Quote of the Moment:
"...those who cause the greatest pain, speak the kindest."
    --Fanny Howe, Indivisible
...

From now on, if I like you, you are not allowed to speak kindly to me for fear of you causing me pain. Don't cause me pain. I couldn't take it if I liked you. If I don't like you, on the other hand, profanity is MORE than welcome. :p

As I was walking to class today from my not-so-godawful far parking spot in the outer-parking lot, I caught a whiff of something in the air. I realized I was walking directly downwind of a guy that STANK! It was bad enough to make me hold my breath, pinch my nose, and break into an almost run in an attempt to just get ahead of him so I wouldn't have to have him wafting my way. All I could think about was how I wanted to buy this guy a stick of deodorant and maybe even a bottle of the knock-off colognes they were selling in the Meeting Place today...frickin' guy...

omg. Choose Your Own Adventure Porn actually exists! Knee-boy (ew) brought it to my attention that there exists a porn company that you can call and tell them what you want to happen, and basically, they'll make you a custom porn movie--JUST for you! You pick the plot, the actors/actresses (down to the size, colour, poofy-hair, fingernail polish, etc.), costumes, and setting. Apparently, someone (true story!) phoned in and asked for 2 hours of just girls seductively picking at their lint-filled bellybuttons. Mmmm...sexy! (my god, where do these people come from?!) And another one was just 2 hours of girls spanking each other--no sex, just spanking. Whew...sure turns your crank, doesn't it? Anyway, these custom videos cost $2000 U.S.D, give or take the complexity--I'm sure the above described videos cost the callers a bundle! :p So uh...what's that number again, Knee-boy?

Most people hate Mondays. However, as these last 3 weeks have progressed, I'm finding that I myself am growing less and less fond of Sundays. It's not because I don't get to sleep in--because I do; it's not because I have to go to class--because I don't; it's because I have to say goodbye to the one I'm CRAZY about for yet another long stretch of 4 and a 1/2 days. I MISS YOU ALREADY HUN-GEE!!!

As I was walking to class today from my godawfully far parking spot in the outer-OUTER-parking lot, I caught a whiff of something sweet in the air. I realized I was walking directly downwind of a guy wearing Swiss Army cologne; the ORIGINAL Swiss Army cologne; the GOOD Swiss Army cologne. So as he waddled (he was a little short...) and I walked; as he wafted and I whiffed, all I could think about was how damn GOOD that cologne smelled and how it stirred some animalistic craving in me...frickin' guy...

"Save your money and call the Caribbean by dialing..."
"Hi, I'm Alice, and LavaLife lets me leave messages for guys like..."
"Sign up for OnLine-Tel's premium long distance package today..."
"Did you know that here at the Labatt brewery..."
Okay LabattBlueLine, I've signed up and given you all my information, I've punched in all the numbers, I've listened to all your cute little ads, and I know you're a free service and all, but WHY THE HELL DOESN'T THIS THING WORK HALF THE FREAKIN' TIME?!?!
...oh wait...it's dialing now...

Ill-kent and I were talking the other night and came up with this year's new series of bestsellers. The series name? "Choose Your Own Adventure Porn." It's ingenious I tell you, simply ingenious! Ill-kent and I are going to make millions! And who wouldn't want to buy "Choose Your Own Adventure Porn"? Come on--for some out there, it's gotta be better than any date they've gone on. And the best part about these pseudo-dates? If you make a mistake, you just backtrack and do it again and again until you've got it right!

You hear soft music as you enter the bedroom and are met with pillars upon pillars of lit, glowing candles. You see her lying there on the black satin sheets, wearing a little red negligee and black stilettos--handcuffs in her teeth and a cat-o'-nine-tails at her feet. A bottle of wine and two wine glasses are waiting by the door...
    - If you smile slyly, close the door behind you and start taking off your jacket, turn to page 17
    - If you decide to admit to her that you're not a lesbian and must have wandered into the wrong hotel room, turn to page 8

I guess that's one of the tougher choices you'd be faced with in this particular episode, although with those handcuffs and nine tails, I wonder if you'd get away with telling her you weren't interested...

