Joie's Space

Shit Joie, WTF Have You Been?

2007-06-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Frankly I haven't been blogging because my life has been remarkably boring for someone who has moved halfway around the world. I've been shopping alot (which is uncharacteristic, kinda, but not really) and I haven't been cooking much (which again, is uncharacteristic, kind, but not really).

It's not like I'm going to blog here anymore frequently because even when I am hit with some blinding insight, I remember that there are a grand total of two people (with a few hit-and-run-not-quite-regulars) who read this blog. Not that you guys aren't a worthy audience, mind, more that posts that I envision take alot of effort and I find it hard to justify spending 4 hours doing research and tapping at my keyboard for two people.

So if my personal life gets anymore interesting, I'll post here, but don't hold your breath between updates or anything.

Meanwhile, I am blogging at ProcrastinatioNation and that's where all those "moments of insight" posts are going to be published. It's a joint blog that I have with Lisa and right now we're trying to build readership, so spread the word. We are fashioning the blog to be like a magazine that we would like to read. It will include posts about cooking, crafting, feminism and environmentalism. I will be blogging regularly there because I'm approaching it like a Real Job^TM.

See you there. Tell your friends. Follow us on Twitter. It's the right thing to do.

Ginger, Lemon and Honey

2007-05-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

GODDAMIT I'M SICK. And I know whose fault it is too. I mean, it's not really so bad to be sick, but it sucks when you have to take care of yourself, balance a rapidly increasing school load and worship a cat all at the same time.

Well, not so much the cat part. I really like cat. He's super awesome.

Some could argue that this forces me to slow down and take some time out for myself. Trust me buddy, I've been taking plenty of time for myself. Because I know that being good to yourself, relaxing and working out (can you believe it?) is essential to keeping healthy. I mean I couldn't quite tell if I was sick when I woke up this morning because the aches might've been attributable to yesterday's grueling pilates class.

But really, what can you do when your sick housemate refuses to stay out of the kitchen, and says "calm down, I'm not coughing" even though he blows his nose every ten minutes and doesn't wash his hands properly (warm-hot water with soap for 30 seconds) before putting dishes away? Or insists on hovering around people who are preparing food?

Kill him, that's what. Just wait till I'm better.

Because I Had No Eggs to Smash Rocks With

2007-04-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

So I was having this MSN conversation with a guy that I played Monopoly with online way back in 2001. We've kept in touch since. Today he was telling me that if I kept in touch with him, I would eventually believe in God. I was trying (nicely) to tell him that he was being condescending and that I have thought long and hard about religion and didn't need a blowhard assuming that I just hadn't found the right perspective yet. I wish I had the first part of this conversation but I had to restart my computer. Here is the rest of the conversation.

-------------------------------------------------------------

jett says:
so then you agree there is no disprove of God

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
no prove either

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
*proof

jett says:
so then by what proof do you disbelieve in God?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
By the fact that I used to try and connect spiritually with as willing a spirit as I could muster

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and there was nothing

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
by the fact that there is so much intolerance in the bible that it cannot be proof of a loving god

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
by the fact that the church as an instiution which is supposed to be founded on Christian principles really only work on megalomaniacal ones

jett says:
if you read the new testament you would know why that is so

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
there is intolerance in the new testament as well

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
mysogyny at the very least

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
if there were a god, would he allow his avatars to be so corrupt?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
or are these not his true avatars?

jett says:
where did Jesus ever mistreat women? he saved one that you might know of

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
I mean seriously, it's been a while since he's last contacted us, don't you think?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
nothing necessarily in the gospels

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and mysogyny need not be direct abuse

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
I'm talking about the role assigned to women

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
to be subservient

jett says:
Jesus never ever put women as lesser than men

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
there are some prominent women in the gospels, maybe, but that's only four books of the NT

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
no, men are just supposed to head the households

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
no inequality there siree

jett says:
the four books that contain Jesus

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and so you believe in the gospels but not the other books?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
books that lay down lifestyle laws? like the epistles?

jett says:
you are following others not the Bible

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and if you only want to believe in the gospels, there's the conflicting tellings of Jesus' life story, there's also the fact that they were writting hundreds of years after he died

jett says:
never did God say men are any more important

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
why hasn't he come back since? he said he was coming back soon. You can't pull out the whole "yes but god's time is different, taking eternity into account blah blah blah, because you'd think an all knowing god would tailor his message for his audience

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and yeah, he did

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
he's posited them as spiritual heads

jett says:
feminists have clouded the truth that we need each other as much

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
don't even try and pull that bullshit out on me

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
feminists are trying to illuminate the truth that men and women need each other to be equal

jett says:
geez then you follow a women hate group that divides

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
the bible, which has no canonical gospels writtn by women

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
uhh, asking for equality is hate?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
asking for unity in persuing equality is divisive?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
how much drugs did you do in your youth?

jett says:
explain equality?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
the idea that gender does not impose restrictions on the worth of a person

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
neither does it have to define appropriate activities

jett says:
i know that outside of mathematical theory equality exists nowhere

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes, but systemic bias against a group of people based on the fact that they don't have cock and balls is a correctable inequality

jett says:
no two men are ever treated equally

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
I mean it's like saying "because there is no equality, I'm free to be a racist"

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes, but there are groups of men that systematically have an adavantage

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
not because of the individual that they are

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
but because of the group they incidentally belong to

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that is an insituitionalized bias that can and must be corrected

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
take for example the partial-birth abortion ban

jett says:
if so it is in the realm theand women in other cultures do the samey created

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that's a perfect example of inequality - the SCJ that announced the ruling invoked the idea of a woman who cannot be trusted to make up her own mind

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that last sentence made no sense

jett says:
text shut don

jett says:
down

jett says:
i'm saying women control a lot more in other cultures

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
what does that have to do with feminism?

jett says:
equality is what

jett says:
equality can never exist

jett says:
anywhere ever

jett says:
equality is a thought of the mind

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and therefore we should not strive to remove an institutional bias but should instead try to maintain it?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
by perpetuating cultural sanctions on those who deviate from set roels?

jett says:
the businesses you want to control did not grow on a tree men built them

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
because womem were excluded and are still in many ways barred from the public sphere. Besides, feminists do not want to control businesses

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
also it is moot who "built" them

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
the fact is as we stand now, women are disproportionally disadvantaged because of long standing biases

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
the removal of those biases would be good for society in general (as has been shown by SOL surveys - gender equality is strongly correlated with overall SOL in countries all over the world)

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
had gender equality always existed and women were granted the same access to education and resources, it might not be the case that "men built all the business"

jett says:
i disagree with your persective of change

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
you think we should preserve the power imbalance?

jett says:
you make it sound as though this power was grown like a leaf

jett says:
all of the power women want to contol was created by men

jett says:
contro;

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and here's where you are mistaken

jett says:
control

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
feminists want equality

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
we don't want control

jett says:
yes you do

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and because it was created by men

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
now you're telling me what I want?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that's presumptive

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and because it was created by men doesn't mean the system and its inequalities need be preserved

jett says:
i say create your own power and sail the earth conquer and invent as men have

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
within what structures?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
as it is women are being denied resources

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
you are asking women to remove themselves from the current system

jett says:
women flew areoplanes after countless men died perfecting it etc.

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
had women been given the opportunity to test and develop the technology as men had that might be a telling example,

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
but since they weren't, then no, that's irrelevant

jett says:
who gave men the opportutunity

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
religion

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
cultural norms that systematically devalued women

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that are reflected in many world religions

jett says:
are you saying religion sent atthiest men into the air

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes. of course. that's what I'm saying

jett says:
are you saying every invention was from a religisious man what about galeilio sp

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
oh c'mon - what I'm saying is that by that point the institutional biases toward educating men but not women

jett says:
capericus

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
so because more men were educated

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
more research was done by them

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
it's all about statistics

jett says:
many great inventors were killed b/c of religion

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
more engineers design car engines than dancers

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes, another good example of religious biases

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that are inherently harmful

jett says:
and proof os women prefer dancong to engine building

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
are you discounting societally constructed gender roles?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
more women are encouraged and allowed to be dancers than they are engineers

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
take for example the recent case of Kathy Sierra

jett says:
but men inventors were killed proving your regilion theoryincorrect

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
a prominent computer engineer who received death threats that no man would forced to cancel a speech in congerence

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
I'm saying religion is responsible for helping maintain institutional biases

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and that there is inherent mysogyny in many world religions

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
just because scientific change was also persecuted by religion doesn't mean that mysogyny was also not perpetuated by it

jett says:
you r changing in midstream

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
actually, no. you are

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
you asked who gave men the opportunity

jett says:
how am i

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and I'm saying systemic biases that have been made acceptable through religious doctrine

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
you're saying that's not the case, because scientists have been persecuted as well

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that's beside the point - because the point is through the opportunities granted to men and not women, more men were given the opportunities you illuminate

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
so of course men scientists would be affected by religious movements to shut them down, because there are more men scientists than women anyway

jett says:
if women r equal then y do they need to first be allowed by men

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
so you're saying that the current inequality exists because men are superior and that this is the natural order of things?

jett says:
i asked a question and want an answerr is all

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
because women are equal but because of historical forces they currently exist in a male-dominated society

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
a society whose assumptions need to change about genders

jett says:
what historical forces

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
jesus shane, have you read anything I've been typing?

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
historically men have been granted more opportunities

jett says:
y were men ever in control

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
that's culturally dependent

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
but also irrelevant to the fact that there stands a bias that we as a society are able to correct

jett says:
i said that earlier

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes, there are some societies in which the genders are more equal

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and we shouuld try to reach that goal

jett says:
but women hold over 50 percent

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
?

jett says:
there r more women than men on earth

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
yes and yet men still hold the power in many instituitions

jett says:
y

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
like I said, because of historical biases

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
recognizing the fact that before birth control women HAD to stay in the homes

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
only spinsters were able to enter the public sphere

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
and since marriage and family is such a strong must in many cultures, being a spinster was seen as undesirable

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
basically before reproductive control the only available option open to women was to keep house and family

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
now that that has changed and women can enter the public sphere, they should not have to face obstacles based on an irrelevant historical point.

-45 minutes pass-

jett says:
it is harmful to us to discuss this

Joie would drink Jim's Kool Aid says:
why would you think so?

jett says:
i'm not going to say

-------------------------------------------------------------

Honestly people, I can't make this shit up.

Word.

2007-04-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have been writing lately, but obviously not on here. I might copy one of the articles from the thing I'm working on, or I might not, or I might copy and article and pretend that it's really an original post. Whatever. It's my blog, it's all cool.

Meanwhile, since you're not getting anything to read from me - go over to Pandagon and read Chris Clarke's excellent post on How Not to Be an Asshole - A Guide for Men. It's eloquent and beautifully articulated. What is worth reading as much as the post itself though, are the comments.

Knock yourselves out guys.

Lunch-Mates

2007-03-31T02:02:00.000-07:00

School has settled into a comfortable rhythm. People are starting to sit in their usual places. We know who to expect to be late, who would ask the question during lectures that's on everyone's mind, who to count on for a quick laugh, which lecturers drive which of us absolutely nuts, the usual details that are apparent in the mundane. With this ease, the class has also split into natural groups - people who lunch together, collect notes for each other, go for coffee on Fridays. Cliques have emerged (without all the attendant baggage usually carried by high-schoolers).

This wouldn't warrant any reporting, this is the natural way of things. In any gathering of people, there will be some your gravitate toward more than others. Over time, this results in the formation of stronger social bonds than with others. It's just that my little section of the class just realised that we're "The Asians^TM". More specifically, we're the Southeast Asians, but since there aren't any from the far east in class, Asians suffice. We're not all immigrants. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only international student of the bunch. Ethnically though, we do identify as Southeast Asians. Not all of us have the language, but we all certainly have the food culture. Everytime we run out of things to talk about, we talk about food. In fact, our Friday night out was a ba kut teh night at my place with plans for a Hainanese chicken rice night, a sushi party and a pineapple tart party (those were just the suggestions put forth last night while we were waiting for the ba kut teh to cook).

But back to the fact that we're The Asians^TM. I mean, we've all been in situations where we look at the Asian clique, nattering on in their respective languages, not assimilating, keeping to themselves. There's something inherently obnoxious about Asians that stick together. I can't articulate it. But what do you know, here we are. It all started innocently enough. We used to go for lunch with everyone. More and more people started to bring their own lunches, we started to favour a certain cafe, while others preferred another. It was a very organic evolution that really grew out of lunchtime habits rather than actual social grouping.

Or is it?

How much influence did social preference play in lunch location choices? I'm sure many of us were indifferent about where we had lunch. We just went along with the flow. With that being said, how the hell did we turn out as The Asians^TM?

Best not to overthink this, I think, and just accept it for what it is. I mean, none of us sought each other out based on ethnicity. Not on a concious level, at least.

I Will Not Play Freecell Drunk

2007-03-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

I will not play freecell drunk.
I will not play freecall drunk.
I will not bplay freecel drunk.
I will not play freecell drunk.
I will not play freecell druinkl.
I will not play reedcell drunk.
I will not play freecell rdinks.
I will not play freecell drunkm.
I will not play free celll frunlk.
I will not play dfeerlcell. droink.
I will ernot plau freecell drunkl.

Dude. Seriously. $2.50 bottles of wine. wicked sweet.

So I'm slightly inebriated. The above assigned lines were written honestly. The rule I applied to myself was "no backspace key". So while I noticed the mistakes, I thought I would leave them up there. The last 3 sentences took soooo long to type. Backspace is my friend.

Drunk blogging aside, this message is brought to you by Joie says DON'T DRIVE DRUNK. Because flarke man, if you manage to destroy your freecell stats through half a bottle of wine over one late afternoon, you are in no condition to pilot a vehicle. Not to mention, before this excercise in blogging under the influence, I really thought I was competent enough to ride down to little Vietnam for beef noodle soup. Honest!

ETA: ZE GERMANS ARE COMING! ZE GERMANS ARE COMING! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

And You Think it's Tough to Get People to Say "Johanna" Right

2007-03-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a veritable fount of liberal, first world guilt. I'm always acutely aware of the fact that being a South East Asian female, I could easily be stuck in a brothel, a sweatshop, caring for my 19 other siblings and/or supporting said siblings through prostitution or work in a sweatshop. I could be denied education on the basis of the fact that I don't have a penis, married off to someone with a penis who thinks that the penis makes him the unquestionable boss of me, or I could've just bypassed the whole penis/no penis thing by being killed off as an infant for having a vagina. I could be living without access to clean drinking water, or to basic medicines and vaccines. The reason all this is relevant is because I was signed up by a door-to-door today to give monthly contributions to some kind of save the world fund. I think it's actually called "Save the Children", but it's really just using the "children" angle as a selling point because the work it does helps communities, not just the kids.

It isn't the monthly donation directly debited from my savings account that's the point of this post though (I mean, other existing, ongoing deductions from my bank account include a sponsored Indonesian girl and Greenpeace - I told you I was a fount of liberal, first-world guilt. I'm even going to sign up as a volunteer for my local whole foods, ethical consumer market.), it's the conversation I had with the girl who came by to talk to me about Save the Children.

When it came to writing my name down on the sign-up form, she asked what title I commonly used. I always use Ms. because I think there's something fundamentally wrong about the fact that it's common practice to indicate your marital status, as though it's an integral part of your public identity, where someone who has a penis doesn't need to do the same (the implication being that unless you already have a penis, you need to let the world know about how you're doing on your quest to acquire one - seriously, what is it with the emphasis on penises?!). She misheard me and wrote "Miss" instead, and I insisted that I be put down as Ms. This then initiated a conversation about whether I would take Jim's name (she also asked what the difference was between Ms. and Miss having previously thought that both prefixes were interchangable).

It wasn't a completely out of the blue, privacy invasion question. Up to this point we were sharing details of our respective lives (she's currently seeing an ex-Canadian pro hockey player *hawt!* who's living in Sydney) and so the question was reasonable. I just wanted to put that out there because she really was a very nice person and I don't want people to get the impression that she was anything other than friendly and completely within the bounds of polite company.

This just returns me to the "Johanna Hobbs" problem: chiefly, that it makes me sound like a 17th century British peasant. Don't get me wrong, I would love to take his name to acknowledge the fact that Jimmymabo is the one person who has made me comfortable with who I am and inspires me daily to pursue life for my own happiness and well-being. In other words, taking his name would recognize the significant contribution he has made to my identity and self. I should note at this point that I have never before been even remotely happy with the person that I am. On the other hand, taking his name would be buying into the patriarchal idea that as a woman, I am tied to the man who is responsible for me at the time (first my father, then my husband - see also the tradition of a father giving his daughter away during the wedding ceremony).

Simple solution? Hyphenate! It's not like it's a big deal, I already have one hyphen in my name (Si-en), another one's not going to make a huge difference. Uh. Dudes. Have you considered Tan-Hobbs?! For one thing, it reads like some Brit who has spent too much time out in the sun. Most people outside of Singapore already don't say "Tan" right. In fact, Jonathan (my brother) doesn't even say "Tan" right - and he is one (I encourage everyone of you out there to call his cell phone and leave a message on his voicemail urging him to pronounce his own damn name correctly. You can hear him say "Jonathan Tan" on the recorded greeting).

Johanna Tan-Hobbs. What a train wreck. Maybe I should just do without a last name altogether. I mean Cher's doing just fine isn't she?

The "So Lisa No Longer Has to Listen to Wing Do Her Cover of 'Highway to Hell' Everytime She Loads My Blog" Post (that's right - 'Highway to Hell')

2007-03-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

There have been a few exciting things happening over her in Joie land. I've discovered that I will not have to go through my two years in Australia here lamenting the lack of affordable books thanks to the discount book warehouse situated 2 blocks away from where I stay. I'm going to host a housewarming barbecue tomorrow night for about 30 people. I have chanced upon some half-price frankincense essential oil at a hippy-dippy place down the road and am finding that I really enjoy the scent (I'm also planning to buy some myrrh eventually and burn the oils together at Christmastime). I possibly have the best landlords in the world (although I find that I have to be careful about when I sing their praises, because there are other notable people out there with shitty landlords). I've been to IKEA four times in two weeks - coincidently, the local IKEA here is situated in Richmond, VIC where the IKEA that I used to patronize in Canada is in Richmond, BC.

Oh, and my dad is coming over the weekend to stay with me.

Uhh, yeah.

Frankly, I'm rather nervous about it (and honestly, who can blame me) mainly because I'm not sure what kind of relationship my dad wants from me. I'm more than happy to be his buddy, and all signs point to that all he wants from me is a buddy. Let's hope that for the first time ever my assumptions about him are correct. Because shit man, dealing with this guy is tiring. I'm flattered that he wants to come and visit me, and honestly I seemed to have detected a little bit of "but I want to spend one-on-one time with you" from my dad.

Prior to his now 48-hour old announcement he was asking me to go back to Singapore during my mid-year holidays. Given that he also wants me to go back to Vancouver at the end of the year, I thought that it would be a better idea if he saved the redemption points and I have Jim come over in July (rather than in December as per the original plan). I told him that I would get back to him re:Singapore, once I knew what Jim's availability is. (Jim, having been recently promoted, is now single-handedly staffing an entire department might have a little trouble taking copious amounts of time off like he used to be able to.) I also mentioned that it might be a good idea for him to save his redemption points and bring the whole family to Melbourne during the July-August summer holidays seeing as how the annual family holiday destination had not yet been decided on and it would be cool to see my brothers (and no -duh- my brothers can't vacation in Singapore).

Next thing I know, he's on the next flight to Melbourne. So everyone out there cross your fingers and hope for the best for me.

NAAM-uh-SAA-kay

2007-03-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

If I had a dollar for everytime I had to explain how to pronounce my name, I could finance my education. Possible PhD included. And to this day, I'm not sure if I actually like my name*, or its less troublesome variants like Jo or Hanna (Jo sounds like a guy's name, Hanna is the plain, uninteresting pilgrim). I love Joie and I love it when the people I love use it, but I downright hate people who I've just met calling me Joie. It's a privilege, please stand in line while I process your application to use it. Thank you. Besides, only people who know me know that Joie is pronounced joe-EE, despite the fact that it is orthographically similar to the French word for "joy". In case anyone was wondering, Tammy was the one who came up with that spelling. Before that, I never spelt it out.

I could write a very long post about how name is tied to identity and how in my struggles to get my name said right (GODDAMIT THERE'S A FUCKING H IN IT. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT THERE'S AN H?! AND IF YOU DO SEE IT, OH YOU LITERATE YOU, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU ASSUME THAT IT'S SILENT?! HAVE YOU EVER ENCOUNTERED A SILENT CONSONANT IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME?! HAVE YOU?! WHY WOULD YOU THINK IT'S SILENT IN MINE?! IT'S JUST LAZINESS. EFFING-EH LAZINESS. OH WAIT, you didn't call me Joanna, you're one of those people who have to demonstrate your AMAZING world knowledge. yo-CHCHCHCHA-na! *Did I say that right? oh look at me! I can produce a uvular fricative! I'm soooo smart. Gimme a cookie and tell me that you're flattered that I'm the first person ever to get your name right.* Look goddamit. I don't give a flying fuck that you can spot the German variant of "Joanna". And for future reference, no, you are not the first person to ID it correctly, neither are you producing a convincing uvular fricative. Next time you meet someone, it might be a good idea to ask them how their name is pronounced novel idea, I know.) I've developed a certain assertiveness that can cast me in certain light when meeting new people and how that in turn shapes my social interactions blah blah blah. Simply put, my name and its attendant baggage is a pain in the ass.

Jhumpa Lahiri (Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her collection of short stories Interpreter of Maladies) has written a beautiful book on the quest for identity while growing up with an awkward name**, titled The Namesake. It's one of my favourite novels (I've read it five times, and I sorely regret not being able to find it before I had to leave for Melbourne. I might have to buy another copy) and I highly recommend it. Imagine my delight when I discovered that not only has it been turned into a movie, the main character, Gogol Ganguli (yes, he was named after Nikolai Gogol), is played by Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle fame!

Lucky for us, Kal Penn is keeping a blog about his experiences while working on and promoting the film. Being the comedian that he is, he has also posted a couple of videos on the blog that relate to the movie. This one is my favourite and it illustrates what I've been trying to say about my name all my life.

*In a recent conversation with a friend, it came up that if I decide eventually to take Jim's name, my name would be Johanna Hobbs. My Irish friend couldn't stop laughing because, according to her, that sounds like the name of an English peasant. Unfortunately, I agree. More specifically, I think it sounds like the name of ye olde washerwoman. "Got yer clean linens guv'nor!"
**Of course that's not the ONLY thing the book is about, but it is the main theme.

I Don't Want to Turn into my Father

2007-03-02T02:12:00.000-08:00

Interestingly enough, I have discovered that the way I relate to and subsquently how I interact with people mirrors my dad's actions.

The most telling examples of my behaviour come from the discussion of fights Jim and I have had after the fact (like a dissection of the events that led to the fight and things that resulted in escalation or resolution), deep soul searching moments (again with Jim) to determine why we act the way we do and plain ol' introspection. The flashes of insight into my father's behaviour come from long (duration and/or distance) conversations with my mother and to a lesser extent, my own interactions with him. Not that I fail to intuit much about my father when I'm with him, but that I rarely witness him firsthand.

I suppose it's interesting that I'm not lamenting about becoming my mother, like most women my age. I don't think I could've become my mother, what with the fact that we were all brought up to admire my father (with relatives fawning over him as though he is solely defined by his - admittedly impressive - achievements, my mother and grandmother constantly talking about even his smallest actions with awe - like how he's able to wrap books with the sticky wrap perfectly, etc.) and my father displaying thinly veiled contempt for my mother and her domain (recent quote: "I didn't worry too much about you when you rebelled because I know you have alot of me in you. Your brother [Isaac] on the other hand, I'm concerned about. He's got alot more of your mother in him."). I grew up adamant to reject any influences my mother could possibly thrust on me. I didn't aspire to be my father, but I suppose you have to learn to be a person from somewhere.

Maybe I did aspire to be like him, just a little. I mean there's a reason I can wrap books with that sticky stuff perfectly. There's a reason I was so enthusiastic about being a debater. There's a reason I treated my mother with thinly veiled contempt for the longest time - and am only now starting to break the habit. Goddamn it's a hard habit to break.

At any rate, I've noticed that I'm running the risk of becoming my father. Someone whose head is so far up her own ass that she can't parse what makes her happy from conventional measures of success. Someone whose eyes are so obscured by elements in her digestive tract that she can't see any viewpoint other than her own. Someone who is so wrapped up in viscera that she would gradually destroy the ones she's supposed to love just so that she would not be slightly hurt by the fact that she was wrong, or worse, vulnerable. Someone who doesn't really love anyone except herself. I just hope I manage to pull my head out of there before it's so far in I become a human mobius strip.

I know some of the things I do are wrong. I know some of the things I do can slowly wear down the self worth and confidence of people who get close enough to me. I know that I don't want to do these things anymore. The problem is that I'm not sure how to be any other way. I don't have behaviours that can take the place of my current ones. I don't know that I have the courage to admit any of this to the one person that really matters to me - and the one person this giant fucking flaw affects the most. You know what I'm really scared about? I'm scared that maybe this is just me. Maybe everyone's right when they say that people can't change. Maybe I am going to become someone whose family has resigned themselves to having an acquantance rather than a parent or a spouse. Someone who, due to her ability to stimulate her pyloric sphincter with her own tongue, never even realises that she's managed to alienate everyone who matters.

News From the Front

2007-02-28T03:32:00.000-08:00

As most of you have probably guessed, the reason the blog has been suspended for the amount of time it has is that I've been coordinating an international move. More accurately, I was putting off coordinating an international move and as a result arrived largely unprepared for living in Melbourne. You know, no accomodation and such-like.

I mean don't get me wrong. I was organized enough to arrange a hostel to stay in when I arrived. It's not like I got here completely unprepared. What I wasn't prepared for was the condition of the hostel. It was just about as bad as the Happiness Hotel (you know, the one in The Great Muppet Caper). Only the singing, dancing, friendliness and enthusiasm was replaced by...well...nothing. Nothing. If pushed, I would say it was replaced by a general air of apathy and resignation.

After having to step backwards to avoid being run over by a cockroach (which, the last time I checked, weren't diurnal, so wtf was this thing doing out running over people's feet?!) I went to my room (shared with 5 other people) only to be greeted by a sullen looking girl who said, "Don't ever leave the door open because shit gets stolen." She then proceeded to enumerate the various items (cell phones, ipods, cameras, etc.) that have been stolen from the various rooms on the floor. Apparently her cell phone was stolen just two days prior in the 5 minutes it took her to cross to the room across the hall and back. While she was talking I was making myself comfortable in my upper bunk. As comfortable as you can be with greasy sheets.

I decided that I didn't want to spend a minute more in the place. So, taking everything with me that could potentially get stolen (the short amounts of time it took for thefts to occur didn't exactly inspire trust in my roomates) I went down to the lobby (where internet access was a whopping $5/hr) and started looking for another place to spend the night. (By the way, the website stated that the hostel had "internet access", which I took to mean "free internet access". Evidently, I was wrong.)

A few desperate phone calls to various places around the city later, I found a budget hotel that was able to house me for the night, but that was unable to guarantee me a room for subsequent nights. Whatever man. I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I called a cab and I was out of there.

The other place (City Centre Budget Hotel) was completely different from Hotel Bakpak[sic]. The tiled floors were clean (as opposed to carpeting whose original colour is a mystery for the ages), the bathrooms could not assault your nose from any distance, the sheets were white, pressed and clean, the internet was wireless and free, the staff were sympathetic and helpful and hell, there was a TV and fridge in every room as opposed to one that was to be shared between 50 people. Sure it was three times the price. The accomodation was immeasurably better though.

Little did I know I was to stay there for the next three weeks. See, my dad told me that there was a housing glut in Melbourne, that I should have no problems at all finding a more permanent place to stay. The reality was that there's a housing crisis on right now. Less than 1% of all rental properties are available. (Interestingly enough, my current landlords are positing that the real estate agents are constructing this crisis. Reason being that they are losing business because the housing market is at an all time low due to a sharp increase in land tax. In order to not actually lose money, they started to hype the rental market...but that's another story.) In other news, there is a housing glut in Perth, but seeing as how it's a week's drive from my school and I have neither a car nor a helicopter nor am I willing to put up with an excessively long commute, that didn't really help me.

School started 2 days after I arrived here in Melbourne. So far it's been a cakewalk. I've already taken an introductory Audiology course at UBC, so alot of the information in lectures are nothing new. Plus two of the courses deal with material that was integral to my undergrad degree and focus on stuff that I ended up teaching during my stints as a Linguistic TA. It's not like class is completely boring though, we are doing interesting things in clinics (where we actually see actual patients!!). Right now I'm just concerned that I might be the only Audiology student in the world that thinks ears are really gross and who doesn't really want to have anything to do with ears if she can help it. Maybe I'll get over it. If I don't, well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

If there's a moral to this whole story to this point, it's that I should really think about thinking further ahead. You know, putting in the extra mental paces. For example, my thought processes for deciding to come here to study: "World's best program? Sure! Let's go!". I didn't think of the logistics, I didn't think of how much I would end up missing Jim. And I do. Alot. I never realised how big a part of my life he had become. I took our relationship for granted, the comfortable companionship we have. If I were looking for the silver lining, I suppose it's that I'm not going to take his company for granted anymore. But it's a long way to have to travel to come to that conclusion.

Fort, the Solar Powered Cat

2007-01-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

So Here's Where I Stand

2007-01-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life I have Made a Decision.

See, what I was doing (and what I have been doing in the past) was waiting for circumstance to decide things for me. If A happens, I'll do X, if B happens, I'll do Y. For example: if Jim isn't bluffing and he really has condoms with him, I'll lose my virginity to him. On the living room floor of the ski resort timeshare my dad borrowed from his client, in the middle of the day when my entire immediate familiy (+ 1 uncle) could've walked in on us.

This time the equation was: if I get a scholarship from the University of Melbourne (>50% tuition) I will go. On the other hand, if my job tells me beforehand that they would like to retain me past my contract (with a good enough raise) I will defer my acceptance to the University and apply to other Audiology programs. Possibly some PhD programs because if I'm accepted, then I don't have to decide between attending a 2 year Masters and a 4 year PhD.

The problem was that it was getting closer and closer to the start of term (and I didn't check when the deadline was for getting my 25% of the first year's tuition deposit back was). The university still hadn't made a decision regarding my scholarship application. The managers at my job was still sifting through all the seasonal hires and from conversations with the permanent employees, I discovered that the best raise I could hope for fell very short of the wage I was willing to work for. Sure, I could apply elsewhere for a position, but that could mean months before I find a position with pay and duties that I would gladly attend - only to drop it for school in the fall (if I get into an American program) or in the spring (if I decide to go with Melbourne after all).

Three sleepless nights in another ski resort timeshare later (curiously, also spent in the living room, albeit on a sofa bed this time) I decided. I'm going to Melbourne and doing a Masters by coursework in Clinical Audiology.

How am I going to pay for it? My dad's only offered to pay 2x/conversation that we've had over the past year (which admittedly, we don't talk much, which is why the frequency of the offer is a better measure).

How do I feel about that seeing as how I've been trying to establish myself as separate from them? Or how I've been trying to get myself into a comfortable dynamic with them (which involves their recognition of me as an inidividual whose decisions are of value) - that hasn't happened yet?

Here's my take on it. I've been living apart from them for 4 years. I've just started talking to them again for the last 1.5-2 years. In the time I've been away I've been successful in a skilled job (top of my class at dealer school), lived in very comfortable living arrangements and graduated with honours in an extremely competitive program. Has this changed the way I'm perceived by my parents?

No.

To them Jim's still a no-account loser who is a phase I would most certainly outgrow. The jobs I've held have been excercises in wage-slavery at best, abject horror (croupier) at worst, and that I've been living in dumps the whole time. No matter what I do, the situation to them will be that I need their help and support and guidance because anything I achieve on my own/decide for myself is juvenile and stupid - a result of misplaced confidence in myself and my abilites.

So, why not exploit that? Exactly. Ladies and Gents, my dad's going to be paying for everything. Great innit?

Are You Sure This Isn't Climate Change?

