land line kicks in tomorrow morning, at which point we will be able to sign up for internet service. For some reason, Virgin is about half the price of BT. Peter wants to buy a TV, which is nice in theory, but it's money I'm wary of spending. We've gotten the power and water switched to our names (no gas), and the lease agreement is all signed and everybody has keys and such. I'm resisting unpacking because that means laundry will seem less avoidable (twisted logic is twisted). >.<

I bought a phone today. It's an LG KS 360. It was available in pink from the carrier I went with (Orange), but they didn't have any in stock, so I went with blue so that I could at least finally have my own phone. It's a smart phone, so I'll be able to check my e-mail and facebook and such with it. It's not charged yet, and I don't feel like digging out my number just yet, but I'll post it on facebook once it's all up and running. =)

I miss my dog and my friends and my family, but that stuff happens. As long as I have exposure to the outside world every day, I should be all right. Staying home yesterday to rest my foot was unpleasant, no matter how many DVDs I watched. And it didn't even freaking help. Grrr...

I'll stop rambling now. I hope everyone is doing well. I'll be posting regular updates and such, so stay tuned. =p

London So Far

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm alive and in London. I don't have crazy amounts of time here, so I'll just give a quick rundown of stuff. =)

The flat
Gorgeous flat, vaguely unpleasant neighborhood. Very pretty hardwood floors and lots of space. A dishwasher (!!) and a washer/dryer combo machine. A small shower and a large tub. We're in the East end, which is largely South Asian and kind of run-down. Lots of Halal fried chicken fast food places. I think I'd be willing to get a worse place in a better location. 7 minutes walk to the nearest train (DLR) station, which I worry will feel longer during the winter.

The city
I love the central/downtown area. It's interesting and bustling. I plan on visiting many museums in the near future (yay free admission!). There's a flagship Gap store in Picadilly Circus that I'm considering applying for a job at (though I'm not sure if I'm going to start work just yet).

The practical details
We finally have dishes, cookware, cutlery and bedding. Apparently, someone is going to be bringing over a coffee table (yay, but vaguely odd). I think the place is entirely furnished in Ikea stuff, including the series of asian-ish paintings on the wall. We do not have the internet yet, but I am getting a smartphone tomorrow with a data plan, so I will have access to my e-mail (glory hallelujah!). Currently, I'm at the LSE library using Peter's internet access.

I'm more homesick than I expected to be, and I miss everyone muchly. I hope you're all doing well. Updates should be coming more regularly in the near future once we get internet at the flat. Hugs to all!

Random Thoughts While I Watch TV

Chimes are a glorious instrument, and they make me want to listen to and/or play Of Sailors and Whales again.

Microphone feedback, when properly controlled and at a reasonable volume, can also make for good music. Yes, I drank the Kool-Aid.

The arms of my glasses are long enough that, when I lie down, they press against the surface I'm lying on, making the lenses move and the world skew.

There's a Lego Batman video game?! With a Light Side/Dark Side option, too?! Hilarity!!

They dubbed the Multigrain Cheerios commercial with the British actors? Why?? It was a great commercial, and now it sounds... crooked. And rushed.

We have beer and regular Pepsi in the fridge in preparation for tea tomorrow. Well, actually, it's in preparation for the steak dinner that may follow the tea. My father's idea. Oh, well.

I've taken a great deal of Advil tonight, and it's making me kind of sleepy, despite my neck still being sore.

I should be ripping CDs while I do this, but I don't feel like going and sifting through mine to find the ones I don't yet have on my iPod.

Our shredder is loud and makes a very unpleasant noise. I dislike it immensely.

The girl staying with us needs directions to give a cab driver to get back to our place. She's getting the directions wrong. Like, she gave the wrong location of our house. I'm confused.

I'm going to miss having access to American/Canadian television. Having to download shows will be an annoyance.

My mom made me toast earlier. I feel ridiculously spoiled. ^_^

It's a crab! It's a lobster! It's a scorpion!

I'm vaguely worried that I'll forget my watch when I leave because I never wear it. I lost it for nearly a month and didn't really miss it, though it did bother me to not know where it was. But I don't think being watchless is that great of an idea.

The world needs more post-apocolyptic books. Not movies, because those wind up being too much about the special effects. And they don't have to be dystopian. That is possible.

Tepid tepid scald. Steam, Wet and warm.

My degree status for my BMus is back to "Applied for degree," which means that something Donna did worked. Now here's hoping that the next change is to "Degree awarded," or else I may have to send the Faculty of Arts a nice little letter bomb. Although anthrax would be cheaper to ship.

Dude, they're introducing V8 soups and attaching the name Campbell's?! That makes no sense. They don't need the brand recognition, but they do seem to be marketing these soups as more gourmet, so equating them with Campbell's makes no sense.

I'm convinced the car security tape bit in the season premier of Heroes is an homage to Quentin Tarrantino. And it rules. ^_^

I discovered yesterday that my hair is now long enough to all fit into a pnay tail. This is very useful.

I think it's time for bed now.

Post 401

Wow, I've made a lot of posts to this blog. Then again, I've had it for... what? Three or four years--I can't remember which. *huggles blog*

I'm feeling better than I was a couple of days ago. Things are going along swimmingly. I got my laptop back from repairs a mere few days after sending it off. I had been told that it would take 8-10 days, so that was a pleasant surprise. The downside is that I'm still getting the error message that my AC adaptor is invalid, even though they replaced that. They also ran standard tests and cleaned it up (and replaced a piece of broken plastic--yay!), and they say there's nothing else wrong with it. Personally, I can live with a little error message every time I boot up my computer. I'll keep the software updated and hopefully everything will be ok. Oh, and another bonus is that the new AC adaptor they gave me has a 2-pronged plug, rather than a grounded one, so it fits into the power adaptors I bought without me having to break off the grounding prong. :-)

I'm currently ripping CDs Peter asked me to copy. I figure I should do his first, seeing as how I'm not sure that I'm going to get through all of my own. I only have a little over half of my CD collection on my computer, and I was hoping to have them all ripped by the time I leave, but I highly doubt that's going to happen. I have CDs that I've never even opened. Now, granted, most of those are CDs I know and I've just never bothered to listen to my own copies, but, still, I feel bad about that. ^_^ And then there are the CDs that I got for school and want to forget forever. There are only so many Haydn string quartets one person can take. o.O

