Vancouver was AWESOME!!! Well, except for the fact that it rained everyday that I was there. Oh wait, it didn't rain on the day I left...that day was beautiful, of course. I should have known--Murphy's Law or something.
Of all the 200+ pictures I took (well, mostly other people took them with MY camera), I have ONE picture of my team on court. And weren't not even playing. Ah well. I think that each of us were more excited about BEING in Vancouver than playing in Vancouver. Probably because we didn't do so hotly at the tournament, but I personally attribute to that to the fact that everyone on the team was either injured or sick by the time we actually started playing. Except for me. I just sucked badly.
Anyway, feel free to take a peek at the pictures--or not--by clicking the wad of them below--or not.
While we were out there, myself and the other girls in my room tried to cram in as much as possible in an attempt to make the most of our over-priced plane tickets out there. Our adventures in brief included shopping, touring downtown, avoiding near-collisions, having amazingly intellectual conversations, eating desserts, sampling the fresh sushi cuisine, crossing suspension bridges, riding ferries, experiencing the nightlife, taking pictures, and of course, playing volleyball.
One night though, I had an extremely blonde moment I would like to share. I was staying in a room with 3 other girls, one of them being a "Melissa." This caused some confusion between the two of us whenever someone else referred to one of us as simply "Mel" because the both of us would end up responding at the same time. Anyway, one night, I was talking to Shmelly on the phone while Melissa was getting ready to go out. She realized I was talking to Shmelly and so she said "Hi, Shmelly." I told Shmelly that "Hey, Melissa says 'hi'," so he said "Hi Mel" and then I said "Hello."
(Did you get all that?)
It took me a good 30 seconds to a minute of amused silence from Shmelly to realize what had happened and to turn to Melissa and tell her (amidst a fit of giggles) that "Oh, MELissa, Shmelly says 'hi' too." For the rest of the weekend, all the girls would have to do was imitate my oblivious "Hello" and all of us would burst into laughter at my expense.
Tons and tons more happened out there, but I'm SOOO tired and have GOT to go to bed so I'll have to write about it some other time (or you could just ask me if you REALLY want to know and I could just TELL you over coffee some time). Just picture this: I arrived home on Monday at 11:30pm, and started working again the next morning at 9:00am. I haven't stopped since. I've either been working or getting ready for the wedding that happened this weekend (during which I got completely SMASHED, but that's another story). Honestly, I haven't slept in past 8:30am ONCE since I've been back. *sob* As far as I'm concerned, I'm still jet-lagging.
That said, time for bed!
Obviously I have more important things to do, otherwise I'd be asleep right now instead of blogging. Just over 24 hours to go until I take off for Vancouver. I'm headed to a volleyball tournament there over the long weekend. Of all of the people I know (besides those going with me) I don't think there's anyone else who would travel so far and pay so much, just to spend time playing a sport they could play locally for a LOT less money and hassle, if not for FREE. Well, except Pablo. Pablo would go the distance. But that's because he's like me and we're cool like that--we're aficionado athletes.
So the more important things that I have to do are all in preparation for my trip. Things like doing the laundry, finding all my jerseys and equipment, buying my essentials, researching the transit system in the city...stuff like that. BUT, seeing as I just got home from a double shift of work today (okay, I got home an hour and a bit ago, but I JUST finished my LUNCH), I just want to sit (actually, lie down) and put my aching feet up for a bit, rather than making the many trips up and down the stairs from my room to the laundry room etc at this wee hour of the morning. What's worse, is that I have yet another double shift of work to plow through tomorrow before barreling home to do the rest of my packing and then running to the airport.
I'm homesick already.
Anyway, if anyone needs me, I'll be somewhere on the west coast by Thursday 12pm Toronto time, 9am Vancouver time. Wish me luck. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
xoxoxo
One week to go until Vancouver...
Mother hired some cleaning company to come by and clean our home on Tuesday. Ironically, the whole family including Shmelly spent Monday night cleaning house, tucking intimates and valuables out of sight. Amongst all of the tucking, of course some things were forgotten. Come Tuesday afternoon, however, the house was sparkling--anything that had been previously organized by the family the night before had been picked up, cleaned under, and then reset right where it had been found. My room looked exactly as I'd left it, only wiped and vacuumed; everything was where it should have been.
Except ONE thing.
