I have done a friends cut. I probably liked you very much, and would never want to offend you by cutting you. As I grow as a person, the role of this journal in my life changes. And when that happens, it is natural that my friends list has to be pared down to accommodate that. 

I thought, after a year or more of having this journal friends only, that I would make an official note to any random visitors here, that this is in fact a friends only journal. You can add me as a friend if you like, and if I notice you've done so I will probably add you back. I don't tend to notice these things quickly, so if you want to give me a polite prod that's probably okay too. 

I was exhausted today. I only had one hour worth of class (my other class was cancelled) and I feel like I achieved almost nothing beyond that. I also had some grad photos taken, so at least I feel pretty. I did my hair all nice and put on some makeup for a change...impressive really. I'm remarkably lazy under normal circumstances.
Even with such a low key day, I came home after the pictures and crashed. I sat down, which turned to laid down, and I swore I was only going to relax for a few minutes, and then I promptly fell asleep for an hour. Go me.

The exhaustion didn't even let up when I went to my piano lesson. My teacher was laughing at me, saying my eyes were going to roll shut as he tried to get his point across. And we were working on improvising on a 12 bar blues, and when he played an example of what he wanted me to try, he gave me this mischievous grin and turned the blues into a lullaby, which made me laugh kind of uncontrollably. You had to hear it, it was honestly the funniest thing that has happened to me today.

Anyway. I think I'll go to bed because I'm still exhausted. I can't stop yawning. What the hell is wrong with me?


ps. Mac users: Know anything about Frostwire? Someone recommended it to me, and I think I'm going to try it out. This actually merits consideration however: I'm being all protective of my computer at this point, because the gaping void in my chequing account is a constant reminder of just how big a deal it is. Moreover, it's perdy, and it runs all fast and nice, and I don't want to eff that up with stupid programs. By the same token, however, my ability to download pirated and illegal software and music has been severely impeded by my move from PC to mac, and I find this immensely frustrating. Must remedy this somehow, and soon.

Here we go...thanks jayd_aradia for such awesome questions!

1) I know that you have a passion for music and that you're taking it in school - is it something that you're hoping to incorporate in your life and career or is it just going to be a hobby?

A bit of column A, a bit of column B...lol. I have a minor in music now, so I'm pretty deep into it at this point and I can't see it ever *not* being a part of my life. It's tricky right now though. I used to be passionate about music in the way that I couldn't stop playing and practicing and I wanted to play gigs and teach and so on and so forth. I don't feel as passionate about it at the moment, and I've plateaued for so long that I feel kind of insecure about some things. I can still perform. I have played paying gigs, including weddings with gnavitas and solo engagements in restaurants, and I'm doing a whole course in the summer that lets me go out on my own and book gigs and such (and get school credit for doing it). But I don't know how much of a focal point the actual gigging will be in my life. I have taught piano, and I intend to teach again someday, but again, I don't know how intensely I'll pursue it.
Long story short, it'll always be a part of my life. I love it, but, by not changing in big tangible ways for so long, music is changing for me. It will always be a hobby and it will likely to some extent be much more than that (ie. semiprofessional) but only time will tell how much so.

2) What is your favourite book and why?

ONE book? Are you crazy? It would be something by Guy Gavriel Kay more than likely. Fionavar or Lions of Al Rassan. But I couldn't pick one over the other, and there are so many other books that I love that simply can't be compared side to side with other books. To me a book is good when it has something special that makes it completely and utterly unique compared to other books. Illusions by Richard Bach also makes the short list, especially if you judge a book by how many times I've read it. Utterly fantastic and philisophical and let's be honest, I like things that make you think.

3) (For the Dumbledore quote) If you had the chance to be any character in Harry Potter, who would it be and why?

Awesome question. Probably Hermione. Why? Because she doesn't have the spotlight in the way that Harry Potter does, she's brilliant and stubborn and strong, and while she gets to meet all these amazing people and be at the center of everything that's happening, she's there because she's decided to be there and not because she was thrust into it against her will. I have respect for that.

4) If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would be the first thing that you did?

I would book several vacations with my friends and family. I'd take several people with me to each place I decided to go, and those places would include Peru and Japan/Okinawa and Africa and France and Italy. Just to name a few. After that I would finish my degree because at this point it feels stupid not to, and I'd pursue karate, writing and music full time, while investing my money so I didn't have to work seriously beyond that ever again. Depending on the size of the lottery I would also share my winnings with charity and friends and family. Family would get a specific cash allotment, while friends would get specific things they needed, such as vehicles or downpayments on buildings or other such things. Again though, the amount shared depends on the amount won. And I would potentially have to murder people that came begging and sobbing for me to give them bits of my good fortune.

5) Childhood Memories! What was your favourite activity - skipping? marbles? pogs? anything.