2006-12-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

Over the past three weeks we have had 3 windstorms and a week long snowstorm. The windstorms were bad enough to deprive large communities in the Lower Mainland of power (some areas were without power for 3-4 days, there is a community oustide of the Lower Mainland that still doesn't have power since the first windstorm). The freak snowstorm (supposedly caused by an "arctic front") essentially paralyzed the city. Transit services were running at a diminished capacity. The trains which typically pilot themselves around the track had to be manned by transit personnel. The announcement over the speaker system said that this was to allow them to stop abruptly should there be anything on the tracks. Truth of the matter is that snow was setting off the track alarm (that lets the train know to stop because there's a jumper on the tracks, or something more benign, like a shopping bag full of oranges) and the humans were there because they had to tell the train to ignore the alarms.

What the hell.

No seriously.

There was a foot of snow the first night alone. Do you know how weird that is for Vancouver? In November? Winds were blowing at over 90mph. Trees were falling over everything. Most of the power outages were due to branches and trees severing power lines. I was out of power for 48hours. It gets fucking COLD in here man.

Before this slew of storms, we received an unusually large amount of rainfall. If you know anything about the Pacific Northwest is that it's always raining. Always. I mean even at the best of times it rains once a day, or at least several times a week. Before the storms though, so much rain came down that we experienced massive landslides. Massive landslides which brought mud and wild animal shit into our reservoirs. Vancouver, North Vancouver and Burnaby were under a water advisory for two weeks because the filtration system we currently have were unable to deal with the load. Water was sold out everywhere.

Since I've moved, I've been unable to drink tap water (luckily my neighbourhood was only under water advisory for a day), had my internet knocked out for long stretches of time, had Jim's car stranded at the mechanics because the power cut out before they could lower it, had to wash my hair in frigid water and am now having to rely on a ceramic space heater for heat because for some reason, when the power went out, it also took out the central heating system.

Excuse me, but really. What the fuck is going on?

On a completely different note, stick this in your customer service pipe and smoke it.

Lady [waves at me from 50ft away and runs up to me]: Are you the only one on the floor tonight?

Me [looks around and sees five other employees]: Uhh no.

Lady: Well I haven't been able to find anyone to help me.

Me: I'm here, what can I do for you?

Lady [pulls out our latest flyer and starts to speak slowly]: Okay. This is your latest flyer. See? [shows me the front and back cover and riffles through it] You sent it to me just this week. Okay?

[I nod]

Lady [still talking really slowly]: I want these two items. Do you know where they are?

Me: No, but I have a good idea of where they could be.

Lady [starting to freak out]: What do you mean you don't know where it is? It's in the latest flyer! You work here don't you? Isn't there anyone on this floor who knows anything about THE THINGS IN THE FLYER YOU SEND OUT TO EVERYONE?

[Lady proceeds to grab another employee who is helping another customer]

Lady [shoving the flyer in other employee's face]: Do you know where these things are?

Employee [barely able to see what's being shoved in her face]: No.

Me: I have a good idea of where these things might be. Why don't you come with me.

[I look around to see if there's a free computer where I can look things up, but there isn't. At any rate I think she would flip out if I took her to a computer to find out where things are.]

Lady [talking slowly again]: Okay. Remember, I'm looking for a wine journal and wine label coasters.

[We have a table with wine paraphenalia displayed on it. This is where I take her first. I see some coasters with a vintage-y print on it. They are round. I open it up to take a look at them.]

Lady: Those are not the coasters. These are ROUND. Do you know what wine labels are? Wine labels are not...

Me: I know what wine labels are. And if you want me to help you, you are going to have to not be so nasty.

Lady: That's not the best way to treat your customer, making her feel stupid.

Me: This is not the best way to get me to help you.

Lady [almost yelling now]: You don't need this sale badly enough.

Me: You're right. I don't.

Lady [yelling]: I'm leaving. I'm not going to spend my money here. I'm going to take my money somewhere else.

Me: Okay. [makes shooing motions with my hands] Go.

[Lady storms off.]

Me [to a pair of customers waiting for the lady to be done so I can help them]: Hey guys, how can I help you? [smile]

Awesomeness. :P

I Dream of Koreans

2006-12-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night and I can't decide if I enjoyed it or not. On the one hand I really really really really really liked it, on the other it was really strange and some aspects of it would've turned it into a nightmare were it not mitigated by the everything else.

The dream starts at some kind of tropical resort bungalow. Wooden plank floors, bad reception on the local channels, indoor plants that are so leafy you're secretly worried that there are scary crawly things living inside. Thing is, it's somewhere in Canada. I think it's supposed to be where I'm living now actually because Lisa and David are visiting. They are able to visit because my mother cashed in their airmiles for their plane tickets. (It was at this point that I knew for sure that I was dreaming.) Jim's expected home anytime soon. We're all watching TV on a giant bed with Thai silk prints on the sheets and covers. You know, the kind that you find at tropical resort bungalows.

Someone is knocking to get in and I roll out of the bed to see who it is. I have to go into the corridor (which is carpeted with the same stuff that was on the floor of my old apartment) to descend the wide stairs (which are hardwood and lead to the middle of what can only be described as the foyer). Yul's at the door. Yul's at the door in nothing but those bermuda shorts that he wears on Survivor. (For reference, please see picture are right. Only in the dream he's smiling, not like in the picture where he's looking perturbed.) He asks to come in and join the party. I confess that I have an incredible crush on him. He grins and takes it as a compliment. The best part about it is that he doesn't let that comment make things weird between us. In fact, we're relating to each other as though we've been friends for a long time. We all climb into bed and continue watching TV. I lean against him and his arms are rock hard. My excuse is that with four people in the bed at this point, people have to lean against each other, otherwise there wouldn't be enough space. So there.

Jim gets back and the show we're watching is either over or we've agreed that we've tolerated our fair share of the Malaysian-esque reception we're getting on the heavily subtitled show. We're all getting up to greet him and all I can think of is how psyched I am about introducing him to Yul (who by the way is Jim's pick to win Survivor - Jim picked Brad initially but switched to Yul on the 3rd episode*.) I brush against the leafy foliage and something bites me. Hard. It hurts like a bitch and in no time at all I can't move. I can still see and hear, but I can't move. A bit of scuffling ensues as people decide what to do with me. I'm eventually moved down to the patio (which is carpeted in the same stuff that is covering the floors in our current place). Someone turns the TV back on as they wait for the stuff in me to wear off. The show's boring and I fall asleep.

When I wake up I can move again, but I find everyone panicking because they thought I passed out. There's paramedics everywhere. Jim and Yul are both in paramedic uniforms (HOW HOT IS THAT?!). Things calm down a little and we decide to go to Costco to get groceries. Jim and I don't usually shop there, but since there are five people now (in case you've lost count, there's Lisa, David, Yul, Jim and me) it would make a trip there worth it. Besides, Costco is so much more than a grocery store. We figured we could make an outing out of it. We split up when we get there. I'm with Yul and Lisa and we're looking at bunnies. (No, Costco does not sell bunnies in real lide. Not live ones anyway.) The bunnies are so awesome. One of them puts my finger in its mouth. I thought it was going to bite me. Instead it sucked my finger. Really hard. We all giggle and consider buying Sucky the rabbit then come to our sense and realise that when Sucky the rabbit meets Gato the hunter and Fort-"is that a toy for me"-inbras it would quickly turn into Bleedy the dead bunny. We find Dave and Jim and leave without buying anything.

Next scene I'm at work, having left the other four to entertain themselves. I'm with a co-worker in the Mystery/Erotica section. (I kid you not, the Erotica section is at the end of the Mystery section. Someone had a sense of humour up at corporate.) She's looking for something in the Mystery section, but we're also giggling at some of the Erotica stuff. The lighting in the store is getting gradually darker. Imperceptibly at first, but we notice when we start to have to squint to read the spines of the books. As the place darkens, this letch starts walking by us leeringly asking for help with the Erotica section. We ignore him and think he'll go away but all he does is walk around the back of the shelves to cruise by again. He's doing some kind of circuit as the lights get dimmer and dimmer. Eventually (despite the low-lighting and the letch) we find the book she's looking for. She takes it and leaves the section. I'm following right behind her but I trip on something and fall flat on my face. It's completely dark at this point and I can hear the letch coming up behind me. I know he can't see anything either but the last thing I want is for him to trip on me. So I start yelling.

I must've been yelling in my sleep because before that resolves Fort's nudging me with a wet nose. I think he was drinking water when he heard me. Either way, that was enough to wake me up.

I suppose that would teach me to watch a surreal South Park episode before I sleep. The episode I watched featured a singer called Wing. For a sampling of her tunes, visit her official website. Just for fun, here is a sample of her work. First person to tell me what the hell she is singing wins a prize.

*At the start of all the Survivor seasons Jim, Brian and I choose a player who we think will win. This is largely luck, of course being that you can't really tell much about someone after the first episode. These things are generally binding and you're not allowed to switch your choice. The thing is that after the first episode Jim and I both wanted Ozzy. Jim graciously let me have him and picked Brad only because he got his head pinched in and was the only other person from the episode that Jim remembered. When we watched the next few episodes, Jim wanted to pick Yul instead and because he let me have Ozzy, I let him switch his pick. We do these first episode picks for all the reality shows we watch. Right now the only show on our roster is Survivor 13: Cook Islands.

In Lieu Of

2006-11-22T14:43:00.001-08:00

Yes update! Soon! Promise!

Meanwhile:

Joie took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Takes easily and quickly to anything which provide..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Just to tide you guys over.

Upcoming posts will include:
- The latest news from the University of Melbourne!
- My move to a comparatively GIANT new place!
- Fort and his tummy troubles (including ALL NEW VISITS TO THE VET)!
- Knitting!
- What the Christmas season will bring!
- Survivor: Yul and Ozzy - my homeboys!
- Shopping at IKEA!
....and much, much more!

Available only in backdated posts.

Adventures in Customer Service

2006-10-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

In any customer-service related position, you get the crazies. Some nights, you get all the crazies at once. Last night was one of those nights.

"Good Evening, *place of work*, Johanna speaking."
"Yes."
(long pause)
"Hello? *place of work*, can I help you?"
"Yes. (quickly and in a Japanese accent) I would like to know if my book come yet. Confirmation number 118..."
"Pardon me, what is your name please?" (Books that have arrived are shelved under customer name, not their confirmation number. The confirmation number is used to liase with the shipping side of things.)
"Yes. Confirmation number 11834..."
"Your name please."
"Yes. Book name is 'Successful Writing for High School and College'"
"Thank you. And YOUR NAME PLEASE."
"My name? Or Book name?"
"YOUR NAME."
"Oh. Neeson Goh. Spell: R-I-S-E-O-N K-O."
"Thank you. May I put you on hold to go look for your book?"
"I think, yes."

I run downstairs to look at arrived books. It's not here yet. My co-workers tell me to let her know that when her book arrives, we will notify her with a phone call. I tell my co-workers that they are certainly welcome to try and let her know themselves.

"Hello, Neeson?"
"Yes. I think."
"Your book is not here yet."
"No? Yes."
"We will call you when it gets here."
"Yes. It is here?"
"No. Not here yet."
"Yes."
"When it does get here - we call you. We call you, then you can come get it."
"Yes. Ok. I think. Book here? No."
"No."
"Ok."
"Have a good night."
"Yes. Ok."

I don't know how long this could've gone on for because I hung up after her response to "Have a good night". I suppose this is not an example of a crazy, just someone who speaks English as a second language. I just thought this exchange was amusing, though it came on the heels of a full hour during which I couldn't find a single book customers asked me to find. So it was more than a little frustrating.

"Good evening, *place of work*, Johanna speaking."
"(News about Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration and the current war campaign plays loudly in the background throughout)Yes, hello dear. Could you possibly look up a book for me and tell me if you have it and how much it is?"
"Sure thing. What's it called?"
"*book name*, *author's name*"
"We have 4 copies, and the book is $35."
"Is that hard cover or paperback?"
"Hardcover. It's quite new, so I don't think the paperback edition will be available for a while."
"Why yes. I didn't think of that. I suppose it is quite new. I just heard about it on the radio. The author was being interviewed. It was quite interesting."
"That's cool. Would you like me to go find a copy to put on hold for you?"
"You said it was $35 dear?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's a little steep, for just a book. Perhaps I will put it on my Christmas list."
"*chuckle* That's not a bad idea."
"Gosh, I don't want to think about Christmas just yet - but it is going to be coming up fast isn't it? I suppose none of the decorations are going to be put up before Halloween, but that isn't too far away now, is it? What about at your store dear? Do you have Christmas decorations up yet?"
"Um. No. We're still in a bit of a Halloween mode here."
"Oh well, you'll be putting up Christmas things in no time at all, I assure you. I suppose it's a sign of my getting older, that time goes by faster and faster. It seems like there used to be more time between Halloween and Christmas."
"Uh huh."
"You know, about that book, that's something I like to do for Christmas, to tell people exactly what I want. I also like to ask people for what they want. I just think it's more practical that way you know? Some people like to, like to.."
"Surprise?"
"Yes, that's right, they like to give surprises. But you know that doesn't always work out. You must know what it's like when people rush to the stores after Christmas to return their gifts. And then the worst part is that people will know how much you spent on the gift. I really don't like that idea. I think how much you spend on something is very personal you know? That's one thing about surprises is that people don't always like the gift and they bring it back and find out how much money you spent on them."
"Right. I see what you mean."
"Oh well dear. Thanks for looking up that book for me. You have a good night."
"You're welcome. Bye now."
"Bye."

It wasn't a completely pointless conversation. I did manage to get updates about the situation in Iraq. It would've helped though if the customers in store didn't look at me like I was having a personal conversation on company time.

"Available bookseller to cash please, available bookseller to cash."
(I walk down to the cash desk to see what they want)
"Hey, you looked bored earlier, now you can help this lady find eight books."
"Eight?!"
"Yeah, she's right here."
(I turn and see an Asian lady with long hair and blue contacts. She seems to be about middle-aged, but the kind of middle-aged lady who uses all those creams and things to make herself appear younger.)
"Hi, I'm Johanna, how can I help you?"
"(thick Cantonese accent)Hello, hi. I have eight books on hold in a blue bag like that (gestures to our carrying bags). Should be there, but I don't know where now."
(I look around where books are put on hold. All the books are on shelves, there aren't any in a blue bag, and there certainly isn't a pile of eight books lying around.)
"Sorry, it looks like someone might have taken the books to put them back."
"Why they do that? The books had my name and my phone number. If they put back they should call me right? My phone number was there! Why they don't call me first?"
"I don't know what they were thinking. I think maybe they didn't see your name and number and went to re-shelve it. I'm sorry. I can help you find the books again right now though."
"Eight books! How to remember eight books that I want? And I call this morning you tell me I can pick up tonight. Now I come tonight and you tell me my books no more? Who would do this thing? Why they no call me before they put back the books? I don't understand it. I call already this morning to find out if my books are here to pick up."
"I'm really sorry. I understand that this must be really frustrating for you. The best I can do now is to help you find your books again. I know the store pretty well so it shouldn't take that long."
"How I remember eight books? I remember one is brahma."
"Brahma?"
"Yes. Brahma."
(I look "Brahma" up on the computer. There are a number of books that show up, but certainly none that have been stocked at the store.)
"We don't have any Brahma books."
"No, BR-AH-MA. You know, GR-AH-MA."
"Grammar?"
"Yes, yes, brahma."
(For reference, we have over 300 English grammar books. So I stall.)
"Any other books?"
"Cannot remember."

What else can I do right? She remembers that all eight books are bargain books, which means we are limited to the shelves on the first floor. As we walk around the shelves she starts to say that her reserved books must still be hiding in that promised blue bag somewhere in the back because she doesn't see any of the books she put away in the first place. The whole time going "who would do this?". (I also call other branches looking for her blue bag to make sure that she isn't at the wrong branch. The other branches have not seen a bag like that.) All the while I was interacting with her I was overwhelmingly reminded of Sophia Wang on So You Think You Can Dance:

(Not the dancing part, but the end where she's talking about the judges.)

Eventually she leaves. As I'm about to go upstairs I'm accosted by an elderly Indian couple. The husband begins talking to me.

"Hello girl. Do you have Internet?"
"You mean wireless internet? No, we don't."
"No, not wireless. Internet computer."
"This computer here is connected to the internet and I can look something up for you if you want."
"No dear, I have to sit and work for a while."
(Light comes on for me)
"Oh, you want like an internet cafe. No, we don't have computers connected to the internet, but if you ask some of the other staff, they might know of a place near here that has internet computers."
(The Wife interjects)"You don't have though? But the other branch of the Vancouver Public Library has computers."
(I don't know how to react to this, luckily the husband saves me.)"This is bookstore, Sheila, not the library."
(Wife)"Oh, so this different?"
(Me)"Yeah, we don't have public use computers. But like I said, others who work here probably know an Internet cafe close by."
(Husband)"Ok. Thank you."

As they leave, the wife still looks troubled by the fact that despite the copious number of books on shelves surrouding her there are no computers connected to the internet for public use.

Finally it's time for the store to close. The manager asks me to stand by the front doors to let people know that we're closing. Right at 10pm a guy walks unhurriedly through the doors.

"Sorry sir, we've just closed."
"That can't be right. I just called 15 minutes ago and some guy told me that you close at 11."
"You might have called somewhere else. There are no guys working on the floor tonight."
"No, I know I called this store. Are you sure you're not open until 11?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, but I don't know who spoke to you. There are no guys working tonight. All girls here."
"Ok."

He walks out, looking defeated. I feel kinda bad for the guy, but at the same time I'm thinking that he just made up the fact that he called in to try and get some time to get what he needed to buy. I go upstairs to relate this to my co-workers.

"So this joker says he called and some 'guy' told him we close at 11. We have no guys on tonight though! Ha ha."
"Uhhh, yeah. I know what happened."

Turns out my co-worker was running toward the phone to answer it when a random customer picked it up before she could get to it. He was the one who dispensed the 11pm closing time gem to the poor guy. He was even completely unembarrassed when she approached him about picking up the phone - according to her:

"...so he was like 'oh whatever, the caller just wanted to know what time you guys were open until.' And I said, 'We close at 10, not 11.' And he just shrugged and walked off."

Seriously: WHO THE FUCK PICKS UP THE PHONE?! No, think about this for a second. Would you walk past a ringing phone in a store and decide to PICK IT UP?! Why would you PICK UP THE PHONE?! And how are you unembarrassed about it when confronted?

Ah, the joys of customer service.

What the Hell Just Happened?

2006-09-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

So I get home, a post about how the word feminism has negative connotations despite it still being a relevant and important movement especially today slowly developing and I decide to visit Feministe for some materials and links to furnish my post with. In the background, I have the TV on, partly to watch Dr. Phil partly to glean the news headlines from the short "watch the news at 6" clips that are peppered throughout the various advertisements. I also have Google News open in another tab, scaning to see if there are any relevant news items I can pull into my post. There's nothing big and obvious in the headlines to suggest that anything exciting has happened. Certainly nothing to suggest that America has officially ceased to be a democracy as of today.

I'm going to give you some time to let that thought sink in.

If you think about it, it's not as if this was completely unforseen. A recent Daily Show with Jon Stewart has a short segment on who is not comparing Bush to Hitler:

Another video draws siginificant parallels between Bush and Hitler in a striking 5 minute piece:

How did this happen? If you're relying on the conventional news sources to tell you about it, you're shit out of luck. The main page on CNN.com doesn't even mention the bill. All I've managed to turn up are pieces on a new "Anti-Terrorism Bill" that passed today. According to ABC News, "[t]he overall bill would prohibit war crimes and define such atrocities as rape and torture but otherwise would allow the president to interpret the Geneva Conventions, the treaty that sets standards for the treatment of war prisoners." (I should mention that the story is hidden below a bevy of other stories on the main ABC news website. It is not featured in a position of prominence.) That's all the article says about the bill.

I had to look to an opinion piece in the New York Times for more specifics about this new bill. Basically in addition to allowing all sorts of human rights violations ("allow[ing] the president to interpret the Geneva Conventions" as ABC News so put it means that Bush is now officially allowed to ignore the Geneva Convention), the bill also makes it legal for the current president to act without the approval of Congress or the Courts.

Sorry what?

Blogger Tristero on Hullabaloo has written up a piece on the implications of this bill. I strongly encourage you to go read it. Meanwhile, welcome to the newest dictatorship this side of the Pacific.

Edit: more information -

More to do:
- Read the bill (Section 7, page 81).
-This blog post tracks the amendments made to the original bill with some commentary.

It's That Time of the Year Again!

2006-09-20T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every year, when the weather is giving us a preview of full-blown winter, I get the urge to take up knitting again. I crochet, which is great for hats and decorative, lacy scarves but not really for sweaters, garments and mittens. Not to mention you can't avoid bumping into all the great knitting patterns out there on the internet while looking through the paltry crochet resources. Plus, knitting is so much more complex, so much more versatile, so much more beautiful.

So every year I buy a new pair of knitting needles (because inevitably there's only one needle left of previous pairs I've bought - and the singles don't match each other), a ball of yarn and try to learn to knit. Every year I find knitting impossibly slow, finicky and Not Worth the Effort. I put away the needles and turn the yarn into a crochet hat. Which is stupid, because I don't wear hats.

For my birthday this year, I asked for knitting lessons because a particularly arresting project caught my attention. I really wanted it. I started to become obsessed with it. I knew that on my own, there was no way I would learn to knit. I mean the best way to predict the future is to look to the past right? Having painfully knit two incredibly ugly scarves it was clear that I had the basics right but that I was doing something wrong. That being the case, I wasn't easily classifiable into either a "beginner" or an "advanced" class. Private lessons were expensive. What if I just failed again? Finally, I decided to ask the person who runs my LYS what course of action she thinks I should take. She offers to show me how to knit up front and go from there.

So she picks up these GIANT needles and rope-like yarn and starts to knit really slowly. -Hey wait! I don't knit like that! What the hell?!- Turns out, I was knitting into the back loop, instead of doing a plain ol' knit stitch. Knitting into the back loop produces a very tight stitch, which explains why knitting was so frustrating for me. Tight stitches = hard to slide stitches off needles = non-fluid movement + occassionally pulling too hard and yanking more than one stitch off the needle dropping them all. I bought a pair of needles, three balls of yarn and kicked off my annual ritual. For extra insurance, I also picked up a copy of the The Knitter's Handbook (a Stitch 'n Bitch book by Debbie Stoller). I figured I could return it in the event of another failure. Besides, my employee discount made it a very reasonable purchase.

For this endeavour I decided to use the series of dishcloth patterns in this issue of Knitty. These 7 patterns are arranged in order starting with the easiest to the hardest - perfect for a learner!

Ladies and Gentlemen: I can knit - and I happen to be damn good at it.

Purty innit?

My Manifesto

2006-09-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

Today's Isaac's 14th birthday. Count it! This kid is taller than me now, and his voice has broken. I'm going over later to celebrate his birthday with him. It's probably going to be a Gamecube 4-player fest with his classmates, Jon, Jim and I. Mom's using this as an opportunity for her friends to throw her a "going away party" because she's scheduled to travel in luxury for the next little while. Just so we're clear, mom's throwing herself a going away party and inviting her friends. She says it's because her friends were talking about giving her one. Sure. Whatever.

This will be the last time I see mom before she leaves on Monday. This being the case, I'm supposed to come to this party with a gift for dad. His birthday was in August. The story surrounding this is kinda complicated so I'll do my best to relate it as succintly as possible.

I forgot dad's birthday - plain and simple. I was running around trying to get my application into the University of Melbourne, freaking out about whether I would be able to pay for it in the event that I don't receive an an adequate scholarship (or indeed a scholarship at all...). I was mired in a job search, simultaneously worrying about when I could get myself out of this apartment (read about my accepting the apartment here) because my dad finally revealed that the only reason I was offered the apartment is because he saw that Jim and I evidently are unable to support ourselves without resorting to living in dangerous hellholes and not (as I assumed) because he was accepting of our relationship and my status as a person unto myself. Oh and that we would continue living in dumps because Jim's a loser that I should dump because I could do better.

FYI, just so we're clear, Jim and I have made it a point to live in nice neighbourhoods, large apartments (the last place was twice as big as the one I'm living in now) and most importantly, we've been able to afford the luxuries that matter to us, like satellite TV, which we had to give up to move to this place. His argument for "Jim's a loser" goes something along the lines of: "Oh c'mon Jo! He can't even stand on his own two feet!" I suppose supporting me through the last three years of my post secondary education counts as being unable to stand on one's own two feet. Ah! Dad counters, "Yah, but he's working at a dead end job - I mean his dad is still working at that job like that right?" (1) Jim's job = steady income when we needed it. Now that he's free to go back to school, he's already registered to get out of there. (2) Brian's job is as a CNC machinist something you need to hold a degree to do. It's a highly skilled position that is incredibly in demand in N. America (and in most other parts of the world, as I understand it). See the problem with dad is that he isn't interested in listening to me, or even looking at situation I am in. He'd rather stick by his impressions which he has formed by being out of the country for most of the year (and not really interacting with me while I am around). So I don't want to live in his apartment, because it's just reinforcing his notion that I need him to get along, even though I thought I've proven that I'm already able to just fine. Oh and while he was busy forming opinions with no real basis, he has decided that he really hates Jim. As a result, his followers (i.e. mom and her parents) have also decided to dislike Jim on the grounds that he is a stupid loser.

I digress. So I forgot it was dad's birthday, mom was trying to get in touch with me because she was throwing a surprise party for him (mom on a subsequent guilt trip: "You know, he was really disappointed that you weren't there. He wanted to see you, and just you, you know what I mean." - In case you don't "know what she means" she meant that Jim wasn't invited.) but I didn't get her voicemail until two days later (which is not an excuse, it is something that happens with my service provider). y grandad calls me the next day and in a voice that you would use only with the extremely sick or dying says, "do you know yesterday's date?" Ahh fuck. So I call dad and pretend that I think I'm calling on his birthday and that it wasn't that I forgot but really that because I had just returned from a Trans-Pacific trip that I had my dates mixed up. I thought that was adequate. My grandparents however, seem to think that I owe my dad a birthday present.

Seriously, what the fuck do you get for a guy who has everything? On a month where you just dropped $900 on strata council fees for an apartment he owns? FYI, I only got $60 from him for -my- birthday. In case anyone's counting, 60 x 15 = 900. Apparently though, I should still get him something "yi si, yi si only", because that's what a "good daughter" would do. I think my grandma's exact words (translated from Hokkien) is that "like that then is a good daughter" - implying that I wouldn't be one otherwise. Needless to say, despite the fact that today is the last day I can hand mom a gift for dad's birthday, I haven't bought anything. Nor do I intend to. He's a big enough bastard on his own without my approval.

So my manifesto:

My actions and behaviour are held only to my own standards and no one else's. I will be the sole determining entity when it comes to value judgements such as being a "good daughter" and a "good person". Contrary to the popular belief that is floating around, blood ties do not obligate me to anything. Even dogs can fuck. If parents or anybody else for that matter wants to invoke an arbitrary relationship as reason for me to treat them better than I would others who have treated me as they have, they can go fuck themselves. Or some dogs, their choice. Nobody who doesn't treat me nice gets treated nice by me. All of you (you know who you are) who treat me nice, you are welcome to use my newfound employee discount on books. So there.

"Really? You have NO accent!"

2006-09-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

I was in a discussion group recently where we were talking about speech production and the body's involvement. So you know, it's easy to walk and talk, but not run and talk and it's difficult to walk and yell and damn near impossible to run and yell. Try it if you don't believe me. And if you have to try it to know this is true, you are a very, very strange person. I'd like to meet you. Email me.

To supplement the discussion I decided to bring up the fact I would routinely have to do body loosening excercises alongside vocal warm-up excercises at choir and that I had a conductor who wouldn't allow us to sit and sing. I added, "I had a fascist conductor." To which Eric replied, "Of course you did, you're from Singapore."

After class I was milling around, talking to the new Linguistics Ph.D candidate Eric's supervising and he said, "So are you really from Singapore? When did you move here?"

Me: "When I was 16."
Him: "9-10 years ago?"
Me: "Closer to 5."
Him: "WOW, but...but like, but you have no accent."

I replied with my usual "it depends on who I'm talking to, how sober I am, my mother was an ardent supporter of 'proper' (and by her standards, proper=non-Singaporean) English, yadda yadda yadda". Let's just recall my thoughts on a Proper English Accent from a previous post (here I'm talking about why my original ambition to be an accent coach doesn't align with my morals anymore):

The problem now though, was that I didn't believe in accent coaching anymore. Accent coaching comes out of a very eurocentric view that the only proper varieties of English are the ones that are spoken by people who are vaguely identified as "white". I remember my mother trying to push "British" English on us, making annoyed clucking sounds when we spoke like Singaporeans, which is frankly ridiculous because having a Singaporean accent and being extremely fluent in English are not mutually exclusive. Besides, what is "British" English? The Beatles' English? The English that is parlayed by the Samoan barkeep (or indeed any of the other characters) in Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels? How about the mumble-grumblings that Brad Pitt so effectively spouts in Snatch? Worst of all, could she want us to sound like various characters in Frasier? Maybe she would've just settled for the cheap, working class drawl of the ladies in Absolutely Fabulous (which is an absolutely horrible show, IMHO). Accent coaches just play into the public masturbatory idea that white is ideal, no matter how poorly defined "white" is.

"Look at me! I don't speak like I'm from where I was born and raised! Aren't I so smart?" - Look buddy, you won't even make it on Letterman's Stupid Pet Trick segment.

This time though, his comments really bothered me. As a Ph.D Linguistics I don't doubt for a second that he is extremely sensitive to the varieties of English out there. I also don't think that there was an explicit value judgement when he said those words. However, I couldn't help but feel that he was impressed that I sounded like a "Native English Speaker" or at least the variety that we allow as subjects on our experiments (i.e. Standard N. American English, which if you think about it is a hard definition to pin down, but as speech perception researchers you just have to make do - I mean our stimuli was recorded by a Japanese-English billingual for crying out loud...as in she has American parents but spent most of her life in Japan. Eric's daughter, in case you're wondering). Having said that I don't think there was an explicit value judgement though, I'm willing to put good money on that there certainly was an implicit value judgement. One that is so subtle that even the most politically correct person would make it before their social conscience had the opportunity to stop them.

Maybe I'm being unfair to Mark. Maybe the reason this is such a sore spot is because on my recent trip back to Singapore, the government wanted to employ people from "English speaking nations" to teach English in our schools, clearly valuing "non-Singaporean" English over Singaporean and making the assumption that non-Singaporean instruction is better than the local variety. Let me make this clear. When I moved here, I was allowed into the second half of their final year of secondary education (think entering JC2 in July). That week I made the debate team and went on to represent the Lower Mainland (the most populous area in the province) at the provincial debates. The first English lesson I attended was on "How To Write an Essay". The first English Literature lesson I attended was stil discussing things like "alliteration". By the end of the month, my English teacher was asking permission to read my essays and short stories aloud to the class. The drama teacher was asking me to give a short talk on playwriting.

You want these clowns to come teach us? It looks like we should be sending teachers over there to learn them a thing or two. Here I am, a Singaporean, kicking these Native English Speakers' asses in English. By all measures, my English was better than theirs. Let me remind you that I was 16 and they were 18. Not that anyone's counting.

I was gearing up to write a letter to the Straits Times about the issue. I felt that we were making ourselves look stupid by valuing overseas English and English instruction while neglecting the excellent teachers we already have here on our own soil. Perhaps we should be looking to the English teachers in Singapore who are doing things right, and have them share their methods with the teachers who are prompting politicians to seek ang mohs who at the age of 18 were barely able to scrape together a 500 word essay on a topic of their choice. But if you think about it, letters to the ST are futile. If they do end up printing it, all I'm going to get in return is citizen apathy and a possible black mark next to my name. It turns out, however that someone has already said everything that I wanted to say in my letter succintly and humourously. I present to you Ruby Pan (whose name is really familiar - someone help me out, why would I know her?):

On a completely different note, here's another recipe:

Red Clam Rotini
1 can baby clams (drained, reserve the liquid)
1 can (5oz) tomato paste
300g fresh tomatoes (chopped)
Garlic (chopped)
~100g dried Rotini (cooked)
~1 tbsp Dried Basil
~2 tbsp Chilli Flakes (optional)
~2 tbsp Parmesan Cheese

1. Saute the Garlic (I would use as much as you like, I used as much as I had in the kitchen). When slightly browned, add the chopped tomatoes and clams.
2. When mixture is fragrant and tomatoes are out of their skins add the reserved clam juice, tomato paste, chilli flakes and basil.
3. Cook over medium heat until the consistency is where you want it. Add rotini. Serve with parmesan cheese.