Doesn't it drive you NUTS when your loving boyfriend takes hours to call you back or forgets to call you back altogether, even after he'd promised he would, and then when YOU finally call HIM, he picks up the phone and it sounds like he's been doing NOTHING the whole time, but he gives you a sorry excuse anyway about having to do some chore or another for his mom at home that you know he didn't do at all, and it just enrages you even more that he would even TRY to get away with it with you but you're NOT going to let him get away with it so you start telling him that you were upset with him for not calling and then what starts off as a simple exchange of opinions on the matter blows up into a full on shouting match between you two about who's right and who's wrong that finally ends abruptly when he slams the phone down just after you scream something about hating how lazy and inconsiderate he can be, bursting into tears as you slam down your end of the line too--don't you HATE it when that happens?! Oh, you do? Oh...that must really suck...I've never had to deal with anything like that before; my boyfriend always calls me back when he says he will. (I love you hun-Gee...)

Quote of the Moment:
"Soon is brutally endless."
    --a guy I read a story by last year...

I had just turned the corner and was heading down the next hallway to class when I noticed the bucket. The brown plastic pail was sitting a few feet out from the wall; a slowly spreading puddle all around it. It was put there haphazardly along with a wet floor sign to try to catch the slow drizzle of rain leaking in from the outer wall of the fourth floor above...

...this buliding may have won awards for its architecture, but as for its construction and durability...no wonder I'm paying so much for tuition.

Quote of the Moment:
"It smells like something crawled out of your ass, into your mouth, died, came back to life again just to fart, and died again--seriously."
    --MAD tv

Things I'm Grateful To Have in My life:
- the ability to express myself through words; I need not be afraid of speaking up...
- the sense to know when something's not right for me; I need not settle for just anything...
- parents that care for me; I need not worry about ever being left in the cold...
- a brother that I truly get along with; I need not ever explain myself to him...
- true friends that I can count on to always support me; I never have to cry alone...
- a boyfriend that loves me unconditionally; I need not wonder about what we share...
and right now, I'm truly grateful for my sense of self-esteem and independence; I need NOT post pictures of myself with SOMEONE ELSE'S BOYFRIEND on the internet JUST to get some ATTENTION!!!

Jury Selection: Part II
Alarm blaring at me, I groggily crawl to the end of my bed and hammer the snooze button for a fifth time; it's Friday morning, before 8:00 and I don't want to get up. Mom pokes her head into my room a moment later to nag about me still being in bed and something about my brother screwing up the clocks--I decide to get up just so she'll stop talking so loudly. Finishing my morning routine hurriedly, I'm out of the house about 10 minutes later than I should be and headed for the good ol' subway station.

This time I manage to stay awake for most of the ride (whether it's out of fear for missing my stop again or out of fear for falling asleep on the sweaty and "big-boned" lady taking up half my seat next to me, I'll never really know) and fly up the stairs of the station once I reach my destination. I power-walk up University Avenue and slide through the courthouse doors, my bag all ready to be passed through the x-ray machine and I not holding anything metal, ready to be passed through the metal detector; I'm already a pro at this, but unfortunately the lady at the scanner doesn't know this:
    "Do you have anything in your pockets that you need to remove?"
    "I don't have any pockets."
And up the elevator to the sixth floor I rush once again--it's 9:35am; I'm only 5 minutes late.

A crowd of people are already up there, and there are three commissioners conveniently standing where I almost knock them over as I step out of the elevator. I check in with the lady who scans her attendance list 3 times over before she realizes I'm the first name there and then go and stand by the wall as they argue about whether or not they can proceed yet.
    "We can start now."
    "No, number 2 isn't here,"
    "No? I thought she was?"
    "She didn't check in with me,"
    "I thought she did,"
    "She did?"
    "I don't know, did she?"
    "I don't know..."
Just because I want to catch my breath, I let them debate over it a moment longer before I step up to them:
    "Um, excuse me: I'm number 2."
    "Oh, then we can start now,"
And so they start. It's only 9:45 by now and number 1 and myself are sitting outside the court room in the hot-seat and the warm-seat respectively. I can only imagine what the seat inside the court room is called; the "blisteringly torrid Inferno-seat" perhaps. It won't be long before I find out for myself. It's about 2 minutes after the 9 jurors that have already been selected walk by us (meaning there are only 3 spots left that I could possibly fill), number 1 is called in and I move into the hot-seat, leaving my comfortable warm-seat already comfortably warm for someone else to sit in. 3 more minutes after that--it's 9:53--the door to the court room opens and I'm called in.