Wow, I never would have expected this to be a hard question. Even as a kid I was pretty all over the place. Some things never change I guess. As such I can't honestly pick one thing over another. I loved music back then and played piano every single day. I also loved drawing, I drew like crazy. I played with barbies when I was younger, but grew out of that eventually, and then played with sand creatures and then beanie babies. I also once wrote a story which I no longer have, called the Curse of the Golden Apple. I would have been ten years old or so, and it was several pages long and I had epic plans for it. Also near the top of the list of good memories would be going down to the river with my grandfather. I used to know all the shallow and deep spots of the river, and how to find crayfish and catfish and other such creatures and how to pick them up without getting hurt. We used nets and waded around on hot summer days. Those are really fond memories.

So I saw the most unbelievable hair today on the bus back home from my piano lesson. It was a young guy, and a red head, and you know how there are just some people in the world that, regardless of what they dress or present themselves like, just physically look like there from a particular era or another? I mean, this can be favourable in some instances: someone can be classically beautiful in the way that Marilyn Monroe was beautiful. This guy was not so lucky. He looked like he was out of the eighties. No other way of describing it. His hair definitely lended to that though. Yech. Plus as I said, he was a redhead, so his hair kind of drew attention to itself before you even considered how bad it was. It looked like this, but much BIGGER. Yeah. Like I said. Unbelievable hair.


( Drum roll please...Collapse )

So I suddenly feel like there are three thousand things I should have been doing over my vacation, and DIDN'T do. This kind of sucks. I shall list them, because maybe by listing them the list will seem smaller than it currently feels. Plus I'd rather babble to the immense universe of the internet (and all of you reading this within it) than actually do anything at this point. That'll change soon, because I can't afford to *not* do this stuff.

First off, my prof for my lit review clearly forgot about me. How do I know this? Because basically she said "I honestly forgot about you". I feel like I'm partly responsible for this having not been obnoxious and in her face, but I really didn't think that, after a bunch of emails back and forth and actually going to meet with her in person for half an hour to an hour, that I was really all that forgettable. Alas. It doesn't really matter at this point, except that now I know in order to make an impression on her (this is the prof I want to do a masters with...or so I thought, because who knows, maybe she's not a nice person?) I will have to go beyond what I would want someone to do in making an impression on me. To that end I need to volunteer with her and this is ultimately the whole point at the moment: in order to volunteer I have to take WHMIS and another human blood handling and safety type of course. Two separate courses, both of which severely conflict with my hardest course of the semester, which is Medical embryology. My dad offered a solution there, however: I can, if U of G deems it acceptable, take the WHMIS course at his work. As to the other, my friends will just have to help me out, because I can't *not* take the course. It's simply not an option.

On the topic of the lit review, however, I need to do some reading so I sound intelligent when I settle on my topic later this week. I plan on doing something on the nutraceutical benefits of chocolate, or maybe cocoa butter.

I also need to come up with a list of ten references which I intend to use when I do my experiential learning course in musical performance in the summer. This is a completely foreign concept to me, and an absolutely ludicrous formality. I mean, how am I supposed to say what references I intend to use without really getting into the project? I'm definitely one of these people that prefers to fly by the seat of my pants here, and find a reference to say what I have decided to say. Maybe that's bad, I don't know. My prof already has some ideas so I need to fill in the blanks so it doesn't look like I'm just relying on her to do my work for me.

I also have a piano lesson Tuesday which means I should practice piano, because clearly (HA!) I have been playing my ass off for the duration of the holidays. Truth be told, I actually was SO sick of playing piano for hours a day, as I was prior to my jury, that I haven't played much at all. And when I have played, I have played classical music, for the precise reason that it is NOT JAZZ. I like jazz, don't get me wrong. But after the amount of work I put in, I was eager for the mindless technical challenge of classical music, and I have avoided everything that doesn't fit that criteria. Must change that now, however.

I also have to continually do more research on post grad stuff (I've already been doing a lot, so this isn't something I've been procrastinating), because application deadlines usually fall at the first of February or thereabouts. The tricky part here is that Guelph is where I want to be, and I'm a little panicked that my prof FORGOT about me, who made it very clear at the time that I wanted to do a masters in nutriceuticals. I think it's definitely time to find more nutriceutical profs, at Guelph since most other universities don't seem to talk about nutriceuticals in any significant context (if I'm wrong here PLEASE correct me). I think I'll have to look out of province too, say at UBC. That wouldn't be so bad I guess. BC is gorgeous, my friend Mike might be there, my friend Josh might even be there eventually, and karate is there. Plus, like I said, BC is gorgeous.

I guess that's about it. But those feel like big things somehow. It can be done. It will have to be done. But I think my holiday is definitely over. Need to get cracking!!!

So it seems to be a trend to report on Christmas happenings, and I might as well continue it. Meg's post about losing the meaning of Christmas really hit me, because it's so true. So very, very true. It's so easy to get caught up in the material side of things and I think we are all guilty of it...how can we not be when we're pummelled with marketing to make us think that way every day of our lives?

While that makes me kind of sad, my family does still have quite a few traditions that make it almost possible to believe that we've managed to hang on to the important bits of Christmas. And when I looked at my pictures, I honestly was humbled by how happy everyone looked. Like, not the 'here we all are posing and smiling for the camera' type of happy, but genuinely 'happened to be smiling at the moment the camera went off' kind of happy. And it was a pretty happy couple of days. I enjoyed almost every minute of it.

