During the exam prep class, my political philosophy teacher said that while he gave us a 2-page maximum for the short-answer questions, that wasn't necessary and he would be perfectly happy with a few sentences. "In fact, if you could do it in a haiku, that'd be excellent!" he joked.

...

LITTLE DOES HE KNOW. You guys. I wrote a haiku for EVERY. SINGLE. ANSWER. I mean I wrote legit answers too, but I even wrote haikus for the essays and ones about the class in general. I tried for a limerick or two, but nothing rhymes with Athens (... math-ens? ... pathogens? ... vas deferens? I'm drawing a blank here). BEHOLD: 2 CENTURIES OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY REDUCED TO 17 SYLLABLES.

On Aristotle:
If you play the harp
Your function in life is to
Always play it well.

On Machiavelli:
Machiavelli
Wants to be feared, not loved. Oh,
Machiavelli.

On Plato:
If my soul is gold
I'm taking over this place -
So watch out, buster

On Hellenistic Thought (and Diogenes, who apparently took to masturbating in the agora):
"Socrates gone mad"
is called a Cynic. Like one
Who *~tends his garden~*

On Thomas Aquinas (who started the ball rolling on religiously-appropriate political accountability):
God gave us reason,
So I will tell you how to
Deal with your tyrant.

On the prof (who narrated his every movement in class and made a big show of always drinking cold coffee):
My coffee is cold.
I must drink it quickly now.
Just to let you know.

Political thought
will show us new places.
From Agora to now.





...how do i have friends, you guys. this is like almost worse than when i rewrote dylan thomas and prufrock as if i was kanye west. what.

P.S. My roommate just texted me "I have just realized that I have changed since high school since I am reading the prince... for fun lol." TRUE DAT GURL. MACHIAVELLI'S THE MAN YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT.
P.P.S. I actually love Aristotle though, realized that last night. Or maybe just Nichomachean Ethics. How did this happen.

I have sent an angry (well, okay. Strongly worded?) email to my faculty and tricked the university database into letting me register for some random-ass courses (and apparently a few English ones as well? Hoping for a database glitch to help me out here), so I have calmed down some. I walked by the war memorial and there was a service because of the suicide bombing in Afghanistan today - I didn't know that's what it was for at the time, but I heard them playing Taps, and Life Perspective: Check. So, so sad and senseless. The city was gorgeously slushy today, with almost too much snow in the air to see, and snow tops all over the metal soldiers at the memorial.

Courtesy of Kaz, here are the world's 10 most beautiful libraries - HEARTS IN MY EYES :DDD Now, I've said before that The Lion King is my favourite Disney movie, but when the Beast shows Belle that big-ass library with sliding ladders and tall windows and EIGHTY MILLION BOOKS IN IT? That right there is where I'm going when I die. That room, and scones, and a fluffy cat, and snowy windows, and I shall live there forever. Or in one of these places, whatever, I'm not picky.

SPEAKING OF DISNEY: I'm going to see Princess and the Frog on Friday with Mariyya, I'm so excited! I heart it was really good, and just the very idea makes me happy :) Also I think I'm going to rewatch a Disney movie tonight. Too lazy for a poll, so your comment choices are:
-Beauty and the Beast (wintery! libraries!)
-Lion King (I've been meaning to rewatch it since Kenya, and I need some Zazu in my life)
-Pocahontas
-Hunchback of Notre Dame (because I haven't seen it since I was 8 and don't remember any of it)
-Insert your choice here!

Also I have come to the conclusion that my LJ and RL have overlapped enough by now that I'd love to add anyone to fbook who wants to see my annoying face :D I have a few of you already, but I am le here should anyone wish to creep the Halloweek pics/say they have a friend in Ottawa.

More New Years memes!

( it's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of li~ife! )

holy cow. i might have used one of my "get out of jail free" cards for ill, but at least it didn't affect my gpa.

it's time to kick into gear. all of this nonsense has come to an end, and it's because i say so. the fat lady hath singeth.

everyone keeps saying, "if you want him, take him!"

no. i can't do that. sorry.

i might not have many morals, but that's one i can't compromise.

so it's time to worry about other, more important things. like how my runtime is laughable, and how out of shape i am in general. also, it would probably be best to start actually cleaning my house again, as well as training my friggen pissant of a horse.

soon my meps date will be here, and the sunshine will be out, and maybe one day i will be fretting about how i can't throw grenades far enough to avoid shrapnel rather than unavailable men.

you know. important things.

my birthday is less than a week away and i couldn't really care less. christmas is coming. who cares. maybe it's just me, but there doesn't seem to be much of the holiday spirit floating around.

she invited him to my birthday but i don't want him to come. then again, if he doesn't, i'll be upset. this is the epitome of a catch-22.

the stakes are too high.