Why No Easy Money?!

2006-09-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

This disclaimer before I launch into this post: I realise that this time I've been really lucky w.r.t. my job search. Two jobs in as many weeks in places where I want to work.

BUT

Dear God, why can't I earn easy money?! Seriously. I'm currently employed as a TA with UBC for a 100 level course. Should be a piece of cake right? Wrong! Just so happens it's a 100 level course as conceived by Eric. For reference, he initially wanted to make it a 400 level course, but decided against it because by the upper levels there aren't that many people who need general credits.

It's been one day since the first assignment was posted. It's due on Friday (assignments due this close to the start of term are unheard of in a first year course, btw) and the emails from students have been POURING in. All of the emails are along the lines of "Can you help pls? I did not understand the article. P.S. How do you do the assignment?" *mutter* Jesus tit-fucking Christ *mutter* The kicker is that I agree that the assignment is rather tough and that frankly, if it were presented to me, I would not have a clear idea on how to complete it. Not that I can say that in response to the flood of emails asking for help that cannot easily be provided in written correspondence. The ideal solution to this would be to have the student attend our office hours to ask us clarification questions in person. The only problem with that is that in order to deter last-minute assignment work (which, let's face it, everyone completes their assignments as late as humanly possible) TA office hours are scheduled for early in the week (meaning there are no more office hours left this week between now and when the assignment is due). ohmygodohmygodohmygod The last thing you want now is disgruntled students yelling about how they are dropped into the deep end with no swimming instructions.

The hope is that the truly hopeless will drop the course while they are able to so we don't have to deal with them for the rest of the course.

Goddamn, why couldn't I TA something retarded like Psychology 100 (read: the only assignment is a 5 page essay through which the students' hands are held, the exams/mid-terms are all multiple-choice/fill-in-the-blank)?!

That being said, having to TA the course I am (I'm not including the name of the course here in case some kid googles it and finds my contraband opinions) is really really cool. I wouldn't attend the course otherwise, and it's one of those courses that I think everyone should have to take as part of their post-secondary education. My only complaint would be that you can't really count on it for an easy A but then again, if you think about it, that's a really, really, really lame complaint.

My other job starts tomorrow. A minimum wage excercise in customer service. The reason I applied there is that I'm hired on a contractual basis (I can bail if U of Melbourne decides that they want to fund me as a student) and that the employee discount will more than make up for the minimum-wage-iness of the job. That being said, I have no idea what the employee discount is like. I expect odd hours and weekend shifts, but I'm sure that this will not be worse than any other customer service positions. Think about it, in a bookstore there are no messes to clean up (unlike in a grocery store), there are no customers who are upset that they are patrons but are unable to remove themselves from the establishment (ala casino) and no crazies telling you why you work for the devil (ok, I'm not sure that I can avoid unpredicatable crazies...but I know that unlike my previous positions, no one can give me a lecture on why I shouldn't work for a company that (a)sells meat products or (b)relishes in promoting a serious addiction). Yes, I did get a lecture about the GROCERY STORE carrying MEAT and DAIRY. Go figure. Maybe that person was just lonely and needed someone - anyone - to talk to.

On a completely different note, I made an AMAZING soup tonight (if I may say so myself). Recipe follows.

Sweet, Sweet Soup

Pork marinated in cumin, mexican chilli powder, cinnamon, salt and maple syrup
Butternut squash - skinned and cubed
Apples - skinned and cubed
Onion - diced
Carrots - diced
Chicken stock (diluted with equal parts water)
Dried parsley

1. Saute the onions and carrots in 2tbsp oil.
2. When the onions are fragrant, add pork and all the marinade. (Note on the marinade: when prepared, the syrup should just coat the pork. The pork should not be swimming in syrup.) Cook the pork on all sides.
3. Add the squash and the apples. Pour in diluted chicken stock. Bring to boil and simmer until squash and apples are soft.
4. With a potato masher mash everything you can. It's good if it's a little chunky. Add the parsley.

Because I didn't measure anything, I can't provide quantities. Although I can say that there should be equal parts apple and squash and that there should be as much pork as there is apple and squash combined (by volume). Spices in the marinade should be used so that you can smell them after mixing, but the smell should not be strong. There should be enough stock and water to cover the ingredients in the pot.

Goddamn the soup is good. :)

Not for Another 11 Years...

2006-09-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

...will my age have two identical digits in it. Hello everyone! It's my birthday! And because it is, I'm going to blog about whatever the hell I want. I know, I really should post all about the two month vacation that I had and I promise, those entries, complete with pictures will be published (eventually) and backdated for your convenience. To help everyone keep track, I've got a little sidebar thing that links to all the relevant holiday posts. There's only one right now, but hey, it's a start, right?

Birthdays are all about having fun and not having to act your age. With that in mind, may I present for your perusal the Dildo song!

But every girl needs something to think about when using a dildo - it's not just about the physical sensations. How about some practically naked (they're wearing fig leaves) dancing guys? I think that'd do.

Wasn't that just great? Songs like that make me happy. But why limit ourselves to the dancing Japanese? Ze Germans dance too - happy happy dance. (This next one made me giggle so hard that had I been drinking milk, it would've come out my nose. *hee hee hee*)

It would not be fair to showcase all this musical talent without acknowledging the talents of the brave and courageous men over in Iraq. With that, I present to you the British troops in their very own music video:

Gotta love those Brits. To wrap things up, I'm going to leave you with another video made by those resilient British (who at one point in history damn near controlled the known world, and then realised that they couldn't quite handle the responsibility, but that's beside the point...). This video makes me smile. I'd like to have tea and scones with this guy.

Doesn't that leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling? :)

If none of these made you smile, you might want to stop using so much Botox. Love you all, will blog properly eventually.

First Week...or so...yeah...

2006-07-06T02:49:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been on a plane ride that cumulatively lasts over 24 hours? During which you lose more than 24 hours because some impertinent, arbitrary line decides to confiscate an entire calendar day from your itinerary? Sure that line says that it's really not a confiscation, that it's really just a deposit that you will get back when you cross it again, but really, who needs an extra day returning from holiday? Stupid International Date Line. Anyways, if you haven't, this is what you end up like:

Most trans-Pacific flights are not continuous because that would just be cruel and unusual. So the first stop on our journey was Seoul, Korea (where we had a Traditional Experience Korea!). Our stopover was little over an hour long - you know, just enough time for the airplane staff to air out the plane and the terrorists to realise that hijacking this particular jet would be too much trouble, better to just make traditional Korean kites at the conveniently located area in the airport. If not for the huge sign reading: "Traditional Experience Korea - Free Crafts!" I would've mistaken the area for one of those places where they try and convince you that a time share is really a damn good idea as well as a sound investment for the future. Luckily it wasn't though and Jim and I walked away with bamboo and rice paper kites with characters on them certifying us "Kite Masters" - or something like that. It might well say "Stupid Tourist" but it's not like we'd know any better.

Back on the plane:

this time headed to Singapore for our second stopover (this time overnight). It was a 7 or 8 hour stop and we had a free hotel room courtesy of Singapore Airlines (which just happens to be the #1 airlines in the world, btw). So what do Singaporeans do the second they touch down? Go eat something of course! (Frigging hobbits...) So I met up with Joshua for prata - which before that date I had not had for 6 years - hence the following big grin.

After that, off to Australia, our first official vacation destination.

We landed in Brisbane and took a coach to the Gold Coast where we met up with David and Lisa in a well priced, clean and all-around great holiday apartment - Mari Court Resort. I highly recommend it. The location is great, there's ensuite laundry facilities, a barbecue pit, pool, hot tub, and, most importantly, the kitchen has a dishwasher. The groceries in Australia are so well-priced that for $100AUD we fed ourselves (four of us) for three days (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and supper) with barbecued meats, corn on the cob and Joie's Greek and Potato Salad (both recipes linked). And that's Greek salad and Potato Salad. Not Greek Salad with Potatoes in it or anything. Just so we're clear.

We did the standard theme park circuit (DreamWorld, SeaWorld and MovieWorld) with the usual rollercoasters and junk:

I can't believe that short of one new ride (the Superman Escape, the latter picture above, which proves that Superman is really a sadist at heart), the theme parks haven't changed since I visted them when I was 12. In fact, the animal shows are still using the same script and the same tricks. It was fun in a nostalgic kinda way, but truth be told, I was expecting alot more from the theme park circuit.

On the last night and day we were in the Gold Coast though (David and Lisa had already left for Melbourne so that Lise could catch her scheduled flight to Singapore, which incidently was overbooked, so she received $500, an afternoon at a 5 star hotel and an upgrade to Raffles Class in return for having to board a later flight...bitch) Jim and I went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. We did the night tour first, which was incredibly cool, seeing as how most of Australia's native wildlife is nocturnal.

Before I get into it though, let me talk a little about the Sanctuary itself. This is a place where you can bring all manner of injured wildlife for care. As in, if you run over a Kangaroo because you were too pissed to watch the road carefully, you are free to turn the hurt kangaroo into Currumbin free-of-charge. The sanctuary will not, however, help you with the damages to your vehicle. Currumbin is also involved in research and education. It is completely self-financed from revenues received through park-admissions and proceeds from guests purchases. Institutions which operate like that are incredibly rare and I have a lot of respect for places like that. One of the only self-financing parks in North America happens to be the Vancouver Aquarium, which I am also a supporter of.

At the park we got up close and personal with many of the animals both in and out of the exhibits. The shots below are from when we were waiting for the others who booked the night tour to assemble. A professional photographer was on hand also so that we had shots to purchase at the end of the night. These ones were just the ones taken from our own camera.

Are you wondering about my expression? Well, recall that I have a serious phobia of crocodiles, alligators, caimans, you know, those things. What I was holding, was a three-year old saltwater croc. You know, the kind that can GROW UP TO 7 METRES IN LENGTH?! Yah, those kinds. The next day we got to see what those damn things were like when they are almost fully grown, here's a 5m croc - yeah, he still has TWO METRES TO GO.

There were other, more agreeable animals at the sanctuary, like the Kangaroos, which we were able to hand feed:

I guess, not that particular kangaroo, seeing as how it was otherwise indisposed...

Or the Cassowary - which I think is cool.

At least cooler than this free-ranging and rather belligerent emu (EMU EMU!):

Going back to the whole nocturnal tour though, here is something I've never seen before, despite having seen Tasmanian Devils many times before (albeit during the day):

A Tazzy Devil feeding! Those things have vicious teeth beneath their cute and furry exterior. Who knew?

I'll close this post on a little bit of moralizing. Heaven knows I hardly do it enough. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with a picture of a cane toad:

This toad was brought over to Australia way back when to help control populations of pests that were plaguing the cash crop at the time - sugar canes. With no natural predators, and plenty of natural prey these things took over. These damn toads have resulted in the near-extinction of many local species. Damn white men and their meddling! If I had my way I'd have nothing to do with those white devils -

*ahem*

But yeah. On a summer's night, five people with garbage bags and gloves can collect 100kg of those toads, and that's just in the vicinity of the park. They're a pest and a problem, although local crows have recently been observed eating them (the cane toads have poison glands behind their eyes, the only way predators can eat them is if they are flipped on their back and their bellies are eaten out first). Girls and Boys, say no to cane toads.

Richard Branson: You Suck Balls

2006-06-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

And not in a good way either.

Yesterday I flew into Melbourne from the Brisbane Domestic Airport. Having researched fares on the internet, I ascertained that the cheapest flight available was on VirginBlue Airlines, Australia's youngest fleet of airplanes owned by Richard Branson's mega-corporation: Virgin. With the additional bonus of Virgin jets landing in the terminal closest to where I was going to stay the night, I booked two seats, one way, from Brisbane to Melbourne.

How bad could it be right?

The terminal was plastered with all sorts of cutesy, trying to be cool signs. Things like "Laptops must be taking out of carrying cases, Bikini tops are fine". Doors to the bathrooms were labelled "Virgin Loo". At the check-in counter however, they made very clear that they didn't really have a sense of humour with large reed signs proclaming: "We take jokes about security very seriously. Criminal charges may apply."

In other words: "We will bombard you with stupid and unfunny jokes so you think we are a cool, funky airline. Afterall, we are courting the lucrative 18-30 demographic with our quirkyness (and the older people with our supposedly amazing Velocity Points program), but we're really not funny people. Try to be funny with us and you will not only be grounded my friend, you will also be hauled off to jail and we will arrange for a large, bald, Aussie inmate to do you up the bum."

I didn't even dare to smile at the barely adequate character who was processing my check-in. (As a side note, did you know that you don't even get real tickets? You just get a number and a barcode with your name on it printed on receipt paper. What a ripoff!) She directed us to where our carry-on baggage was being checked - that's where the shit hit the fan.

For some reason, opened alcohol is not allowed on the plane - whereas unopened bottles are. Not knowing this beforehand, I had in my possession (1L each) Havana club rum and Canadian Club whisky. I had drunk about a shot or two from each of those bottles max. They were confiscated by a monkeyman who was swinging his dick around in hopes that it would look bigger. His ill-disguised glee at being able to remove 2L of premium alcohol was nauseating. Retailation was discouraged through large red signs similar to the ones at the check-in counter. When asked about the policy all he could say was "We're just following protocol". I wouldn't be as upset about losing damn near $100 (street value) of alcohol if they could give me a legitimate reason as to why opened (but not sealed) bottles were not allowed. I wasn't even allowed to check them in.

You know, I think really that the "rule" is in place merely to allow them to be able to confiscate alcohol they think they would enjoy. The guy behind me had some really premium stuff (which he had previously travelled with, opened - so this is really just a Virgin policy) which was also taken from him. The reason I think that the only alcohol confiscated is the good stuff is because Jim made it past with Absolut Raspberry. It was opened, but it also tastes like cough syrup. We ended up leaving it in Melbourne.

Since my alcohol was confiscated, I figured that the best way to recoup my losses would be to ring the hostess call button every 10 minutes requesting something to drink. Alcoholic, non-alcoholic, "could I have peanuts or crackers with that?", "when do we get a snack?"...

Upon boarding, we were all handed menus, complete with pricelists. Drinks started at $2 (soft drinks) and wound up costing about $12 if you wanted their specialty mixed cocktails. Snacks were available as well, for $3 for a small bag of chips or nuts, all the way up to $15 entrees - microwaved to order, so I hear.

Na bei ji bai.

Google Stalking

2006-06-05T02:59:00.000-07:00

I've been occupied lately with wanting to meet up with old friends. This is appropriate considering that I will shortly be in a position to meet up with everyone that I used to be the best of friends with. So I've started trying to find people. To locate them. People are elusive. For example, in the last five years (since I've moved to Canada) I have held six addresses, three cell phone numbers and three emails (two of which I still check). Having no evidence to the contrary, I can only assume that my friends are similarly mobile and that the contact information I have from what seems now like eons ago are dated, to say the least. So I turn to Google, which has never, ever failed me. There have been times where I've had a tune stuck in my head and a few well chosen phrases in the search box have led me to the song I was thinking of. Google is that good, or so I thought.

The first person I wanted to look up was one of my best friends at RGS. In the same class from sec 1 to sec 4, I gravitated toward her because I thought she was impossibly cool. I still don't know what attracted her to me. She's Thai, and after we graduated from RGS, I left for here and I assumed she left to return to Bangkok. I don't know. I wasn't listening carefully enough back then, obviously, because I cannot remember what she said about where she was going or what she was doing. If she mentioned it at all. (As a side note, it is so strange to be writing about someone you used to know so intimately as if she were a mere acquaintance, if not a downright stranger.) She has an unusual name though, and a quick googling of "Pailin Samritpricha" led me to a student website on Seattle University's student server. Her website had nothing but a picture on it, which was sufficient. Her name might be unique, but there could always be another Pailin S. out there. I've written several times to SU's Alumni Services, but they haven't replied. I think they think I'm a crazy stalker. Afterall, don't best friends from high school keep in touch? My story must sound so false. At any rate, there's a long shot, I've tried a potential email address and the good news is that the mail has not been bounced back to me.

To illustrate how important a photo on your website is, I present to you these two examples. When you Google "Johanna Tan" you get this website. While technically this person is Johanna Tan, it is immediately apparent that it is not the particular Johanna Tan you are looking for. There is also a Johanna Tan who is a 27 year-old freelance web-designer and insurance agent who buys a $3 Straits Times Charity bear in a newspaper article no longer accessible through the official Asia1 site, but which still can be viewed because Google so helpfully caches pages for internet stalkers (but this is not the second example, because the charitable Johanna Tan might be the same Johanna Tan in the picture in the website, I doubt it, however, because a freelance web-designer would not have such a sparse profile). There are countless other Johanna Tans out there in cyberspace that are not me from (quite a few) myspace users who write in Singlish, to one who writes about breeding birds in Sungei Buloh National Park. Also, there's a Johanna Tan listed in some kind of athletic league (if the Johanna Tan you know is me then you'd find this very, very funny. If not, what the hell are you doing on my blog? Oh wait, I apologize. I hate blog writers who disrespect their readers, even if their readers think they're someone else). The first "Johanna Tan" in the Google search results that actually turns out to be me has me listed with Eric on a paper presented at the Canadian Linguistics Association conference. You're not going to get much contact information from there though.

I digress. I should talk about the second example. This only shows up when you've given up on "Johanna Tan" and instead try Googling "Johanna Tan Si-en". The first search result looks promising! It's a faculty/staff listing for the UBC Arts Faculty - Linguistics Department even. So why the fuck does it list me as an Instructor in the School of Nursing with a contact number, email and office?! For some bizzare reason, I'm also blocked from editing my own damn profile. I don't know why this is a good second example for my point, actually. Because if I were able to upload a picture, but not edit the information, people will think I'm fucking training nurses. Nicole Bradner (the other undergrad TA) got an accurate listing. Noooo, this Johanna Tan Si-en has to be a bloody nursing instructor. Brilliant.

My excuse for the poor second example is that it's 3am and I am officially unable to form a coherent argument. I will, however, press bravely onward. Afterall, I haven't blogged for real in a long time (hiding behind birthday wishes and replacement memes, and interactive memes: updated for answers! and so on and so forth) so I must make up for it with a picture post (see previous post) and a rant (this post)!

So then I Google names of other friends I hope to meet on this two month holiday. No luck at all. Their names are even more common than mine. Google has a friend of mine listed as the contact for an IT course at the University of Sydney. Uhh, we haven't spoken in a while, but I seriously don't think that's her. In fact, I'm willing to put quite a large amount of money where my intuitions are on that count. Other friends don't even register a hit. So I'm reduced to sending emails to their last known email address. So far all of them have been returned. Either I don't remember the addresses properly or, like me, they've moved on to more professional email addresses. You can't exactly put schmiles84@hotmail on a resume.

I'm just hoping that the people I'm in contact with by virtue of discovering their blogs over the past years have better resources than me. There are alot of people I have lost touch with. If I had my way, I'll be in touch with them all by this fall.

Not Much Pomp or Circumstance

2006-06-01T22:19:00.000-07:00

Actually, they didn't even play Pomp and Circumstance at my graduation, which I consider a ripoff, frankly. Who the hell wants to hear generic classical shit when they're bored to death watching hoardes of people they don't know walk across the stage to shake the hand of someone you've never seen in your life, who was dressed as though he were about to attend a renaissance fair. I'll get back to that. First, the obligatory pictures!

Just so you know, the ones that were taken indoors are really really crappy. But I'll draw your attention to the relevant details. Hopefully also the pictures will be small enough that the poor resolution is not going to be a big deal.

This is me approaching the Chancellor to shake his hand. I don't know who he is and I don't know what he does. At least his hand wasn't moist.

What you should be looking at in this picture are my feet. Notice: I am in flip flops. Man did that piss my mom off. Wait, did I say "did"? No, she's still bitching about the fact that I crossed the stage in flip flops. Like it's her business (I recall mentioning to a few friends of mine that if she caught me before the ceremony and made comment on them I would cross the stage barefoot). I guess any opportunity to be bitching at me. Bonus points if she manages to detract from any positive actions I have taken. Damn I hate my mother, although I have more than a few pictures with her. She really wanted to have pictures with me and I didn't want to start a fight. Besides, she was bringing me out to lunch and I didn't want it to be awkward. Here's a shot of me and her. I like my smile in this shot:

Is it just me or does she look like she doesn't mean it with that smile?

Moving on, pictures with my favourite people in the whole wide world (with the exception of Fort who was unable to attend):

Yes. Jon's huge. Yes. My little brother is that much taller than me. Yes. I can get him to beat you up if you continue to point out stupid things like that.

Then my profs. This is Carden. Ladies and Gentlemen, he is real and not a figment of my imagination. Troll through my archives if ever you are bored and you can read about him.

This is Stemberger (I think he's the Dept. head). He's a great guy and a really good Morris Dancer. I saw him perform this year at Beltane (an annual festival that Jim has attended since he was 5 and that I love tagging along to).

Finally, it's Gunnar, everyone's favourite Icelandic phonologist. Probably everyone's favourite Icelander (is that what you call people from Iceland?) Let's get a shout out for Gunnar!

So that was my graduation. I originally didn't want to go, but my grandparents (both sets) and my parents wanted pictures. It wasn't too boring and I did get to see Carden in that pink thing. My only major complaint is that Matt (one of my professors who is unbelievably GORGEOUS and whom I owe alot to) wasn't there. I really wanted a photo with him. For more than one reason. I'll leave you with one more picture which clearly illustrates what I'm NOT going to do now that I've graduated - that is, I'm definitely not looking over my shoulder at my alma mater. Guys, I'm outta here!

Come Play with Me

2006-05-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Aiight guys, this is the interactive meme that I mentioned in the post with the iTunes Oracle meme. I have not reversed my stand on the inanity and cop-out-ness of memes, but I think this one is going to be fun. See, this is how it works. Below are 10 of my favourite quotes. They are from books, TV shows, movies, songs, poetry, plays, everything. Your job is to tell me where they are from (in comments). When someone correctly ID's something it will magically change colour and the answer will be appended to the end of said quote. Ready? Get set....

Go:

So no one even tried. Shame on all of you. Yes. All two of you. Didn't even bother to google. Blardi.

Anyways too too busy to post proper so instead I will provide the answers.

1. "...and Monkey's brains, though popular in Cantonese cusine, are not often to be found in Washington DC."
From the 1985 movie Clue. My favourite movie of all time. This quote is from when the butler (Tim Curry) is revealing how he knew that there was a relationship between Mrs. Peacock and the cook.

2. "She was born hermaphroditic, or maybe entirely male."
     "Oh you see castration everywhere you look.'"
From the prologue of the book Wicked by Gregory Maguire. The wicked witch of the east (from L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz) overhears the scarecrow, the lion, the tinman and Dorothy discussing things they have heard about her.

3. "Well, I want to go to Bombay, India and become a movie star."
     "You don't go to Bombay to become a movie star, you go where we're going: Hollywood."
     "Well sure, if you want to do it the easy way."
I can't believe no one got this one. It's so classic! It's from The Muppet Movie. For the uninitiated, this movie is about how the Muppets assembled into a crew. Fozzie and Kermit are roadtripping across the country when they meet a hitchiker: Gonzo. This quote is from when Gonzo tells them where he's headed.

4. "In each of them, as far as Joe could tell from a hasty inspection, the subject was wearing the same goofy suppressing-a-fart expression, and if there was any significant difference among them, apart from the fact that some people were evidently more adept at telepathically focusing a lens than others, it was lost on Joe."
This is from a novel that I highly recommend: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Michael Chabon follows two cousins who are teenagers during WWII in New York. You should read it. Heck, say the word and I'll buy it for you.

5. "Rob McKeena had two hundred and thirty-one different types of rain entered in his little book, and he didn't like any of them...Since he had left Denmark the previous afternoon, he had been through types 33 (light pricking drizzle which made the roads slippery), 39 ( heavy spotting), 47 to 51 (vertical light drizzle through to sharply slanting light to moderate drizzle freshening), 87 and 88 (two finely distinguished varieties of vertical torrential downpour), 100 (post-downpour squalling, cold), all the seastorm types between 192 and 213 at once, 123, 124, 126, 127 (mild and intermediate cold gusting, regular and syncopated cab-drumming), 11 (breezy droplets), and now his least favourite of all, 17...And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKeena was a Rain God...All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him."
Another classic I can't believe no one got. Ladies and Gentlemen, Rob Mckeena the rain god is none other than the classic peripheral character from the fourth book in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy by Douglas Adams. In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, the protagonist Arther Dent is at the side of the road and he desperately needs a ride. Rob Mckeena trucks on by.

6. "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
I had to throw this in to raise the tone of this blog. This is the opening line of Anna Karenina by none other than Leo Tolstoy. I bought the book to read this summer but I haven't quite gotten around to it. I've read the first several chapters and it's really interesting but this is the kind of book that you don't want to read in too many sittings so I need to put it away for when I have more uninterrupted reading time.

7. "All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige coloured hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs."
This little bit of narration is from the protagonist (Christopher) of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. Christopher has autism and thought this book you see a story unfold through his very unique perspective. A quick read, highly recommended.

8. "Animals and children tell the truth, they never lie. Which one is more human? There's a thought: now you decide."
*cough* uhhh, look away guys. This is from the Animal Song by...uhh...Savage Garden. Moving on...

9. "Calm yourself. Man who argues with cow on wall is like train without wheels: very soon get nowhere."
I had to slip this one in just because 50's era racism is kinda amusing despite the fact (or maybe it is because of the fact) that it is just so wrong. This little gem was uttered by Inspector Sidney Wang in the 1976 movie Murder By Death. This "Oriental" detective was referring to the mounted moose on the wall through which the host (intent on killing the assembled famous fictional detectives) addressed his guests.

10. "Rory? Yeah I know Rory. He's not to be underestimated, you've got to look past the hair and the cute, cuddly thing - it's all a deceptive facade. A few nights ago Rory's Roger iron's rusted, so he's gone to the local battle-cruiser to catch the end of his footer. Nobody is watching the custard so he turns the channel over. A fat man's norf opens and he wanders over and turns the Liza over. 'Now fuck off and watch it somewhere else.' Rory knows claret is imminent, but he doesn't want to miss the end of the game; so, calm as a coma, he stands and picks up a fire extinguisher and he walks straight past the jam rolls who are ready for action, then he plonks it outside the entrance. He then orders an Aristotle of the most ping pong tiddly in the nuclear sub and switches back to his footer. 'That's fucking it,' says the guy. 'That's fucking what' says Rory. Rory gobs out a mouthful of booze covering fatty; he then flicks a flaming match into his bird's nest and the man's lit up like a leaky gas pipe. Rory, unfazed, turned back to his game. His team's won too. Four-nil. "
This one is for Jimmy, from his favourite movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I think the quote is pretty self-explanatory. Hell of a one to transcribe though.

Happy Birthday My Favourite White Boy!

2006-05-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

May 15th 2006: James P. Hobbs is 23!

-Love you sweetheart.

Flying, Falling, Stumbling

2006-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Graduation is in a little more than two weeks. This being the case, I've been thinking alot on how I got here in the first place and I've come to the conclusion that I've had a very favourable gravitational pull.

Let me start from the beginning. I wasn't supposed to be here. I was supposed to stay in Singapore for a little while longer, do my first three months of JC at the least. But within half an hour on a seeminly innocuous interview with a private school I was accepted into 12th grade in the middle of the year. People might argue that I could've thrown the interview, but since my parents were watching, all I did was not screw up. I didn't try to impress them, I didn't do anything. I sat there and nodded while my dad talked me up and I put a smile on when I was taken to meet students and faculty. I realised that I had to settle in Vancouver at some point, and at that time I would need to go to school somewhere. I didn't want to burn bridges I hadn't even crossed yet. This should've been the first sign that nothing from that point forward was going to be on my own terms.

At York House School (which to be fair, is fantastic school - one I wouldn't hesitate to send my own daughters to if it ever came down to it) I was encouraged to apply for universities. Having entered in January I had already missed some key deadlines. Also, I wasn't able to take the SAT and possibly apply for an American university. In my head at the time, seeing as how most of the university rankings are out of America and that there aren't that many Canadian Us anyway, the good schools were south of the 49th. Besides, Canada couldn't have been all that great anyway. They let someone who had just graduated from secondary school into their equivalent of the last term of junior college. Thinking back, I suppose any American school would've done the same. But I was 16, in shock and wanting to get as far the hell away from my parents as possible. If they could swing me like a sack of so much wet sand the way they did, the less of a hold they had on me the better.

Those applications left, returned, were rejected by my parents. "You're too young to go away and live on your own". "One more year would make a big difference, you're not ready yet". I suppose I really wasn't ready yet because I couldn't look into myself to assess my own readiness. I just nodded and accepted the offer from UBC. Turns out, that wasn't such a bad thing. Sure it was pretty bad that it wasn't independent thought or motivation that got me into UBC. Hell it wasn't even my keen eye for 100-level classes, (my dad registered me in all my first year classes. FYI, he registered me in one of those all-inclusive first year programs that claim to ease you into university life, but really just shields you from the realities of being a college student for another year. The dean finally made the decision this year to axe the program because it was so crappy. The program was in its fifth year.) which eventually resulted in me having to play catch-up: I was taking 100-level courses in my third year to fufil degree requirements (Foundations as the program was called, gave you "pre-requisite" credits, which essentially admits you into any second-year classes you might want to take. Those credits, however, do not count towards a degree. Now, isn't that nice?).

Foundations did do one thing, however. In that isolated fishbowl environment, you couldn't help but make friends. Determined to be anti-social, I didn't really make any friends (it was only in the last couple of years that I really started to open up socially), but I did make one. Jim happened to be in Foundations too.

Jim was so many things at once. He was unwavering support. He was someone who I could derive confidence from because he believed I could do no serious wrong. He was a ticket out from under my parents. Was I looking at him to be a long-term boyfriend? Was I even looking at him as something more than a few free movies and nights out? Not initially. In fact, initially Jim was just entertainment. He quickly became something else though, and I don't think I can claim agency for it.

Like Foundations, UBC in and of itself happened to be a rather serendipitous choice, albeit in a different way. UBC has one of the best (if not the best) undergraduate Linguistic programs in North America. It is important to recognize that there aren't that many Linguistic programs for undergrads anyway. Most schools only have graduate programs where they take students from disciplines such as Psychology, Philosophy, English, Mathematics - anywhere really, but rarely from Linguistics because there just aren't that many programs out there. Did I know what Linguistics was when I signed up? Not at all. I totally thought it was the study of languages. Sort of like a compare and contrast different language families and maybe pick up another language or two. Oh and the sociologial implications of different tongues. I don't think I've ever been more wrong about anything in my life. But here I was, already having taken the courses I needed to become a Linguistics major, might as well continue, right?

I did enter Linguistics however, because I thought it would give me an in into a very lucrative career: accent coach. Asian businessmen all clamour to have their accents changed, so that they appear more refined, educated, so they feel more confident, competent. Those indefinable qualities can be bought for very well defined sums of money. Indeed it does, if you are in the Speech Sciences stream - which I didn't know about until the middle of my third year. Speech Sciences requirements are tucked in at the bottom of the Linguistics course planning page. I never scrolled past Linguistics because I didn't think there was anything to scroll to except the outlines for a Minor in Linguistics. It was just one bored afternoon during which I decided to check my requirements again when I accidently hit page down and caused my jaw to hit the desk with a heavy thud. Luckily, much of the requirements were the same and I could adapt to the Speech Science stream without any trouble.

The problem now though, was that I didn't believe in accent coaching anymore. Accent coaching comes out of a very eurocentric view that the only proper varieties of English are the ones that are spoken by people who are vaguely identified as "white". I remember my mother trying to push "British" English on us, making annoyed clucking sounds when we spoke like Singaporeans, which is frankly ridiculous because having a Singaporean accent and being extremely fluent in English are not mutually exclusive. Besides, what is "British" English? The Beatles' English? The English that is parlayed by the Samoan barkeep (or indeed any of the other characters) in Lock, Stock and two Smoking Barrels? How about the mumble-grumblings that Brad Pitt so effectively spouts in Snatch? Worst of all, could she want us to sound like various characters in Frasier? Maybe she would've just settled for the cheap, working class drawl of the ladies in Absolutely Fabulous (which is an absolutely horrible show, IMHO). Accent coaches just play into the public masturbatory idea that white is ideal, no matter how poorly defined "white" is.

"Look at me! I don't speak like I'm from where I was born and raised! Aren't I so smart?" - Look buddy, you won't even make it on Letterman's Stupid Pet Trick segment.