I walk into the room and up the few steps to the inferno-seat, but I'm told not to sit yet. They need me to swear first--which I do--and before I sit down, Mr. Honourable himself is already addressing me so I don't sit afterall in order to keep eye-contact with the man, hoping he'll see the desperation to leave in my eyes.
    "Hello Miss. Chong, I see it says here that you're a student. And which school do you attend?"
    "I'm at U of T."
    "What do you study there?"
    "I'm an English Specialist,"
    "And which year are you in?"
    "I'm in my third year,"
    "Well I'm sure you're very anxious to get back to your studies, Miss Chong, and we won't keep you any longer--you're excused, thank you."
And with that I stepped down (without ever know what the inferno-seat's like) and head out the other set of doors to the court room, down the 6 flights of escalators, and through the one-at-a-time revolving doors into the before-10am sunlight.
...

ARGH!!! Aren't I happy that I didn't get picked for jury duty? Yes, I'm elated. But they could have told me I wasn't going to get picked TWO DAYS AGO!!! As a result, I spent a combined total of 3 hours on or waiting for the TTC today because right after I was released I headed to try to catch my one and only class left today that I had already missed on Wednesday... At least it's over. That much I can be glad for.

So what could possibly suck more than having to cut and paste nearly every line of code in an attempt to fix your webpage by trial and error? Serving a day of jury selection. And what could then possibly suck even more than serving a day of jury selection? Finding out that you have to serve 2 days of jury selection...

It's 6:45am when I finally roll out of bed this morning. Scrounging around in the dimness that is my room before the sun rises, I manage to get dressed and stow my books in anticipation of heading to class after attending my juror summons down at the court house on University Avenue. I somehow manage to move one foot in front of the other in the correct direction towards the subway station and magically find myself on a train heading for Queen's Park Station after trying three times to insert my token into that damn tiny slot--it's not even 7:15; I'm still only semi-functional. As the train rolls to a stop at Osgoode Station, I slowly open my sleepy eyes only to be jolted awake and onto my feet when I realize I've already missed my station by one.

Up to street level I climb behind someone so perfectly heighted that if I glance anywhere close to forward, my gaze is gravitationally sucked toward their self-inflicted, atomic wedgie. Apparently that field-of-vision disruption is enough to temporarily erase my counting skills as it takes me a whole 5 minutes to realize that 361 University Avenue does not occur between 393 and 425 University Avenue and that I should quit trying to search for the Crown Attorney's office under the Timothy's Coffee listings. It's another 10 minutes later when I've finally backtracked to the court house, passed through the metal detectors (at least I made it through those on my first try), and am on my way to the 6th floor, only to spend 10 more minutes shuffling along in what I believe to be a line heading into the courtroom.

Sitting on the wooden benches that have too much butt space but too little armrest, I learn my first thing about juror summons: when they say "be here at 8:30am," they really mean "wake up at some ungodly hour, rush your a$$ down here because you're afraid to be late, and then sit here on these damn uncomfortable benches that make you long for your overcrowded lecture halls while 'commissioners' wander in and out of the court room for two hours before they tell you they're running 'a bit behind schedule'."

Finally I'm told to "please rise" (off my sore yet numb a$$) and the selection begins. First off the guy at the front tells me and the rest of the room what we're all there for because obviously the letter of summons and the double-sided pamphlet enclosed with it didn't do that thoroughly enough already. Next, he reads off the list of the names of people to be involved with this particular case because if any one of us might know or be somehow associated with any one on there, we'll have to be excused. This list turns out to be 50 names long and the man reading manages to stumble on each and every one of them. Then of course a bunch of people line up to have their chance at being excused for knowing one of them. I momentarily muse about standing up myself, but decide I hadn't been paying enough attention to the list to be able to repeat even one name as being one I supposedly know. I am soon glad I chose not to go--the three people up there take long enough as it is...

    "And whom do you think you may be associated with in this case?"
    "I believe Guido (yes, there is a Guido on this list) is my wife's second-cousin's cousin, once removed..."

    "And whom do you think you may be associated with in this case?"
    "Ms. X is a close family friend."
    "To make sure we're talking about the same Ms. X, do you know what she holds as an occupation?"
    "No."
    "Do you know where she lives?"
    "No."
    "Do you know approximately how old she is?"
    "No..."