I've been attempting to juggle my medication so that I can take as much with me to England as possible. I have three months' worth waiting to be picked up at the pharmacy and another three weeks' worth at home, so I should be good so long as I don't lose any. Blue Cross will only pay for three months at a time and won't allow refills until you're two thirds of the way through the last amount you got filled (so two months through for three months' worth), so that's the most I can get before I leave. If my doctor had written me two perscriptions instead of one with a refill, things would be different, but, honestly, I thought my Blue Cross coverage expired in July, so I'm happy as a clam with the deal I'm getting. :-D Yay for pshychopharmaceuticals! ^_^

I organized make-up and toiletries today. I have less make-up than it seems when you look at my tiny drawer of it. The drawer looks cramped, but all of the stuff I'm taking only fills up about half of a Ziploc freezer bag. That's more than the bare minimum, but I don't feel as bad about bringing make-up as I was expecting to, and I'm glad to be able to do things like bring five lipsticks instead of restricting myself to three or something. Occasionally, I am such a girl. ^_^

Speaking of being a girl and having lots of certain things, I have a huge pile of clean clothes on my bedroom floor. Somewhere beneath them is the laundry basket that housed the first load of laundry I did a few days ago. I have one more full load to do, but I've been procrastinating. ^_^ I then need to fold it all and decide what exactly I'm taking. With clothes, I will definitely have to impose some limits on myself. Peter owns very little clothing, and I'm sure that he's going to balk at how much I bring, no matter what. I estimate I'll wind up taking 60 pieces of clothing, plus underwear/socks/etc. That doesn't sound too bad, I guess...

There's a girl from James' Ottawa office staying with us for a little while. And, by "us," I mean "me," because my parents are currently in Banff for a judges' conference. I've barely seen her because she's been spending her days at the constituency office and her evenings at the campaign office. Tomorrow's Saturday, though, so hopefully she'll get a day off. She hasn't had one since the campaign started, apparently. o.O I think I'll lend her my car so that she can go to the mall or something. :-)

Currently importing Strong Bad Sings. Peter didn't ask me to import this one, but I found it on his bookshelf and I really wanted to. ^_^

And I think that's as much rambling about pointless things as I'm allowed for today.

A List of Things That are Annoying Me Today

(Yes, yes, I realize that it has been a month since I blogged, and that I should be giving an update as to what's going on in my life, but right now I feel like making a list of grumpiness.)

1. I just sneezed and blood came out of my mouth. Ew and wtf?

2. I realized this morning that my doctor's appointment, rather than being tomorrow, was on Monday, meaning I missed it. I hate when I do that. I got a spot tomorrow, though.

3. The inhaler my family doctor gave me for my cough isn't doing anything. I doubled the dose after a week like she told me to, but there's still no change. This means my cough is less likely to be caused by asthma, which means that there's some other diagnosis, which I don't want to deal with at this point.

4. The stuff I still had over at Peter's place got moved around. Nothing missing or damaged or anything, but I'm crazy-protective of my privacy. I just kind of assumed that the stuff in the dresser could stay there for a couple of weeks, but I guess not.

5. My parents left for Banff today, leaving me to play hostess to one of James' Ottawa staff, a girl named Erin who's staying with us. She's perfectly nice, but I have to do things like drive her to work in the morning, and I'm worried that my lack of morning sunshine will get us both killed.

6. I sent my computer off for repairs today. The shipping box arrived two weeks late, though (I had to call them and ask where the hell it was, and they wound up just sending me a new one), so I won't get my computer back before I leave. My parents will ship it to me, but, still, that's annoying.

7. I have a lot of laundry to do today. I hate laundry.

That is all I can think of right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll come back and write a list of things that I'm glad about, because there are a few, but, for today, the annoyance is winning out.

I Worry Too Much

It is way too hot. Actually, it's not that hot outside, but it gets really hot on the second floor of Peter's dad's place, and that's where I am right now. We've got the windows open and the fan going, but that does remarkably little. I have been drinking water all evening in an attempt to not melt. So far I have been semi-successful.

Peter's doing arenas in WoW right now, and it's always kind of depressing to hear him discuss strategy with his partner after they've lost a match. Hell, even when they win, they talk about what went wrong. It's like an exercise in telling yourself you suck. They're fairly good at it, but they don't ever seem to congratulate themselves or each other when they do well. Like I said, it's kind of depressing to listen to.

I'm hoping that everybody will RSVP to our going away party soon. Without hearing from everybody, it's just becoming something else for me to worry about. >.< It's not actually that big of a deal, but my brain is all like "An unknown variable!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!!!" I really need to stop with that. As another example: I got my plane tickets booked, and I got on the same flight home as Peter. I booked my seat, which Peter has yet to do, and I suggested that he do the same. His dad booked the ticket and Peter has no idea how to go about reserving his seat. His dad's also out of town until Wednesday. Waiting that long is making me anxious. *facepalm*

Speaking of Peter's dad and travelling, the lot of us are going to Jasper next weekend. Dave, Sheryl, Andy, Simone, Peter, and I, to be precise. I really don't know why we're going. Apparently we're under no obligation to do anything in particular with anyone else. *shrug* I'm not exactly a fan of Jasper (mountains bad), but it seems like it'll be a nice little trip.

I slept a lot today, so despite it being midnight, I'm not the least bit tired. I woke up at about 11 this morning, and then I had a headache and slept for a couple of hours this afternoon. I suspect that may not have been the best idea. Apparently Peter also slept a bit this afternoon, but that's because he hardly slept at all last night, having to work at 6-something this morning. Blah. In any case, we're both awake and were having trouble figuring out what to do. I'm staying the night over here because we haven't done that in a while, but the lack of tiredness has kind of left us just chilling in each other's vicinity.

