Skirting the Mundane

This weekend by the numbers
Students in the Outdoors Club house Saturday night: 24.
Bottles of beer consumed Saturday by 24 students: approx. 120. Terrifying to clean up.
Depanneurs willing to accept said bottles: 0. Shame.
Home countries of students: 7.
New people met: approx. 15.
National stereotypes fulfilled: 7. From German Sebastian going "I attack Peru. You lose. I attack again! You lose. Again! You lose. I haff now conquered Peru." and German Bob's heavy drinking, to American Jen effervescently making friends with everyone instantly, to Australian Dino being mad cool, to English Pete having a glee attack over tea, it was like It's A Small World. Only messed-up.
Games played: 5. Snow-skateboarding, Slaps, Egyptian Rat Fuck, Risk, and some mad livestock auctioning card game.
People in a five-seat SUV: 6. Un-com-fort-able, as I was basically in the lap of this guy who gives me the crawling willies, and nobody else wanted to move. Memo: Don't try to nestle into my shoulder if you are obsessed with trains and camping gear and said nestling is uninvited. Fuck that noise.
Skate decks utterly destroyed by rocks under snow : 3.
Phrases of Welsh Tom taught me: 7.
Phrases I now remember: 0. Oops.
Hours spent catching up on Internet stuff: 6. Is it possible?
Episodes of West Wing watched today: 3.
Showers I have had since Thursday: 1.
Pages of reading I probably should have done this weekend: 70? Nice round number.

Getting out of town just for the hell of it, as a last hurrah before exams: Priceless.

I am down to my last hour indoors; I am shipping off to the McGill Outdoors Club's cabin this weekend for mystery fun. I am assured it is a fantastic time. Have packed my stuff and become aware of my dearth of outdoorsy clothing -- how depressing. At least it's not supposed to be freezing-bloody-cold while we're out there.

Ah! Long underwear. Must pack that. I hope you children are all doing okay. Ho #2, respond to e-mail s.v.p! Annnnd... what else? Not much. Have offended Emily with a post on Capital Capital, which was intended as a lovably hysterical takedown of the nastier side of conservatism, but seems to have crossed a line. But I think (I hope) it's all groovy again. And, naturally, I do not feel that she is complicit in the nastier side of conservatism. Oh, blogs. You so often cause trouble and hurt feelings, and yet we love writing you, even when we are punchy and cranky and should really not be voicing any opinions at all.

Only two-and-a-half assignments left until this term is over. Hooray! Geography, stats, and public affairs are the only things standing between me and exams, which are themselves the only things standing between me and Christmas. I think I can do this. I'll be home in less than a month.

Mum and Dad have already started talking about plans for the February break. We may hit the Rockies, which would (needless to say) be utterly fantastic. Boopsie will have the Winter Games that week, too, so I will get to see her fence in Jasper! We are all rather proud of her.

OK, must go finish packing now. What a scattered and hasty update. Hopefully I shall survive the weekend!

I am rather enjoying the way my political science essay is going, thus far. We'll see if that keeps up. Have loads of work to do before maternal unit arrives tomorrow (2:00 p.m., heck yes!) I really shouldn't do two lame meme-y things in a row, so I'll refrain from putting up my to do list.

Lately I have been navel-gazing. Several among you know of my navel's unusual size; this makes for a lot of gazing, that's for sure. Feel free to skip this paragraph. It is full of unsupported, unfootnoted assertions. I've been thinking about power relationships and how I instinctively place myself at the bottom of them. It is easier to follow than to lead, decide, and take blame, so that is what I do, usually. Sure, I may follow in a skeptical kind of way, merrily thumbing my nose at leaders every so often, but the fact remains: submissive. I instinctively think I'm wrong. Then, after the initial confrontation is over, I say, "wait, that's not even really true. I'm in the right here." And then I don't do anything, and it happens again and I watch myself making the same mistakes, pretending not to mind, convinced that I don't mind. Then I do mind, a little bit, later. And that makes me mad at myself.

In conclusion, my essay is starting to rock, but my mental state sort of sucks. Though my disco ball is doing its best to help -- it is casting little dots of light all over the room. "A thousand points of light".

Because memes are better than work, here are the ABCs of Me.