I had two options. I could completely change direction, spend a few more years in school, graduate with something else. Or I could press on. The problem with the former option is that I didn't know for sure what else I wanted to do. If I had so grossly misjugded the study of Linguistics, what other studies had I misrepresented in my mind? I wasn't about to jump in blind to find out, that was for damn sure. So, I resolved to become a Speech Pathologist. So I set about researching the stream and I learnt, that for some bizzare reason, Speech Pathology is incredibly competitive. You need ridiculously high grades, excellent volunteer experience and reference letters that can not only glow under blacklight or in the dark but also in a room with the shades pulled down. So I start asking for volunteer opportunities. In walks Eric.

If I started talking about Eric, this entry would turn into a book. So I won't. I will however, say that he has taught me more than any other one individual or institution in my life. His lessons aren't just academic either. In fact, they are seldom academic. Without Eric, I would not have become a Teaching Assistant, neither would I have completed research that has been awarded an ASA oral presentation.

And so here I am. About to graduate, aiming for Audiology (because I took a class that clearly demonstrated what Speech Pathologists actually do - none of that for me, thanks - and Audiology means I don't waste my education to date), with a decent CV, thanks to Eric and the opportunities he afforded. The interesting thing is that all these things just happened to happen. None of this was planned, or even forseen. So why then does the title of this post read Flying, Falling, Stumbling? Shouldn't it read something like "Gravtiy & Serendipity" or "When You Fall, it Doesn't Have to be On Your Face"? Well, for one thing, the second title is too long. For another, I sincerely believe that Douglas Adams put it best when he said that flying is merely falling and missing the ground.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, I've noticed that no one is playing the quotes game. Maybe things are too difficult. Well, I've embedded two clues in this entry and there will be more clues to come.

My mom's a bitch, she's a big fat bitch, She's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, She's a stupid bitch, if there ever was a bitch...

2006-04-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

Joie1: ...She's a bitch to all the boys and girls! *bows* Thank you, thank you.

Joie2: Great Joie. That was very highbrow. Very classy, very mature. Nice, Joie, nice.

Joie1: Look, I would've put the whole song in but blogger has a limit on post title lengths. Besides, you know she is.

Joie2: Yes, but....

Joie1: But what? I mean shit man, I'm still smarting from the weekend.

Joie2: You know you shouldn't dwell on it, she can't do anything to you if you don't...

Joie1: Shut up. You suck. You're dwelling on it too. I mean you're the one who actually earned those grades, I just announced them when they arrived.

Joie2: Well, yes. And I don't think the world needs to know again how well I'm doing academically.

Joie1: Or about the other things besides raw grades you're doing to massage your grad school application into nice shape.

Joie2: *blush* well, yes. No thanks to you, you port drinking lush.

Joie1: Hey man, that port was not my fault. I was just going to buy some sherry when that friendly liquor store employee started asking me if I needed help.

Joie2: You could've said no.

Joie1: But he's gay, and you know they have great taste, I wanted to see what he would suggest...and his suggestion turned out great.

Joie2: Which is why you're fucking chain drinking it.

Joie1: Well, not exactly chain drinking...Hey! You! Don't change the subject. We're here because mom's a bitch. She's a big fat bitch. She's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world. She's a stupid bitch, if there ever was a bitch. She's a bitch to all the boys and girls! (in D minor)

Joie2: Look just because she made some snide comments, with that big innocent look on her face, in front of everyone so you couldn't respond by calling her a bitch. Goddamn it, you're right, she is a bitch.

Joie1: Ah-ha! You think so too.

Joie2: Because, now that I think about it more, it was so damn uncalled for. I mean just because I mentioned to dad that he needn't really pull strings to get me into the Master's program of choice and just because she's bitter because she never made it into any university (and really, instead of blaming it on the fact that she couldn't get in, she dwells on the fact that her dad couldn't afford to send her to one of those American universities that take in just anybody if they paid tuition) and that she dropped out of the Open university (for crying out loud, it's frigging adult education, you can't flunk out of that university - it is one of those places that you can get a degree from if you just pay the tuition...) she takes it upon herself to be mean and snippy when it comes to my academic success.

Joie1: Whoa there, you might wanna breathe a little.

Joie2: Fuck man, what the fuck was with her implying that I was too shit to make it anywhere without dad's help? What the hell did she think she was playing at telling me that she was "too scared to look at my grades" and to ask what I've bombed lately. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I may have slacked off this last few weeks but that's only because I can because I have a 90+ average in my Audiology courses and an A average for everything else.

Joie1: The world does not need to hear that again.

Joie2: Oh right. Sorry. But oh man, it was all I could do to not jump over dad in the La-z-boy and slap her smug, it-was-just-an-innocent-comment face. Then proceed to grab her by the hair and smack her face into the radiator, again and again and again.

Joie1: Uhh. Ooooookay...

Joie2: She just made me so mad. Thanks for restraining me and mentioning that her comments were unfounded.

Joie1: If I knew what you were planning to do, I might not have held you back.

Joie2: But that was still no excuse for that display of immaturity you just put on.

Joie1: What the hell are you talking about?

Joie2: That comment, on that guy's blog. HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE...

Joie1: Oh, you mean Chris Seck? Hey man, that had nothing to do with mom (except maybe the fact that her upbringing is not condusive to playing well with others).

Joie2: What has he ever done to you?

Joie1: Well, he's chauvenistic, mysogynistic and he's one of those people who thinks he's really smart because he can sustain a thought for an extended period of time. Of course those thoughts are merely pompous and not actually insightful. How he does go on and on, it's like masturbating in public the way he espouses his opinions.

Joie2: You know, it is his blog which means he's entitled to write whatever the hell he wants to on it. Besides, you don't actually have to read it.

Joie1: But it's like a car crash on the highway. Or those Maury shows where the dregs of society run dozens of men through paternity tests without actually finding the father of their child, or Jerry Springer transvestite specials. You just can't look away, even though you know you should. At any rate, the comment's there and there's nothing you or I can do about it.

Joie2: You know, you might be able to login and edit or delete the...

Joie1: NOTHING YOU OR I CAN DO ABOUT IT...

Joie2: Aiight, your call. Afterall, you are the epitome of maturity...

Easter Eggs and Bunny Rabbits

2006-04-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

I didn't expect to get today off seeing as how I have my honours thesis to work on and two exams to study for. Technically, I could be working on any one of those things right now. I just don't want to study for exams this far in advance of them (because then I'll forget the finer details) and while I can write the Introduction, Methods and part of the Discussion for my thesis, I don't think you're really supposed to before any analysis of the data has been done. Sure, that's all supposed to go into the Results section, but what is in the Results section is supposed to have an influence on the rest of the paper. I suppose I could write the Introduction, but I don't feel like it. As for data analysis, I can't move forward until I have a certain Matlab script which is being worked on right now, but is not ready for my use.

Graduation is ridiculously close, and the anticipation of being free from all the trappings of being a student (free time untainted by things I should otherwise be doing, ability to take on jobs without having to worry about other scheduled activities, etc.) is driving me plumb crazy. I just want to be done. I just want to be touring SE Asia without a care in the world (especially because on my to-do list this week is to look up the appropriate travel vaccinations).

It just turned 2 o'clock and the show I had on TV ended. Flipping through the channels, I stopped at YTV because I thought I saw VeggieTales. I didn't think that was possible considering that VeggieTales is non-secular and YTV is just some junky throwaway kids' channel - I outgrew YTV programming so long ago that it's not even funny. VeggieTales is great, right now they're showing the only VeggieTales movie I know of - the story of Jonah. Speaking of Jonah, I wish I still had a copy of this performance piece about Jonah that I wrote during church camp (basically teams were supposed to perform a short skit at the end of the camp based on the theme of the camp, which that year was - can you guess? - Jonah). Written in iambic pentameter with AABB rhyme scheme (and quite funny, if I may say so myself) I can't say that I've written anything cleverer. It was written in pencil on Save the Earth A4 lined paper, but I'm pretty sure I made an electronic version. If any of you out there have it (this would've been back in '98 at least) forward it along to me, k?

You know, when I digress that badly, you can tell that I really don't have much to say. In my defence, the reason I don't have anything to say is that I'm stuck in that limbo that is the time before I'm free from academic obligations. As yet, I'm not really able to start any crochet projects, singing classes, renewed attempts at learning how to knit competently - anything I am truly interested in doing, really, until my exams are over and my thesis is written. I'm not frantically studying for my exams or writing my thesis for the reasons already mentioned in the first paragraph. So I'm in stasis, limbo, purgatory. That no man's land between what you're supposed to be doing and what you want to be doing. It's flat terrain, empty and boring and therefore there's nothing to write about. To add insult to injury, the TV shows that I'm watching right now are uniteresting. I can't wait for all of this to be over.

I guess while I'm waiting, I'm going to watch the Eagle Cam: it's a live feed of an Eagle's Nest (right now it's just eggs, and the mama comes by to sit on them every once in a while) on Hornby Island, BC.

Oh alright, how about I edit (more like transplant) my last post?

Replacement Meme

2006-04-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

The more I read that meme the more unhappy I am with it. It was obviously written by some 13 year old (there was one line that read "I have tried alcohol" - think about it for a second) and it was long, and I'm willing to wager that most people stopped reading halfway through. It was my own meme and I couldn't read it all in one shot. It was just so irrelevant and immature. However, I didn't want to just remove the meme and leave a gaping hole in my blog. So contrary to what I usually do, I've trawled the web for some more interesting memes and am going to present one of them here. The other I'm saving for when I have enough. You'll know what I'm talking about when I get there (this "other one" is interactive too, that should get you excited).

The iTunes Oracle Meme
In this one, I put my iTunes on shuffle. These questions are answered by the songs in the order they are played.

How am I feeling today?
Not Ready to Go - The Trews
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Good start. "It's neverending, as far as I know...I should be leaving, but I'm not ready to go" is a good way to describe my current feelings. Goddamn it, I want it to end, but apparently, I'm not ready to go. Maybe I really should start getting ready to go by actually working on my honours thesis, but I'm just "crazy, drunk and stoned". I wish.

Will I get far in life?
Jivin' With Dal - Michael Kaeshammer
The Delphic oracle was famously cryptic, so too is the iTunes one, apparently (for reference this is a piano jazz piece that is best described as acrobatic - no vocals). I guess it's trying to say that it doesn't matter if I will get far in life, or by what measure, as long as I'm jazzin' and jivin' all the way. Yeah, alright, sure.

How do my friends see me?
London Rain - Heather Nova
Apparently all of you would like to sleep naked with me because of my fabled healing powers. Wow guys, thanks. I'm really touched.

Where will I get Married?
Runaway - The Corrs
Seriously guys, I can't make this up. Sorry for all of you who were holding out for a formal ceremony with reception after. Turns out I'm probably going to elope and get hitched somewhere far away from everyone else. I will, however provide a forwarding address for all those gifts.

What is my best friend's theme song?
Best Of All Possible Worlds - The Little Willies
I have to say that Jim is my best friend, not because it's the "correct" thing to say but because he really is. (All together now: AWWWWWWW). For those of you unfamiliar with the song, it's about a guy who's down and out, but still thinks everything's alright because "there's still a lot of wine and lonely girls/in this best of all possible worlds". Make of that what you will.

What is the story of my life?
Turn Me On - Norah Jones
This meme just gets better and better. "I'm just sitting here waiting for you/To come home and turn me on" - is this before or after all my friends have slept in the same bed as me unclothed?

What is/was highschool like?
Song for the Asking - Simon and Garfunkel
All that time I was just waiting for someone to come and ask me, acknowledge that I had something to give. I guess. You tell me what you think it means. :P

How can I get ahead in life?
Shoot the Moon - Norah Jones
See, the title makes sense. Shoot the Moon, get ahead in life. But the song is about shooting the moon and missing. I guess I can just take the title and run with it. I'm just glad that the song that came up for this question wasn't "Sonny Came Home"...

What is the best thing about me?
Somewhere Out There - Our Lady Peace
That I'm tantalizingly memorable? That's really sweet, but if you think about it, you're hardly likely to forget someone with whom you've shared a naked nap with.

What is today going to be like?
88 Lines about 44 Women - They Might Be Giants
Plenty of adult situations with lots of partners. Alright! P.S. If you've never heard this song, now's the time.

What is in store for this weekend?
Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan
That's a little obvious, isn't it? I guess I can stop fretting about what to serve for tomorrow night's dessert then.

What song describes my parents?
Moment of Weakness - Bif Naked
Fantastic. That's just great. "I stand in the pouring rain/you couldn't even be there to pick me up...truth is - we're not even friends" and yet I keep going back to them. "I should examine my head".

To describe my grandparents?
Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian
Not bad, a happy upbeat song. Last verse is a little troubling: "The lovin is a mess what happened to all of the feeling?...Ghost figures of past, present, future haunting the heart" but I couldn't tell you what iTunes is trying to tell me.

How is my life going?
Asleep on a Sunbeam - Belle and Sebastian
"All I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feet/A walk on sand/A fire, I can warm my hands/My joy will be complete".

What song will they play at my funeral?
Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
It's sentimental, I guess it could be worse.

How does the world see me?
Break Me - Jewel
I'm tantalizing and fragile and I have thorns. Okaaaaay.

Will I have a happy life?
The Girl from Ipanema - Frank Sinatra
See, why couldn't this be the song in answer to the last question? That would have been incredibly flattering, but I don't think anyone would believe that it was an untampered result. I guess the answer to this question though is yes, as long as I'm supposed to be the tall and tan and young and lovely girl. If not, I'm just doomed to a life of unrequited somethings.

What do my friends really think of me?
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon and Garfunkel
Aw that's nice guys! I thought you only wanted to sleep naked with me. Now I know that you guys think I'm in the present and that you don't want me to miss my flight.

Do people secretly lust after me?
Only in the Past - Be Good Tanyas
Oh very funny. Very very funny. I think I'm hotter now than I ever have been, just for the record Mr. iTunes sir...

How can I make myself happy?
Revolution - The Beatles
Hell YEAH! "We all want to change the world". I knew being an activist was in my future.

What should I do with my life?
Affirmation - Savage Garden
Yes, I'll admit that I have Savage Garden in my song library. So what? At least I don't have Clay Aiken. Alright, I have Clay Aiken, but only two songs. Anyways, I should spend my life providing affirmation, or I should affirm myself. Either way, I agree.

Will I ever have children?
Underneath Your Clothes - Shakira
I'm sorry Mr. iTunes sir, I'm not sure you understood the question. Are you trying to say that I will only have children if I have sex with clothes on? I'll stick with the more traditional methods of contraception, thanks. I hope you're not offended.

What is some good advice for me?
Pie Jesu - Andre Lloyd Webber's version
Oh c'mon now, you're joking right? I guess it couldn't hurt to be a little more spiritual than I am now. The only god I defer to right now is Bacchus, and because of that Mr. iTunes sir might be right in saying that I might want to pray for my liver.

How will I be remembered?
Eleanor Put Your Boots On - Franz Ferdinand
Running and flighty. For the record though, I prefer open-toed shoes.

What is my signature dancing song?
He Said - The Hippos
Upbeat and retro. Someone make me a circle skirt already.

What is my current theme song?
I'll Fly Away - Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch.
Amen sister, amen. If I could, trust me, I would. Right now.

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
The Flower Duet - from the opera Lakme
Two priestesses singing a lament? I've always wanted someone to perform this with, but a theme song? You guys don't know me at all! *sob*

What type of men/women do you like?
American Idiot - Green Day
No comment.

Alright guys, this was really fun to do. Just trying to interpret Mr. iTunes sir's answers was a real hoot. C'mon now, you do it too.

Mood: Poop

2006-04-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

It's a grey and rainy day out today. I've got swollen tonsils and an achy body. Craftster.org's been down since this morning. Even though I can still type and read, I don't want to do this assignment that's due in the coming week. The sock I was trying to make for Jim has just self-destructed. I wish this were an April Fool's day joke. It's not.

However, I did have a great idea for a joke, before I decided that it was too mean-spirited. Jim went to work today (overtime, to save up for our vacation this summer, which I have noticed that NO ONE has contributed to AT ALL and the "Donate" button has be up for MORE THAN A YEAR NOW *ahem*) and I figured that I would call him later in the day and tell him that I started feeling really bad and so decided to go to a doctor's. Then tell him that I'm pregnant. I decided against it though. Besides the fact that I'm on the Pill (yes you have a 0.1% chance of getting pregnant on the pill and it does happen) we've been drinking like fish. All bad things to do if you really are pregnant.

Then I thought that I might call Brian and say that I'm pregnant and I have no idea how to tell Jim. I decided that that would be worse. Besides, if Jim fainted, there would be people at work who could respond to it. If Brian passed out, I doubt his cat would have been able to call 911.

I wish there were more April Fool's Day jokes that weren't mean in some way or another. Sometimes you just want to prank someone without making them feel terrible. Then again, I guess most of the "funny" comes from how badly the person is taken in by the gag and their reaction. I don't really subscribe to that kind of "funny". I mean I really don't find those fake lottery tickets funny at all. I think they're horrible and if anyone ever tried to pull that one on me I'll make sure you pay that amount through an eBay auction of your (or your boyfriend's) balls. If you're lesbian or a single female, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Apart from feeling absolutely miserable I haven't been up to that much, unless you count backdating blog entries so that it looks like I've been blogging consistently through the month. I wonder if anyone else does that. Oh, this also means that if you see a new post, you should scroll down to the post before that to see if it's new too. If I write two posts in one day, I'll push one back a week (you can tell if they both have the same time stamp) just so that it doesn't look like I'm cramming all my posts up into one session. Everyone wants to look good in the eyes of history. Don't look at me like that.

Speaking of looking. I was on Yunxin/Kerri's blog and she had this post about a website that would take your pictures and compare it with other famous faces. Using the picture in my 3rd Anniversary post, Jim looks like Nicole Kidman and I look like Chow Yun Fat. Uhh, thanks ah. Other pictures of mine turn up Sammo Hung, Bill Gates and Kim Jong Il. I like to think that this is due to the fact that the face recognition algorithm needs to be improved, not because I'm incredibly unphotogenic. To be fair though, I've also got hits as Zhang Ziyi and Rachel Weisz - one of Jim's hits was Brad Pitt, although another was Ellen Degeneres.

Man the things you can do when you have time on your hands. I'm warning you - you really can end up uploading every single picture you have on your computer just hoping and praying that for that one magic picture where your top match is someone attractive. Considering everything, that could take a long time. Ha.

At any rate, I'm going to return to lying in bed (not that I'm not already) and stoning at the TV. I'm watching the Food Network right now, and I know I'm sick because nothing looks tempting, tasty or inspiring. Bah humbug.

Procrastination and Coincidences

2006-03-27T23:57:00.000-08:00

You'll have to forgive me. I dislike rambling posts with no point as much as the next person, but there are times when I can't resist. Like right now, for example. I'd much rather put my thoughts on the page than write that max 5 page report on the effect of viewing distance on Panum's fusional area.

You know, I don't care what happens to Panum's fucking area if I decide to sit too close to the computer screen wearing red-green 3D glasses. Just thought I'd share that sentiment. Who knows? Maybe I'll find someone else out there who feels the same way. Then maybe I wouldn't feel quite so bad about it.

You know, I've been in Vancouver a good long time now. Haven't really been able to stay in touch with that many people. A while ago, not too long after I started this blog, I started blog hopping and got in touch with a bunch of my ex-classmates, just because they linked to each other. Then there were the people who always stayed on MSN. I lost all touch with the people on my ICQ list, just because ICQ was starting to grate on my nerves. I stopped using it without having the foresight to check if the people on my list also used MSN, whether they too were making the migration. Apart from that handful of people, I haven't really been able to say that I have too much of a connection to my past in Singapore. That's regrettable to say the least.

I could go on about the whys and wherefores, assign blame and tell you my reasons for still being a little bitter about the move, but you've all heard it before and I'm dead sure that no one's clamouring to hear about it again. The only reason I brought it up is that I wanted to point out how strange it is that it never rains, but pours. After going all that time, being stranded out here in the backwaters of the Pacific I've heard from people who knew me when I was in Singapore.

I guess two people don't count as a torrential downpour, but two people in as many days still counts for something, I guess. Not to mention that since even a trickle here counts as rain (as I have lamented countless times before, we in the Pacific Northwest don't even get storms, let alone proper monsoons) I'll say that it's pouring.

The first is obvious to the immediately observant. Amy, a senior from the RGS choir has blog-hopped her way here. I read her blog and remembered who she was from a photograph of her handwriting on her blog, of all possible things. Can't believe she remembered who I was (I was sec 1 when she was sec 4). Kinda flattered that she did. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The second came from the most unexpected of places. A subject came in today (and due to the ethics that I signed and the confidentiality agreements and all that blah blah blah I really shouldn't - and won't - post her name) who comes from Singapore. (We have all subjects fill out a questionnaire, which includes "hometown".) One year below me, she was in RGS until 2000 (when she transferred to an international school and I graduated). Crazy. We didn't know each other in school, but we were both stunned at how people turn up in the most unexpected of places.

Maybe it's one of those situational vortex things, where as I'm getting closer and closer to the vacation this summer (the analog to the black hole), situations involving the life I had in Singapore will turn up in ever more densely packed pockets. I know, I've been watching too much Red Dwarf. God help me I can't stop.

Ennui

2006-03-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I'm using the word "ennui". Worse, I can't believe that I'm actually identifying with it to a larger extent that I care to admit in public. I used to think that the word ennui was yuppie and pretentious. The kind of sentiment that is kicked around by people with trust funds in posh private schools, who wear nautical blazers and take drags on cigarettes that dangle from their limply held lips while discussing how everything is so passé, or worse, bourgeoisie. People who like to make an exhibit of their apathy. "Oh everyone, look at me! I don't care in the least! I am so disinterested! Isn't it something that I can be so unattached and uninterested in life, the universe and everything? Oh please say yes..."

Actually, up until Lisa was tramping around with ennui (or was it purple_ennui? or was it purple_afterglow?) as her screen name a while back, I didn't even know what the definition of ennui was. I had to ask her. Her response is what gave rise to my initial impressions of the word, not that she sits around darkened cafes that pretend to be dank and dirty and orders short long blacks while carrying around battered looking books of poetry she in truth has never read nor cares to appreciate, it's more that I never was able to fully understand how anyone could possibly have "A feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of interest; boredom."

My thoughts were that if one were bored, they were free (and this is especially true of places privileged enough for people to develop ennui in the first place) to find something that would engage them. Free to find a new hobby, develop a new passion. Free, in short, to shake the "lack of interest; boredom" that brings about the "feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction". If you are too disinterested to do even that, well then, there's nothing anyone in the world can do for you, nor is there anyone in the world willing to care about you either. Well, that's how I feel about the situation, anyway.

Until recently. I've discovered that ennui is possible even in a self-motivated individual with healthy and engaging hobbies and addictions. Oh geez, it's not like that. I'm not saying that now I've turned into a bored, self-pitying prick but that the transformation is entirely not my fault but rather that of life, the universe and everything. I'm saying that, yeah, I'm pretty beleaguered by ennui right now and there's nothing I can do about it. Well, there is, but it would involve making several very stupid and impulsive choices - choices, frankly, that I don't have the balls to make. You could also say that despite the raging ennui (I like that, raging_ennui - it's alot edgier than peachsorbet, that's for damn sure) I'm still a sensible enough person to not completely quit school, although I am quite appalled at how much I am happy? complacent? content? to let my academics slip (this close to the finish line at that!).

I am bored, disinterested, I want out. I am tired, I am malcontent. I want to be able to complete crochet projects in one sitting (something that requires long stretches of uninterrupted time) because picking up a piece to work on mid-way is unsettling and disorienting. I want to be able to drink my way through the top 100 wines for under $20 (an invaluable book that Jim and I received from Brian for Christmas), repeating the ones we liked as many times as we would like with no thought to progressing on to other labels because we know we can have another wine, another night; being able to cook up the occassionally elaborate dishes that the book recommends to have with the wine. To be able to do this without thought to the hours "wasted" while intoxicated or the resultant loss of function the next day. I want to be able to keep the house as I want it, not to allow it to languish during the week and to hasten it into a half-assed clean up on the weekend. I don't want to have to clean on the weekend. No, that's not right - I don't want to have to make a distinction between weekend and weekday. I want to be able to smoke cigars while walking along the waterfront in the middle of a Wednesday, after waking up to the mid-morning sunlight battling its way through our thick drapes with Jim still comatose beside me. I want to be able to give Fort all the attention he wants, when he wants it.

See, I already know damn well how to break my ennui. Am I able to do it? Maybe in a couple of months, which I realise is alot more than most people with my "stick in the mud" variety ennui can say. How about now though? How about my crochet projects? How about the large, elaborate meals I would like to prepare? How about the lazy mornings and long walks that are dictated not by the careful calculation of available time, balanced against the pressing obligations, but by the weather? How about it? Fuck ennui.

For Just another 50 cents

2006-03-14T13:32:00.000-08:00

I resent the insiduous tactics various vendors employ to have you part with more of your money. If I only want to buy one unit of a single item, that is my perogative and I should not have to be assaulted by bulk discounts or strongarmed by offers such as "buy one get one free" - not to be confused with it's more agreeable counterpart the "50% off merchandise".

It's obvious what they are doing. They are overpricing single units to force you to get the most for your money. But why shouldn't I get the most for my money upfront? I mean seriously, take the shipping rates for example. For $1.50 more than I would pay for ground shipping (which would take 4-6 weeks, by then no one would be interested in whatever there was to be shipped. Think about it, postcards sent while on vacation accompanied by some tacky, cheap souvenir would arrive after everyone's tired of looking at photos of said vacation.) I can have my package shipped by air: 7-10 business days, if you please. That's just for international shipping, which, oddly enough is cheaper that shipping within Canada. For shipping within this great nation, which surely is less serviced than the many international locations to which the great $7.30 air shipping rate applies (the remote Nicaraguan mountain ranges, the foothills of the Andes, that bit of Russia that bends around and touches about every other known country) an extra $1 gets your package there in 2 days rather than a rather excruciating 2 weeks. I mean why would you not shell out the extra dollars? Heck in mailing two packages out today (one to a remote international location - a longkang somewhere in the East Coast of Singapore *heh* - and another to a fellow Canadian albeit out East) I've spent less than I would on a latte (which seems to be the standard currency for monetary comparison nowadays) to get my packages to their wards while they were still salient - something rather important in this era od instant communication. Heck, if I were made to wait 4-6 wees for anything, I wouldn't. I'm already annoyed that Survivor has decided to make me wait 2 weeks for a fresh installment, 3 weeks if you count that the last episode was a clip show with new material that was better left on the cutting room floor, which I gather it was in the first place. Lousy revival of sub-par material. I think they should've kept the discovery of the hidden immunity idol from us and trotted it out in the fake episode. That would have made it worthwhile. But who am I to say anything - I watched the whole episode, just the same.

I digress.

I really resent how people selling truly worthless trinkets tell you that it's 1 for $3, 2 for $5 and 3 for $6. I mean really, by the last count, you're on a buy 2 get 1 free deal, which is a huge rip. You end up buying things you'll never going to use because hey, for that much more you might as well get it. I'm wearing this ridiculous puffy hair tie right now because I didn't have the foresight to carry one with me today. I will admit that I was drawn to it because it has a puff ball on it that feels good when you touch it. Alright fine. I'm touching it now. But my point is that this thing could not have cost the vendor anymore than 25 cents at the most. All her stuff is so night market that you know she's just hoarding all these bits and bobbles from her frequent trips home to see her parents in some Asian nation with cheap bits and bobbles threatening to flood the streets and make the traffic worse than it already is. But here she is, selling a hair elastic with a puff ball attached for 1 for $3, 2 for $5...I looked her in the eye and said that I would relieve her of her wares for $2 - and that I would only take ONE, that's right ONE hair tie.

She giggled and gave me a look that clearly said "hey, you must be from one of those Asian nations where cheap bits and bobbles threaten to flood the streets and make the traffic worse than it already is." She tried even to imply a conspiratorial "don't let the white folk in on this scam" but I would have none of that. I paid without returning her gaze and left. The shame, the nerve of some people. I shouldn't complain though, she could have refused my offer and I would have been saddled with a second hair tie whose colour would prevent me from ever using it in order to keep my hair out of my face. Then again, I could've tried to pawn it off in one of the Craftster unconditional swaps. Lots of people ask for "a surprise"... but I'm pretty sure that that's not what they typically have in mind, neccessarily.

It's even worse when you're shopping for a household of two. Just what the hell did you think I was going to do with 7kg of breakfast cereal? Feed the fucking homeless? Sorry, they make me feel bad enough the way the congregate outside the liquor store and look at you as if to say that if you can afford the luxury of alcohol surely you can afford them a meal. Besides, with all the foot traffic they've planted themselves beside (and if there's anything Donald Trump has taught me is that foot traffic is key to success) I'm going home to enjoy my wine without handing off my change, which I use to tip my favourite fishmonger with because he proudly gives that to the United Way...which is an organization which helps the homeless. *sigh* there are some days you just can't win.

I Want That in Writing

2006-02-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

My glasses have been bothering me for a while. Objects in the distance are ridiculously hard to focus on. Damn, objects not in the distance require a certain amount of strain in and of themselves. Since my last pair of glasses were more than two years old (meaning I can put another pair on Jim's health plan), I decided to get a new pair of glasses. For its proximity and the plesant demeanour of the lady who answers their phone, I chose to go to Image Optical in Park Royal Shopping Centre.

While I'm in the optometrist's getting my eyes checked, he asks me if anyone has ever told me that I need prisms. As in whether I have eyes that are either poorly coordinated or that do not point straight ahead. I thought it was a lead in into a really bad pick up line but the reason he asked was because my glasses were configured for someone whose right eye turned inward and whose left eye turned outward - an unusual combination in and of itself (strabismus typically occurs in one eye and only sometimes in both), a combination made more unusual by the fact that it didn't look like I had any form of strabismus (otherwise known as lazy eye - think about the last person you saw with lazy eye. It was damn obvious, wasn't it?). He then proceeded to ask for my previous records, called the last optometrist I saw and then started doing his thang.

After he concludes that I don't need prisms, the assistant knocks on the door with the results from my last optometrist - who didn't prescribe prisms for me. Turns out that Lenscrafters in Metrotown screwed up when they made my glasses. Apparently this happens often with Lenscrafters. You see, they have this deal where you can get your glasses in 1hr, but they don't always have the lenses required, but instead of ordering them in and telling you that you have to wait a week for your glasses they just make it with the next best thing. My optometrist thinks that's what happened to me. How does he know? He used to work for Lenscrafters.

So my current optometrist says:

"Look, I would love to sell you a pair of glasses. But let's face it, Lenscrafters messed up on this one and if you call them, you're likely to have that mistake corrected. You can't just go in there and tell them they've made a mistake though, because as a business, they have to protect their interests, and you have been wearing these glasses for over two years. What you should do is give your last optometrist a call. Since he works for Lenscrafters, he should know how they work. Ask the optometrist to comfirm that your glasses are prismed in a way that they were not prescribed and help you approach the store."

Good advice. So I call the office of my last optometrist. The doctor who saw me last is on vacation until March 22nd but another doctor offered to talk to me. After explaining my situation, he told me that this was between me and Lenscrafters and that he would not take a look at my glasses because the onsite technicians at Lenscrafters could do it for me. (Just for reference, the Lenscrafter's optometrists' office is right next to the retail store, so it's not like I was asking him to go very far.) He also said that if the people at the store do find something wrong with my glasses, they would replace it with my new prescription, free of charge.

So from West Vancouver, I make my way to Burnaby to talk to someone at Lenscrafters. I called the store ahead of time and they assured me that if they found something wrong with the lenses I would get them replaced free of charge. Just to give you some idea of the distance between the malls located in West Van and Burnaby respectively, here is a map:

Lenscrafters claims that there was no prisming.

One person's word against another's. Let's face it, I'm more inclined to believe the guys in West Van because I was all ready to buy a pair of glasses from them but yet they sent me to Burnaby, potentially giving Lenscrafters business (I would have to buy a set of frames from Lenscrafters). So I went back to West Van (in case you're wondering why I didn't just leave it and pick this up another day: my vision was really driving me crazy. I needed to be able to see and I needed to see NOW) where the guys checked my glasses again to see if they could possibly have made a mistake. According to them, no mistake. Exact same values they read the first time, the same values I repeated to the Lenscrafters "optician". I also told them what she told me when I recited the numbers to her.