Maybe I'll go chill downstairs, where there's actually the possibility of being, well, chill-er, as opposed to being at risk of heat stroke. At the very least, I need more water. Otherwise... *death*

"Productivity"

I had my box of computer stuff out so that I could find a LAN cable (more on that later), and it occured to me that I hadn't backed up my files in a while, so I just did that. I went through and cleaned it all up first, too, so now I feel all productive and whatnot. It may be something small and stupid, but I was feeling kind of antsy earlier, not really sure what to do, and this has made me happy. ^_^

I was looking for the LAN cable so that I could try accessing the internet over at Peter's house. A while back, his dad installed this Network Magic thing when he got a new router. It's one of those programs that's designed to stop people who don't know what they're doing from borking their network--an annoyance, but not really harmful. Except that Andy then forgot the password. So, yeah... I tried. And I got frustrated. And I tried some more. And I got pissed off. And then I decided to just bring a damn cable over. It worked, too! I had to more or less swear undying loyalty to the network, which meant I had to futz around to get my computer to recognize my home network later, but it's not that big of a deal considering that I'm now able to access the internet at Peter's place! *cheers*

I went to Best Buy today to get season 4 of House and discovered that it comes out next week. Thanks a lot, misleading Amazon.ca e-mail. I was quite looking forward to watching it tonight, too. I looked around the story a little since I was there. They don't carry the brand of headphones I use, which was kind of annoying because the earpieces on mine are more than a little beat up and I would like to replace them. I also poked at their digital cameras, since mine seems to have given up the ghost. I may spend a couple hundred dollars and get myself one--it feels like I should have one for England. I also looked at their software to see how much Photoshop Elements costs--$130! I downloaded a free one-month trial of CS3 Extended, and it's remarkably addictive. *twitch* I certainly can't afford it, though, so, if I still love it when my trial runs out, I may have to torrent it.

My dog got a haircut today. I asked for the fur on his ears to be cut short, and it really was. I was thinking about an inch, but I got less than a quarter of an inch. Farley looks kind of weird right now. He was also fidgety, I was told, which is unusual for him. The groomer nicked the edge of his ear while she was giving him a trim. I don't quite know what was wrong. We took him to the vet on Monday for some blood tests, so maybe that was a little fresh in his mind? Speaking of which, we should have the results for those by tomorrow. Hopefully we can get Farley started on some meds soon--the haircut made it obvious that he's gotten bigger around the belly, which is apparently another of the more noticeable symptoms of Cushings. *sigh*

Wow, that killed my productivity high.

Stressed

I should really check to see if Blogger has some sort of comment notification function. I never know when somebody's commented on one of my posts--I have to actually look at my blog to see, and I don't do that very often (especially since I don't get many comments). Although, I must admit, it was highly amusing to get randomly flamed once and not notice until the person who did it posted another comment on my latest post to tell me to go look at it. ^_^

The skin on my shoulders and chest where I got sunburnt is starting to peel now. It's very distracting to play with. It doesn't hurt anymore, though, which is a relief. See, this is why you don't go to the beach--all you get is a sunburn, dried-out hair and a lot of sand in your clothes.

I was looking at flights earlier today. Expensive. I'm insisting on flying out of Edmonton, though, even if I can save money by flying out of Calgary. Taking the bus is just too much of a hassle. Tomorrow, I will get in touch with my travel agent aunt, and hopefully she will be able to get me something decent. Also, I'm apparently coming home for Christmas. Peter is, anyway, and it's cheaper to get a round-trip ticket than a one-way ticket (wtf?), so I figure what the hell. My parents should be happy. I should tell them...

I think House season four comes out on DVD on Tuesday. I will be buying that, and I will be getting Peter to watch the stuff he missed. Silly raiding, getting in the way of watching television. Heroes season two comes out a couple of weeks later, I believe. *checks calendar* Yep, two weeks later. I will also buy that. Silly writers' strike, messing up the schedule so that there was only half a season. Oh, well. There will be a full season this year. I'll have to find a reliable source for downloading episodes of series that don't air as soon in the UK as they do in the US/Canada. Anybody know of one? Searching through sites like mininova gets a little tiresome, especially when it's not specified that an episode is dubbed or something.

The new Ikea catalogue came with the paper today. I was surprised, since I went there yesterday and asked about the catalogue and was told that it wouldn't be coming out until after the September long weekend. It was a pleasant surprise, though. It got me thinking about furniture and such, though, and I should double-check to make sure Peter gets a furnished place when we move. At least he's not against studio apartments like I had thought he was. The whole finding a place to live thing is stressing me out, though, so I'm going to shut up about it now and hope it goes away for a while.

I heard back from my advisor only a few hours after I'd e-mailed her, which was nice. Unfortunately, she told me I had to talk to Donna. *sigh* Fine. I'll e-mail her on Monday. She's rather scary, though, and I'm half worried that she'll do something like withold my degree out of spite. This is the woman that called me in to yell at me for not filling out the paperwork to take a reduced course load and then realized that she'd lost it, though, so I'm hoping this is indeed just a matter of some sort of bureaucratic glitch. Bah, more stress. >.<

Short Update

My mom wanted to go to the beach, so on Sunday we left for an impromptu vacation to Winnipeg. I got sunburnt and the skin on my nose started to peel today. *rubs nose*

My visa arrived yesterday, so I have my passport back and I know for certain that my visa kicks in on October 1st. I don't think I'll go over in September, since I can't start working until October, but I still have to finalize that with Peter.

I got up at 8am today, and I feel like I've had a productive morning. I made an appointment with my GP to get my cough checked out (finally) and I e-mailed my advisor about what is likely a paperwork glitch concerning my BMus. Well, fine, that's not that productive, but I'm about to go make muffins because we have a craptonne of blueberries and I like blueberry muffins. =)

That's about all I have to say right now... Man, my life is boring.

Friday Was Good

It's about quarter past two in the morning, but my sleeping patterns lately have been such that I am not tired right now. In fact, I'm rather bored. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I have the house to myself for a large part of the day, and can therefore get things done. For some reason I have it in my head that it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and that makes me want to spend some time playing the piano, perhaps in between loads of laundry.

Friday was as excellent a day as I had hoped. I loved the X-Files movie. I can see how some people might be annoyed at the fact that it wasn't epic, but I'm glad that they focused more on the characters and their relationship and their future. It was kind of a way of fixing what the last two seasons of the show did. They didn't bring anybody back to life or kill off anybody who had been in the series. In fact, they didn't really retcon anything. Obviously, things happened between the last scene of the series and the start of the movie (most notably that Mulder and Scully allowed the world to know they weren't dead), but nothing actually changed. I still haven't forgiven Chris Carter for killing off the Lone Gunmen, though.

Seeing people Friday night was most enjoyable. It made me think that Peter and I really need to get working on planning our going-away party. I'm thinking that Saturday, September 6 would be a good day for it. Peter and I also have to look at flights. And I'm going to stop thinking about this now because it's stressing me out.