- People who want holiday cards! This is your last chance to fork over your address! (On DW | On LJ)

- After the last episode of Merlin, I desperately need to know ( la la la spoilers )

- People who live in Northern Virginia! Did you know ThinkGeek is in FAIRFAX? I could WALK THERE FROM MY HOUSE. The temptation to walk there and throw myself at them for employment is high, let me tell you.

Clearly I do nothing during exams but make entries here. I was planning to spend today zipping around town finishing Christmas shopping, but somehow managed to get another Mystery Neck Injury. I woke up at 3am and felt it, so I tried to sleep with some frozen vegetables, but it doesn't seem to have helped :( It's weird, because my bed is very comfortable and I'm using the same pillows I always use, and it's not like I left the window open (and this time I didn't even carry buckets of rocks everywhere), but I can't bend over or use my right arm lots or turn my head to the right. NOT COOL >:(

However, the exam yesterday went pretty well, I thought! I was moderately pleased with it (more so than I was with the celebratory crepe afterwards, which was not up to Ottawa's usual crepe standards). Anyways. I have some things for you!

On Wednesday I'm going to see one of EWB's LTOVS (long-term overseas volunteers; we have a looooot of acronyms, lol) speak about water and sanitation in Malawi... he has a very interesting blog - I was reading it for his bits on the PlayPump because they've been getting a lot of attention (which, besides the reasons he mentions, skeeves me out because CHILD LABOUR IN DISGUISE WHAT), and found some wonderful wonderful posts on development. They're short and sweet and you should read them:
-For Lack of A Guitar
-A Lesson From Laundry

I also picked this up from his blog - it's an online geography quiz for the countries of Africa. I think geography is definitely one of the areas our education system doesn't focus on enough (really, when am I ever going to have to know what an estuary is - but you're not going to make me learn the difference between Vietnam and Korea on a map?), and even though I am a Geography Nerd and spend a lot of time studying Africa, I'm still not as good as I should be at knowing where actualfax countries are. Just test yourself ;)
The Countries of Africa
There's an application on fbook called Traveler IQ that's very similar (you can do it for world capitals, North American cities, UNESCO sites, whatever) - I have wasted SO MANY HOURS on that thing.

It's nearly time to start the Year in Review memes (ahaa, you're all going to hate me by the end). Here's the first one

( subject titles of 09 )

And another one!

( I actually can't remember whether I tripped over a coffee table this year )( I actually can't remember whether I tripped over a coffee table this year )

PS. This song is gorgeous, I adore it (I found a version of Adam singing it on Upright, and adfj;sdf <3 'I WOULD BE' IS NOW REAL LIFE, okay).

sometimes when i'm on facebook and ed messages me, i wonder, "really?"

it puts me in yet another awkward situation.

i think i surround myself with unavailable men because the male figures in my life are all ultimately unavailable.

Before I begin: basically everyone on my flist seems to be feeling down/stressed/not their usual kickawesome selves lately. This makes me sad, and it also makes me want to hug you all. Which is sort of hard given our geographical confinements, but just FYI you're all amazing, compassionate, intelligent, beautiful people who do all kinds of wonderful things and I admire and look up to each and every one of you on a nearly-constant basis. I know you're all going through crazy s***, but since you're all crazy (crazy-AWESOME) anyway I know you'll kick it back to Pluto where it belongs and look hot while doing so.



This too shall pass <3 Stay strong, bbs! Be happy :)
-----------------
My sisters had three snow days in a row this week: Ottawa kept up with the blizzarding for Wednesday, but Muskoka just kept going... and going... and going. On Thursday night it snowed over 50 centimentres* in 3 hours. WHAT. ~~Welcome to Northern Ontario!~~
*that's like 20 inches.