"You see, because one eye is turned in and the other out, essentially they are pointing in the same direction, so you are fine - if there is prisming in your glasses, which there isn't."

The West Van guy's jaw drops. If yours hasn't by now just think about that statement for a little while. In essence, it means that it's alright for them to alter the alignment of your eyes as long as they are being misaligned in the same direction. Great.

So the guys in West Van cut me some slack and gave me an impossibly good deal - the details of which I won't post here, because it was an insane deal and I don't want them to be peppered with pestering people for it. The new glasses, with titanium frame and all, should be ready by this weekend.

While I'm glad that the people in Image Optical were so great, I'm really upset that I have to approach buying glasses as you would have to approach buying a used car off a second hand car lot. I mean these are frigging glasses man! I don't need to have an optometrist's knowledge to be able to trust that I'm not getting ripped off. Oh well. Better Business Bureau here I come.

Hedonism

2006-02-26T13:35:00.000-08:00

Regrettably not the type of hedonism that Jerry Springer has pay-per-view specials on, but pretty hedonistic nonetheless.

I've had two vacations in as many weekends. Perhaps I shouldn't use the word "vacation". I should say "weekend getaway" instead, just because the word "vacation" calls to mind sipping brightly coloured drinks with little wooden umbrellas and maraschino cherries and a slice of tropical fruit as a garnish on a beach in a sling chair underneath some palms watching the tide come in/out over fine white sand while looking over at your lover to determine whether he/she needs to reapply his/her sunscreen and to admire their fine physical form before turning your mind to other important matters like which local restaurant to try for dinner that night. *ahem*

Well, last weekend we went to Victoria and stayed at the best B&B you will ever be able to find anywhere. All meals are included upon request, the hosts are knowledgable about the local attractions that best suit your tastes, the bed is soft and clean and you don't pay a single red cent. You will never find this B&B in any travel guide to Victoria because unfortunately, this place caters only to a select, elite few and not to the general public. (Jim: shuddup Joie. Joie: ah shuddup yourself.)

Jim: We stayed at Colin & Roslind's - my grand uncle and aunt's place.

Joie: Well, it's still the best damn B&B in Victoria.

Jim: True dat.

So anyway, while we were there we made the requisite walk around the downtown core, vists to Spinnaker's Pub and the Bug Zoo (where I help a praying mantis and a giant millepede for the first time - I'm still upset from the experiences. I don't think I was ready for those bugs just yet). We also went to see an exhibit at the Royal BC Museum featuring the photography of Linda McCartney. I was there mostly for the Beatles stuff although there were photographs of just about every other major music icon of the times. It was an amazing exhibit and it's going to be there until the first week of March. Go see it before it leaves again.

This weekend, we went stateside and stayed at Jim's mom and her husband's place (which I have described before in this post). Jim was registered in his first race - the Smelt Run in La Conner Washington. He placed first in his category (age(19-24) and gender). (Jim: shuddup Joie. Joie: Whaaaat...)

Jim: There was one other person in my category.

Joie: And you beat him. That means you finished first in your category in your first race. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Jim: The one other person in my category was mentally handicapped.

Joie: Yes....but you still beat him....

To be fair though, Jim's knee was busted (while training for the run) and so he had to walk most of the way to try and avoid making the injury worse. Considering the injury, his time was not bad, although he didn't place as high as he potentially could've given his usual time and the times of the people who completed the race ahead of him.

So that's what I've been up to. But if anyone asks, say I was studying hard. I mean let's face it, I had a final last Tuesday so if my grandparents hear that instead of studying, I was looking at pictures of John and Yoko's bed-in for peace, well, let's just say that they wouldn't be too happy. Speaking of that final, I started studying for it less than 12 hours before I had to write it. I started panicking soon after. It wasn't an entirely unproductive night, though. I figured out how to make another kind of crochet flower and made one for Lise. At any rate, I got 91.5/104 for the final, giving me an overall grade of 92% in the course. So there. Still though, don't tell anyone I didn't study over the weekend.

Random Blog Things

2006-02-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

Usually, I hate those stupid quiz result boxes that everyone nowadays (except us cool kids, of course) seem to be putting up on their blogs. (No offense, di - just I just think those things are so teenage and uncouth). But I found these awesome ones (yes, just so happens it was on your blog di....) that I -had- to do.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Joie!

If you don't get out of bed on the same side you got in, you will have Joie for the rest of the day!
Grapes explode if you put them inside Joie.
Joie is the only bird that can swim but not fly.
If you cut Joie in half and count the number of seeds inside, you will know how many children you are going to have!
If your ear itches, this means that someone is talking about Joie.
Joie was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom her name comes.
Astronauts get taller when they are in Joie!
Every day in the UK, four people die putting Joie on.
A lump of Joie the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
The fingerprints of Joie are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

And this one is just wicked awesome. Recall that this is Fort:

Fire and a Ledge 16 Storeys Up

2006-02-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

Tonight I almost burned down our apartment building and killed Gato. Well, I guess she would've died if the fire took hold, but no, I almost killed her another way.

I was browning a pork shoulder roast that I was planning on serving with grilled corn on the cob, apple sauce, a rich white wine gravy and steamed broccoli. This pork had a healthy layer of fat on either side and much of it was rendering out of the meat as I seared it against my trusty cast-iron pan. Rendering out the fat would mean a somewhat leaner roast and nice crispy crackling. As I turned the roast to brown another surface, the oil in the pan caught fire. A small fire, about 3-4 inches high. Instantly, the smoke alarm goes off. A sharp, insistent beeping, intended to alert the resident of smoke. Uhh, yeah, thanks. I know there's smoke. That's because there's a fire. On my stove.

Quickly moving the roast to a ready plate, my thoughts turned to the smoke alarm. Left alone it could trigger the fire alarms on the floor (and then the whole building). The worst case scenario is that the sprinklers would go off causing water damage to everything within its range. Which would be everything on the 16th floor, minimally. Not to mention water on a grease fire would cause the fire to spread. This is because oil, being lighter than water, would float to the top of the water thrown on it and flow with the water (as well as attach itself to the water splatter) and spread. Unlike the smoke alarm in my previous apartment (which could easily be disconnected) this smoke alarm required that you stand under it with a pliable object (say, a magazine) and fan the smoke away from it. It cannot be disconnected for safety reasons.

I could not address the smoke alarm, however, because in the time it took to transfer the roast from the flaming pan to a plate on the kitchen counter behind me the flames grew to over a foot in height. It had not stopped growing. Two feet above the surface of the stove was the microwave cum cooker hood. Already thin tongues of flame were licking at the plastic and hungrily eyeing the flanking cabinets. Lesson one of 'O' level Food and Nutrition: You cannot put out a grease fire with water. You must use sand or, ideally, a fire extinguisher. Now my favourite TV cook Alton Brown tirelessly advocates keeping a fire extinguisher close at hand in the kitchen. Had I listened, I would not have been in the predicament I had found myself in earlier tonight.

The only sand-like substance I had on hand was cat litter, which is usually made of clay. The only problem is that we use cat litter made of pine. As in wood. As in flammable. Congratulations, the fire is now 2 feet tall. Congratulations, the smoke alarm is still threatening to tell the sprinkler system that there is a fire, loudly, hampering your ability to think clearly. Congratulations, the phone is ringing. It's probably the concierge calling to ask if everything's alright.

"Hello?"
"Hey Joie."
"Not now Jim."
*click*

Impressively able to not degenerate into a panicking mess, I came to terms with the fact that the only fire retardant I had on hand, regrettably, was water. Picking up the first towel I could find (amongst the trodden piles of dirty laundry in our hallway - I could almost hear my grandmother saying, "this is why you should keep things neat") I drenched it in water, prayed that water in this form would not encourage the already very enthusiastic flames, and threw it over the pan.

-FOOM-

At first I didn't know if that sound was good or bad. It was the kind of sound that you hear in movies when they light a gas barbecue, or when you turn on your gas fireplace. Thankfully, it was good. The flames were out. The towel was steaming and smoking and I couldn't tell between the two. Now to take care of the smoke.

I was able to stop the screaming less than a minute after I had begun fanning it. I was just turning to open the windows when the smoke alarm started up again. The apartment was so smoke-filled by now that I had to fan it constantly to keep the smoke particles away from deflecting those weak radioactive particles that told the detector that everything was still a-okay. I was trapped. I had to keep fanning. I must've been quite a sight in nothing but my bra and undies, arm outstretched toward the ceiling, fanning and coughing, throat sore, eyes watering.

Ten minutes later I was able to leave the alarm long enough for me to open all three windows in our apartment. The windows are located near the floor of our apartment as opposed to the middle or top. This meant that the smoke (which rises) did not disperse as quickly as it could've otherwise. Five more minutes of fanning and I could stop.

Leaving the windows open to allow the rest of the smoke to disperse naturally, I plopped the roast onto one of my spare oven dishes, haphazardly threw in some white wine and chicken stock and shoved it in the oven. Then I picked up the phone and called take-out. I wasn't about to do more cooking.

Dinner arrived, it was good. We got it from this mediterranean place on Robson street that sells Hot Wings (the place is called Sammy's Hot Wings) and mediterranean food. Like sharwamas and gyros and really tasty roast lamb. Oh, they also sell two kinds of Philly cheese steak (or chicken, if you prefer) sandwiches.

After dinner, I'm gazing out the window and see Gato.

Thinking that it's merely a reflection of Gato in the window, I look to the corresponding point in my living room. She's not there. Gato is walking along a 3-inch wide ledge outside my window. The same windows I had opened to let out the smoke. The ledge is about a foot from the glass, between the ledge and the glass is a grating with 3-inch gaps. The grating is merely pencil-wide metal pieces set perpendicular to the ledge. Every two feet or so there is a wider piece. As we watch her pace, we see her back leg slip. She recovers, but Jim and I still haven't.

Jim starts calling to her. As usual, she completely ignores him. Forefront in both our minds is that she might not be as lucky on her next slip. It's cold metal out there, possibly slippery with condensation, or the last rainfall. It was dry all day, but Vancouver is relatively humid. Chances are good that the ledge is at least moist.

Jim started to place my textbooks on the grating, hoping to make it easier to come back into the apartment. She had approached both the bedroom window and the living room window twice, sniffing into the apartment and then leaving. It crossed our minds that the difficulty of launching off those pencil-thin grates into the apartment might render her unable to come back in (the grating is about 6 inches below the lower edge of our windows). Just our hearts are about to explode, she saunters into the living room (across the grating, no less) and walks to her food bowl for a quick snack. We quickly shut the windows.

Jim and I polished off a bottle of Southern Comfort in an effort to calm our nerves. Didn't help.

I'm going to look for some vodka. Fucking eh.

The "an ADD post is better than no post" Post

2006-02-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

Usually when I sit down to write a post I have something to write about in mind. Lately I have had things to write about, but nothing that would justify me sitting down and dedicating an entire entry to. I'll level with you. I don't like short posts. I don't like one paragraph posts. Not that I don't like reading them when they're on other people's blogs, it's just that I like the posts I make to be substantial. I feel that I have to keep to some sort of theme on my blog, even if the only things my entries have in common with each other is the length of the scroll bar cursor in my post entry window. With that preamble, this is the everything that's been on my mind for the last 30+ days in no particular order.

I watched Wedding Crashers last night. It was really funny in ways that I didn't expect a blockbuster romantic comedy to be. Initially it looked as though it was going to turn formulaic and while it was, sort of, I wasn't able to predict how the story was going to turn. I'd say it's the most entertaining big-name comedy I've ever seen come out of Hollywood. Of course, this is with the exception of Johnny English which is an entirely different brand of humour altogether. Now that I've written this though, I'm sure I'm going to think of a dozen more comedies with big names that I really enjoyed, perhaps even more than Wedding Crashers. For now though, I'm going to stick with my assessment of the movie.

Speaking of movies, Crash is a phenomenal piece. Plenty of mainstream actors in what is certainly not a typical mainstream offering. Most startling role was a small part played by Sandra Bullock, best known for her popcorn and cotton candy roles. In this movie she plays an angry, prejudiced suburban wife of a public official. Really interesting to watch. The intertwining stories are riveting and profound. Incredibly hard to watch at times, but equally impossible to look away from, this is a film I'd strongly recommend, but certainly not for light entertainment. If my recommendation is not enough, just look toward the academy. This film has been nominated for a bevy of awards, including Best Original Screenplay.

Surprisingly falling into the category of "light entertainment" for me is The Constant Gardener. Despite the fact that the subject matter broached in this film is heavy and full of consequence, especially in today's increasingly aware-of-the-pressing-issues-in-Africa society (with Bono leading the charge, no less!), this film is really just a twisty thriller with an ending that sits well if not exactly perfectly with the viewer. Plus, Rachel Weisz (right) is just incredibly hot. Ralph Fiennes is really weird in this role. Had I not seen his incredible turn as Lord Voldemort in the latest Harry Potter movie, I would think that he has all the acting ability of Fort. Ebert & Roeper commented that Fiennes did a superbly subtle acting job in this film. Uhh. Just a little to subtle. This guy displayed as many different expressions as does my doorknob.

The new season of Survivor has begun with the tantalizing moniker "Exile Island". I like how they're still trying new things into their 12th season. Makes for a slightly different game each time, with the same strategic foundations. Lots of people out there say that Survivor has jumped the shark, but I beg to disagree. Rather, I would point out that Survivor has on and off seasons. When talking about a show like Survivor, people have to realise that the only constant is Jeff Probst, the best TV show host ever and ever will be, and that everyone else is revolving. Just as you would expect from the randomness inherent in life, the universe and everything, there will be some seasons where the survivors and the situations make for good TV and there will be some seasons where they don't. I keep watching (even though I've sworn off the show several times when people I loathe to see become millionaires win) for the drama. Real or not, someone wins a million big ones at the end, which is way more dramatic than something churned out by a team of writers with weekly deadlines.

The strangest thing happened to me the other day. I was sitting in my 8am class (Neuroanatomy, which I have a 100% average for at this point, but that I'm not getting complacent about because the prof has promised that things will get dramatically harder on the final, which is worth 60%) and I felt that my bra was too tight. Way too tight. There was constriction in my chest and pain in my shoulders and upper back. Considering I was wearing the most comfortable bra that has ever existed, this struck me as a little strange. Still, it's not like I could reach up behind myself and adjust my bra in the live presence of all my classmates. Not to mention, it was close enough to the bell that I didn't want to excuse myself. Walking out, the pain/ache got worse, confirming that it couldn't possibly have anything to do with my bra (besides, it was off by this time). Taking this as a sign that I should skip the rest of the school day to take it easy at home, I headed for the bus loop where the discomfort progressed to the point that I was actually nauseous. Honest to God. I got home, slept for a long time, took it slow the rest of the day and I was fine. When I relate this story to people, they ask if I went to see a doctor about it. Well, had I seen a doctor, what the hell would I say? "Hey doc, my bra's too tight even when it's off"? Besides, we're approaching mid-term season and I don't want to look as though I'm inventing excuses to get out of it.

I have, however, dropped a course. I need that course to graduate, so I'm trying right now to replace it with another, comparable course. The only question now is whether Arts Advising will allow me to add a course to their course listings and register for it. It's a long story about how I came to this point (starting with a course in Acquisition of Syntax which, frankly, I don't believe in) but there's a very good chance (Carden puts it at 90% and he's the last person to overestimate anything) that I will be able to pull this off and graduate on time. The course that I will be proposing (and will be writing the proposal for shortly after I complete this entry) is a directed readings course designed to further my understanding of prosody and boundary effects. I've already been doing readings on the topic so it's not like I've been slacking too hard.

I should be doing more work than I am currently though. I've officially lost motivation for anything academic. I have my honours thesis (I have finally collected usable data) which I should be more excited about working on. I've dropped a course (see above) and whether apathy was a factor I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure it was. I'm sitting here writing a long rambling entry as a way to avoid starting to study for an upcoming midterm. Other ways I have avoided fufilling academic obligations include Craftster and eBay.

Speaking of Craftster, I have engaged in my very first swap. I am proud to say that although I am not the organizer of this swap, the idea of the theme (I can't knit/crochet/sew but I can crochet/sew/knit!) was mine. It was so strongly supported that it became a "Hot Topic" within its first week (or so. Maybe first fortnight. Who's counting anyway?). What I do know is that sign up spots filled up in a matter of days. I've already completed the main item that was requested by my partner (a pair of black and red striped crocheted socks) and am now working on the bonus item (a panta (left, photo from this thread on Craftster) made using Tunisian crochet, which I learnt by watching stunningly clear and well shot *free* instructional videos on Nexstitch in less than an hour). Those items have been a welcome diversion from actual duties although I have decided to shelve my panta at least until reading week (Feb 13-17). I'm not worried about completion because I crochet quickly and send-outs are not until the end of the month. For those of you who are wondering what the hell I'm blathering on about, a swap is an event where people are paired up with each other and exchange items. I'm receiving a Zaftig which is an item I would've made a long time ago, had I the knitting skills.

The nice/atrocious (depending on your perspective and amount of disposable income)thing about eBay is that you can find things you didn't know you wanted. Like antique bone/ivory crochet hooks (if it's a tunisian crochet hook, all the better). Also thanks to my first forays on eBay, I've had an obsession with vintage pyrex bowls for a while now. I've bid on two auctions but I hope I only win one. If I win both, it won't be the end of the world, but I will have spent $50 on mixing bowls, which is just this side of excessive by my accounting. Still, I will be the owner of 6 vintage pyrex bowls which are items that I've coveted for a long time. As of now, I have no space to store any of them but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I keep talking about Spinnakers, that pub that perches in Victoria's inner harbour which serves the best beer in the world (and the best fries). Just after Christmas, Jim managed to find Spinnakers' beer in the liquor store half a block from our place. There weren't many bottles on the shelf but we focused on the positive: that our liquor store was now stocking Spinnakers' beer! As the weeks passed and the number of bottles of beer on the wall quickly dwindled (no doubt greatly aided by our frequent purchases) without being replenished I started to be slightly concerned, mainly because the promised compensation for being my subject as part of data collection for my honours thesis is Spinnakers' beer. When the shelf was bare, I asked a liquor store employee for help. He informed me that Spinnakers usually calls them when they have excess stock, they do not place orders with Spinnakers. He also said that Spinnakers rarely sends them stock as their sales are usually so robust that they don't typically have any beer to spare. It was almost an ah fuck moment (especially since my subject had already sat in for the data collection and I had spent days lauding the beer in his presence) until the employee told me to look online.

Behold my new favourite online store: Spinnakers Spirit Merchants. I haven't even begun to look through their stock but what I did notice was that I could purchase my favourite beers directly from Spinnakers and have them sent to my doorstep. Heaven. In 2-3 business days, I will be with my Nut Brown Ale (label right).

Back to School

2006-01-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first official day of the 2006 Winter term. Seeing as how I don't have classes on MWF, I slacked around yesterday playing Starcraft and trying (unsuccessfully) to get Jim to let me watch Dr. Phil. In conversation with Joel (who hasn't updated his blog since National Day last year, but has hinted that a new entry might be coming) that I am a little late. (I'm not even playing Brood War, I'm playing honest-to-god Starcraft Original) So what?! Big deal. I'm working my way slowly (well, recently quite rapidly, actually) up to Brood War, getting myself familiar enough with the game that I am not completely trounced by Jim and my brothers the next time we decide to throw a LAN party. The last time I played was a disaster. I figured I could pick up the game in a round or two. Man was I wrong...

You know, the scary thing is that I could keep going about Starcraft. But I won't.

So today is the first day of classes for me. I had a class at 8 in the morning (more on this later) and will have one at 2pm. Yeap. I have a break from 9:30am-2pm every Tuesday and Thursday. That either means alot of blogging will get done, my honours thesis will be super fast-tracked (I'm planning to work on it full-time MWF) or I'll resolve to lugging my behemoth of a laptop to school to play Starcraft. Either way, good times all around. To tell you the truth, I'm actually looking for a yoga class that I can fit into this time, in keeping with my new commitment to healthy living. I mean it too. It feels so much better to be the weight that I am now, and I'm starting to notice that I feel bloated, sick and sluggish whenever I have characteristically bad foods (fast foods, greasy spoon breakfasts, deep fried anything, super-sweet ice-cream, etc.). So there. Yoga if I can find it, slacking if not.

Although, I'm not sure how much slacking I can fit into this term. I may only be taking three courses, but fact of the matter is, the prof for the first half of the semester for the 8am class is a Nazi. Now I really don't like using the term Nazi seeing as how it's very loaded and means alot to many people around the world. But there's no getting around that description. Today we had our first class and on Tuesday we will have our first quiz. As if that isn't bad enough, she has emphasized that the quizzes will take place at 8am sharp, will consist of five multiple choice questions that will be flashed on the PowerPoint for exactly 30seconds each. That means that if you are 2 minutes late to class and take 15 seconds to settle down, you will only be able to answer one question and you will only have 15 seconds to do so. If you're late, you had better already have your pencils out. These quizzes will take place every other class. More if she can help it. Bloody hell. This means taking the earlier bus and no snooze alarms.

As if that's not enough, here is an excerpt from our class syllabus:

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EXAM RULES

These rules have been made because it actually reduces the errors and ambiguity in marking and students do better. They apply to everyone- no exceptions.
1) NO ABBREVIATIONS. Not even common abbreviations!!! Note that “a.” for artery, “v.” for vein, “L” for left, etc are abbreviations. We may use shortened expressions in class or to fit the words in a diagram but they cannot be used on exams. Three exceptions: You may use VPM, VPL and GABA- only these 3. If the abbreviation you use is not one of those 3 - your answer is wrong.
2) For the cranial nerves use only the name, not the number, for example not “CN III”. You may NOT add the number to the correct name- just don’t use it. Disregarding this rule is the very best way to lose marks. If the answer is the Trochlear Nerve and you put Trochlear N. or CN IV or Trochlear nerve, CN IV, or Trochlear nerve (CN IV) it will be marked wrong. If this isn’t clear, please ask.
3) Only provide the answer to the question asked, double answers will be marked wrong even if I can find the correct answer somewhere within the statement. If you just write down a number of facts that relate to the question but don’t answer the question, you will not be given the mark.
4) Don’t add information in brackets to see if a second answer might improve your chances. If you have added brackets, it is likely you have two answers- it will be marked wrong.
5) If you are asked for a “structure” or some similar term, you have to say whether it is a vein or artery etc. If you are asked for “which artery” then it is already in the question (but safer to add the term).
6) Questions about the location of items very frequently require information about the side involved included in the answer. “Be specific is a hint.” “Be specific” should give you a hint that a general answer is not enough and you need to consider side or some other more specific qualifying term or terms.

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Wow. I think someone needs her nappy time! The rest of the syllabus is written in a similar vein. Part control-freak, part (I'm guessing) insecure about her ability(es) as an instructor, I can tell that I'm in for a rough term. To be fair, it's not as if I wasn't pre-warned about her section of the course. It is not uncommon for people to fail her section and get A+ in the second section of the course (taught by a different instructor). It's just that when you hear stories about instructors like her, you always assume that there is a fair amount of exaggeration. I'm sorry to report that to the extent that I can claim to know her from the one lecture I attended today, the tales regaled about her are thus far, true and unembellished. Starcraft is probably going to have to take more of a backseat than I had anticipated.

Here's to the rest of the term. Hang in there everyone.

Promised Photographs

2006-01-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

When I went to the Bug Zoo in Feb '05 for reading break, I took a photo of the Katydids just because they were so big. For the reference, here is the photo I took:

This photo can also be found in this post.

This go around, I actually mustered up the gumption to hold the katydid and here is the photographic evidence. These photos have not been doctored. Considering my massive bugophobia, I'm really proud of myself.

See. It totally looks as though the bug is as big as my head. I'm telling you, it really is just about that big. The next shot is one of me and Emma, the tarantula and the first bug I held at the Zoo. She's sweet.

For reference, here is the picture of me holding her for the first time:

She is ever so slightly bigger, but she's approaching her full size now and probably won't get any larger.

At Victoria, Jim continued to train his body. He decided to go for a jog in the neighbourhood instead of trying to locate a gym with reasonable drop-in rates. After 1½ hours, we decided that he had gotten lost in the streets and set out to look for him. He wasn't lost. He had just decided to climb Mt. Douglas since it was in the area. We returned the next day (in a car, of course, it is much more civilised that way...) because he wanted to show us just how tall this mountain is. Here is a picture of us at the peak:

I like this picture for its sheer drama. We took another one with the city as a backdrop, but it's nowhere near as cool.

Happy 2006 everyone!

...and a Happy New Year

2005-12-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a very special edition of Joie's Space. In today's post, we will talk about the holidays and the spirit of the season. Good things to eat and wishes and resolutions for the upcoming year.

Man. I should stop watching so much Martha. I think that's going to be my first New Year's Resolution. Stop watching so much damn daytime TV. Ahhh maybe not. It's not good to make resolutions that you fully intend to break even as you're thinking about making them. A resolution that I do intend to stick with though is to keep off the 50lbs I have lost so far (hoping maybe to lose a few more) and to start taking yoga classes to get a little more definition in my body.

I've also resolved to be a little better to this blog. It's always the first thing to be sacrificed when things get rough around here, but that also means that the people who actually bother to visit to read are being slighted. You guys out there, you know who you are (yes, both of you) and you're certainly not the least important thing in my life but since you guys also keep blogs, you know how it is...right? Well this blogging drought has a damn good reason - exams. I am pleased to report that this year, I have gotten the Best. Grades. Ever. I don't want to brag or anything, but I have to share that I got 95% (yes, ninety-five percent, count it) for the graduate course in Hearing Science. The one which I had to fight tooth and nail to get accepted for because the instructor did not want to grant me permission to attend. I'm thinking that I might want to attend AUDI 554 which is the next course in Hearing Science, but I don't want to overload myself next term and I need all the other courses I have to graduate. Bugger. I am really turned on by audiology though and I'm probably going to apply for Audiology programs after I've taken my gap year.

This year in Victoria I took my requisite visit to the Bug Zoo and am proud to announce that I have mustered up the guts to hold yet another insect, this time a Katydid. I don't have the picture with me because Jim and I did not bring our camera. When Brian emails me the picture though, you can be assured that it's going right up on this blog. I'm really proud of it especially because it's such a big bug. And leggy. Leggy things really creep me out. The angle the photo was shot makes it look as though the bug is as big as my head. It really isn't quite that big, but it's close.

Completely off-topic without even a lead-in tangent, I'm looking out my window to my right and I'm staring at a collapsed street. As in the street has completely collapsed into this underground parking lot they were excavating for a new condo development. As far as I know, no one was hurt, it collapsed when no one was there and damaged water lines but no humans. From that standpoint, I'm delighted at the collapse. This is because the new condos, when erected would have further obscured my waterfront view. So there. Ha. I'm even hoping that because of these apparent foundational problems, they will decide that it is only safe to build to a certain height, that certain height being lower than the 16th floor. Oh yeah.

I wonder what they're going to do about it though. It seems like a huge horrible mess to start the new year with.

Speaking of mess...my place is a right piece of work. As a result of my Christmas baking, every known counter top is covered in flour and three kinds of sugar. There are dirty dishes everywhere because Jim and I have been so far in and out of the apartment - we've been to Whistler, Victoria and Richmond and Surrey, we've been gone 7 nights of the last 10. The cats water dish and litter boxes are in need of their weekly cleaning (left for over a fortnight now). I refuse to start the new year in this squallor. This being the reason this post ends now.

Best wishes to all for 2006.

3 Good Reasons I Should Not Have Kids

2005-12-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

I was just sitting down after having played with my dinner and I had an epiphany. As of now unless something changes, I am not fit to have kids.

Reason #1: I don't do anything I have to do until after it has to be done.
The prime example of this would be my cats' water and litter box. But wait Joie! Didn't you say you had a self-filtering cat fountain and an automatic self-cleaning litterbox? Yes. I do. Which makes this alot worse than if the average person didn't perform these tasks. Cleaning my litterbox means taking the plastic bag full of cat waste and throwing it away, then adding more litter. It doesn't involve messy scooping, having to wash it out while enduring the stink of cat piss, nothing. Cleaning out my cat fountain just means rinsing and refilling the fountain once a week (technically once every fortnight or less because Jim shares in these duties as well). When it's Jim's turn to clean the litterbox/fountain he does it promptly. I leave both receptacles until the cats start drinking water out of our glasses at dinner time and standing next to the litterbox and meowing pointedly for a few days before I get around to doing it. Can you imagine what the state of my hypothetical kid's diaper would be like?

Reason #2: The Buchanan Tower Elevator Incident
The Buchanan Tower houses several departments, including English. There are 12 floors (hence "Tower") and an ancient elevator system with signs above the three doors saying "This Car Next" that light up to indicate which doors to stand in front of. The buttons are metal and give ever so slightly when you push them, emitting an elegant [bIp] sound. They even have a border of red that lights up to indicate that it already has been pushed. Yesterday I had to go to the English main office to hand in a late term paper (on how Lyra in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy and Hermione in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series reinforce negative female stereotypes). The office was on the 3^rd floor, enough to justify taking the lift. Those buttons! Oh those seductive buttons! On my return to the ground floor I pressed ALL THE BUTTONS! BUAHAHAHAHAHA! only to find quite a few people in the lobby who were all waiting for the lift. the "this car next" sign even had them all lined up ready to enter. i mean - classes were over! who would've thought there would be so many people in buchanan tower? I pulled the hood over my head and ran. Now is this a person you would give a kid to? I think not.

Reason #3: My...uh..."Eating Habits"
Jimmy went to have dinner with his dad tonight who has a broken arm (Brian, not Jim) so I had dinner by myself. After playing with my food for a while I threw it out and opened a bag of Christie Crunchers (which is a crunchy snack that has more than 70% less fat that potato chips and no trans fats) and proceeded to lick the seasoning off each chip. I didn't go through the whole bag, mainly because dinner was rather unappetizing and so I didn't really feel like eating anything else. I still had a neat little pile of plain crunchers sitting in front of me though. I quickly swept this disgraceful evidence into a styrofoam container that used to hold Chinese delivery (from Hon's) and promptly threw it in the trash. See, with this I wouldn't be able to tell kids to (a) stop playing with [their] food or (b) not to lick the good stuff off something and then throw it away because that would make me a hypocrite. I don't like hypocrites and I refuse to be one. On the other hand, kids are slobbery and sloppy enough without someone who doesn't enforce proper mealtime etiquette.

So there. 3 very good reasons why I'm probably not going to have any kids. Besides, now that this is in print on the world wide web I doubly cannot have kids - what if they grow up one day and read this? That would be the end of parenting as we know it. Following that line of thought, I wonder what kids who see their parents on Maury doing the whole "You are not the father"/"You are the father" turn out like. Then again, those kids probably have so many things stacked against them that there are just too many confounding factors to consider when assessing the impact of this particular incident for there to be a conclusive answer. Oh well.

Don't tell my parents or my grandparents, but...

2005-11-27T22:23:00.000-08:00

On Friday I got this in my inbox:

Seizing the opportunity, I made an appointment to do this:

I like it.

Bluebeard and his wife: A dialogue (Children's Lit excercise)

2005-11-26T22:50:00.000-08:00

“You,” she was trembling as she spoke, but she had to keep talking, “you knew I would open that room. You knew because every other one of those bodies in there, every one, every, single one did it. You knew I would look. You…” her voice trailed off, unable to continue.

He was nonchalant. “Why did you look? I said not to.” He looked down at the bloodstained key and picked absently at the stain.

“Who was the first? What was her crime? Or did you start collecting bodies before you started collecting wives?” She was almost hysterical now, gesturing wildly in his direction as he stared impassively back.

“You know, you are the first to ask. It is an interesting question, isn’t it?” He paused and raised his eyebrows at her. “Catch.” He tossed her the key. “Want to take another look? Or would you prefer to see something else before you join the others in the room?” She fumbled slightly as her fingers closed around the key.

“You’re sick. You’re twisted.” Her eyes raked the vicinity for something she could use to hit him with. She longed to slap him, to get a reaction out of him. Anything was better than the cool, blank expression on his face; the emotionless words falling from his lips. She raised her hand impulsively.

“Are you not interested in the question anymore? Or are you just stalling, biding your time, hoping that someone is going to come rescue you? DEUS EX MACHINA! Ha. You’re funny. You know, no one came to save any of the others in the room, why should anyone come to save you?” He was enjoying this, she could tell. “Well? Are you going to hit me before you tire your hand out by holding it so high?”