See, for my birthday last year, G (being the thoughtful and great friend that she is) decided to jokingly buy me a vibrator that came in a case cleverly designed like a familiar chocolate bar wrapper. As cute as this gift was and still is, I never thought too much about hiding it anywhere and just simply kept it on a discreet corner of my desk, in plain view, though wedged between my stereo and the bookshelf.
Anyway, after the cleaning crew came and left, I arrived home to find this cute little chocolate-bar-esque toy front and centre in the middle of my desk. There was nothing else touched, not another item within two feet of this vibrator. Just the vibrator (in its case) by itself. Figures. My guess is that they found it and thought it was funny and decided to leave it out of place as though to say "We know what you've got!" Bastards.
I suppose that having my birthday toy found by a couple of strange cleaners that I never met and probably never will meet wasn't so bad though. Definitely not as bad as opening the utensil drawer in the kitchen of your newly purchased home to find a plastic vagina. And certainly not as bad as having your parents coming to your res to help you move home and them finding your super-deluxe purple dildo/vibrator in a drawer before walking out into the hallway where your housemates can see what device they're wielding and questioning you about. Yeah, I suppose I had it easy, especially because I thought that my own ordeal was pretty funny itself... Hehehe.
...
Quotes of the Moment:
"Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem 'Ode To A Small Lump of Green Putty I Found In My Armpit One Midsummer Morning' four of his audience died of internal haemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been 'disappointed' by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favourite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leapt straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England in the destruction of the planet Earth."
-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
...
I'm right smack in the middle of reading that book. It's great. My type of humour exactly. I don't know why I've held off so long in reading it (oh wait, I remember why...SCHOOL). However, there's this one part I came across that just doesn't do it for me. It's during a part when an alien character continues to intone to his prisoners that "Resistance is useless". That threat just doesn't hold as much foreboding as it should for me because unfortunately for Adams, the Borg came along with their timeless droning credo: "Resistance is futile." I'm waaaay more threatened by the Borg than I am some random Vogon--if they could turn Picard, they can turn anyone. I digress...
My mother recently sent me an email that I wanted to mention. She got it from her co-workers and it's just a whole bunch of puns. Some of them were really bad, but others were really creative. So, just for the shit of it, I'm going to post my favorite three:- Two Eskimos in a kayak were chilly, so they started a fire, which sank the craft, proving the old adage you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
- A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One goes to an Egyptian family and is named "Ahmal" while the other is sent to a Spanish family and is named "Juan". Years later, Juan sends his birth mother a picture of himself. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. He replies, "They're twins for Pete's sake!! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal!!"
And finally, this one totally wowed me--it was so bad it was good:
- Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot his whole life, which created an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from very bad breath. This made him.... what?
-- a super-callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
I don't know WHO comes up with these, but c'mon, as bad as they were, they were slightly amusing, no?
Yay! I won't ask how, but when Shmelly went back this past Monday to see if anyone had returned my ball, it was graciously handed over to him by a fellow player. None of us really know where it'd been for the past week, but I'm just thankful that it's found its way back home to me. I now sleep with it under my pillow every night and have decided to attach a string to it so that now when I use it to play, I'll never lose it again. Okay, I haven't done any of those things, but I will admit to having kissed my ball (and Shmelly) upon its return into my possession. *great sigh of relief*
I just realized that also as of this Monday, the Trinity was split up. Squiggly went back to Loo, Boo headed off to NYC, and I, well, I was stuck here trying frantically to book a flight to Vancouver for the May long-weekend. It's kind of sad--no random Literati or rollerblading for a while...
Although Señorita and I still have each other, we've discovered that our schedules just don't work well enough together. As she said at the end of our time earlier today, "I thought four hours would be enough for us to hang out for, but it wasn't." So true. There was still so much for us to do, and although I did some of it on my own after she left (though to no avail since it turned out that he was still dearly committed to his long-time girlfriend of forever ago--*sorry*) it just wasn't satisfying enough. Then again, when is it ever? Speaking of Señorita...
Quote of the Moment
"Oh my god, mom, I'm so PREGNANT!"
--Señorita mistakingly saying "pregnant" in spanish, instead of "embarrassed"
That was such a good story. In a nutshell, she was on the phone when her mother came by and shouted something fairly insulting to her friend on the other line. Señorita decided to exclaim her humilation out loud to her mother in Spanish, but instead of saying "embarazoso" (embarrassed), she shouted "embarazo" (pregnant), thus resulting in the quote above. That's my girl...