This would be my car:



Yeah. (I'm now SO EXCITED to go back and wear snowpants and go tramping through the snow and throw myself into snowpiles and go snowshoeing and go GT-racing and take the dogs out to watch them try and leap their way through it, OMFG I LOVE MUSKOKA IN THE WINTER.) Illustration of what happens to goggies + snow:



Yeah. And I thought I had problems.

Yesterday was the last School Outreach day of the semester... three back-to-back presentations to Grade 8s - they went surprisingly well, once we adapted the presentation to 45 minutes instead of 75 (*phew*) - the kids were, as always, very bright and had questions. Including one kid who went on for like four minutes about worms getting inside you (yeah I don't know either, it was a ball out of left field, I had to "yes-and" that kid like 8 times). And one kid who got very upset - "But it's not fair that we don't have as much money as the other countries! It's not fair!" And now I am officially done getting up before 6am for EWB... until next month. I figure if I have one presentation per week next semester I'll have killer arm muscles by the end of it from all the rock-carrying on public transport I'll have to do.

Yesterday evening was a mini study party for Contested Places, which means Burdz and Carl (previously referred to as Friend X) came over - Carl bearing homemade chocolate chip cookies, no less!! - and we wasted three hours talking with roommates before discovering that Burdz had already made the most epic set of study notes known to man.
COLLINE: Can... I... scan those?

And of course as we were rereading our notes there was much discovery of things we had written in our margins over the semester.
CARL: I have written here 'LOL horse impression.'
(From when our prof revealed that the head of FEMA during Hurricane Katrina was previously the head of the Arabian Horse Association and a student misheard him: "Arabian WHAT Association?!")

Cursory amount of studying time done, I picked books to loan to Burdz over Christmas ('Dispatches From the Edge,' '28 Stories of AIDS in Africa,' and 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao' being right up her alley) and we all planned to have a documentary-watching party of When the Levees Broke. We also had a discussion with all the roommates about internet privacy and the implications of a new law designed to catch child pornographers that entails ISPs watching what we look at on the internet (sure, because I trust Rogers so much ~already). BECAUSE WE ARE JUST THAT COOL. Though predictably the people who download stuff from the internet came down on a different side of it than a few other people, and I don't think we actually came to a conclusion about it.

COLLINE: Just so you know, Nic, if they ever come to our door asking which person using our internet connection downloads three albums of pirated music a day, we're giving you up.
MARLEY: "Yeah, officer? First bedroom at the top of the stairs."

IN CONCLUSION:

i should be writing a paper that was due yesterday.

i should be doing a lot of things. like running. and push ups.

and not having an affair with someone who has a long term girlfriend.

that last one's hard, just because it's been going on for so long. i tried to stay away -- and did -- for a month, but then one day we meet on the road and things just get crazy again. it doesn't help that we genuinely like each other, or that the sex is a relatively new development, or that he's coming out drinking on my birthday.

it could be worse. he could be married with kids. but the fact that this is going on and i knew -- know -- about his girlfriend all along makes it bad enough.

"it's not that i like her more than you."

well, you should. she's your girfriend. technically you should like her more than most people.

"she's madly in love with me. ... but i love her too."

really? because as a psychology major, i'm gonna have to analyze that pause, and the fact that there's a difference between loving someone and being IN love with them.

"she would kill herself if she ever found out. she depends on me. ... but it's not like she's CO-dependent..."

i'd love to believe you, except that the first two parts of that statement make it hard not to think this is a co-dependent situation.

the worst part is that there are actual feelings involved, even though i refuse to talk about them with him. where is the line, and how far ago did we cross it? i can still see his face the first time we met. he sat down directly opposite of me and just stared, wide-eyed.

this is a truly dangerous situation.

I think I might actually sit down and watch a football game tonight! *gasp* I follow some of the NFL, in the general "look up the scores after the game is over" way, but tonight, William and Mary is going up against Villanova in the semifinals, and I so have to watch. Apparently, this is the second time in school history that we've actually made it to the semifinals - to put that in perspective, W&M's had a football team since 1893, so basically, we manage to put together a decent football team every 58 years. I'm going to be very old before this ever happens again, so I really feel like I should watch tonight, just in case they win. :D

I had apple dumplings for breakfast so I am just about the happiest person ever. OM NOM NOM. I also remembered that I didn't actually have dinner last night - after getting home late from giftwrapping it took me a few hours to make the dumplings and it just never happened - oops. Also oops is my Arabic exam. I don't want to talk about it. Other than to say that I thought the exam was in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT location than where it was, so I spent fifteen minutes running all over campus in a white-out blizzard with no idea where to go and only just made it in time. Which kind of sucked, but it could have been worse.