She hit him hard across the face. He smiled disconcertingly. “Feel better?” he taunted. “It might interest you to know that you’re not the first to have done that. I’ll answer your question if you really want to know. I want to answer it, I’ve always wondered why no one has ever asked me how I started my collection.”

“Fine,” she said, “fine. Tell me, who was the first, why did she die?” The fact that she was truly interested in his response surprised her. She leaned toward him unconsciously, no longer straining to hear the distant sound of galloping horses.

He did not expect this. His body language began to mirror hers. “The first died in childbirth that room. Broke my heart, turned my beard blue. I erected a shrine to her there. I forbade all to enter that room, it was my inner sanctum. The second entered the room. Jealous that I still pined for my first wife she covered the room in gallons of pigs’ blood. I caught her red-handed, so to speak. In my rage, I killed her. That’s how it started. I keep the room as a test. I do not need a wife so trecherous as to defile that which I privately hold dear. You, like all the others failed. I, the romantic, continue to search for the one who will..."

She did not even notice her brothers charge into the hall. Her screams echoed through the village as their swords landed on his head.
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For the story of Bluebeard, click here.

Harry Potter and My 4th Anniversary

2005-11-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

Of all things to break this blogging draught: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - the movie.

I managed to catch it on the day it opened. I couldn't line up for it, so I ended up having to sit in the front row, but it certainly did not detract from the experience. I would say that this is the best movie yet - iff (that is not a typo, it means "if and only if") you have read the book. I say this because the movie doesn't really bother to take the time with exposition. Rather, it very magnificently brings episodes in the book to life. So, if you've read the book, you have a good handle of what's going on and you can watch the magic of Hollywood make the story leap off the page. If you've never read the book, then it's sort of like a look into the mind of someone with moderate to severe ADD. (Also, if you've never read the books, then the best movie to date would be the third. Unequivocally the third.)

It's really cool to see how the actors have all grown up - despite what Lisa says, I contend that regardless of age they are becoming quite droolworthy. Well, some of them at least. I also really appreciate how Fred and George are featured more prominently as the comic relief and how you really feel like the stories are taking place in a boarding school rather than some far away magical place. I expected to dislike Prof Moody due to the fact that he did not - not in the least! - look like what I thought Moody should look like. The actor (Brendan Gleeson) did such a good job of the role, that I have no further objections.

I would be a really bad blogger if the first real post I've written this whole month only involves a movie that has already been extensively reviewed. So:

Today is my 4th Anniversary with Jim. That would mean that from the time he first expressed his intentions (by kissing me) I have aged by 4 years (~20% of my life to date). It's mind boggling to think about it this way and I can't even say if here is where I expected to be when I thought ahead at 17. Where I expected to be at 21? That was too far away at 17 for me to be concerned with. If my 17 year-old self could see me now though, I think I would be happy about it. After I get over my shock and disbelief, that is.

This year we agreed not to get anything for each other and I suspect that it's borne out of the fact that neither can think of what to get the other. (Well, I would appreciate a white cat/kitten named Bechamel but not under our current living conditions) I might be doing a little something for Jim, but that's between us, as far as I'm concerned. Jim has made secret dinner reservations that he's going to surprise me with so I don't know what's going to happen tonight, but I sure am excited about it. 4 years. That's hell of a long time.

Confessions

2005-10-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not a Catholic. In fact, religion-wise, I'm not sure I'm really anything right now. Still though, there are a number of things I have to get of my chest.

I really enjoyed reading Anne of Green Gables
Ehm. Yeah. *shifty look* I thought I might as well start with the worst one.

Anne of Green Gables, written by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is about an 11 year-old orphan who was mistakenly adopted out to the Cuthberts, a pair of eccentric siblings who lived in a house with green gables (who would've guessed) in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island. In fact, if you were to visit PEI today, you could go for the Ultimate Anne Experience: a tour through the places where L. M. Montgomery imagined Anne to have traversed.

To my credit, I did not begin reading the book through my own volition. It is one of the books assigned for Children's Lit. No, really. Stop looking at me that way. I will admit though, that I was scarely through the first paragraph when I knew I was in love with the book. Putting aside more pressing assignments (I had other things due before I was required to finish reading Anne) I read the book in as close to a single sitting as I could, looking up from the page only to cross major intersections.

Phew. That was easier than I thought. Next confession.

I am incredibly materialistic
I love buying new things. No. I love buying things. Period. Garage sales, second hand bookstores, traditional department stores, quaint hole-in-the-walls whose owners take trips to East Asia to stock their shops: everything and anything. Buying something gives me a high - even if it's something I might not even need/want come next sunrise. There are two reasons why this is unacceptable:

1. Money. If I made as much as Jim did (i.e. contributing equally to the household) I wouldn't feel as guilty making small stupid purchases. As it stands, I make less than a third of what he brings home every month. It thus makes no sense (although Jim doesn't mind me buying stuff) that I'm the one that gets to spend on myself more. It's not like I splash money on myself, but even a small $5 something every other day adds up.

2. Buddha was on to something when he preached about freedom from desire. I really wish I didn't want quite so much. There are days where I need a lift so bad that I lurk in stores looking for something that I might want. There are other times where (knowing specifically what I want) I haunt stores repeatedly looking plantively at what I want, reluctant to spend on it. It's time consuming and I'd sooner be rid of it.

This section segues well into the next one.

I already have my Christmas wishlist and it's growing
On the list are the two CDs by the Be Good Tanyas (whose song The Littlest Birds I was plugging on my site not too long ago) - Chinatown and Blue Horse. Other CDs I would appreciate are Anne-Sophie Mutter's latest release - Mozart, U2's upcoming release Rarities 1971-2003, something by Norah Jones and (this is not strictly a CD, but it's still in the music category) Barenaked on a Stick.

Also on the list are books by Gregory Maguire. I have just finished reading Wicked, which Jimmy bought for me as a random just-because present, and it was exquisite (incidently, there's a musical based on the book). The sequel to that book, Son of a Witch has recently hit bookstores. I'm probably going to go buy that book in late November, but all of his other books are firmly planted on my wishlist.

Speaking of books, Neil Gaiman has just come out with Anasazi Boys. I love Gaiman's writing. It's more visceral than things I usually opt to read, but I adore the tracks along which his mind runs. So this is another obvious entry on my wishlist. Thanks to David's 2004 Christmas gift (1602) I would also like the Sandman series.

The list continues, but I think it obscene to have already posted as much as I have 58 days from Christmas.

I also have more confessions (like "I am no longer a virgin and my mother only just found out") but the Apprentice is coming on.

By Any Other Name (Children's Lit Mid-term paper)

2005-10-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

Mr. Gau was late. He fidgeted anxiously as he waited for the headwaiter to find him on the reservation list. He glanced around at the glass cases lining the reception area, filled with large, branching specimens of ginseng and decided that he should purchase one for Mr. Wang if all went well at dinner.

Mr. Wang was waiting impatiently at an ornate rosewood table in a private dining room. Mr. Gau entered, stooping slightly and apologizing profusely for his tardiness. He introduced himself, noting that Mr. Wang did not stand up to greet him. Quickly he took his place at the table.

“Sorry Mr. Wang. Car accident on the expressway. Tied everything up. I even left early because I thought something like that might happen what with the monsoon raging and all. Anyways, I’m starving. I already told the restaurant what to prepare when I made the reservation, so the first course should be here anytime now. I’m going to order some XO, they have some of that premium stuff here, want to join me?” Mr. Gau’s words tumbled out, and he flushed slightly as he realised that he was coming across too eager. Mr. Wang, slightly bemused, took him up on his offer of cognac.

Instantly, Mr. Gau summoned a waiter and ordered the largest bottle of Hennessy they had on hand. It would cost him more than the seven-course meal, but he was not about to spare any expense at this dinner. When the bottle arrived, he could tell that Mr. Wang was impressed. By the third course, both men were ruddy faced. Ties were loosened and conversation started flowing more freely.

“So, Mr. Gau, do you have kids?”

“Just one daughter. Just got her PhD from the University of Chicago in Classical studies. She can read and write Greek! She is planning on spending a year in Corfu before finding a position at a university. For her thesis she…”

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean like Hercules and Xena?”

“I beg your pardon? Oh you mean, well, yes, she dealt with Greek and Roman literature, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not sure she studied about Xena though.”

“What on earth is the use of that? Mr. Gau, I have three sons and they all went to school for useful things - one in Commerce, another in Accounting. I have a third who’s still in medical school, but things like that take time. But, I mean. What is the use of going to school to learn about stories?”
Mr. Gau was starting to feel uncomfortable. He had received this same lecture from countless friends and family when they had heard that he was financing Jeanette’s PhD.

“Well, it’s not just stories you see,” stammered Mr. Gau, “She’s a really bright kid. Jinny can do anything she puts her mind to. Her degree requires a lot of critical thinking.” Mr. Gau was starting to wish that he had not had quite so much cognac, as he struggled to come up with another reason why a degree in Classical Studies was not a soft option, “I’ll bet she could do anything as well as the top guys in your company with that mind of hers.”

An unreadable expression flickered across Mr. Wang’s face. “Well, Mr. Gau,” he said, gesturing expansively, sloshing cognac as he did so, “It just so happens, as you probably know, that one of my company’s main projects right now is programming a sentient computer. Lots of trouble, even top guys can’t quite get it right. Send your daughter over for a week, and if she gets this stuff going, I’ll sign a contract with you.”

At this, Mr. Gau’s chopsticks paused in mid-air holding a piece of candied yam, causing its sugary threads to drift dramatically downward. He was an intelligent man and something deep inside told him that agreeing to this would be a bad idea. By this point, however, he was also a rather tipsy man and seeing no way out of the situation, accepted Mr. Wang’s proposal. Mr. Gau decided that he would not buy the ginseng after all.

Later that night, his face red from more than just the alcohol, he called Jeanette to tell her that she would start work at 9am on Monday. Jeanette, unable to react to this piece of news, mumbled inaudibly and hung up. On the one hand, she wanted to help her father. She knew that part of the reason his software company needed to merge was that financing her 10-year post secondary degree depleted much of his resources. On the other, she was quite sure that she would be no help at all seeing as how she viewed computers more as word processors than anything else. She quickly sent out a mass email begging for help. Before signing off, she promised potential benefactors “anything and everything” they wanted from her.

She woke late Sunday morning, struggling to remember why she felt such a strong urge to check her inbox. After sifting through a slew of mail beseeching her to enlarge various body parts she found Rafe’s email. It read: “Jean, love to help. On my two week’s vacation anyway. Let’s talk over dinner, tonight, 6pm at Punggol. Love, Rafe.” Jeanette cringed and scanned her inbox desperately for other emails proffering help. No one else had sent her a reply. She briefly considered turning down his help, pretending instead to accept another offer but decided against it.

Rafe, whose real name was Lee Kok Seng, arrived at 5:30 in a bright, striped shirt and orange corduroy pants. A short, oily haired man, his faced pitted and scarred from acne, he was barely able to conceal his obvious delight at his current situation. He had not seen or indeed heard from Jeanette since they both graduated from junior college, although he had seen her in his head countless times over the last ten years. When Jeanette arrived at 6:15 he leapt out of his seat to greet her. At this point, Jeanette was sorely regretting her “anything and everything” promise.

Over an obscenely messy meal of chilli crab and black pepper clams Rafe enumerated his many accomplishments since his graduation with a degree in Cognitive Systems. Jeanette, meanwhile, reflected on how fluorescent lighting was very unflattering, especially on Rafe who had both chilli and black pepper sauce smeared over the lower half of his face. Her appetite understandingly suppressed, she was not partaking in the meal. Jeanette’s mind suddenly snapped back to the conversation once he started talking about his work at both MIT and IBM.

“You helped to debug Deep Blue? For real?” Jeanette was visibly impressed. Rafe nodded proudly, a clamshell still dangling from his lips. Rafe, never one to miss an opportunity, seized this opening to talk about his compensation, “So Jean, are you still a virgin?” Jeanette blanched. Rafe grinned, pepper specking his teeth, “‘Anything and everything’ Jean baby. I’ve had the chance with many girls, but I’m still a virgin. I’d help you out if I could pop your cherry while you popped mine.” Jeanette was speechless. First off, she was a Catholic, so sex before marriage was out. Secondly, she could not believe that Rafe had used the phrase “pop your cherry”.

Jeanette hummed and hawed before finally blurting, “Well, Rafe, you know I really need your help. But you probably also know that I’m strictly against pre-marital sex. So, let’s start with a dinner and a movie and we’ll see how it goes.” Rafe grinned even broader and said, “We’ll see, Jean, we’ll see.”

At 9am the next morning, without so much as an office tour, Jeanette was hustled into a programming meeting. Unable to understand anything, but writing down everything she could catch, she prayed silently that she was recording all the information Rafe needed. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Wang delivered a bombshell.

“So Jeanette, now that you’re up to speed, you’re the only one who’s going to be working on this project. I thought I’d give my guys a break you know. You’ve got till Sunday to get this thing working. I’m looking forward to seeing what you get done.” Jeanette suppressed a sob. Back in her work area, she placed a whispered call to Rafe, notifying him about the new development.

Nightly, after the last programmer left, Jeanette would usher Rafe in into her cramped office. As she slept in the corner, Rafe plugged at the terminal, leaving shortly before the first programmer arrived. At 2am on Saturday, Rafe was poking Jeanette in the side. “Jean, Jean, wake up, talk to it. About anything. Seriously.” Bleary eyed, Jeanette pulled herself level with the terminal and typed: “What is Rafe talking about?” After a brief pause, the computer replied, “I’m not sure who Rafe is, but it looks like you do. Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Jeanette blinked. Rafe looked incredibly smug.

“It’s working Jean. Go home, take a shower. I’ll see you for that dinner and a movie tomorrow night. Look, I’ll even give you a ride home.” In her sleep-induced haze, Jeanette could not tell if Rafe was smiling or leering at her. Still groggy, she stumbled several times on her way to Rafe’s car and promptly feel asleep again as she collapsed into the passenger seat.

Jeanette was starting to feel uncomfortable. Something was pressing against her, waking her up. She opened her eyes slowly and shut them again, once the image before her registered in her sleep-addled brain. Rafe had his pants off. Rafe was in the process of undressing her. She could taste bile in the back of her throat. Instinctively she pushed hard against Rafe’s face and screamed, “Rafe Lee Kok Seng! Just what on earth do you think you’re doing? Stop it!” Almost magically, Rafe froze.

“Don’t call me that. My name is Rafe. Don’t call me Kok Seng. Rafe! Rafe! Rafe!” Rafe seemed to deflate before her eyes. Jeanette saw what she needed to do. “Lee Kok Seng, listen to me. Stop now. Kok Seng, I will call the police. Lee Kok Seng, put your pants back on.” Rafe stayed motionless, seemingly unable to decide what to do next. Jeanette took this opportunity to push herself free and tumbled out the door. As she ran from the car, she dialled the police on her cellphone, constantly looking back to see if Rafe was pursuing her. She need not have worried. When the police arrived, they found Rafe still in his car, insisting that he be called Rafe, and not that shameful, common moniker his uneducated parents had bestowed on him so long ago.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2005-10-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Vegetable Dishes

Butternut Squash with Honey and Almonds
1-1½lb butternut squash (skinned and cubed)
1 cup chicken stock (reduced sodium, if you can get it)
½ tsp each of salt, pepper and nutmeg (freshly grated, if you can get it)
3 tbsp honey
50-100g sliced almonds

1. Bring chicken stock, seasonings, squash and 2tbsp honey to a boil. Let simmer on med-low heat for ~20min.
2. Uncover and boil on high until liquid evaporates.
3. Stir in remaining tbsp of honey and sliced almonds.

Brussel Sprouts with Shallots
150g shallots (sliced)
350g brussel sprouts (halved)
2 tbsp butter

1. Melt butter in pan. Boil 1½ cups of water in a separate pot.
2. Add shallots to butter, fry until brown (~20min)
3. Boil brussel sprouts for 2 min
4. Add brussel sprouts to the browned shallots. Cook until tender (~4min).

Joie's Special Dill Potatoes
Seriously now, you didn't quite expect me to post the recipe for this dish, did you?

Peas and Carrots from the Microwave
3 cups frozen peas
½lb baby carrots (cleaned, peeled and halved on a diagonal)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
2 tbsp butter

1. Wrap the carrots in a moist kitchen towel (paper) and then in plastic wrap.
2. Microwave for 2-2½min.
3. Put peas in microwave safe bowl for ~5min.
4. While peas are in microwave, open carrot pouch CAREFULLY to let steam escape.
5. Stir carrots, garlic and butter into peas.
6. Don't let on that it was that easy to make.

The Bird

Alton Brown's Turkey Brine
4L vegetable stock (NO reduced sodium)
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns
½ tbsp each allspice berries and candied ginger
1 cup kosher salt
½ cup brown sugar (light if you can get it)
4L iced water (or ice)

1. Bring all ingredients to a boil (except iced water, of course).
2. Cool thoroughly (best if in fridge).
3. Add iced water just before adding the bird.
4. Put bird (max 16lb or increase brine) breast side down in brine either late the night before or early the morning of. Make sure to take everything out of its cavity.
5. Turn bird over once, halfway.

This brine is also good for chickens.

Turkey
13lb turkey (free range, all vegetable grain feed no less)
2-3 tbsp canola oil
1 apple
¼ medium yellow onion
2 tsp sage
3 cloves garlic

1. Remove turkey from brine, pat dry.
2. Preheat oven to 500°F.
3. Microwave the apple and the onion for ~30sec with a little bit of water. (Tip from AB to release more flavour)
4. Put everything but the oil into the bird's cavity.
5. Rub oil all over the bird. Feel like a pervert the whole time because you enjoy it. Yes you do. Freak.
6. Put the bird in the oven.
7. After half an hour, place heavy duty aluminium foil (or double layer regular foil) over turkey breast. (Tip from AB to prevent breast from overcooking before dark meat cooks)
8. Reduce heat to 350°F. Continue cooking for ~2-2½hrs.

Alton Brown also gives great instruction on how to carve the turkey.

NEVER, EVER, EVER cook stuffing inside the turkey. EVER. It increases cooking time (which leads to sawdust-like meat) and it hardly ever reaches a safe cooking temperature (which means that disease causing bacteria - Salmonella anyone? - might still be lurking).

That being said...

Stuffing
4 cups day-old sourdough bread (cubed)
1½lbs shittake, oyster and white mushrooms (sliced)
8oz bacon (smoky and thickly sliced)
2 large onions (sliced)
4 cloves garlic (sliced)
½ cup each sundried tomatoes (packed in oil, chopped) and parsely (chopped)
1 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp butter
turkey drippings (~¼ cup)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Chop bacon crosswise into smaller pieces.
3. In a large, non-stick skillet, fry bacon until crispy.
4. Transfer bacon to kitchen towels (paper) to drain before adding to large mixing bowl. Like really large. Trust me on this one.
5. Pour out all but 2tbsp bacon fat. Add butter to skillet and melt over medium heat.
6. Add garlic, mushrooms and onions to the pan. Fry until golden. Yes. Golden. Then put it in the same bowl as the bacon.
7. Add parsely, sundried tomatoes, bread and chicken stock to the large bowl. Stir until mixed through.
8. Pack mixture into 2, greased 4x8in loaf pans (or 2, greased 6in round cake pans).
9. Bake, covered with aluminium foil, for 1 hour.
10. Remove foil, baste with turkey juices and return to over for 20min.

Cranberry Sauce
340g fresh cranberries
1 cup brown sugar (dark, if you can get it)
1 cup water

1. Bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat.
2. Bring heat down to low and simmer for ~1hhr until consistency is jam-like.

Gravy
2 packets Pacific Natural Foods Organic Turkey Gravy

1. Cut open packets, pour into saucepan.
2. Heat to desired temperature.

OH C'MON. I've already done so much damn cooking. You didn't expect me to make gravy from scratch did you? I did add turkey drippings to the packet gravy though. That should count for something...

Desert

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Spiced Rum Buttercream
Cake:
2 cups flour
1¾ cups brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp each cinnamon and nutmeg
1 cup canola oil
2 cups pumpkin (crushed - I used canned)
4 eggs
½ cup chopped pecans

Buttercream:
4 egg whites
²/₃ cup granulated sugar
1³/₄ cup butter softened (but not melted - step away from the microwave)
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp dark rum
Orange food colouring (red+yellow, if desired)
pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Mix all dry ingredients for the cake. No need to sift anything.
3. Add pumpkin, oil and eggs. Stir with spatula until combined.
4. Blend in nuts.
5. Put batter into 2 greased and floured 9in round cake pans.
6. Bake for ½hr. Enjoy the way the kitchen smells. You know, just for the smell I think I'm going to bake this really, really often.
7. Allow to cool in pan for 10min before turning out on rack. Make sure that the cake rests right-side up on rack (i.e. turn it out of the pan onto a plate, then turn it out from the plate onto the rack)
8. Wait for cake to be cool to the touch before starting to make buttercream.
9. In a heatproof bowl, beat together egg whites and sugar.
10. Holding bowl over boiling water (ala double boiler), continue to beat mixture for 1 min (mixture should be hot such that a finger cannot remain in mixture for more than 10 seconds).
11. Remove from steam and beat until cool (minimum 10min).
12. Beat in butter ¼cup at a time. Mixture will curdle, don't panic.
13. Beat in nutmeg, rum and colouring.
14. Place one of the cakes right side up on serving platter. Put a generous dollop of buttercream on top of it.
15. Invert the other cake so that it rests on the buttercream. Proceed to decorate the cake.
16. Sprinkle pecans over the top of the cake.

It would of course be best if you actually had some sort of beater to make the buttercream with, but I didn't. My arm nearly fell off trying to beat it hard and consistently all that time, but I made TWO of these cakes in two days and I'm still here. So there. Ha.

I enjoyed myself but at the same time I'm rather glad that Jim's grand aunt is going to be cooking Christmas dinner.

Long Weekend Reading

2005-10-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

This is the first long weekend since school began. Eternally frazzled of late, you cannot possibly begin to understand how nice it is to have a breather. Now technically, there's plenty of UBC-related work for me to do (homework, TA work, fixing the online course work and grant application work) but I'm not going to do it.

In fact, to make sure that I only do this weekend what is due on Tuesday I've invited Brian (Jim's Dad) and Ronny (big Norwegian guy who taught me about safe sex) to a no-holds-barred Thanksgiving dinner. This entry is not about the dinner, which I'm sure I'll end up blogging about (13lb(~6kg) turkey, my potato speciality, three veggie dishes and a 2 tiered cake for desert)it's about what I think you should read should you also find yourself in the enviable position of having a 3-day weekend.

A good three-day read is His Dark Materials trilogy (by Philp Pullman). I wish I had these books in my youth when I read slower because they were over far too quickly for my liking (first two books completed in a day each, third book in two days - around my schedule...ahh ok I admit I skipped one class to read book two). The pacing of the stories are unparalleled, the concepts introduced are complex but presented simply and the plot - it's been a month since I've finished reading these books and thinking about the plot still leaves me breathless.

The first book in the series is called The Golden Compass. It begins by thrusting you abruptly into the world Pullman has created. Most novels set in a different world have some sort of preamble acquainting you with the world, introducing and defining the various terms (e.g. "muggle"). Granted, the way authors do this is either by introducing a character from another world into their world (Ray Bradbury does this alot, Luke Skywalker helped introduce us to the Jedi, etc.) or by having a character reminisce about a world more akin to ours and make comparisons (ala Larry Niven's Ringworld). Pullman begins in the middle of an event in the heart of his world. Admittedly, it's a little frustrating to not exactly know what he's talking about, but one gets initiated quickly enough.

It starts with 11 year old Lyra in a place she's forbidden to enter, witnessing something no one was supposed to see. The story snowballs from there. Being that the protagonist is so young, it really is a children's book. The action, no matter how sinister it is, is not as fully realized as it could possibly be. Still, you can't skip this book if you want to fully appreciate the next two.

The penultimate novel, The Subtle Knife, starts not in Lyra's now familiar world, but ours. With starkly different writing style to match the dramatically different setting, I almost thought that the trilogy was a collection of unrelated stories. Seeing as how I was dying to read the continuation of Lyra's story, the thought that crossed my mind was that Will (the charater from our world) had better be riveting enough to excuse the distraction from Lyra. Thankfully, he is and Pullman also sagely pulls out of our world just before we tire of its familiarity.

Lyra and Will are at the heart of extraordinary events. The action is now squarely in the PG-13 category as the two are thrust into very real and very threatening danger. The well-loved friends Lyra accumulated in the first book are also active in this one, ensuring that Will and Lyra are not abandoned in their unique quest.

With literally everything hanging in the balance at the end of the second book, I ran to a bookstore to buy the The Amber Spyglass. Being that us readers are now fully acquainted with all the characters and worlds, this book (quite a bit longer than the first two) starts immediately where the last book left off. Pullman does this very skillfully, revealing small bits of information such that the cliffhangers from The Subtle Knife are not resolved until the novel is well underway. Even though the pressing questions that were left by the second book are answered in the middle of the third, one almost doesn't even notice because there are so many other pressing things to uncover. Just a note of caution, this book is probably on the far end of PG-13.

It would have been so easy to seamlessly tack on a happy ending that would leave readers with a warm fuzzy feeling. Instead, Pullman puts far more thought into how he ends his epic series. His ending, while not wholly happy, is satisfying in its realism and is anything but contrived. I dislike the ending only because it signalled the end of my three-day sojourn into fantastic worlds. I feel like I grew with Lyra and Will. Indeed the books cover several years in their span and the two protagonists' journey into puberty is written so gracefully that one has to look back to realise how far they have come. I still miss Will and Lyra.

So there you go. The books I would read on my three-day weekend. I hope you do too because I'm dying to discuss the books with someone. I would also very much like to receive the book "Lyra's Oxford" for Christmas, or even a belated birthday gift. :)

Back Story

2005-09-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

At around 11pm last night, Jim and I were cozily tucked in bed and drifting off amongst snippets of conversation. Then his cell phone goes off right next to our heads. Jim's not one of those guys with a melodic ring tone. Instead, he favours the no-nonsense fire alarm ring, which is practical, because you can hear it ring even if you've left it in your car 15 blocks away. I always figured that if someone calls you late at night, it's because there's something urgent/important. So he answers the phone - wrong number.

Bloody hell.

The phone rings again. And again. We're both starting to get rather frustrated, as is the person on the other end of the line. Then the weirdest question comes over the airwaves: "Are you guys living in suite 1603?" Jim takes a quick peek at the caller ID on his cell and it turns out that the guy was calling from downstairs, waiting to be buzzed in (yes, our buzzer is connected to Jim's cell).

"Yes, we're the new tenants."

"Where's Ray? We're looking for Ray?"

doot doot doot doot doot

Apparently there's a time limit on these buzzer intercom conversations. So he calls back and Jim and I ask to meet him in the lobby. Bleary eyed and not quite sure what we were getting ourselves into we dressed and lumbered downstairs. First impressions were rather scary, we saw a stocky, balding guy with a tall, well-built bald guy.

"OH MY GOD," we thought, "They're going to break our legs..." - Well, at least that's what I was thinking, I didn't ask Jim for his thoughts.

Approaching the door, we saw that they had a woman with them, late forties, neat hair and clothes. Huh. It was a family of three.

"Ah fuck," I thought, "travellers looking up relatives for room and board. Well, they're not staying here, that's for damn sure." They didn't have any bags with them though.

Jim let them into the lobby and we sat down to talk. Prior to this Jim and I agreed that we weren't going to let these people know that my parents were the landlord. We were just going to play the "blur new tenant".

"Sorry to bother you so late, this used to be where our cousin, well, he's not really our cousin anymore, where this guy used to live. You see, we were hoping to get a hold of him because he's not answering our phone calls and well, he owes us $30 000 [the next few words come out in a rush] and he's used our son's credit card, unauthorized, and he's wanted by the police because he owes alot of other people money, and I went into partnership with this guy and we've lost our house, we used to have a very nice house on Granville Street and now we have to move, I mean I went into partnership and bought a vehicle with this guy and he sold it without telling me and I didn't get any money from the sale and..." He trails off, looking as though he thinks he's said too much. His son glowers a little, his wife looks away.

"So you see, we're just trying to find him. The police are on his case, but well, we're trying to help the police find him. Can you guys tell us anything?"

Jim and I tell the standard story of the guy not paying rent for two months, the apartment that was abandoned in June (at this point he interjects with "He left for South Africa in June!"), the bounced cheques, the served eviction notices and how all his stuff has been moved out of the apartment and into the storage locker in the basement.

"So who owns the apartment?"

Jim and I look at each other. After repeated questioning and a few responses of "the landlords" and "it's privately owned", I told them that we were renting from my parents. There goes the brilliant plan of acting dumb. Brilliant Joie. Brilliant.

Their eyes light up.

"Ah!" says the wife, speaking for the first time, "then they should be more than happy to help us because he owes them money too!"

For the second time that night...ahhh fuck.

"Well," comes Jim to the rescue, "they could help you, but we really couldn't. We don't know more about the situation than we have already told you. There's nothing significant in storage - it's really just clothes and shoes."

Quickly catching on I say, "We could take your information and pass it along to my parents and their realtor, they would be able to help you better I'm sure."

Simultaneously, Jim and I remember the folder of photocopied official documents that we found on top of the entertainment unit. My parents must've missed it when they were packing up the place. Jim excuses himself to go retrieve it.

"Can I come see the apartment also?" - Husband.

WTF? Ehm, it's 11:30pm at night. How about no fucking way?

"There's really nothing to see in the apartment. All his belongings have been transferred to the storage locker in the basement and like we said, it's just clothes and shoes. Besides, our apartment is in a mess right now seeing as how we have just moved in. There's boxes everywhere."

The husband persists. Jim uses the cats as a further excuse ("It would really upset the cats.") and leaves quickly.

"So can you see the water? Is the apartment nice?"

"Yeah, you can see the water. I like it, it's a beautiful apartment."

"Can I come see it please? I would really like to know how nice it is."

The wife smacks him and glares, "It's late, and there's nothing to see in the apartment."

With this he seems to realise how odd and intrusive his request is and looks sheepish for a moment. As we wait for Jim to return all three family members regale me with tales of the accomplished con man that he is. They estimate that his debts total about half a million dollars and they seem to know many people who have lost their homes, jobs and businesses to this guy. They even have the requisite scammed single mother tale. Wow. Maybe that's why he had so many nice suits and snappy pairs of shoes. He was a con-artist and that was his costume. Our original conclusion (still bolstered by the fact that he had men's fitness magazines where you would usually find Playboys) that he was a homosexual might have been premature. Also, the family (through sources unknown) have ascertained that he's returned from S. Africa and has been in Vancouver for 3-4 days now.

Jim returns and I can tell how tired he is from the way he carries himself as he approaches us. I take that as a cue to wrap things up promptly. We hand over the documents, exchange numbers and wish them luck. The husband seems to want to stay to continue telling us stories about the previous tenant's villany but his wife pulls him away, reminding him that we have to sleep. Jim and I give her a grateful look.

"Just remember," the husband says as he's parting, "if this guy shows up for his stuff, don't tell him that your parents are the landlord. Just act dumb, then call the police." - Sounds suspiciously like Jim and I's original plan for the night. Thanks for the advice, buddy.

So we crawl back into bed, and I drop an email to my dad letting him know what happened. This morning, my parents called gave the same advice about acting dumb. Look, Jim and I came up with that idea in the first place, ok? It was just hard to adhere to because we were practically thrown out of bed into a strange conversation. *mutter* My mom also revealed in the phone conversation that they've learnt that they're not the first landlords to be cheated by this guy.

All this just makes me really glad that Jim and I insisted on sleeping on our own bed (we moved the bed he was sleeping in out). With all the hijinks this guy was up to, can you imagine what his bedfellows must've been like?

Extolling the Virtues of the Singapore Education System. (Or, at least the system I was put through...)

2005-09-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

I was really really really bored in Hearing Science today. That coupled with the fact that I had just bought a half-price set of colouring pencils (Staedtler Ergosoft, set of six, in case you were wondering) and the results are on the left.

The reason I was so bored was because the prof was going over the properties of log (log₁₀, to be precise) and how to derive values for various logs if you just memorize a few log values. That should take 15minutes to cover in class. It took instead a solid half hour. Confident that the class had grasped the concept of the logarithmic scale, he then moved on to an equation (to calculate decibels from either intensity or pressure). If the class understood how log worked, then comprehending the pair of equations (they were really the same equation...) should have been just a hop skip jump away. It wasn't. The rest of the class (another half hour) was spent by the prof fielding questions from people who just couldn't wrap their heads around it.