And now onto the rest of my day. I nearly don't know what to do with myself since all of my loved ones are off and away. I was thinking of heading downtown to Queen Street to look at dresses to wear to an upcoming wedding, but I think I'm all shopped out after my afternoon with Señorita. And then I was thinking of going for a rollerblade, but was hoping I'd find some company first. What would be ideal would be an intellectual patio conversation with someone. Something revolving around life, love, and literature. I think I miss school. Wait for me sunshine, I'm coming!
Well whadda ya know?
$20,000 later and I am able to "get" a reference they make in Ray. Shmelly and I finally got around to watching this awesome movie on Monday night and when one of the characters (I think he was supposed to be Quincy Jones) commented to Ray that "I'll never go down [South] to be no Jim Crow performer," I just short of sprang to my feet out of excitement, simply because I knew what he meant. All thanks to my "Popular American Music" course, I knew what a Jim Crow performer was and why Quincy Jones didn't want to go down South to be one. Yay, knowledge! My morsel of knowledge did little to enrich the watching experience of the movie, but still, it was nice to know that my tuition fees were not going to waste.
Speaking of academia, for those of you who think it's no fun to read scholarly articles, I would like to direct your attention to the following. I'm going to call this one my Quote of the Moment:Therefore one is wary of setting into the notion that one has a handle on the historical situation, since that certainty will without a doubt soon be rescinded. Nor is one likely to believe in unequivocally using history for positive social change, which in many cases might be like using a baseball bat to put out a poor stranger in flames.
I had to do a doubletake on this one. "...might be like using a baseball bat to put out a poor stranger in flames"?! That's a great line. C'mon, you've got to give respect to a Ph.D who can write a line like that and get it published in a scholarly journal. When I grow up and finish spending my life-savings on my ed-ju-ma-ca-tion, I want to be able to do that too.
Also, while kind-of, sort-of, not-really on the topic of music, there's something about the scratchiness of songs played from a record that's vintagely-romantic (yet another word to enter into my uniquely personal vocabulary). I was listening to a compilation CD I acquired from that abovementioned course and when I could hear the pops and crackles of the record player over the song, I would be thrown into my own mental time warp. There, I pictured myself in some old-style parlour where there were heavy drapes plunging from ceiling to floor and I was surrounded by such things called "divans" and "settees" and "gramophones" and the one guy to cross my path (and of course ask me to dance) was dressed in vest, tie, and tails. Nothing beats a dance for no reason. (*sigh* --Thoughts of Kate & Leopold. Where is gentlemanly wooing when you need it?)
Song of the Moment: "Till I Get Over You" - Michelle Branch
Every time I feel alone
I can blame it on you
And I do
Oh you got me like a loaded gun
Golden sun
And the sky's so blue
Oh we both know
That we want it
But we both know
You left me no choice
Chaque fois que tu t'en vas
You just bring me down
Je pretends que tout va bien
So I count my tears
Till I get over you
Sometimes I watch the world go by
I wonder what it is like
Oh…To wake up every single day
Smile on your face
You never try
We both know
We can't change it
But we both now
We'll just have to face it
Chaque fois que tu t'en vas
You just bring me down
Je pretends que tout va bien
So I'm counting my tears
Till I get over you
If only I
Could give you up
Would I want to let you out?
From this soulbuzz baby
We both know
That we want it
But we both know
You left me no choice
Chaque fois que tu t'en vas
You just bring me down
Je pretends que tout va bien
Oh so I'm counting my tears
Till I get over you.... oh
Chaque fois que tu t'en vas
Je pretends que tout va bien
Oh we both know
That I'm not over you
I'm not over you
LOST
Lost: one white Tachikara leather volleyball
Last seen: Monday night at Milliken Mills Community Centre during drop-in volleyball
Identifying marks: Inscribed with the owner's chinese name in black permanent marker
*Reward is being offered by not only for the return of the volleyball (though that WOULD be the ideal), but for the ensured ass-whooping of the F--KER who STOLE MY BALL!
...
You can't imagine how RUINED my night was when I found out that someone had STOLEN my ball right out of my pile of stuff while I was ON the COURT playing almost right next to it! I almost BAWLED right there and then, I was so heartbroken. Yes, the ball can be replaced, but the fact is, someone STOLE it from me and in stealing it, stole ALL of the sentimental value that ball had to me! (Yes, it had sentimental value--read here.) ARGH!!!