SNOW HAS COME TO OTTAWA, though. It snowed a few days ago, and then yesterday was a massive dump over most of central Ontario, since my sisters got a snow day yesterday and another one today, and Ottawa got one yesterday as well. I walked to school and I could barely see or stand it was so windy. The buses had absolutely no idea what to do with themselves, it was kind of funny. Especially the long ones with what Catya dubbed as the 'bitchcrinkle' in the middle: the front section would try to pull up to the terminal, sort of struggling and chugging along, with the back end just going 'mlueaaaahhhhhhhhhh *flail*' and sort of sliding almost into other buses. Most people seemed to have their snow tires on already thought (usually when the first snow hits there's always about 1/5 of cars with no snow tires on just sort of floundering).

Giftwrapping yesterday was okay - still mind-numblingly dead, but I had a good discussion with Hart and Zila about gender issues and violence against women, and then another discussion with Hart about Remembrance Day being forgotten by younger generations. And I did the second shift with our JF, who I can't even dislike or resent because she's super nice and funny and smart, and we talked about education and children and all in all it was a decent day, although I feel like I basically accomplished nothing. ~oh well. On to more studying! And trying not to eat more apple dumplings lest I make myself sick.

Tomorrow is the last school outreach presentations of this year, 3 in one day, aieeeee. Perhaps some more West Wing will serve as a decent study break (Mrs Landingham ohmygoodness <3 <3 ALSO CJ AS 'FLAMINGO' AND DANNY'S GOLDFISH AHAHAHAHAAAA).

This entry was brought to you by MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SNOW. :DDDD

Today's "term that's not entirely safe to put into Google Images with Safe Search turned off": drag race.

First exam is tomorrow - Arabic. I'm feeling unprepared, mostly because my vocabulary is non-existent, but I'm not panicky about it. I had a giftwrapping session at the mall (EWB's big fundraiser this year) so I was there most of the day, but I could study a little because only two people came to the booth (one old guy bartered us down. Who barters charities? Really?). I have another session tomorrow, and had to scramble to find another person since one cancelled. In the beginning we knew that just our exec team couldn't fill all the shifts, and we recruited members, volunteers, friends, randoms... who are now ALL cancelling, right left and centre. So it ends up being our exec filling those shifts anyway - which we don't cancel, because we know there's no-one else to be there, but no-one else seems to think of. I'm fine, but I feel bad for Chris, because he organized this whole thing and is basically there for 4+ hours every single day and has like four more exams than the rest of us.

I LOVE THE WEST WING <3 <3 CHARLIEEEEEEE I LOVE YOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. *ahem* I'm such a fan of banter and emotion and I also ship Charlie/Zoe and I'm very much enjoying this show because of that.

I had the song stuck in my head today, so I went looking for the one short from Paris Je T'aime and fell in love with it all over again. It's so simple and kind of funny, and ends up being very very beautiful without trying too hard.


I've been playing a lot of piano recently, and looking for new songs - mostly because parties always seem to end up in my room and then everyone's drunk friends start playing songs I always wanted to learn and playing them 8 times better than I can, so I now have 'Don't Stop Believing' (oh be quiet), 'Winter' (Tori Amos), 'Romeo and Juliet' (Dire Straits/The Killers), 'Badlands' (Bruce Springsteen :DDD), and 'Mad World' (<333333333333 MAD WORLD). Most of what I know is not pop-culture, but more classical - not strictly classical all the time, but nothing most of my friends recognize (random Hungarian pieces [Two Guitars is SO MUCH FUN even if I've been playing it for like 8 years], Oscar Peterson [watching this makes me cry], Beethoven, hymns, Canadian celtica [aha this song is so crazypants I love it] Debussy [wins for most ridiculous song title ever], random other stuff) and I think it'll be fun to know how to play things that people know and love, not just that they might be vaguely impressed with if I ever played them right, lol. I don't consider myself 'good' at piano, but I know it and I love it and I don't necessarily embarrass myself. And it's SUCH a major outlet, one I didn't have last year and that I needed really badly. YAY FOR AWESOME BIRTHDAY PRESENTS.