A is for Age - 18
B is for Booze - Kahlua with milk, or a good old beer.
C is for Career - Lazy person would be nice. Probably more like diplomat.
D is for Dad’s name - Alec
E is for Essential Item to bring to a Party - See B. And some good stories to share.
F is for Favorite Songs at the Moment - Van Tango, Franz Ferdinand. Return, OK Go. Monster Hospital, Metric. Wish I Was Dead, Shout Out Louds. Deeper Well, The Wailin' Jennys.
G is for Goof off thing to do - Dance parties with the roomie!
H is for Hometown - The Bubble
I is for Instrument you play - Voice and... well, after Saturday I hesitate to say piano.
J is for Jam or Jelly you like - Gooseberry.
K is for Kids - At some point, yes. I like other people's.
L is for Living arrangement - One roommate and a complete family back home
M is for Mom’s name - Jill
N is for Names of best friends - You know who you are
O is for overnight hospital stays - None since being born, I think. Cross fingers!
P is for Phobias - Vehement and serious confrontation.
Q is for Quote you like - Hmm. "Philosophy is the practice of dying" comes to mind. It reminds me of last year. Of course, so does "waves are like fetuses!" Last year was speeshul.
R is for Relationship that lasted longest - Tomato.
S is for Siblings - One, and she is divine.
T is for Texas, Ever been? - No. Thank God.
U is for Unique trait - Resilience and Zen.
V if for Vegetable you love - Okra. I know it's not popular, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful!
W is for Worst traits - I tend to be a milquetoast, either because (a) I don't care about whatever decision is being made, or (b) because I don't want to cause trouble. My great capacity to feel bad is another big one. I recover from regrets quickly, I just always seem to have a few of them swirling around in there.
X - is for X-Rays you’ve had - Just a few, at the dentist's.
Y is for Yummy food you make - Cakes, vegetarian curries, stews, and chili, baked fish of deliciousness, and a darn good salad dressing.
Z is for Zodiac sign - Capricorn

Since I forgot to say this on Remembrance Day, thank you, veterans and war dead. The world you left behind is far from perfect, but thanks to you I am, you know, around to worry about stuff like how we can make things better and fairer. And the answer my society supplies me with is not "racial purity and absolute state control". So that is good, and thank you. It's a real pleasure to be able to hang out on a Tuesday night, all sleep-deprived-like, and make cookies and not worry too much about being incinerated or stolen away by state police. I appreciate all the sacrifices.

My public affairs paper is the reason that I am so sleep-deprived. I resigned in disgust at about 4 a.m. last night and morning handed in what I can only hope was a reasonably good paper. See Capital Capital for complaints about the utter unreadability of the article I had to tie into my writing. And Leo Panitch: fuck you. You suck. Also, it makes no sense to me that I am less tired on four hours of sleep tonight than I was on six hours of sleep the night before.

I've had a pretty good weekend. Friday night was Sound of Music with my good choir-girl friend Steph and some other people from the choir I was in last year. Steph is a sweetheart, and we had a fantabulous time. Saturday I popped over to James' party with Joni and Notl, only to abandon them upon discovering that we were the only people there who were not white guys focused on the Leafs game (and then on the Flames game). Instead, I hung out with Emily and Nate, first at East Side's and then at their place. We made fun of the porn that Snoop Dogg made, which is too easy a target, really, but whatever. Then I exposed them to the things that fangirls have thought up, i.e. Lord of the Rings slash. I am going to proclaim myself the winner of that particular freak-out competition. "Gollum/Sam? What?!" Sunday, after a delightful trail run in the Gatineau, I did absolutely bugger-all, and was very happy doing it. Groceries and lounging about, that is what I like.

The weather has been really very depressing the past few days; my geography prof says that this is because of some kind of weather front (damned if I remember) but I think it is more because Mother Nature doesn't like me calling her MoNa. Anyway, it sleeted on me today as I made my way to my poli sci tutorial, where Mike talked the entire fucking time about Eastern Europe when everyone else was talking about Africa and Southeast Asia. If you are reading this, Mike, I know you will not take offense when I tell you: Asia is not Eastern Europe. Also, stop interrupting people. Shh! Shh! I meant that death-glare that I gave you! I also meant the "shh!" that I put in front of it, as an introduction to the death-glare! And then the head-shake afterwards, that was a sort of coda to the death-glare, and I meant that as well. Shh! I say this only because I know you have the strength and fortitude to shut up and stop interrupting people when the TA requests that you do so. Repeatedly. Shh! Shh!

Ahem. Yes... anyway, I found bus tickets on the ground today, so I figure the fates are smiling on me. (I think typing that sentence officially makes me a Starving Student.)

Trala! I'm just hanging about today. Katherine has gone home for the weekend, leaving me with, literally, all of our mugs but two to wash. Thanks, dude. But I hope she has a good weekend anyway, because she is going to go to the Royal Winter Fair, which sounds encouragingly medieval but probably isn't. Last week I cleverly gave myself a second-degree burn on the finger by forgetting that plates are not only hot when you are holding them with a potholder. If you switch them into the hand which you does not have a potholder on it, you will in fact suffer pain. I fail!

Yesterday was cross-country practice; I kept up with the three boys (Dylan, Matt, Jacob) but towards the end my quadriceps started feeling all torn. It was not good. And then they started doing strides, which is where you run faster than you normally would for about 50m and then die. Then you do it again. I didn't really do those, but I did enjoy myself in the trails section.

Midterms are DONE! And now all I have to do is two public affairs papers, a political science paper, another public affairs presentation... yes. But it should be easy because I am by myself and thus have nobody to distract me. Alternatively, it should be very difficult because I am by myself and thus have nobody to walk past my room every so often and make me feel guilty for not even having my Word window open, but rather being updating my blog. And that about wraps that up. Tonight I'm going to a singalong of The Sound of Music. Yay!

Fuuuuuuuuuck. Get your head in the game, McClay.