We stole an idea from Dave and Sheryl and did a beer tasting on Friday night. The idea was to see which beers we actually liked in a blind taste test. The winner was a Dutch beer I'd never heard of. Stella came in second. They were all lagers, apparently, and I'm not a huge fan of lighter beers to start with, so I was kind of meh about most of them. It kind of bugged me that we were tasting beers I'd never heard of, rather than tasting more common beers to test our possible prejudices. A lot of the beer choices were dictated by what was available in singles, apparently, as well as keeping all the beers similar so that we couldn't guess which was which. To me, it kind of missed the point. It was still fun though.

Sean mentioned on Friday night that he wanted to try making beef wellington before going back to the states (because this way his parents could pay for it), and so on Tuesday he, Peter, Jeremy and possibly Eric and John are going to go to Sean's house and make beef wellington, puff pastry from scratch and all. I think they're crazy, but whatever makes them happy. As my mom pointed out, they could be going hunting instead.

In other news, my dog has Cushing's disease. I'm not entirely sure what all of the implications of that are, but my mom has decided that, despite not going for the surgery, Farley should start taking meds for it. I agree. He is currently asleep over by my bookcase, unaware of the odd name of the ailment that we had originally called "old age." And now he's barking in his sleep. ^_^

Tonight vs. Tomorrow

The packing continues. Yesterday, I managed to get all of my DVDs into a CD binder that I asked Peter to buy me for my birthday. Amazingly enough, they all fit in, including all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls and all nine seasons of X-Files. There's even a fair amount of space left. This makes bringing my DVDs much easier, since the binder isn't much bigger than a shoe box. The cases are still in piles on my floor, though. ^_^

Speaking of X-Files, the second movie comes out tomrrow and I just bought two tickets to the 1:10 showing at South Common. Please allow a brief moment for me to be excited: *squee!* I don't know who's going with me, though I suspect the answer is Peter because he's not working, whereas Joyce is and Jenilee is out of town. All three of them have said that they'll come with me, but the 1:10 show is the only one I can go to without having to rush to dinner immediately after.

There is Thai food tomorrow night. Jeremy will be in attendance, as will Eric and Jo, hopefully. I haven't seen Eric and Jeremy in a long time. The usual suspects will also be in attendance, which is good, since I still have Pri's coat from when she left it at Peter's place on Canada Day.

All in all, tomorrow is looking to be a very good day. Right now, however, I am bored. I'm avoiding playing WoW because I just sent this guy I play with an e-mail, and I'm waiting for him to discover it. He makes lots of (amusing) "inappropriate" remarks, and at one point I emoted that I was imitating the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. He'd never heard of it. I explained, and he decided that I should make a video of myself imitating this scene. I told him I would, and so I sent him an e-mail with a link to the clip from the movie on YouTube, but claiming in the e-mail that it's my own video. This way he gets the initial shock of "She actually did it?!" but then it's a fake-out. With Jenilee out of town, this guy has said that I now have the job of entertaining him until Sunday. *facepalm*

Actually, I'm in the mood to watch a movie, but they're all in the binder, and I don't want to disturb the harmony of the newly stored discs. Feel free to think I'm crazy and/or give the computer screen a weird look.

Summer Afternoon

It is a warm and sunny day. It is also my mother's birthday. My aunt and Kathy are over. They're currently talking about chairs. And how chairs aren't big enough. I'm not participating in the conversation. Earlier, they were trying to figure out what to do during retirement. Gardening was dismissed as being too much work. Ladies' clubs were endorsed. Golf was deemed good, of course, but not really any more beneficial the more you add to the amount you play when working. Or something. The birthday cake is very tasty.

Tea is being made, and Kathy has just left. I like tea. I am bored. Well, actually, I am sleepy. We had lunch (Subway) out on the balcony, and my seat wasn't in the shade and there was wine. It's been a couple of hours since then, but they have been uneventful hours. *yawn*

Now we're discussing my cousin who has cut herself off from the family. This is making me sad. Bed is sounding better and better.

Blah?

I am very bored. So very bored that I was searching random words on Urban Dictionary. I searched the word "blah," and, between the third and fourth definitions, there was an ad. It was an ad that, to my immensely bored brain, was highly amusing. I mean, really, why would you put this advertisement on a page containing glib, sardonic definitions of the word "blah?"

Behold:



This makes me laugh. :-) Yet, sadly, I am still bored. :-(

My Life in Piles, Boxes and Envelopes

I just did some organizing/tidying, and now there are little piles of things all over my floor. Over by the stand-up mirror is a pile of things to be thrown out. A little ways away from that is my IPT/APT stuff. On the other side of the bed is a series of little piles of books; these are the books I have decided to take with me to England. I now need to figure out what to do with them until I leave. The reason I started this organizing/tidying spree in the first place is that my bookshelf was overstocked, so now it looks pretty good. I also tried to clear off some of the clutter that lives on top of my dresser, but I don't know if it's possible to actually get rid of all of it. It's one of those clutter piles that reproduces when you're not looking. It may also have roots down into my dresser. Actually, thinking about it, I suspect it eats my socks. Bad clutter.

Anyway, there's also a pile of storage boxes next to the piles of books. I'd put those away, but they live on top of the storage box I was putting stuff into, and I'm not sure that I'm done that just yet. I love my storage boxes. They are white and snazzy and very handy for avoiding putting things into piles. I also love my manila envelopes. They keep everything in order, are easy to label, and stuff doesn't fall out of them so easily like with file folders.

I'm debating which, if any, of my DVDs to take to England with me. They'll play on my computer, so I'll still be able to watch them. I'm not taking any of my CDs with me, of course, but I don't have any of my DVDs on my computer. It's such a pain in the ass converting the files that I'm not going to bother. I don't even have the software on this computer, come to think of it--when my old computer died, I didn't bother replacing it. I may wind up taking just the discs of some of my DVDs to save space. The problem, then, is deciding which to take. I asked for the Gilmore Girls complete series on DVD for my birthday, and that's a lot of DVDs, but I'd feel bad leaving them all here without getting a chance to watch them. Then again, there's no guarantee I'll get that as a gift, so... *shrug*

Also, in my organizing/tidying today, I realized that I have no papers pertaining to my employment at A&B Sound. I know I got a pay stub every two weeks, but I can't remember what the hell I did with them. I have all of my pay stubs from Old Navy. Hell, I even have them from when I worked at IGA in high school. No A&B, though. (No Motherhood, either, but they only ever paid me through special direct deposit, so I expected that.)