Alas though, I have been learning Comptine d'un autre ete: l'apres midi (Yann Tiersen <3) and it's going well, but I fear I will never play it as well as I did a few weekends ago. It was past midnight, during a party, and Kat and Chris and possibly someone else were in my room. Chris told me to play him a song, but I was drunk (hee) and there was no chair. I turned it on and crouched awkwardly on one leg so I could reach the pedal, and I played it. I wasn't sober, and my leg cramped, and I was hunched awkwardly and I hadn't warmed up, but I honestly don't think I've ever played that song better. I have yet to recreate it.

Also: what sucks about playing Christmas songs is that it's really only appropriate to play them for one month a year, and everyone expects you to know them, but when you haven't practiced them for 11 months how are they supposed to sound halfway decent? By the time you get good at them again it's time to put them away. BOO. Plus I have a gorgeous version of the First Noel (also Do You Hear What I Hear for being ridiculously fun to play).

I love playing piano :) I love working on a song, and I love not working on a song, just playing it once or twice through each time and leaving it for next time and getting better at it over months and months. I love going through phases - like the time when I tried to learn every ragtime song ever, or when I became obsessed with hymns; I had a wonderful piano teacher who asked me "what do you want to play?" and then brought me random things, the theme song to M*A*S*H and Pachelbel's Canon (still probably my favourite song in the world to play) side by side. I love working on tiny tiny things in songs that you'll never ever get to tell people or that they'll never notice (like how 'I Will Wait For You' is supposed to sound like a carousel, all tinkling almost-out-of-tune and pausing at the big notes before falling down again), and twisting things around ('Londonderry Air' as jazz-like? Yes please). It's fun and it can be as easy or as hard as I want or need it to be. I'm not as good as the people in the above clips are, but I have all my life to be when I just play for myself and anyone who happens to overhear on their way to the kitchen.

ETA: NEW HALLOWEEK PHOTOS ARE UP ON FACEBOOK :DDD

I ACED TWO FINAL PAPERS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :D :D :D

Well, okay. Not *aced*, but I did proportionally well considering the whole time-it-took-to-write-them thing, and I am pleased with the results. Not what I would LIKE, but good nonetheless. I went all-out Hollywood on my conclusion for Contested Places, and cited the quote as Romeo Dallaire, personal communication November 16 2008 and the TA wrote "WOW, REALLY!?!?" beside it, LOLOLOLOL FOREVEEEEEEEER XD

I have been augmenting the nonstudying with episodes of the West Wing, since I've wanted to watch it basically since RBR started, and it was my mission last summer, and I finally have high-speed internet and a tiny amount of time to watch it. I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT. IDK, I don't like Martin Sheen's prez so far... his little speeches about Ancient Rome etc are interesting, but he's very preachy and ~above it all and oho-aren't-I-profound, idk. JOSH LYMAN <3 <3 <3 I really love CJ and Sam and Charlie as well, and it seems so very fast-paced, even though they talk a lot and things don't happen a lot - but I guess that's ~life in the White House. The dialogue is awesomesauce, and I've already almost-cried once, aha. I'm about four episodes into the first season since last night (because doing budgets sucks, and I needed a distraction).

My first exam is on Wednesday, and I'm very nervous, because while I know Arabic, my vocabulary isn't up to snuff and I'm relying mainly on feeling it out or knowing certain parts, not knowing the exact rules. Tomorrow is going to be Studay Extraordinaire Day (+ yoga + baking apple dumplings, om nom nom) with Marley.

YAY for loffly v-gifts of snowflakes!! Though, uhm, not like yesterday morning. When I decided to check ontd_ai and then was part of a group that sent novelized over 15000 snowflakes, lol. It was sort of epic. Her poor inbox :( Her profile is nice and snowflakey though!
-------------------
Had my last Contested Places class today - I love that class, I've learned so much (both information and knowledge) and the prof is amazing. The past few lectures, though, have been about Gender and Space, with case studies on women in public space in Afghanistan and a little about North American cities called Gender and Geographies of Fear. It was really really interesting, and delved a lot into theory, but was also a section that relied on class participation a lot.