At the same time, I feel like Christmas has been anticlimactic this year. I don't know why, and it's not about the presents....I'm happy with everything I got, and to be perfectly honest--and I'm not saying this because I think it sounds like something that should be said--I was almost equally pleased with the presents I got for everyone else. I really do enjoy giving to people and surprising them with things. My grandmother really taught me how good that can feel. So it's not about the material stuff. It just always feels like it goes by too fast. I mean, a month or more of chaos trying to be ready for 'Christmas', whatever that is, and then it's over. Not enough time with family, not enough nights sitting in front of the fire as it dies away and the candles burn down...not enough magic. It's just too much of a whirlwind.

Somehow when I was a kid the day just seemed to go on and on and it was so exciting. I love Christmas still...but I wish I knew how to look at it all the way I used to. I wish I could feel that butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling as I anticipated the presents, the stocking, the always-identical brunch I used to have every year courtesy of my grandmother (the only time I was ever allowed to drink pop before noon)...all that stuff was so ritualistic and I thought it would last forever. Nothing lasts forever, I guess.

On the material front...I'm really bad at telling people when I want to exchange a present they've given me. I don't know how to approach it and I always feel so guilty when the person that got me such a gift realizes it wasn't what I wanted. Any suggestions here? In the past I've even kept gifts I didn't want, just to 'be nice', but I refused to do something so wasteful ever again...especially since that is not actually a nice thing to do at all. It's so hard though! Am I weird for feeling so bad about this?

So I'm way too tired to move, let alone change and go to bed. So I'm sitting here writing this while trying to muster the energy and nerve to do something about my current predicament. Plus I started eating food at about one o clock and haven't stopped since (it's now 11:30PM) and I've had about equal amounts of alcoholic versus non-alcoholic liquids today. I'm so mellow, so full, so sluggish...I feel like toffee, or something. It's a tough life :P

The karate Christmas get-together was good, I think. I had fun, anyway. Seemed like a weird dynamic in a way, just because almost nobody showed up in the first hour or so, then a whole tone of people came and left fairly quickly, and then it was quiet for a while and a few more people dropped in...and then when I left it seemed to be getting pretty quiet again. Weird like that. I wonder if that kept happening all night? Hope not, for Sensei's sake. That'd just be annoying. Not that Sensei really seemed to care, which amused me. But anyways.

I think my cheesecake was a hit, anyway, which is always good.

After that I went to my and Gnavitas' families' joint Christmas celebation, an annual tradition we have. It was awesome fun. Seems to get bigger and more decadent every year, I swear. It's fun because it's always so CHRISTMAS-like, but it's also not that traditional. We had Salmon-cream cheese-blueberry Wellington tonight, which was divine.

Alas my dog is barking up a storm because she's hungry. I better deal with her before she wakes everyone else (who had the sense to go to bed in the first place) up.

So I am a geek in a big way. Marks were supposed to be released last night or this morning, and I was personally offended to find last night that the site capacity had been reached, and despite my best efforts, I couldn't actually get in to check my marks. This morning when I woke up before eight, I logically had an easier time. I'm really happy with the three of four that were posted. If the fourth is anywhere in the same realm as the first three, this semester will be the highest average of my university career. *does a dance*

As to the fourth mark, though...I honestly have no idea. See, the one that hasn't been posted is histology. A) Histology was the hardest class of the semester by a long shot, and B) there's the whole idea of the exam having been compromised...

Yeah that's right. That thing I said a while back that I'd vent about and then changed my mind and said I didn't have the energy to bother? The lab exam was written in two waves, and my friend and I wrote in the first one. When we came back and logged onto WebCT, lo and behold, the exam was posted there for all to see. So we complained to the profs and TAs and got a load of bullshit back from one TA trying to explain it away, but as far as I know beyond that, there's been mostly silence from their end. But considering the huff my prof got herself in from telling us how FUCKED we'd be if we even TRIED to email the exam to our friends while we were writing it, she should take the fact that she herself (or someone she is responsible for) essentially sent it to the ENTIRE CLASS somewhat seriously. I don't know.

So I'm hoping, in a way, that the delay in the posting of that mark is due to her trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that someone on her end screwed up ROYALLY. Really, the only completely fair option is to give everyone a perfect mark for that component. Believe it or not, if your prof doesn't show up to an exam, that's school policy. Now I know she obviously showed up, but the exam was compromised, and there is no way it would be fair to just give us all the marks we got. Moreover, it wouldn't be fair to just not have a lab component, because people like myself and my friend (and another huge chunk of the class, I'm sure) do better on lab exams than written exams: we count on the lab exams to balance out our marks. So it wouldn't be fair to just remove it completely (although in my case I'd be fine with that because I overcompensated when I studied and did crap on the lab, and I'm pretty sure I rocked the written).

The bottom line is that the second wave probably had access to that lab exam, or at least some people from the second wave did. I don't expect her to go as far as anything I've described above, but I do expect her to do something. We'll see, I guess. But in the mean time I just can't handle the fact that it's not posted. I swear, it's driving me INSANE.

*sigh* I'm such a geeeeeek!