Wow. I just realized that I have only had six paying jobs in my life. That doesn't count various music-related gigs, but it does count tutoring Math in junior high school. And the campground. And the longest I was at any of them was... eight or nine months? Granted, I've been going to school and living at home, but it seems like I should have more than that under my belt.
My current job search has yet to be fruitful, but I'm certain I'll get something eventually.

I have a scrape on my elbow that was bleeding earlier this evening and is now sore. I actually would have quite liked to watch the fall that gave it to me from somebody else's perspective. I was wearing slippers and got the piping around the toe caught on the top stair at Peter's place and tripped. The reason I landed on my elbow and not my hands is that I was carrying two lattes at the time. This was the day after Canada Day, when Peter was hung over. I was bringing him coffee, and I wound up with a large portion of it all over my arms and the floor. It took me a while to notice that I was bleeding because I thought my elbow was just sticky from the coffee. Neither of the glasses broke or fell over, though. Small victories.

I should go to sleep now. I stayed up to finish organizing/tidying because the maids come tomorrow, and they can't vaccuum a floor covered in stuff, and while I still have that problem, it's much better now, so I'm going to get some rest and move the rest of the stuff out of the way once it's not 2am and I can actually make a bit of noise without waking my parents up. (If I can hear them snore while I'm in my bedroom, they can most likely hear me moving stuff around.)

Stupidly enough, I seem to have misplaced my pyjamas...

Boast, Coast, Ghost, Host, Most, Post, Roast, Toast

My aunt and uncle are in town before heading off for a European cruise tomorrow, and they've come over for dinner. They're currently playing cards with my parents and my brother. I played a game, but six people around that table is crowded and I didn't feel like being quick-witted enough to deal with my family's penchant for insulting jokes.

I don't remember why, but as I was clearing the table after dinner, Peter brought up the second law of thermodynamics and mentioned that it was one of the most difficult things for him to conceptualize about physics that it isn't a *law*, but, rather, it's statistical. I asked him to explain, and after much bickering, I still don't think I get how the signs on vectors can be inverted (practically, not on paper). I don't get what factors are relevant/irrelevant and why. I told Peter there must be something missing from his explanation because, to me, moving a pop can back and forth across the counter (the example he kept using) isn't the same as unexploding a bomb and having things unburn.

Thinking about it, this discussion may have started out being about the croutons my dad had made for the caesar salad. I could be wrong, though.

Anyway, once Peter and I had nominally given up the topic, he mentioned that it perturbed him that I thought that the reason I didn't understand the concept was that the explanation was lacking. For some reason, he thought that it was highly unlikely that a perfect explanation of a concept like this would result in understanding the first time it was encountered. This seems weird to me. If it's understandable by someone of roughtly my level of intelligence (like Peter), then why wouldn't a perfect explanation allow me to understand it? It's not like I have to pay physics dues or something in order to understand it.

For some reason, Peter does not seem to be able to teach me things/I do not seem to be able to learn things from him. Considering that we both accel in similar subjects, it's remarkable how differently we think. Neither of us is at fault for our difficulties in discussing things like the statiscal nature of the second law of thermodynamics, but it is frustrating. And now I'm sleepy, so I'm going to go forget about this whole thing and go to bed.

*Blog*

So it's been about a month an a half since I've updated my blog. At first I didn't really have anything interesting to say (my Spanish class is boring, etc.), and then I didn't feel like relaying everything that had happened since my last update (Peter got me a stuffed Puppy from the Bilbao Googenheim, Vegas was great, etc.). At this point, however, I'm just blogging to unwind before I go to sleep. It's kind of nice.

I went to the dentist today. All's well, though the hygenist bumped my gum with the polisher while it was spinning and it hurt for most of the evening. There was also a small mix-up with my chart because I went to another of their locations for my last check-up/cleaning. These are the exciting things that happen at the dentist.

I also submitted my resume to a temp agency today. Hopefully I'll hear back soon. I can't imagine that I'm not at least qualified enough for them to interview. Well, I can, but I don't like to because it makes me nervous. The English/French bilingual thing always helps me look good on paper, and two undergraduate degrees can't hurt. Education is all about the paperwork, after all. ^_^

After seeing the dentist, I stopped next door and booked an appointment with the optometrist because, now that I'm no longer a student, my Blue Cross coverage under my parents' plan runs out on my brithday (which is 9 days from now). It's actually the third doctor-type appointment I have next week. I have one on Monday, one on Tuesday, and now the optometrist on Wednesday. I need new lenses in my glasses because every time my perscription has changed just a little bit I haven't bothered to change my glasses because I wear them so rarely. But now that my coverage is about to run out and I'm leaving the country soon, I figure I should get the lenses updated. Maybe I'll see if my mom will spring for new frames. I like the ones I have, but they're overwhelming on my face, and I've kind of outgrown my taste in that. Plus, they're three or four years old, so it's not like I haven't put them to good use (every morning and evening ^_^).

Peter and I were talking today about when to leave for London. We're not entirely in agreement about how necessary it is to have a place lined up before we get there. Also, he wants to leave about two weeks earlier than I'd thought, which means less time for earning money for me. It turns out that he has to be there on the 25th of September for registration, which is stupid because the earliest you can move into student housing for the term is the 28th, but that's looking like a moot point since they apparently make most offers of student housing in June and we have yet to get one. Can't win 'em all, I guess. Still, it is slightly frustrating that the PhD student they want badly enough to give a free ride and then some isn't guaranteed housing. The school does help students find private housing, Peter says, but when I talked to him earlier this evening he hadn't looked into what that help entails, exactly, so I'm still not entirely un-nervous.

Also, I have found out that the Tier 5 Youth Mobility Scheme visa comes into effect in November, which is too late for me. My brother was saying that he'd heard that it would allow employment for all 24 months of the visa's term, rather than just 12, but neither he nor I have found anything to back that up, so it's not looking like there's any disadvantage to just going on the old Working Holidaymaker's visa.

I haven't kept a journal in the past year, which is the first time since the age of 11 that that's been true. Writing this entry, it feels kind of nice to organize my thoughts and whatnot.

Random Stuff

My first Spanish class is over! Only one more course left in my entire University (of Alberta) career! I'm pretty sure I did rather well. Both of my profs, independant of each other, asked if I studied linguistics. ^_^ Is is possible to know what a gerund and a past participle are without studying linguistics, you know. I was amused.

Peter comes home today, but I don't know at what time. This is somewhat annoying, as I would rather like to solidify what I'm doing this evening. Oh, well. I don't have anything I *have* to do for the rest of the day. And I am very much looking forward to seeing him.