And when there's open class participation in a discussion about gender, sexism, and/or Afghanistan? There's usually fail.

And fail there was. SERIOUSLY. As I was saying (mostly jokingly) to Catya, I have a new rule for second-year university classes about gender issues: MALES ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK, JFC. Or I guess they can, so the prof can slap them around a little and thus prove how stupid most of the questions are. Some guy in the back had to go and say that there are services available to help women in Afghanistan, but "~~studies have shown" that a lot of women don't use them, or won't, so they must *like* living like that, right?? And anyway it's all religion, because Saudi Arabia has things like that too!

>:( NO. SIT DOWN. MAYBE THEY DON'T GO TO THE POLICE BECAUSE THE POLICE WON'T BELIEVE THEM. MAYBE THEY DON'T REPORT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BECAUSE THEY'LL GET BEATEN EVEN WORSE. MAYBE THEY DON'T GO TO SHELTERS BECAUSE MALES GET CUSTODY OF KIDS. But whatever it is, don't you ever DARE say it's because "they want to live like that." (Also fyi it's not religion, it's the male patriarchy in a culture where men's honour is tied to women's bodies so women are treated like a resource. IT'S. NOT. RELIGION.) A few other students countered well to that, and then the prof walked up to the guy (the prof is like 6 foot 2 and the student was sitting down) and said "if I was your husband, and I was slapping you around for everything you said, and you live with my parents and I, and I have the power to take away your children any time, and my brother's a police officer, what are you going to do? It's not about liking situations or being used to situations, it's about the limits you have in society to determine your own actions and future and the difference between legal equality and the facts on the ground."

And then while talking about North America and why males are more likely to report assault (or I think it was something about more males going into situations where assault was a possibility? idk), and some guy in front of me says that women are "more naturally fearful."

It was at this point that Carl had to tell me to "settle down, Tiger." >:( NO. MAYBE WOMEN MIGHT BE MORE *AFRAID* TO WALK AROUND ALONE AT NIGHT, BUT THAT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY KEEP GETTING *RAPED*, NOW ISN'T IT? The prof answered that with a "well males are more likely to be idiots, yes," and then told us about how he got mugged in Washington for being an "idiot male. Trust me, no woman would have got mugged the way I got mugged!"

In the previous lecture, the prof asked us how we defined gender or gender roles in society. Of course, most people in the class misinterpreted the question as "tell me society's gender stereotypes." When we got to the sixth one for men, which was someone saying they provide for and protect a family, the prof said "look how we get to the sixth one and still no mention of being a father, of caring for children. Think we would have gotten past three for women without someone bringing up the caring of children?" The prof was amazing at countering people and facilitating discussion, but it was a discouraging class nonetheless for the way people refused to come up with their own thoughts on what defined gender.

And of course there was the class where someone asked if "racism ever existed in Canada." (Oh, honey. You need to leave the house once in a while.) Now, I'm just a wee baby feminist who's made some pretty bad fails of her own, but I think the problem here is that there's a lot of ugly stuff we carry around with us that isn't acknowledged, isn't talked about, and people don't know it's wrong, or they don't know why, or they have a sneaking suspicion it's wrong but won't ever air it out for fear that it will smell bad. Canadian society has this veneer we're proud of, this politeness and niceness and ~tolerance (and tolerance SUCKS. Since when is that our ultimate goal?) we like to be known for, and I think that comes with a lot of fear of offending people. Which is a good thing. No-one likes to be offended and no-one likes to offend other people. But the problem is that we get to thinking that open conversations about how racism and sexism hurts people hurts people even MORE, so we don't have those. It's not nice to talk about. It's not nice to say that it's there (but it's there). And our reaction to learning that it's there is to smile nervously, shrug and say that it's terrible, isn't it, but what can you do?

I'm generalizing here about my Canadian observations, but I really do think it's a problem, because if this class is the first time people are talking about institutionalized racism, or how *~*~MULTICULTURALISM!!~*~* doesn't always translate to the ground, then some pretty ugly things are going to come out of that discussion. Because people haven't been told they're wrong before, because they've never said it before, or never knew they thought it before. And then instead of worrying about offending people you actually do. Either that or everyone talks about how men are strong and Bring Home The Bacon, because they want to answer the question correctly for Teacher even if they know, they KNOW that's not what defines men, but they have some misguided notion that's how society tells them it defines men, and really what other alternative is there? What other alternative is there to having concrete notions of what we should tell women and men they are in charge of acheiving with their lives?