I sigh and continue trying to amuse myself by imagining how things could be worse for myself...unfortunately, I don't come up with much.

Next the judge offers excusals for those who are hard of hearing (I have selective hearing...), have difficulty with language (I can't speak Chinese...), or have health problems that would interfere with serving the duties of a juror. This last category draws the largest group of attempting escapees:
    "I'm old with knee problems," (I'm young with knee problems)
    "I'm having my wisdom teeth out," (you only need to listen, not talk)
    "I can't sit for long periods of time," (even though we've all been sitting for 4 hours by this point)
    "My doctor says it's not good for me to be in stressful situations," (no shit, Sherlock)...
One girl amazingly walks up to the judge's desk and, as if on cue, bursts into tears. (I wish I'd thought of that...)

As the line finally ends, I begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. "It'll be over soon," I think to myself, "Another little while and I can head to my classes!" Alas, my hope fades as Mr. Honourable then tells me that those of us remaining will have our names drawn to see when we will return for part II of selection. I nearly burst into (real) tears. And so the drawing and name reading begins, and of course the reader again stumbles on every syllable.

    "Juror #45665, Marcus X. Juror #52910, Freddy Z. Juror #..."

The process takes another 2 hours. But when I close my eyes, it sounds like I'm in a strange type of gaming hall and I'm strongly tempted to call out "BINGO" between names. Then without realizing it, I begin to hope they call me next as though I would win a prize if they do. While sitting anxiously upright, clutching my summons paper as though it's a lottery ticket, I suddenly realize I'm starving and begin to wish I'd had the foresight to bring some munchies or drinks. I give the lady across the aisle longing looks, trying to telepathically convince her to pass some of her brownies and bottled water my way. I think I've almost made the connection with her when a commissioner suddenly appears down the aisle and blocks my psychic transmissions. I then proceed to give the back of his head dirty looks until I hear what he has to say:

    "Excuse me ma'am, there's no eating or drinking in the courtroom."

So much for that idea. Then I remember the pack of gum in my backpack and decide that'll have to do. As I'm discreetly trying to search for it, I hear another commissioner materialize somewhere behind me and whisper,

    "I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to spit out your gum; there's no gum chewing while the court's in session."

And so I discreetly set my bag back on the floor as though I'd been searching for nothing and had found it, and miserably I continue to pretend I'm interested in the proceedings.

It's nearly 10 hours after I began my day when my name is finally drawn (I barely manage to hold in an "I WIN!!! Suckers!!!)and I'm finally released from that room. Giddy with excitement, I skip nearly all the way to the subway station (this time it's the right one), so relieved to be free that for the moment I forget the fact that I missed all my classes today and also the fact that I have to return to the same dreadful room on Friday morning--I'm so thrilled to be out of there that not even the fact that the subway has to stop for a while on the way home for a "medical emergency" brings me down much.
...

After such an experience today, I have troubles conceiving how anyone would want to win an elimination-type of game show like Survivor or Elimi-date; I had a taste of those kinds of reality today, and man oh man did I EVER want to be the first to go...too much waiting around for me. But then again, to be selected as a juror would indicate that you were some sort of super-human. Afterall, to be a juror you have to be so independent that you know no one, you've got some sort of vitality, you have average to excellent hearing abilities, and you have a great bill of health. Super-human, eh? Maybe I do want to be a juror...wait a minute...NO! No I don't! *sigh*

Whoo-hoo! The invasion of the creeping archive links has ceased!

Okay, now that my archives are fixed, I can no longer blame my absence from blogger on their intrusion onto my blogpage. :p And also, I'm not sure how, but I think I also managed to fix the scrolling problem many were having with my page as well (there you go, hun-Gee). Man, I'm a sheer HTML genius! Thank goodness for cutting and pasting!

Howdy Blogger, how are you, stranger? omg it's been a while...and it's not even like I've been devoted long enough to blogger that I can justify ignoring it for as long as I have. But that's okay. The more I write, the more my archives will extend into my page and leave me with less and less writing space until you'll have to read all of my thoughts down the page in a single line! That would suck...so yes, that is my justification for not writing on blogger...yes... :p