Tomorrow I am going to see Indiana Jones 4, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or whatever it's called. I honestly have never seen any of the other movies before (that I can remember, anyway), but I am looking forward to this one. It should be fun. =)

I want a new desktop wallpaper/background. I don't really mind the one that I have, which came with Vista, but I'd like something else. I want something generic, and I'm not entirely sure where to look for that. I suppose, though, that I should just suck it up and go google it.

Could I *Be* Any More of a House?

I just had lunch, and my mother is going back and forth between her sewing room and the computer desk and it's making me nervous. My dog is uncertain who to beg for food, but seems convinced that there must be someone to ask, what with all this busyness. I have no plans for the long weekend, but the forecast says it's going to be gorgeous, so I've busted out the self-tanner; I haven't busted out the sunscreen because I have no intention of spending any significant quantity of time outdoors. The air conditioning got fixed yesterday, so now there's a constant pulsing thrum of cool air being circulated. I'm wearing my slippers to stay warm. I miss Gilmore Girls, and I find myself oddly comforted by the fact that the job Rory got at the end of the series would still be happening, so I "know where she is and what she's up to." And I must give a laugh and a wha? to the fact that the head of the organization Concerned Women for America is a guy. His name is Matt. Teehee.

Sleep Patterns

It's very odd how having a class that starts at 8:30 in the morning is so much worse than having a class that starts at 9:00. I thought for a few days that I could still wake up at 7:00 and all would be well, since traffic isn't as bad during Spring term, but I soon realized the flaw in that logic; I had plenty of trouble getting to class at nine when I woke up at seven, so letting myself sleep longer because of lighter traffic just means I have trouble getting to class at 8:30. Waking up at 6:30 has helped with that once so far.

There's something about the notion that I have less than six hours during which to sleep that makes it harder to get to sleep, it seems, so when I go to bed at one (not unreasonable, in my opinion), I get to sleep at 2:30. This annoys both my dog and I greatly.

I am blogging to keep myself awake. I'm meeting Joyce in about an hour and a half, and if I fall asleep now, I'll likely be out for three hours or so. I'd make myself a coffee or something, but I'm meeting Joyce at Starbucks. And as I typed Starbucks, I wondered why there was no apostrophe denoting the possessive s, but I coudln't remember the word apostrophe. I had to ask my dad. Maybe two coffees wouldn't really hurt me. ^_^

Speaking of my dad, he was home when I got home from class today, and he was on the computer. Again. I have never seen my dad spend so much time on the computer as he has been lately. He's doing research for the trip to Italy that my parents are planning for next Spring. They're going to spend ten days in London to visit me, too, but my dad hasn't been researching anything for that. It seems weird that they're planning a vacation to come see me before I have my papers to go live there.

Now I'm thinking about all the stuff I have to do concerning that, and it's bringing me down. Stupid bureaucracy. I think I'll go poke around online some more so that I don't just worry uselessly all day. Though that would keep me awake, too.

Keyboard Woes

I was futzing with my Regional and Language Settings for my keyboard today so that I could type Spanish accents more easily. I couldn't get it to work the way it said it should. I think that has something to do with the fact that the instructions were for Windows XP and not Vista. Anyway, despite setting it back to what it was before, my keyboard is glitching. The ", ^ and ~ symbols all require me to hit another key before the symbol appears. This is rather annoying. Can someone tell me how to fix this? Please? Bueller?

ETA: I seem to have fixed the problem. I had to reprioritize the keyboard layouts because, despite setting it back to the right setting, the wrong setting was still my "preferred" one, and so every time the computer came out of hibernate or was turned on, it would default back to the wrong setting. So I say ", ^ and ~ to you all! ^_^

All

So, for some reason, for the past 24 hours or so, I've been smelling something burnt. I've tried showering, putting on clean clothes and changing locations, but it's not going away. I have no freaking idea why. I had Italian-style pizza for dinner last night, and part of the crust was a little burnt, and I keep wondering if there's a bit that I... I dunno, inhaled or something, but, after 24 hours, that seems less and less possible. Or maybe it's my dog. That would be weird, though.

I miss people who are on vacation. Jenilee should be back this weekend, so that's good, but Peter's gone for over two weeks, still. I'vew gotten a couple of e-mails from him, and he's having fun. Lots of good food, apparently. I asked him to please not eat until he fell over dead, as he said he would. ^_^

I was all set to be good and productive today, but then I decided to check the forums for my World of Warcraft guild and discovered that bad stuff had happened. Since Peter's the guild leader and, being in Spain, doesn't have time to read the forums and can't log on to the game, I went to find out what exactly happened so that I could give him a run-down. It's all a very silly thing, and nothing really should have come of it, but it resulted in one of our core guild members (guild leader before Peter) quitting. That made me sad. And then I had to write Peter about it, and my productive mood was kind of squashed.

For some reason, it's very warm in the basement. It's usually cool in here, even during the summer. I'm may have to buy summer slippers. ^_^ I went shopping for summer pajamas the other day, but, much to my surprise, Old Navy didn't ahve any jersey pajama pants. They almost always do. Ok, they actually did, but they were ugly striped ones in the clearance section. I was sad. I did, however, switch to my lighter quilt, since I had been using my down one and was getting very warm during the night. My dog has taken to sleeping on the down one, since I just kind of put it on the floor for the time being, not having any place else to put it.

I'm going to Vegas, but not for the Lownj on the Strip, sadly. My mom wants to go (has been wanting to go for a while), and decided that we should take a 4-day weekend as a family, since my brother's never been there. There may be a Bette Midler show and/or a Beatles tribute show, and my mom and I have a date to go to the "fashion mall." We're staying at the Bellagio. I wish to play some slot machines, as I have never done so, since the VLTs around Edmonton are... kind of scary, really... There will also be some tasty food, though my dad hasn't gone looking for what places he wants to go, exactly. Peter, sadly, is not invited, but, as I said, he's having a foodie good time in Spain (and Italy) just now, so I don't feel too bad for him. ^_^

I am so very looking forward to the weekend. It means that one third of my first Spanish class will be over! Yay! That class is exhausting, what with it being at 8:30 and going until 1:15. It would be better if I didn't have this horrible habit of staying up ridiculously late. I always feel like I can't get anything done until my parents go to bed (or before they get home from work), and so I wind up getting to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. Thinking of it, I'm not even really doing anything--just putzing around on the computer, mostly--so I have no idea why I'd need to wait for them to leave in order to start that. *sigh* My brain doesn't work properly...