Having gone through the Singapore school system, I was whispering (in Mandarin no less!) disbelieving comments to the Chinese national beside me. After a while there is only so much you can say, so we just started preempting the prof's responses. Under our breath, of course, we didn't want to seem snooty.

Having doodled a little in Hearing Science, I wanted to continue in my next class, so I did. Acquisition of Phonology is actually a really interesting class. However, there is little notetaking to be done on account of the fact that the Powerpoint slides are available on the course website. Usually, the notes that I take in that class involve adding to the material already available to us. Today, either there wasn't that much supplementary material in class or I just wasn't paying enough attention. Either way, the study skills that I acquired and honed after having been put through the mill in Singapore will help me salvage anything I've missed.

Many Things

2005-09-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a while since I've posted, but I assure you, I have had many good reasons.

The GRE
As I have mentioned multiple times, I was scheduled to take the GRE test on the 10th of September. Which meant that my 21st bithday (on the 9th mind) went largely uncelebrated. I did attend my own birthday party on the evening of the 10th, but it was uneventful and certainly not what this section is about.

Being that the GRE is computer based, I received the scores for my two multiple choice sections immediately. With 670 Verbal (94^th percentile) and only 710 in Quantitative (72^nd percentile) I must admit that I'm a little disappointed, but those scores are still good enough to get me into top programs. You might be wondering why my quantitative score is higher, but at a lower percentile. Easy, a clean 10% of everyone gets 100% in the Math section. Miss one question and your score drops to 710, and very steeply down the percentile rankings. So I missed one question, I've been told that my score is not worth beating myself up over. I'm trying to believe the same thing.

I'm still waiting on my essay scores - out of 6 - (Analysis of Issue and Analysis of Argument) but I feel great about both. I think I definitely scored a 5 on either if not an outright 6.

My position at UBC
Due to an administrative screw up, I did not get a position as a TA in Ling 100. However, due to the unexpected overenrollment in one of the Linguistics core courses, I am a TA for a 300-level course. I am still working at the lab for free, lending a hand with the ongoing experiment and the online course that I helped set up. I don't mind working for free, especially because if I don't get another TA-ship next term, I might just get paid to work on the website like I was going to this term.

So far, it's been really thrilling to think that I'm an acutal TA(Teaching Assistant, for the uninitiated), more so because it's an upper level course. Last Friday I held my first office hours and I've just almost finished marking the first quiz. Initially I was rather unnerved at the prospect of being a TA (seeing how I had completed that course only last fall) but three weeks into the term, I'm really comfortable. There hasn't yet been a question I can't handle (granted, not that much has been taught) or a student that doubts my ability (granted, not many of them know that I'm an undergrad).

Graduate Level Courses
I'm officially registered in Audi 514 (Hearing Science). I needed to get the instructor's permission for this course and it wasn't easy. He refused my request at first, partly on the grounds that I had no Physics in my academic background. That, of course, is bullshit. I got an A2 for my Physics 'O' level, which converts to a first or second year Physics course here. Instead of taking my word for it, he made me prove it with copies of my transcript. I was insulted, to say the least - why on earth would I lie about something like that? The worst part about his "Physics requirement" (that almost had me mailing the Ministry of Education in Singapore) is that we have spent all the class time so far talking about the difference between vectors and scalars, what speed is, what frequency is, what a wave is...etc. Why on earth does anyone need a Physics background if you are going to exhaustively cover the basics? I think this guy is an idiot. If not for the hoops he made me jump through to get into the class, then for his confusing manner that leaves me befuddled about Physics principles that I once understood.

I'm also taking another grad course, but I'm not registered in it. Rather, I sit in on the class and absorb what Eric has to say. It's a course in Phonetics, but Eric only lectures for one and a half hours each week. All the students in the class are expected to take Ling 316 (the course that I'm a TA for) in addition to Eric's lectures. I sit in because I'm interested in the technical side of acoustics and I think I'm a useful link between the two courses. I feel really awkward knowing that I am a TA to several grad students, but I hope that I'll get over it in time. I'm even considering registering in this course for credit, but I'm not sure how that would work.

The Move to the New Apartment
It's finally happened. Jim and I are living in the heart of downtown Vancouver. In fact, if I look to my left now, I can see the Burrard Inlet, which opens into the Pacific. Sure, the view is slightly more obscured by highrises that weren't there in the years before, but it's still something to look out your window at a large, calm body of water. Of course, this means that I'm a mere four blocks away from the seawall, which is a long, flat walk which winds through Stanley Park.

All things considered (i.e. all the sections above this one) the move went well. Jim singlehandedly packed and moved all the stuff that is in this apartment. We have about a box and a half left of loose ends in our old apartment and I still haven't changed the addresses on the various services we subscribe to but for all intents and purposes, we have moved. I mean, our cats are over here!

The location of this apartment is a dream come true. For me at least. Jim's commute is about an hour long, plus or minus traffic. Jim does appreicate the gym in the building though. For my part, I love having everything within walking distance and how easy it is to get to UBC. The location is great, but the state of the apartment is a completely different matter. The washing machine and dishwasher which we had coveted for so long are both busted. The washing machine leaks and is possibly under recall. The dishwasher runs fine, but with no water. To compound matters, we were unaware that either appliance was faulty. We now have a comforter and a sheet in a tub of soapy water that we cannot drain (except onto the floor beneath it) and full dishwasher with dirty dishes that has had all the food matter baked into it.

Regular readers of this blog might readily point out that Jim and I have often gone long periods of time without doing either laundry or dishes. That may be true (and we were hoping to change that with the ensuite machines), but we have never gone long periods of time without hot water. That's right, at this moment, there is no hot water in this apartment. To shower, we boil water in our 1.5L electric kettle and pour it into a large Home Depot bucket and temper it with cold water until we have the temperature right. (We have the bucket in the first place because Alton Brown recommended that we brine a turkey in it. Yes, it is clean.) We then bathe using vessels to pour water over our heads ala water rationing excercises. I have half an ear out for the kettle as I type this - I'm boiling water for Jim's shower.

This post has been long enough. I'm about to walk down to the many restaurants in my neighbourhood and pick out a new one for dinner. We've eaten out for the past three days due to the fact that the kitchen is hardly in order yet. I was worried that that might reek havoc on my diet, but despite the fact that the food I have eaten thus far are not kosher, I've still lots 3lbs over the three days and am still burning plenty ketones. I'm going to have to eat out again tonight, but I don't really want to push my luck. First priority is getting the kitchen in order so that I can go back to my strict, strict diet.

Fall Start

2005-09-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

One of the first things that I had to wrap my head around when I moved to Canada was the idea that the year did not begin in January, but in September. Fiscal years were September-August, school years began in the fall, projections were written up just as leaves were falling off trees. I didn't understand it. Why start your year when the world around you has just started to wind down?

This year, however, it seems like my rhythms have accepted that the year starts in the fall. Subtle changes in the air, the slow creep of sunset into the afternoon hours, the re-emergence of coats and sweaters from the back of the closet...as the hot summer days melted into cold drizzling rain and the sun lost enthusiasm, I felt charged, excited, ready to start something new.

Initially, I was surprised. Of late, I have been feeling frazzled and in dire need of a time-out. I have been to the beach only twice this summer, once when I was technically working. I have spent my sunny evenings in the lab, working late and then rushing home to prepare a meal for myself. My weekends have been filled with errands and study attempts with varying success. Week after week of routine and months pass unnoticed. I was dreading the arrival of fall, because I had squandered my summer. Yet when fall arrived, there was no weight in my gut, I felt no sorrow. Fall is here and I am not in mourning.

The conclusion of summer also brought an end to my position as a Research Assistant at the lab. When I walked out Friday, it felt strange to think that next week I will walk into a classroom in the mornings instead of opening the lab. I still have a position there, I have been put in charge of an online course that I helped hash together, but it is only for 12 hours a week, nothing close to the hours I have been logging. I only felt a small sense of loss, which evaporated quickly when I thought about the classes I was about to embark upon.

In addition to the various core courses I have to complete, I will be taking a course from the graduate department (I needed the instructor's permission to take that class - boy did I have to kick and bite to get that OK)and a course in children's literature. I can't recall a year yet that I have been so psyched to kick off. I didn't get the TA-ship that I was hoping to get for Ling 100 due to an oversight, but I suspect that I might still have the opportunity to TA in the second term. At any rate, the online course that I am attached to involves dealing with over 300 students, so I might just have my hands too full.

Also coming up quickly is my GRE date, scheduled for Sept 10th. Which is what I should be studying for right now. Wish me luck.

Weighty Issues

2005-08-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to do something about all the weight I had gained due to a combination of bad diet, sedentary lifestyle, anti-depressants and an ill-informed birth control choice. I would say that I probably put on 15lbs because of lifestyle choices and 50lbs because of and/or/both medications. Add that to the 15lbs I was already overweight, and I had to do something pronto. I'm not the kind of person who is overtly aware of her body. Plus, all this weight gain happened in a scant year and a half.

Not typically aware of own body + it happened really, really fast = me not noticing the weight gain until I was probably about 50-60lbs in.

Working out to lose 80lbs is completely out of the question. For one thing, a person needs to burn 3500 calories to burn 1lb of fat (average workout burns 200-300 calories). For another, I could never be a gym rat. I don't like sweating, I don't get the endorphin rush (and it's been scientifically proven that not everybody gets that rush) and most of all, I hate working out in a place where most people are half my size in perfectly coordinated nike-sweatwick outfits. Granted I have a membership at Curves where the women are normal but each 30 minute workout only burns 140+ calories. It just wasn't going to happen quickly enough for me. Forms of physical activity that I enjoy include swimming and cycling. Those activities are incredibly difficult to enjoy when you're overweight.

So I'm on a diet. Doctor supervised and incredibly strict, I'm losing 0.75-1lb/day for an average of 20lbs a month. Perhaps more. I've already lost 14lbs. I'm already drawing up lifestyle plans for maintaining my goal weight once I reach it. It's rather exciting, even though I haven't personally noticed any difference the people around me have started commenting on it. Which brings me to the real point of this entry: My family is obsessed with weight. Well, really more like my mom and her parents.

Initially I didn't want to let them know I was on a diet but when they started noticing they pestered me hard enough that I spilt the beans. Now that's all my mother, grandmother and grandad will talk about. I even suspect that my mother is trying to sabotage my efforts, although I have no concrete proof. She is making bitchy asides about it, but then again, there isn't much she doesn't make bitchy asides about. Heck, it's one of the main reasons I moved out. In fact, today I had a 30 minute conversation with my grandma (I often have conversations that long with her) solely about how I would look after I had lost all that weight. It's the first thing they ask of me after the standard "Have you eaten?" greeting. The standard conversation now is:

"Have you eaten?"

"How much weight have you lost now?"

"You know I'm so glad you're on this diet. You are going to look so pretty..."

Can you say "eating disorder"? Not to mention my grandma now peppers me with questions on whether she has to lose weight, and if so, what the best way to do it is. Good grief.

I've grown up being told that I am fat. Even that period starting from the year or two before I moved to Canada when I really wasn't fat (I was looking at old photographs the other day...). I also grew up being told that a fat person was deplorable. You can imagine that I didn't have a very positive body image. Compound that with the fact that my mother had weight issues of her own and I have a 4 in 5 chance of being an obese adult. Well, that's what I am right now, but that's going to change.

Along with my diet, I'm also taking concrete steps to be more in tune with my body. I try not to eat until I'm hungry and eat slowly so I know exactly when I'm full. I've long since not been able to accurately ID those feelings in myself. Thanks to Jim, I've abandoned the idea that self-worth is in any way tied up with a number on the scale. Now I have to learn that this is true in all my relationships, not just with Jim. I'm going to take yoga lessons in the new year (and of course I'm going to keep up with my Curves workouts) because one of the core tenets in yoga is to listen to your body. First and foremost I'm going to understand the relationship between what I eat and what I am. (Also, I'm going to rigorously research any medications I take in the future.)

I refuse to be that 4 in 5. I may have been prey to my upbringing and circumstance so far, but not anymore. That's what turning 21 is all about isn't it? Establishing oneself as separate and in control. It's so liberating to, for the first time in my life, see myself accurately in a mirror and take steps to influence that reflection.

New Toys

2005-08-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

This vintage-looking waterbottle is anything but. Billed as the "Next Big Waterbottle" it's made from a single aluminium blank and is the product of Swiss engineering. Light and leakproof with interchangable lids (the manufacturers - Sigg Switzerland - are proud to say that all their lids fit all their bottles) this little baby is going to be sticking to me at all times. Plus, with its 0.6L capacity, all I have to do is count to 4 and I've already drunk over my requisite daily 2L. Apart from being able to hold water, it is also the first water bottle in the world with an inner coating that is resistant to fruit acids and isotonic drinks. This space-age inner coating also means that the days of waterbottle funk are over. The bottle cannot absorb smells/flavours from anything you put into it. Its accessories (in addition to all those lids you could buy) include an insulation sleeve (that comes in plenty of funky prints) because this vessel can store hot and cold drinks. Goodbye non-leakproof travel mugs! Sure, it's a little on the pricey side (C$26) but 2 reasons completely justify my purchase: (1) My birthday is coming (2) I have been drinking >2L water everyday and that 1L Fanta Shokata bottle I've been schlepping around is simply not streamlined enough to fit into my lifestyle.

(FYI, Fanta Shokata is made by Fanta - which is owned by Coca Cola - in Romania and it is based on the traditional Romanian drink "Socatã" made from elderflower. It was also the focus of a massive viral advertising campaign in 2003 in which internet users could go to a website and insert their own subtitles to clips from Bollywood movies. In case you were wondering, Ozone - the band that brought us the Numa Numa Song - is also from Romania. I wonder if they drink Fanta Shokata. This is way too much information to be contained in a paranthesis, don't you think? Moving on...)

Sure, the water bottle's really exciting. I mean how often do you see people carrying around an extrusion-pressed water bottle? No matter how traffic-stopping this water bottle is, however, it can't quite measure up to my other new toy.

The Toshiba Qosmio F20-GS1 Intel Centrino 750 1.86GHz Laptop. My dad bought this one for me (Happy Birthday Joie!) and he negotiated a wicked deal for it too. Its sleek, shiny design is a perfect compliment to its wide array of capabilities. I mean, seriously, I can watch TV on this thing and use it as a TiVo. In fact, I plan to figure out just how to connect it to my TV sometime this weekend. The TV hook up is inadequately explained in the manual and defies most common logic. All other aspects of the laptop are completely intuitive though. It can burn DVDs (naturally), is equipped with Intel Centrino Mobile Technology and has 100GB of memory for me to uhh...store my completed essays in. To be honest, I was in the market for a laptop to accompany me to grad school, on which I could toil on essays in the library (I really, dislike checking books out, I always get hit with overdue fines) analyze my data (for which I legitimately need advanced sound and graphics) and be an industrious student in general. What I have instead is a machine that is crafted, for all intents and purposes, for play.

Not that I'm complaining.

I just hooked up my baby with wireless internet in my home yesterday (Future Shop was selling the D-Link DI-524 AirPlus G 2.4GHz Wireless Router at a heavily discounted price, sale ends today) and it runs like a dream. Now I can play Neopets while watching Dr. Phil uuh...or...urm, peruse course websites while I watch the latest current events update, uuh yeah. Setting up the home network was surprisingly painless and took all of 15 minutes. I would recommend this router for those looking to buy one on account of its sheer simplicity. It doesn't have bells and whistles and you could pay more if you wanted a wider signal range, but figure this model will suit the average user just fine.

At 7lbs I'm not going to be bringing my laptop to school everyday like most other students here. That's not why I wanted a laptop anyway. I'm still completely addicted to pen and paper notetaking. However, it is very nice to be able to have the option of bringing a laptop to school (PowerPoint presentations, that essay in the library) and I just can't wait for the new term to arrive just so I can start using my laptop for work and for play.

All this fun, and my birthday isn't even here yet. :)

One Thing After Another

2005-08-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

I would have to say that the most interesting thing that has happened to me in the past week invovled a day where absolutely nothing could possibly go right.

Having put my alarm clock on snooze and sleeping through the snooze alert (which occurs for one minute every ten minutes) FIVE times I was quite late getting out of bed. A mad scramble to assemble the things I needed for the day later, I was running out my front door just in time to watch the bus that I needed to take pull away from the bus stop half a block away from my house.

Attributing it to the fact that it was a Monday after a less-than-restful weekend, I started walking to the bus stop five blocks away to take the express bus. Normally, it doesn't really matter what time I arrive at work as long as I make the hours but this time 'round I was supposed to meet a volunteer who was starting at the first time at our lab. I didn't want her to be locked out. Plus, it wasn't as if I was going straight to UBC either. I had to drop something off on Broadway before work, which involved quite a detour.

Thankfully, I arrived at the bus stop mere minutes before the north-south express bus pulled up. I took it as a sign that the day was getting better that I could get a seat on what was usually a pretty crowded bus. I assumed that this particular bus was running just a little off-schedule (that's usually the reason buses are emptier than they typically are) and sat down. Sure, the seat was at the place where the double-long bus bends (which means no windows and more motion) but it was okay. I don't have the best balance so any opportunity not to be standing on a bus is snapped up by me. The empty seat next to me was quickly taken by an older gentleman in a track suit. From the smell of things, he was doing quite a bit of excercise (days and days worth, by my reckoning) in those clothes. I could've just stood up and left but by now the bus was moving and I didn't want to offend the guy with the offensive smell. Besides, being that this was, afterall, an express bus, my trip waas really only going to last 20 minutes.

30 minutes later I walked off the bus having learnt two things about myself. (1) I should probably take some yoga lessons if I ever want to stand up from the middle seats of the bus while the bus is in motion/about to start up/about to stop. (2) I can hold my breath for quite a long time - but certainly not for 30 minutes.

What do you know? In my rush to leave the house, I left that which I was supposed to drop off on the bathroom counter.

Chuffed that I had taken the detour for nought, I jumped on the other express bus (east-west) to get to UBC. My phone starts ringing. The volunteer called to say that she wouldn't be turning up. "Not feeling well".

Alright. Ok. The bad joke ends here. Right? Right? Wrong. I step off the bus into a huge wad of pink bubblegum. Over the summer I've worn the treads of my $4 sandals smooth enough that I get no grip on slippery surfaces. However, I hadn't quite got them down to the point where it wouldn't trap a gob of chewing gum. Quickly abandoning the futile attempts to scrap the disgusting stuff off the bottom of my foot, I start walking, sticking with every other step through the litter-strewn paths that lead to the lab.

My day at the lab was rather uneventful except for the time when a subject walked in to participate in the experiment we were running and nothing was set up. I'm very familiar with all the cables and their connections so I wasn't too worried. The chaos began when I handed Kevin (the other RA) the wrong remote control. There was 15 minutes of awkward apologies to the subject while we puzzled over why the device was not responding to the remote, looked for and replaced the batteries, banged it a little on the table and then saw the correct remote next to where I picked up the wrong one. (To be fair, they were both Panasonic DVD machine remotes.)

I decided to leave early for the day. Kevin lives on Oak Street as well and is always willing to give me a much appreciated lift. He lives quite a bit north of me, but it means that I only have to take the Oak Street bus down to where I live instead of having to take two buses. While walking to his truck I stopped dead in my tracks and swore loudly. I thought a needle left in the grass had lodged itself firmly into the outside of my fourth toe on my left foot.

I looked down and couldn't see a needle. In no time at all, it was hard to see my toes what with the tears that sprung fast to my eyes obscuring my vision. It hurt like a bitch! I started yelling, "WHAT THE HELL IS IT? WHAT THE FUCK IS IN MY TOE?"

"It's a wasp. A yellowjacket."

With those words, the wasp struggling to remove its poisoned, barbed stinger from my toe suddenly came into clear focus. In my shock, I couldn't see what was right before my eyes until it was named.

I. Freaked. Out.

"Pull it out."

"WITH WHAT? WITH WHAT?"

Sighing, Kevin bent over and extracted the struggling insect from my toe. The puncture it left was bleeding slightly. The toe and half my foot was starting to swell. It was the first time I had ever been stung by anything. In the ensuing minutes Kevin and I discussed what to do in the event I progressed into anaphylactic shock. The first thing I can say went right that day was that I discovered that I am not allergic to bee stings. I'm still limping, however. Currently, it itches like a 'mofo.

That would have made for a bad enough day as it were. On the Oak Street bus, thinking that the day's events would make for a cute anecdote I hear a BOOMCRASH. The bus rolls to a stop and the bus driver informs us that he's bent one of the poles that attaches the electric trolley bus to the power lines that supply it. We have to wait for the next bus.

Steadfastly trying to remain unfazed I limp off the bus, furiously rubbing my shin and calf (because it started to hurt there too). "What would Pollyanna think? What would Pollyanna think?" I know! It's rush hour! The next bus should be along in 10-15 minutes! I chanted that to myself rhythmically as I continued to massage my leg. The bus stop had no seats so I was forced to wait in a half-crouched position. As time passed, people are starting to get antsy. Several commuters start to hail taxis. I tried to call Jim to see if he would give me a ride, then remebered that he misplaced his phone on the weekend and probably hadn't found it yet.

Half an hour later the next bus is spotted on the horizon. My fellow commuters started to show some signs of life again. People were picking their packages up off the floor, getting ready to board the bus. Two blocks before the bus pulls up in front of us, it stops. Fifteen minutes later, we witness all the passengers alighting. That bus had broken down too. Abandoning reason I start dialling Jim frantically, praying that he had already found his phone. Twenty minutes later, he calls me and offers me a ride home.

Jim arrived after the third bus came to pick up all the stranded commuters (leaving three people behind to avoid an overloaded bus). The rest of the night progressed uneventfully.

In case you missed it....

2005-08-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

p. 564, Adult Edition (British):

Told you.

Hole-in-One

2005-08-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

In recent years, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) has modified their driver licensing program to show the public that they are taking steps to deal with the "teen driver" problem. The "teen driver" problem, which catches the population's attention whenever other news is scarce, is basically that a small subset of teenagers are getting in cars with friends and crashing those cars in spectacularly fatal accidents. In my opinion, this is a difficult problem to deal with because it does not have much to do with technical driving skills. Rather, it has to do with speeding, driving under the influence or both. Regardless, ICBC must be seen to do something so they have come up with the graduated licensing program.

This program (which doesn't focus on scaring people away from speeding/driving under the influence) involves three tests before you can get your full license. The first is a knowledge test, administered on a computer and the other two are road tests. If you pass the second, you are issued a full license. With the first two licenses (Learners and Novice) there are several restrictions on when and how and with whom you can drive. (For a full list of restrictions, if you are truly interested, see here.) There is a mandatory amount of time you have to wait between stages. In response to another gorey crash, these wait times have increased, supposedly to give young drivers more time to practice their driving under restricted conditions. These restrictions are a joke anyway. The same youth who are speeding and driving under the influence (and both) can hardly be expected to abide by new regulations.

So having waited the requisite amount of time, I went to take my Class 5 (full license) road test today. I was driving Jim's car which is a 5-speed Manual '95 Honda Civic 4-door. Most people take the test on an Automatic because of issues like rolling backwards on a hill and possible shifting errors that cost demerit points. I didn't quite have the option of taking the test on an Automatic. At any rate, I am used to our car and that familiarity more than makes up for the potential disadvantages that arise from the use of a Maunal during a road test.

Let me just stop here and say that Jim = sweetheart. Knowing that I was going to take the car for a road test today he cleaned out the car, washed the outside and vacuumed the inside, all after a hard day's work. I was scheduled to get home at 9pm yesterday, after work and an emergency driving lesson. With the driving test at 9:30am today, I sure was grateful that I didn't have to spend time late last night making the car decent. Plus, poor Jimmy had to take transit to work today, which means waking up a full hour earlier and having to endure the bumps, jolts and smells of public transportation.

I digress.

I am proud to announce that as of today I am a fully qualified driver with no restrictions on my license (except that I have to drive with my vision corrected and am not allowed to drive when my blood alcohol level exceeds the legal limit - you know, the usual). First try. WOO HOO! I rawk! *Thank you, thank you*

All I have to do now is to wait for my brand spanking new license to arrive in my mailbox. Joie Tan, fully qualified driver. Oh yeah.

An Offer I Can't Refuse

2005-08-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Deciding that the 98% that I scored on my Neuropsych final called for some celebration in the form of and All-You-Can-Eat Japanese meal, I asked to meet my family for lunch on Sunday. Two reasons: (1) Jim only eats California Rolls, so it's really not worth the money to go for All-You-Can-Eat just with him (my brothers more than makeup for what he doesn't eat) (2) I didn't quite want to pay for the meal myself.

Over the course of the meal, my mother mentions that the tenant they have in the downtown apartment they own has neglected to pay his rent (for a while now, from the sounds of it). This is a $1500/mo apartment, so you can imagine my parent's chagrin. They've taken the case to court, seeking to evict this guy. He sounds rather shifty too - apparently when he was paying his rent, he paid all $1500 in bills in a brown paper bag. I mean, seriously. If you were to pay that much money in cash, wouldn't you put it into an envelope? Oh right, that much money in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills wouldn't fit into a standard envelope anyway. You'd need one of those Manilla dealies and those are quite a bit more expensive than a brown paper lunch bag.

I digress.

This apartment is downtown, with sort-of a waterfront view (it had a full waterfront view until a new condo development sprung up in front of the building). It's walking distance to all possible amenities (not to mention a block away from Robson Street) and cycling distance (the trail runs along the Vancouver seawall which runs through Stanley Park) to the Vancouver Aquarium. It's got all kitchen appliances (including a dishwasher and a fridge that, by my grandma's reckoning, is quite large), ensuite washer and dryer and air-conditioning. The buildling also houses a gym and a steam room. It is not a big aparment, only about half the size of the one I am currently living in but its location and ensemble of near-new appliances more than make up for the lack of space.

It is a nice apartment.

Jim and I were offered the apartment, for just the building maintenance cost - half what we are now paying for rent each month.

Before I jump the gun here, I have to say that I was told not to say anything about this to anyone seeing as how the arbitration has yet to go through. So I bind all my blog readers to strict confidentiality. If you know someone who knows me but does not read this blog, then this info is not to be shared with them. Should an information breach occur, may you have a frog infestation. So there.

There were several things Jim and I had to weigh when considering this offer. For one thing, should we take up the offer, we would be living on my parents' charity. Also, Jim's commute would double to and triple from work. The size of the place is a huge consideration as well. How would our cats handle a smaller place? Since the apartment is furnished, what would Jim and I do with our current furniture (the new bed, the grand wood dressers we've inherited from his grandparents...)? On the other hand, we would be saving a large load of money in terms of rent and bills (the gas and hydro bills go straight to my parents, internet is included in building maintenance, not having to pay for coin laundry etc.). It would certainly also be a lifestyle upgrade living so close to the seawall and right in the heart of downtown.

We called that evening to say that we would take the apartment when it was empty.

Like I said before, there's still the pending matter of the current tenant, and since everything is still making its way through the legal system I'm technically not to say anything concrete about any outcomes. Still though. The downtown apartment. Wah seh.

Beach Barbeque Party

2005-07-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

Two days after I have returned from the conference and I've almost repaid my sleep debt.

Auditory-Visual Speech Processing (AVSP) 2005 was held in Parksville, B.C. at the beautiful Tigh-Na-Mara Seaside Spa Resort and Conference Centre. The first lesson I learnt was that if I ever wanted to organize a conference, I shouldn't organize it at a beachside resort on one of the best weekends in the Summer. I doubt I ever witnessed full attendance at any of the talks/presentations. To be fair though, the topics were so diverse (from Linguistics to Computer Science to Electrical Engineering...and pretty much everything in between) that it might have just been the case that not everyone present was interested in everything there was to be said.

I myself skipped out of that one poster session where everyone was talking about their various talking head models. I'm interested in the capabilities for obvious research reasons, but I'm really not all that turned on by how to make them work, and I really didn't have anything useful to suggest by way of improvements to the various systems. The beach is gorgeous. It was low tide when I walked out and the water was ankle deep for at least half a mile. The fine sand underfoot was squishy. Tiny crabs, pikes and very pretty mollusks scuttled and darted to avoid my gait. The horizon held overlapping mountains covered in lush evergreens. I could've stayed there forever. No wait, I couldn't have because I wasn't supposed to pontang any of the talks. From what I gather, that isn't even the best beach on the Island. The best beach is Long Beach in Tofino, a scant drive from where we were. I guess it is just as well that we held the conference in Parksville and not Tofino. At least the talks and presentations were decently attended.

Two out of the three nights culminated in a Barbeque in Eric's log cabin (I shared a log cabin with Jolien, Nicole and Victor). The meat was alternately charred on the outside and raw on the inside (and on occassion, simultaneously) but no one noticed because most everybody was at least a little drunk. Understandably the cost of the conference did not support the sometimes gratuitous drinking habits of the attendees, but that was solved when a call for liquor money was put out. Everyone was encouraged to chip in $10 (more if they felt that they drank much more than that, teetotalers were exempt) and people were surprisingly receptive to the idea. Not having a particularly high tolerance for alcohol (as documented by this) I only drank two cans of beer and two bottles of cider (hardly worth $10). Eric even bought some lamb that was cooked rather rarer than I appreciated, but was very good nonetheless. Pity I missed the banquet prepared by the resort on the last night. Apparently the lamb was unsurpassed, but Neuropsych was calling again. Seeing as how I need 96% for this, I figured that a well plated lamb was a price I had to pay.

Speaking of exams that I wouldn't mind doing well in, I have a developmental psych (infancy) final tomorrow. Ending the entry here seems like I price I have to pay for a ncie grade (I got 90% in the last exam).

2005-07-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

I woke up frustrated again, unable in my dreams to walk from Robson Street to Takashimaya. Confused by why there wasn't a wax diorama of the Japanese invasion and the British surrender at the Royal BC Museum. Craving kueh lapis, but unable to find a Bangawan Solo on Granville Island.

Then suddenly in East Coast Park, with the sun setting at 3pm and bicycle tracks in fresh fallen snow. Then running for shelter past the steam clock in Gastown as pregnant rain drops threaten to flood from a stormy sky.

Can't find Yusof Hall on the UBC campus. Carden can't tell me when Doreen Goh is going to be in. Chekgu Rosiyah is telling me that I'm late for assembly, but I don't know how to get to the amphitheatre from the Speech lab. I panic a little when I realise that I've forgotten to bring my P.E. uniform, but can't imagine why I would need it for LING 317.

Is the Wisma fishtank supposed to be in the Vancouver Aquarium? What do you mean I can't have breakfast with Ah Meng in the Tswassen zoo? That's weird, the talking birds in this cage don't swear in Hokkien. The Musqueam art in Changi airport must be new, probably acquired at the same time that Stanley Park got that statue of Raffles.

Shaken, I seek the only person who can console me. I look everywhere, but he cannot be where he's never been. Behind me Fort and Gato fight over a writhing gecko's tail.

The mind is not made to traverse space so abruptly.

Cats + Apartment - Fleas

2005-07-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Blitzkrieg!

Jim and I have long decided that the flea situation in our apartment had to be dealt with. You're probably wondering how we have a flea problem seeing as how both our cats are strictly indoor cats. We noticed the problem start last summer (it abated in the winter so it's not like we put up with fleas for a full year or anything) and surmise that it could have been started with one of two things:

1. Fort's vist to the vet to get neutered (presumably the other animals being held at the vet's awaiting surgery passed the fleas on to him)

2. The mattress on our free futon (the lady that we got it from had a veritable menagerie which included an assortment of guinea pigs and three cats)

Unfortunately, a flea problem is not something that can be dealt with during a commercial break. For the uninitiated, dealing with a flea problem involves washing everything that can be placed in a washing machine, vacuuming all surfaces that lend themselves to be vacuumed and broadcast spraying of something that will most probably cause foetal defects.

Ahh. But that's just for the apartment. What about the cats? Well, after the apartment has been dealt with, just prior to the broadcast application of flea spray we have to flea spray the cats. (With a different spray, of course)

The instructions on the label made it seem easy enough: Covering your cat's eyes, apply spray to body and head until fur is damp (not wet) and use hands to rub spray into fur. So I ushered the cats into the bathroom while Jim was to take care of the broadcast spray. 10 minutes, a lot of blood (mine), two very angry cats and only two shots of flea spray dispensed on target later I was yelling at the bathroom door that it was most certainly a two person job.