That is all for now.

Ranting and Complaining

Bah! I am very glad I will soon be done with school, because the administration makes me want to smash my head against the wall until I am no longer capable of doing so.

My advisor for the past couple of years has been a woman I've never met. This happened when I switched into the Education faculty. She deals with all secondary education undergraduates with last names starting with A to... G, I think. Previously, when I was still in the Faculty of Arts, my advisor was the head of the Music department, a man I was on a first-name basis with and who advised only students in the BMus/BEd program. I hate the Ed faculty, by the way. It's deserved.

I had already applied for convocation when I withdrew from my French course. Withdrawing from the course meant I no longer fulfilled my degree requirements and had to postpone my convocation until I had finished them. The problem was that I couldn't register in the classes I needed until my convocation was cancelled. I went to talk to the Ed Inquiries office and they told me to contact my advisor. I sent her an e-mail. She didn't get back to me, and I was starting to wonder if I should try again after a couple of weeks, but she called me. This was mostly good, though she called me to tell me I had to reregister in my French class and I was like "Hell, no. I need to postpone my convocation." So she said she'd cancel my convocation so that I could register in my Spring classes. A few days later, I went to do so and all was well.

I got an e-mail from her a few days ago reminding me to apply for convocation. I was confused as to why I'd have to do that, since there are only two rounds of convocation every year, and the next one wasn't until November. I checked it out and was pleasantly surprised to find that you can in fact convocate at the end of Spring or Summer term, you just don't get a ceremoney until November. I got to apply for convocation and... My BEd convocation date is still Winter 2008. My BMus convocation had been cacelled, so I applied to convocate with it in Spring 2008, but it wouldn't let me change my BEd.

So I e-mail my advisor, explaining that I need her to cancel my second convocation so that I can reapply for it at a later date. She writes back that, as far as the Faculty of Education records show, I *am* convocating in Spring 2008. I assume this is because I successfully applied for convocation with my BMus for then. I wrote her back saying that I wanted to make sure I was being perfectly clear, that I'm getting *two* degrees, and is she certain that both have a Spring 2008 completion date? I don't want to unsuccessfully convocate in Winter 2008 because I didn't finish my language credits and not find out that I didn't get my degree until I try to get documentation that I did get it for a job application or something. Her reply? Our records show that you're convocating in Spring 2008. If you're having more problems, contact the BearTracks online people. Not one mention of the question I asked. BOTH DEGREES!!! I ASKED IF YOU HAD RECORDS FOR BOTH DEGREES!!!

Now, this might make sense if it was my BMus that still had a Winter 2008 convocation date, since it might then be a matter of the Ed faculty not being able to change anything pertaining to my Faculty of Arts degree. But it's my Ed degree that's the problem, so I have no reason to believe that they would not be able to change that but would be able to change my BMus.

I'm going to call her tomorrow and get her to answer my question directly. I yelled at my laptop when I got the last e-mail from her, and I my mom came tearing down the hall and asked if I was ok. I woke her up. ^_^

ARGH!!!

My Absence Has Been Requested

There will be a "girls' night" potluck dinner here this evening. People will start showing up in a little less than two hours. My mom is upstairs fluffing the sofa cushions. There's a reed diffuser loaded with something that smells like Christmas without the cloves. Everything has been cleaned.

I think my mother is crazy.

While I was watching this all out of rhe corner of my eye, I was reading the May issue of Real Simple magazine. There's an "article" in there of eight women's accounts of what they learned from their mothers. As is always the case with things like this, I found myself flabbergasted at some people's ideas of good parenting.

If you would, allow me an anecdote.

Some years ago, my mom tore a page out of some magazine. I'm not sure if it was an advertisement or not. At the top of the page, it said "I am..." and the rest of the page was covered in positive adjectives, like "dynamic" and "authentic," all written in different colours and fonts that looked hand-painted. I came across this page and my mom was enthusiastic. I was confused, and so she clarified by giving a thumbs-ups/fist pumping motion and shouting "Yeah!" I didn't know what to say. The notion that somebody--a grown woman--would feel good about herself because a magazine gave her a pretty list of very select adjectives that she should have known applied in any case was bizarre. How could somebody realize that they're an alive person and not realize that there are many, many adjectives that describe them?

I don't mean to sound like some new age hippy or some condescending holier-than-thou type. It's just that... that magazine page might as well have said "You have a liver, so your body can neutralize toxins you ingest!" Yay for being able to drink alcohol and whatnot, but duh...

I wonder if self-concept has anything to do with why my mom feels it's necessary to clean and fluff stuff in preparation for a casual girls' night. Maybe she's only tidy if her kitchen tells her so.

Random Things

Yesterday, I had stuff planned of the productive variety, but then I accidentally brushed against another car in a parking lot, causing minimal damage in scratched paint and more paperwork than you can shake a stick at. I also felt horrible.

Last week, I bought a mood ring because they're fun and it cost $3.50. It is actually turning my finger green. What chemical does that, anyway?

LSE couples' student housing with access to a kitchen is not as cheap as I'd hoped--cheapest is about 140 pounds per week. Still cheaper than anything else in London proper, though. It's a random draw for who gets in, though.

Peter leaves for three weeks in Spain and Italy on Friday. I will miss him, but, while he's gone, I will complete nearly an entire Spanish course. I look forward to buying my Arriba! textbook. ^_^

Everything smelled like summer yesterday, and today it rained. On my way home this evening, when I stepped outside, I said "It is raining," and I was wearing rainbow flipflops.

Technology Stuff

My dad is upstairs trying to choose a ring tone for his new phone. My dog, who is sitting beside me, is somewhat confused by the noises. ^_^

He got a Razr, which he chose because it has big screens for easy visibility and big buttons for easy dialing. When he got home with it a couple of days ago, he yelled at me because he didn't know what the memory card was for.

I am somewhat worried that my dad will blow the phone up. See, my father suffers from the unfortunate combination of being both technologically inept and a button pusher. He doesn't know what anything on the phone does, so, to find out, he pushes every button until something happens. He often doesn't know what that something is, or how to reverse it (or if he should). That said, it also took him several hours (literally) and a lot of complaining about the uselessness of the instruction booklet in order for him to figure out that you push the button in the middle to access the main menu. He didn't actually say that that's what he was having trouble with, though--why would he do that?

Actually, now that I think about it, it took my mother well over a year to figure out the same thing about her phone, but she at least was able to access most parts of the menu by pressing the directional buttons, so she didn't really need to access the main menu. I think it was when I told her that her phone should have a calculator and she was like "Where?" that I showed her and she was surprised that a main menu (and many other functions) existed on her phone.

My parents are such baby boomers...

My new computer is spiffy. I still have a couple of things I need to tweak, but, for the most part, it is more or less perfect. This will mean nothing to most everybody who reads this blog, but, on this computer, when playing World of Warcraft, I can wander around Shattrath at 60fps. 60fps!!!! I set my sepll detail to high. ^_^

I remember, when I was looking at buying my last computer, my brother told me that 1GB of RAM was probably much more than I needed. For three years, I cursed him for that advice. This computer has 4GB of RAM. That probably *is* much more than I need, but upgrading to max RAM was remarkably cheap, so I decided to err on the side of too much. I doubt I will regret that choice.

One thing, though: The pictures/slideshow "gadget" on the Windows Vista sidebar thing is vaguely horrifying. I told each gadget that it wasn't allowed to do anything before closing all of them and then closing the sidebar. Shoo!

White Earth, Murder

So I was reading the paper this morning and I discovered that the guy charged with that random stabbing last week is a guy I went to elementary and junior high school with. Bloody hell. It's bad enough that people tend to die; I really don't want anyone going around and killing others.

In happier news, my new computer has shipped. It should be here within a week or two. I'm annoyed that I lost some of my files that were on my old computer, but I had most backed up, so it's not worth having the hard drive extracted to get the five or so files off of it. Though not having my mp3s backed up is vaguely annoying--at least I can just take those off of my iPod.

It's Earth Day. If the foot of snow the three Western-most provinces got over the weekend isn't indication of climate change, then I don't know what is. I know it's still only April, but the wind chill out there is nearly -30! *cold* I had a discussion with my mom about the Kyoto accord the other day. I was unsure who exactly came up with it (was it some governing body, for instance?), and my mom replied that she thought it was a bunch of people who got together on a Sunday morning after drinking too much the night before. Ignoring the obvious derogatory sense in which she meant that, it reminded me of the story my mom loves to tell about how, when my dad was acting on behalf of the city or the province in making some kind of deal, he would go out and get drunk the night before so that he'd be hungover and pissed off during the negotiations and would get what he wanted more easily.

In other news, school is over and everything is handed in for the term, though I did have to rewrite my Statement of Reflections for my Directing class, since my computer ate it when it died. My Spanish class starts on the fifth of May. I need to pay tuition for that, come to think of it. I also need to pay my second parking ticket in a month. *annoyance* Nearly six years at that school, much time spent parking in places I wasn't supposed to, and I only got one parking ticket. Then, in the last month of classes, I get two. Stupid Parking Services people, suddenly being vigilant...

Four More Days

Hello, fine people! I have coffee, and, even though I've just started drinking it, so the caffeine hasn't kicked in, it makes me happy. It's warm, sweet and comforting. *love*

It is the third last day of classes, though I don't actually have class today. My Directing class was canceled this morning because there were no performances scheduled for today, so our prof is giving us the time off because we need either the extra sleep or the extra time to work (or both). I do have rehearsal today at three, though, so I do have to go into school. Rehearsals are going well, though, yesterday, one of my actors had to bail, and it was the last rehearsal we had in the performance space with the set pieces we'll actually be using. I worked with my other actor to choreograph how she was going to get out of bed, since I'd brought a quilt with me. It took 20 minutes and then I went home. ^_^

My Bartok paper is due tomorrow. I'm still waiting to have an epiphany about the piece. I've taken to writing out the note letter names bar by bar. I'm actually starting to get a bit worried. Overall point, show thyself!

So, yeah, today I work on my paper, go to rehearsal, then work on my paper some more. Tomorrow, I finish my paper, hand it in, bullshit my way through the listening exam, take a nap, and go to rehearsal. Friday, I go watch two performances, transfer everything from my draft script to the good copy of my script, and then go to rehearsal. Saturday, I watch 10 performances, then mine goes up, then there's one more, then I go drink with my class. Sunday, I sleep.

My coffee mug is empty. I think that's my cue to go fill it up again.

LOL and Other Acronyms

I'm attempting to eat lunch, but it's kind of yucky. I tried to make the Mr. Noodles mac and cheese, but the water boiled off before the noodles cooked (yes, I had the power on medium), so I added more water until the noodles were tender, at which point it tasted like water. I tried to fix it by adding "Taco and Nacho" shredded cheese blend, but I don't know... Then again, I'm hungry, and it's either this, eggs, or canned salmon, and the last two would take more effort. I should go buy bagels. And more cereal. And microwaveable food of the non-yucky variety. And fruit. I should make a list somewhere other than my blog...

So, the GBlog has been announced, eh? I guess they did the gmail thing, so this is kind of the next step. I wonder if the blogs will be by invite only. And how simple will they be? Blogger is the simplest of the major blog services, and I love it for that.

My dog seems to like what was left of the mac and cheese, though he left most of the bits of jalapeno alone. That "jah-lah-pen-oh" woman from the commercial annoys me. I want to grab her nicely done hair and pull off the mask, revealing the toothless Alabama hick beneath. Have I ever mentioned that stupid people bother me? I know, it's not really something I talk about a lot, especially on my blog... What?

In other news, I forgot today was April Fool's Day, and I was all WTF? at the Blizzard website. Conductor!Bard FTW! Emo!Bard FTL!

*ahem*

I blame the Mr. Noodle.

Blah

Oh, right, I have a blog. I forget that occasionally these days.

For those of you who haven't heard, Peter and I are officially moving to London, England. He got a 25'000 pound scholarship, which is a little over double his tuition. He didn't even apply for it--they just gave it to him. Andy and Simone decided this merited a celebratory dinner at Jack's Grill. They also bought him a card. My mother was floored, and apparently wants me to fail all of my courses from here on out so that I don't convocate and must therefore stay indefinitely.

It is the Easter long weekend. Tomorrow, my parents are doing the roast beef thing. Sunday, Andy is doing... duck? Dinner, in any case. *sigh*

My mom has had the oldies music tv station on all afternoon. The songs are all very short. Recording technology, yada, but, still, I don't get it...

Ok, so it seems that I am perhaps a bit too sleepy to be blogging right now. I don't know why I'm sleepy, but my head feels funny and... yeah.