15 minutes later, Jim and I conceded that it was probably a job for an experienced SWAT team, but seeing as how we didn't really have access to that, we bravely soldiered on.

See, cats really don't like to get wet. In fact, an effective deterrent to unwanted cat behaviour is a spray bottle filled with water. For example, if your cat is constantly jumping up onto your food prep surfaces and you think it's unsanitary, all you have to do is give them a few squirts from a spray bottle everytime you catch them and they'll stop jumping up on those surfaces when you're in the room. They'll still do it if they don't think you're in the room, but you get the idea. Adding to this mess of a situation is that the flea spray isn't exactly water-based. It's alcohol based, which means that the cats who have been scratching their bites are in for some stinging. Wow. Stinging wet action from a spray bottle. Whoever designed this stuff was NOT thinking about cats.

Oh, did I mention also that the spray was sticky after the alcohol evaporated?

Jim and I took turns restraining each cat while the other sprayed and rubbed. We each got a good idea of how sting-y this spray was because the cats were making damn sure that we had some raw areas too. Gato actually gave in after a brief fight and sulked in a corner, leaving us to deal with Fort. Based on yesterday's experiences, I'm prepared to say that Fort might just be the strongest cat in the world.

He broke two of his nails just clinging onto corners of cabinets and countertops. He managed to wriggle out of Jim's grips and grasps (not through clever manuvering but through brute force, mind) and his paw swipe was enough to knock the spray bottle out of my hand. Twice. Yesterday was also the first time Gato ever got to hear Fort growl. It was a long, low growl, pretty much the scariest thing I've heard all year (political speeches notwithstanding). In fact, it was so uncharacteristic of big-floppy-toy Fort that instead of cowering in her sulk corner she looked around and then approached Fort with a "Hey! No shit! Floppy toy boy can growl! Good for you buddy. Viva la resistance!". Great. Support for the rebellion.

Eventually we got the cats sprayed. We were so exhausted that neither of us thought to whip out the camera, which is a shame because they both looked like 80 punk rockers. It was the funniest thing in the world. Poor Fort was so traumatized by the experience that he hid under various bits of furniture for hours refusing to take treats from either Jim or I (he took some from Brian when he came over for dinner a little later). It was worth it though. Fort didn't scratch/groom himself all night. This stuff is working. I just hope that I'll never have to do it again.

Pissing Rain

2005-07-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Piss rain sucks. Piss rain is what happens pretty much ALL WINTER LONG. And Fall. And Spring. So when Summer comes, please don't give me this piss rain bullshit.

But Vancouver weather is hardly ever obliging. For the past couple of weeks, despite the fact that it's officially summer, it's been piss rain in the mornings. Don't get me wrong guys. I love rain. REAL rain. The kind that comes down in large sloppy drops that splash into a high speed cameraman's wet dream. The kind where you count from when you see lightning so you know how far away it struck. The kind where if you're caught in it, umbrellas be damned, there's no running away from it. The kind that gives you a lame excuse to call in sick for work. The kind that you can smell before it arrives and again long after it's done, mmmm, that fresh, showered earth smell that cleans your insides if you take deep breaths. The kind which provides a nice backdrop that covers the noise of the city so that you can read and listen to nature nurturing itself. I miss monsoons in Singapore. Hell, I miss Singapore, but that's not really the point.

The point is that it doesn't rain for real in Vancouver, even though it's always bloody raining. Piss rain is rain that can't commit to being rain. It falls in sparse, cold drops. It wets your feet even though a small, foldable umbrella can take it on. It can't decide if it's started or stopped. It sure as hell can't affect the feel of the place, except to make everything grey, but as it is, it's no excuse to take the day off to enjoy it, because there's nothing to enjoy. In its aftermath everything's just vaguely muddy, everybody's just vaguely moist. Discomforted. Nothing more. Like a housefly you keep hearing buzzing against a window pane, only you haven't spotted it yet so you can't let it out.

Summer is supposed to be our reprise, but it's just another one of the Lower Mainland's broken promises. I mean, it's already late July, the solstice came and went a month ago, if we're not getting summer weather now, we're probably not going to get it for all that long this year.

I can't wait to move away from here. I can't believe that finally, for real, in less than a year I could well be experiencing a monsoon. Preferably on a bike, in East Coast Park, laughing and trying to find a shelter, but with no real conviction because hey, I'd already be as wet as I'm ever going to be.

Annonce

2005-07-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

Joie is still alive. But she is very busy. She will do that thing on Josh's blog once she can think of answers to all the categories. She was tempted to use that thing as an excuse to not study neurobiology (like she did with that music meme) but resisted. This is because she needs to get upwards of 93% in her next two exams in order to maintain her A average. This is remotely possible therefore she has to try.

A quick summary of things to date:

Dinner with Parents
Dinner with parents went fine. No speeches were made and only a few boundaries vaguely declared. Mostly spent with everybody consuming a fair amount of alcohol. Being driven home later by dad was slightly scary. Dad claimed that he was fully sober. Suuuuuuuurrrrrrrre.

Father's Day Dinner with Brian
BEST. DINNER. EVER. Jim, Brian and I went to Stonegrill (1661 Granville St, Vancouver B.C. (604)637-0388) which serves your dinner on slabs of volcanic granite heated to 400 °C. Your meat arrives unseasoned except for a pinch of salt on the side on your stone and you then proceed to cook it to your desired doneness bite by bite so that your entire meal is hot from start to finish and there's no one in the kitchen to re-interpret "medium-rare". There's roasted veggies, roasted potatoes and dipping sauce on the side. Not only was the main course superb, Jim and Brian both got set meals (+$14 to your main course) and the soup, salad, intermediate sorbet and desert (with tea or coffee) was a perfect compliment (so was the bottle of Shiraz Jim and I shared). Good food, good company, good wine. It was as perfect as a dinner could get. It's been two weeks since I've been and I still can't stop thinking about it.

Brian's kittens
Some time ago, this stray cat up and adopted Brian. No, that's not a typo. She (her name is Anamika - Hindi for 'the one with no name') appeared one day and decided that she would stay at Brian's. Not too long after Brian noticed that she was pregnant. Not yet knowing whether she belonged to someone else as well, he didn't allow her to have her litter in his house. Turns out she truly was a stray and a month after she had her kittens, Brian's landlord brought him a box of five, four week old kittens that were found in his attic. This weekend they're all old enough to go out to their new homes, but the last month's been really fun, watching them being kittens. The best part was noting their incredibly fast development over the short four weeks that they've been known to us. Of course I've fallen hard for one (a cute peaches and cream male that I've nicknamed Momotaro - incidently the only kitten that isn't claimed at this time) but we can't possibly have three cats. Or can we?

The Neuropsych Fiasco
57%. Yes ladies and Gentlemen, this is an all-time-low. I just didn't feel like studying and when I forced myself to sit with the textbook, the lines swam into each other and my brain refused to retain anything (if anything) my eyes were recording. I always tend to lose focus and motivation whenever my parents are near (like how Frodo's sword glows blue when orcs are near) and they struck again. Like I mentioned earlier I need 93% in the next two exams (the course has four exams, each worth 25% of the final grade) in order to maintain my very respectable A average.

On that note, I'm going to end here because goddamit, I gotta go study. Meanwhile, you guys can entertain yourself with my favourite Asian guys. It's a big file, so I apologize, but it's so worth it. I just can't believe how much I used to like that song. Damn, I hate that I'm part of the boyband generation. *shudder* Better than being teenagers of the 80's though. :P

Into Words

2005-06-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to dinner with Jim and my parents to talk about the last two years. It's not really a sit-down and air our your issues session. In fact, we're having dinner at Las Margaritas which is one of Jim and I's favourite places to dine. My dad's even picking us up at our place (through their network of well placed informants they figured out where we were living long before I was telling people we moved) so that we can have a few drinks at dinner. I have a few qualms about going to dinner in one car, seeing as that limits my ability to walk out of dinner, but I still find it very difficult to say no to my dad.

Since I agreed to attending my Grandad's birthday party a while back, I've been invited for dinners and weekend parties. What I find disturbing about all of this is that I'm not cool with my parents. When I show up at their house, it has nothing to do with them. It's about my Grandad's birthday. My brother's birthday/graduation. Events that are around the people I love. They don't seem to get that. It seems like they think I'm cool with them, evidenced by their casual invitations to weeknight dinners that are not centred around anything in particular. The message I feel is being sent here (by me, if I accept these invitations and start hanging out at their house once or twice a week) is that I don't matter. That I can be treated any which way without anybody suffering any consequences. I don't want that to be the message. I want the message to be that I will no longer stand for any of that bullshit that made me move out and stop talking in the first place. Furthermore I want acknowledgement of said bullshit and ownership. We're not cool, we're not buddies. I want that clear.

With that in mind, I drafted a mini-speech that I was going to deliver over Friday's dinner. I've reproduced it here.

To my mother: I don't like the kind of person you are. You are not a genuine person. In fact, as I am saying these things, I can guarantee that you are marking choice phrases in your mind that you can repeat to your friends for sympathy and attention. I also don't like being near you because you like to deliver backhanded comments thinly veiled as jokes that are undermining. I value my free time very much and as such, I am not willing to spend my free time with you.

To my dad: You're cool. Right now. That's just the thing. Whether you're cool or not fluctuates dramatically and unpredictably. Not to mention, you're not around that much, so much of what I know about you comes from what mom tells me about you. What she tells me about you is completely dependent on what mood she's in. As we all know, her moods aren't exactly very stable. So I don't trust you because I still don't know who you are. Like I said, I value my free time, and I don't see any value in using any of that time to get to know you.

Note how the speeches are short and straightforward. Las Magaritas serves excellent alcoholic beverages so the speeches were crafted with the fact that we would all be slightly inebriated in mind. After my delivery, I was going to throw my napkin down on my plate and walk out. Short, simple, gets my point across. The only problem with this is that now our dinner plans include us not having our own car anyway. Plus, after I ran these speeches past Jim, he shut me down pretty quickly.

Don't get me wrong. Jim's really supportive of the fact that I want to establish my not coolness with my parents. He just doesn't think I should burn bridges in the process. Jim's also a huge advocate for postivity in resolution. He never thinks it's a good idea to make people suffer a little, regardless of whether they've made you suffer. He's a good guy, that kid, can be a little self-righteous, but alright.

So I'm not going to get to deliver my mini-speeches. Shame. I think they're quite well-crafted. All the same, Friday night's dinner isn't going to be all flowers and wine. I'm still going to let my not coolness be known and I'm currently working on a gentler angle with Jim. Alone, I doubt I can come up with anything nicer that the stuff I had already planned on saying. I just don't understand why there would be any benefit to cushioning the words I had planned on. The feelings that I have are still strong, I haven't forgottten and I'm not so sure I believe in acceptance. I think making my words less cutting will decrease their impact. Despite that, I also have to take into consideration respect for Jim, in that he didn't approve the speech and that he will be in a nasty position if I do deliver it over dinner.

Not Funny Yet

2005-06-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

This guide might be a hoax. I seriously hope it's for real, not because I wish this sort of attitudes on generations before me, but for the simple reason that it is never okay to poke fun at the fact that men and women are not equal. This will only be a funny joke the day there is gender equality. Fuck.

Gearing up for the GRE

2005-06-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

The Graduate Record Examination is ironically best taken right after you've exited high school. Not during your last year of your undergrad degree. The main reason for this is that the Math section contains all the math that you encountered in high school and that was left to rot while you were taking Psych 100. In my years at UBC I've only taken one math course (because it was easier than 'O' level A math...I didn't study and got an A in a class whose average was 54%) and even that was calculus, a subject that doesn't feature heavily on the GRE anyway.

I'm cautiously optimistic about how I'm going to perform on the GRE. For one thing, I'm not scheduled to take it until Sept 10th. Oh gosh. I just realised that I signed up for the GRE on the day after my birthday. Oh fan-fucking-tastic. I didn't think twice about it until I typed the date right now. For the first time in years my birthday (21st at that!) is falling on a Friday. What do I do about it? Schedule a major test for the next day. Bye bye party plans. Stupid. I digress.

I scheduled it for the first weekend after school starts because that's when there isn't much mayhem and it gives me all summer to study for it. Especially that little bit at the end of August where I'm done all my summer classes and have nothing else to study for. I've already ordered two prep books from Amazon.ca and an online prep course from 800score.com. I don't expect preparations for the GRE to be painful, mainly because I did pretty good at E math in sec school. Not to mention this is something I'm really psyched about because I've done well on standardized tests in the past (qualifying for GEP and Mensa) and a good score opens up more possibilities than my current average will afford. Right now I'm salivating over the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Dept. in Brown University and if all goes well, I might have a good shot.

If anyone wants to share my login for 800score.com (it's valid for 365 days starting today) email me and we'll talk. I'm still not sure if the system is condusive for sharing, but if it is, I would like to. I say take it even if you're not considering grad school because the scores are good for 5 years and I think your age is considered (the younger the better) when you take the test. I could be wrong, but then again, I might be dead right. :P

The scariest thing about the GRE is how much strategy is a factor in test taking. Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, strategy. For one thing it's a 4 hour ordeal. Can you remember the last time you had to take a 4 hour exam? How about NEVER! Despite all that time spent taking the test, all your given answers are final (you cannot look back at a question after you've given an answer), you cannot skip questions (same reason as the above paranthesis), blank answers incur a double penalty (so it's better to give a wrong answer than leave it blank, and it's crucial that you don't run out of time) and the test is customized based on whether or not you answer questions correctly. The last point is a little complicated so I'm going to explain it further. If you answer the first question right, you will be directed to a harder question, if not, an easier one. If you answer the second question right, you will be directed to a harder question, if not, an easier one. So on and so forth. In this way, the first few questions you answer determine how difficult a test you are administered and the bulk of your score (like the SATs, the GRE is out of 800). This graph, taken from 800score.com illustrates the point:

Get those first questions right! The blue graph shows a student who got the first 8 questions right and the remainder wrong and the red graph show a student who got the first 8 questions wrong and the remainder right. The blue student scores much higher, despite answering fewer questions correctly.

There you have it folks, this is what I'm going to be doing with my summer. Please get in touch with me if you're wrestling with the GRE too. I would love to have someone to talk to along the way.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

2005-06-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I've been able to visit the States. The border might only be an hour's drive away from where I live but without my passport and papers I haven't exactly been able to cross it. This lack of documentation caused me to miss Jim's Mom's wedding, deprived me of cross-border factory outlet shopping and limited our vacation options. Not that there was anything wrong with our trip to Victoria but all the same, it would have been nice to have more options.

The second I consented to talking to my parents again I asked for my legal documents. Yesterday I was able to use them for the first time in a couple years.

It wasn't a day trip, we really just went to visit Jim's mom in the late afternoon and stay for dinner. It was my first time to her new place and it was so awesome. The house is located in a gated community with strictly enforced 30kmph (20mph for those Yankees) speed limits. Is the US the last place that has yet to switch to metric? Seriously! I mean petrol is bought in gallons, speed limits are in miles I don't understand the resistance. Metric makes so much more sense. I guess this isn't the first things about Americans that is rather stupid.

Anyways, back to the house. It's in a gated community by a beach that opens out into the Pacific. While her house is not on the ocean, there is a pond in the backyard that hosts families of ducks, a beaver or two and alot of cute fish. Visitors to her backyard also include bunnies (apparently the community have dozens of bunnies) and really interesting birds. Interesting to me at least, I'm still not used to the birds that you can find here. The best part about the house is that Lynne's offered to let Jim and I stay on weekends whenever we want to get away. I'm definitely planning a weekend around that. The place is about a two hours drive from Seattle and just a stone's throw from Bellingham (factory outlet!) so it will be well appreciated. I just love the freedom my passport is affording me!

I'll just take this moment to answer a question Puja posed to me. Considering that my final answer was for her to call the American Consulate, she might already know this, provided that the Americans that staff the consulate near where she is are more competent than the ones that staff the Vancouver branch. See when I called the consulate all they could tell me that because I had Permanent Resident (PR) status I needed a visa to get into the States. However, if I were just a Singaporean on holiday, I wouldn't. A visa costs $100USD which was way more than I was willing to bear just to cross the border.

Then I asked me dad (more recently, of course). Due to the fact that Singapore is a participating country in the Visa Waiver Program all I need to do at the border is present my passport and fill out a Visa Waiver form. They take the prints off both my index fingers, my photograph and $6USD of my money. Now I'm free to cross the border for 90 days. For vists longer than 90 days, then you will need a visa. After the 90 days has expired, all you have to do is fill out another Visa Waiver form and shell out another $6USD. So the Americans on my side couldn't tell me this, but there you go. For any of you who are wanting to visit the States now you know what to do. No $100USD. Just $6USD.

Once we got to Lynne's we took a walk to the beach. It was one of those rocky beaches, not sandy, with alot of seaweed and kelp. The Pacific was very cold but it felt good against my feet in their sandals. Always one to make the most out of every situation, I started looking for nice rocks. I have this thing for nice rocks. They have to be a nice smooth shape and an interesting colour. I have a white rock speckled with black-grey (dalmatian looking rock) that's a nice spheroid (I learnt what a "spheroid" was from Jeopardy) that sits satisfyingly in your palm. I also have a yellow one with dark purple dots. No really. I was surprised to find it. All in all I must've brought back at least 5lbs (~2kg) of rocks. I'm soaking them right now and changing the water every day. After a week they will be safe to introduce into a fresh water fish tank. Although I don't have fish in my fish tank right now, it doesn't mean I can't have a rock garden. I just want the rocks to be safe so that when I eventually do want to add fish I will be able to with minimal trouble. (Right now my fish tank is clean with gravel in it, a filter and a heater. No water.)

For dinner I whipped up a really good "Greek" salad. I have the word Greek in quotations because the only thing Greek about it was the feta cheese that I added right at the end. For the recipe, see below. Jim grilled New York strip steaks with fresh oregano from the garden. We enjoyed the whole meal with some really good red wine that, interestly enough, was available for purchase at a gas station. Ah...those wacky Yankees. After dinner we played Chinese checkers (man, haven't played that in a damn long time) and Scrabble (which was an excruciating game). Exhausted and satisfied we finally left Lynne's at about 8:30pm.

So that was my first sojourn into the States in almost three years. I had fun, and I can't wait to go back. Afterall, my Visa Wavier does last all Summer.

Joie's "Greek" Salad
Red Capsicum (Pepper)
Tomato
English Cucumber
Sweet Onion (White or Red)
Garlic
Butter
Feta Cheese
Salt & Pepper

1. Chop all the veggies into chunks. The size of the chunks depends completely on (a) how much work you are willing to put in and (b) how chunky you want your salad.

2. Melt the butter in a pan over high heat. It's a good thing if some of the butter solids burn a little and turn brown. It's a bad thing if this happens to all the butter. Toss in the chopped garlic (the more the merrier I say) and sauté over medium until most of (90%) the garlic is browned. If using an electric stove, turn off the element but leave the pan on for another minute or two to let the rest of the garlic brown. If using gas stove, just brown garlic and remove from heat.

3. Toss the veggies with the butter, garlic and feta cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Voilá!

2005-05-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

My Penis Name is: Bavarian Beefstick

Get your own Penis Name

Thoughts on Pink Hair

2005-05-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

Shortly after I quit the casino, I decided to dye the front part of my hair pink. See photo. I didn't think too much about it at the time, except that it would be nice to do something that wasn't able to do under my previous circumstances. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the casino has really strict rules regarding hair and dress. I mean, you could get a yellow warning slip (three of these and you're fired) for having nails that are not painted either in a pink or a white shade. (Peach is technically orange, something that I didn't know prior to working for the casino. Neat how you learn things in places you never thought you would eh?) Pink hair to me was just a declaration of summer and an independence from a workplace that had treated me well, but that I had to leave. Besides, I was planning to go back and something like pink hair is nice and reversible.

That was all the thought I had put into dyeing my hair this colour (it's semi-permanent too so with each progressive hair washing a little of the garishness washes out. Right now it's a darker pink than the photograph, which was taken the morning after.) but now that I've worn it for about a month, here are some thoughts.

The first thing that I noticed about my hair is that it connects me with a culture I'm really not a part of. When I wear all black, goths make eye contact with me and give what I can only think is their version of a smile. Not only that, old people avoid me, middle-aged people stare at me and teenagers with skateboards and spiky hair give me a nod. In fact, I was approaching this guy for the time one day and he practically recoiled. Man, this hair thing is really categorizing. Then again, when I'm wearing more subdued colours, like a white sweater on khakis, I don't get people crossing the street to avoid me. I just get alot of disapproving stares from the parent's generation set.

You know, if someone told me that people would react the way they do to my appearance before I dyed my hair, I probably wouldn't have done it. Like I said, there wasn't that much thought put into the decision. I mean it's hair dye people! Probably the most temporary semi-permenent alteration you can do to yourself. With the possible exception of painting your nails. Which, oddly enough is more expensive to maintain than pink hair. Having said that though, there is no way I'm going to dye my hair black again any time soon.

Sure I get weird reactions from people, but who the hell cares? It's a bunch of strangers. I'm not looking for a job, I'm not looking to even make a good first impression. Why? Because I don't have to. I like that. My pink hair says that I am able to go about my life without having to care about what other people will think. It's incredibly liberating, even if it is a cheap thrill. I mean this is the first time I know that I have job security (even if it is just for the summer), and that I don't have to please anyone. Hell I'm even going to change my voicemail to something a little more whimsical than "Hi, this is Johanna, I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now...". Why? Because no one that cares whether or not I have a professional sounding voicemail is going to call me. Damn, I like that.

Today I went for a walk in a black spaghetti strap top, pink hair and a black skirt that fell just above the knees. I resisted the black eyeliner thing just in case I ran into a few real goths. Then I just looked around and really enjoyed the fact that even though people were reacting to me, I didn't have to give a shit. Man did that feel good! I mean I'm usually sort of concious about others looking at me and forming an impression. Today, who the hell cares! They're not looking at anything other than my pink hair. Alllright. To put this into context a little, I've been job hunting due to a variety of circumstances for three years now. I've always had to make sure that my hair was nice, that my fingernails were neat, that I would make a good first impression, basically, because I never know when the next opportunity would turn up. The jobs I've held have also had dress codes that were upwards of "business casual". I don't have to care about that right now and I'm announcing it to the world with bright pink hair.

I still have more than two thirds of the pot of pink colour. I don't think I will refresh it though because my grandad gives me an anguished look every time he sees it. He also keeps asking when I'm going to restore it. Under the guise that I don't have much free time (which is partially true) I'm telling him that it will get done when I have the time. I mean, last night I noted that there are a great many things that I can't wear anymore from my wardrobe because it clashes with my hair and to be honest, the novelty is wearing off. For the time being though, it still thrills me to bits to think that I don't have to care what other people are thinking about me. For the record, the prof I'm working for as an RA explicitly said that he didn't care and then introduced me to a grad student in our dept. with purple hair. He spikes his purple hair too, which gives it more of a shock factor than mine, I think.

So that's that people. Pink hair. I love it, I like it and I certainly recommend it. Maybe for those of you who are leaving the army behind or something. Or that penultimate term at the university, just before you have to start job hunting and enter the real world. Join the movement!

Something about a Music Meme?

2005-05-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

So Lisa has invited me to do a music meme. I have no idea what that is, but I'm going to try my darndest, because that's just how I am. Also, I've been rooting around for a good reason to not be studying neurobiology. This might not be a good reason, but it's reason enough right now.

Total volume of music files on my computer:
10.5GB. Wow, I had no idea I had that much music on my computer. I guess it doesn't really all count as music though, because I have a good many "spoken word" downloads. Like all five Harry Potters, which should take up quite a bit of room all by themselves. I also have BBC radio plays (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, Brave New World, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe...) and BBC documentaries. Jim downloads most of the music and I just listen to it. That is, when I'm not listening to one of the Harry Potters. Which means not often. I just don't have a music player program that I'm comfortable enough with to create playlists and the like, alright?

The last CD I bought was:
A hell of a long time ago....I guess that isn't really an answer is it? The last CD I bought was as a gift to Jim, which was the Beatles Blue album. I'm pretty sure that I got it for his 19th birthday...and he just turned 22. The last CD I bought for myself was...damn. I can't even remember the name of the band. But basically I bought it at Canada day with Lisa (not on her last visit, but the one before that. Yeah a really long time ago). It was by one of the performing bands and they were Irishy and played songs that they wrote about Canada. Catchy and amusing, but I have no idea where the CD is now and can't even look them up because I can't remember what their name is. Maybe Lisa can help. Afterall, she started this. I guess to be fair, the last CD I would have bought/downloaded if I had gotten my act together would either be something by the Be Good Tanyas or one of the Savage Garden (yes, I still like them) albums. In fact, now you guys out there know what to get me for gifts. Ha.

Song playing right now
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is what's playing right now. Jim Dale's reading just provides the right amount of background for what I'm doing. I don't have to pay attention to it and it's over 26 hours long, which means that I don't have to toggle with song lists or anything for a good 26 hours. If there was to be something playing right now though it'd either be by the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel or the Barenaked Ladies. Maybe something by Leonard Cohen, but for some reason I always have a hard time locating his files on this computer.

Five Songs I listen to alot or mean alot to me
1. Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
I know this is a poem by Robert Frost, but it was arranged for a girl's choir. I used to have a poor recording of it on mp3, but I don't anymore. I wish I had some recording of this. This was the song that every generation of RGS choir learns. It's very soothing and sparkly. I like it.

2. Feeling Groovy by Simon and Garfunkel
It's upbeat, it's short and it medleys well with "Here comes the Sun" by the Beatles. Another uplifting song. I had to decide between listing one or the other because really, they are in the same category and I always play them together. Oh well, I guess I listed them both and cheated by putting them under one heading. Nice.

3. Love You Madly by Cake
This is the requisite "Jim and me" song. We used to dance to this song in his living room before we moved in together. This was when we didn't have a TV so we danced for entertainment. I keep saying that we should do this again, but we have no way to play music in our living room. Either way, it's not a sappy mushy song, and the beat is moderate, which means you're not exhausted after dancing to it. I like it and it sums up how Jim and I feel about each other rather nicely. :)

4. Time of Your Life by Greenday
Whenever I hear this song I think about my time in sec 3 and 4. Arguably one of the best times in my life. I say arguably because now that I'm out on my own and autonomous it feels great. But if I had to pick a time in my life to go back to, there would be no question that it would be this time period. The lyrics and everything seem to evoke such sentimental memories, but it's more the fact that this was the overplayed song at the time. I'm just thankful that the song I became attached to for this reason was not "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. It was equally overplayed at the time...Then again, I have much better taste than that.

5. Where is the Love by Black Eyed Peas
Yeah don't worry. I'm surprised by this entry too. I like this one because it's comforting. Wait, just let me explain alright? To explain this you have to understand that there are two main ways of dealing with stress. (1)Emotion-based coping, (2)Situation based coping. Or something like that. The point is that the first method involves dealing with the stress response and the second involves dealing with whatever is causing the stress. The second method is the more effective method in all cases except those cases in which there is nothing the individual can do to affect the stressful situation. Like if you live near Chernobyl. In cases like this, then the first method is more effective, because you're not fighting a losing battle and you are dealing with the stress response. So back to "Where is the Love". This is the best "Emotion-based coping" song to today's biggest social problems. I can't do anything while I'm on the bus to school to affect hunger in Africa, the war in Iraq or the abuse of children in foster homes. But I can sing along to the chorus of "Father, father, father help us/with some guidance from above..." and it makes me feel a little better about the world.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton:
1. Jiahui
2. Joel
3. Joshua
4. Puja
5. Tammy

That's in alphabetical order right? Alphabetical order took me longer than it should've to figure out. Bloody, my brain cells are being fried. Oh wait, I really should be studying about brain cells. Alright guys, so that's my music meme. Knock yourselves out.

Not That Bad

2005-05-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

So in answer to my last post, I got an email from my dad (no Joel, it was a coincidence, my immediate family still does not know I have a blog, save Jim, and no we're not married...but we are common-law, which means that having lived together for more than a year we can claim to be married under the law, for like, taxes and things. But we don't claim common-law because we get bigger tax refunds that way.) So I got an email from my dad inviting me to my grandad's 68th birthday party. I mean, if I'm invited, I might as well go because I really want to meet my grandparents.

So I go.

And it wasn't that bad.

Apart from the fact that I really want to kill my mother. I mean, Puja even offered to represent me if I do anything and bring the charges down to self defense. The evening wasn't that bad.

My dad was aweseome. But then again, he's always either awesome or impossible depending on his mood. I'm glad he was awesome last night. Started talking again like there was no absence. As for the rest of my family, I was keeping in touch with them anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

My mother. She's psycho. She was so stiff and cold when I was there. When I arrived, I must admit that I made it a point to hug everyone but her. Jim was sweet. Jim hugged everyone but my dad (which makes sense, my dad's not a realy huggy person and a hug from Jim would only make him uneasy). Well, she turned up asking for a hug. You can't refuse that pointblank so I gave her one. But the weirdest thing is that she didn't return it. It was like hugging a zombie, it was the creepiest thing! Then she spent the rest of the night making snippy comments at me. Sometimes just to me, but sometimes also with the people who live in their basement present. I don't like her much, that woman.

Isaac is tall. Like seriously. But that seems to have been the only difference. He still talks like he used to (quickly and rather incoherently). He still has about a head to go before he's Jonathan's height, but he's right on pace. He's only 13 this year after all.

So that was that. They invited Jim and I to drive up with them to Whistler today and have a Japanese meal, but I declined. I mean just because I consented to one birthday party doesn't mean everything's cool. It just means, well, that I'm going to get my passport and official documents. :D

At any rate, I'm starving and I'm going to go get a McDonald's breakfast. Keep in touch people!

Cop Out

2005-05-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

My grandparents arrive in Vancouver today and I completely neglected to do what they asked me to do prior to their arrival. I didn't call my parents and try to make amends. In my defense, I faked a lost cell phone and I truly lost my voice for a while. Oy, what a mess this is going to be.

See, they wanted me to make amends with my parents mainly because the last time I visted on a regular basis was when they were here. My parents picked up on the fact that I only vist when they are here, and most frequently of all when my parents are gone and my grandparents are babysitting and got a little jealous. Which in turn put my grandparents in an understandably awkward position. It's not their fault I don't want to have much (if anything) to do with my parents. Yet their visits only serve to highlight that I am not excluding my entire family, but am selectively avoiding my parents. See, if the case were that I was ostracizing myself from my family, then it's a little less personal. But it's personal, and they know it.

So this time around, my grandparents want to see me. They also want to avoid all the strange sentiments that would be floating around as a result of that. In fact, I think they've been denying that they have been in touch with me. A lie that exploded rather spectacularly when I consented to their giving my paternal grandparents my contact number. So now both sets of grandparents call me on a regular basis and at least one set if not two is telling my parents about it.

Plus, my grandparents are coming laden with gifts for me from a great number of relatives, also whom I an obviously in touch with. Yah. The thing with my parents is personal, and it's about to get really obvious.

Then again, what the hell do you say after a year and a half of silence? Especially if in truth, you really want to have nothing to do with them again after your grandparents leave?

See. I had a little less than two weeks to come up with that answer, and I still don't have it. Can any of you do any better? I seriously doubt it, but I would like to invite everyone to try. :P

While on the topic of emoticons, does anyone know who the hell [: is? Left a stupid message on my tagboard. Bloody anonymous posters.

You know, I can come up with a host of good reasons not to ever have anything to do with my parents ever again. Since our estrangement, my grades have risen spectacularly, my confidence has reached new heights and my sense of self is more defined than ever before. I even have a working theory that my mother is a sociopath. Charles Manson was a sociopath. I've studied this condition in two classes (and soon will study it in a third) and while I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis, I am certainly qualified to suspect with greater accuracy than the average person is. Despite all these reasons though, I know that there will be people out there who tell me that the parent-child relationship should supercede all of this. I don't buy it. I think the self is more important than a single biological bond (especially if you're biologically bonded to a borderline psycho). I know that last statement wasn't very Chinese, but to bow to tradition for the sake of tradition? Well that's just bourgeoisie.

I still don't know how the events will play out. My grandparents are going to be here until mid-Sept, so I'm steeling myself for the drama that is undoubtedly going to ensue. One thing is clear though, I am not going to allow my parents to play the victim (their favourite strategy) in any of this.

91 seconds. Check it out.

2005-05-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Damn It.

2005-05-11T12:32:00.000-07:00