Well, there's the alternative of fluidity, that I can be me and you can be you and Shafiq can be Shafiq and Kathleen can be Kathleen and we can learn to live with each other and have the freedom to accomplish what we want to accomplish, and who we are as a person can be entirely based on our interactions with each other and our experiences of common humanity, on our own definitions of strength and weakness and honour and success.

But that would be difficult, wouldn't it.

... wouldn't it?

Thank you thank you thank you for all of the snowflakes! It's like a cookie storm in my userinfo! :D I spent a good part of this weekend knitting, and am now about a third of the way done with the baby blanket of doom. Maybe it'll be done before my cousin's kid is a year old...*sigh*

"i don't think radiohead is an emo band."

what? are you friggen kidding me? have you ever even LISTENED to radiohead?

lord.

right now i should be doing something. namely, any of the papers that are due between tomorrow and saturday. my motivation to do anything productive is completely gone, and has been for a while. i'm ready to tap the fuck out of school. i'm done. uncle.

if only it were that easy.

in other news, my visit from mother nature is going on five days late, but at least the stick i peed on was negative.

I loff my fambly. I phoned home yesterday and talked to my mom and Yaden, and for some reason I just got overly nostalgic and spent like 15 minutes with Yaden talking about how much we missed our kitty, so then I got all sadface. Since she got a camera for her birthday, and because I've been missing home like crazy this semester, I asked her to take a whole bunch of pictures and send them to me: new clothes she bought, what they had for dinner last night, the lake as it's freezing over (because there's snow at home. There's snow in ALABAMA, but none in Ottawa, to which I say WTF M), et cetty rah. And I wake up this morning to an email from mia madre saying she's going to email me a different picture every day. The one from last night was of the two sisters + maman at the dinner table, all smiling except for Ann, who is holding a sign saying 'I like corn on the cob.' This is from a birthday card I sent my dad, with a man and two girls on the cover, all holding signs that say happy birthday, except for the youngest girl, whose sign says 'I like corn on the cob.' On the inside, it says 'Please disregard Stephanie.'

Needless to say, I loff my family. Also what they were eating looks a lot healthier than what I've been eating, lol. After a whole semester of it, I'm starting to get lazy (plus it was Nic's birthday on Friday and Portia's birthday yesterday, so there is more cake in the house than is wholly necessary, I feel) and just eating cereal, or eggs, or whatever else. I had a salad yesterday but it was unimpressive - but then Val and I played Europeans and dipped baguette in olive oil+balsamic and it was DELICIOUS :D :D It was Sinterklaas day a few days ago and someone in Val's class handed out little boxes of these chocolate sprinkles and chocolate shavings (called Ruijter, I think), and because Val is Dutch she was nearly too excited for words.

I found Cheeks' youtube (no, I'm not a stalker) and OMG LOL. I LOVE THIS MAN. SO HARD. 7 Things to Hate About Me and It's Hard Out There For A Cheeks made me laugh so hard and I have no idea why maybe it was the camera zooming out from the gold pants? lol He's quite the actor, hilarious. YAY for mindless diversions?

I've been picking out my courses for next semester (because as of right now, I have Written French, Pronounciation, Canadian Foreign Policy, and Intro to Modern Political Thought I, which can I just say HALE NAW): so far I have it down to Arabic, Literature since 1700 (survey course), Sixteenth-Century Literature, and then a choice for two of the following (tell me which ones I should choooooooose): Children's Literature, African Politics, Indigenous Politics and Governance in Canada, Medieval Literature (aka Chaucer), America in the Colonial Era, Victorian Literature, or the Economics of Developing Countries. HOW IS NEXT SEMESTER GOING TO BE BASICALLY EVERYTHING I LOVE IN THE WORLD!?

I'm also excited for next semester because one of the girls in my Arabic class (who I met last year because she was wearing a Me to We t-shirt) is starting something called Ballerina Dreams for girls 4-8 with mental or physical disabilites and I'm going to be volunteering a lot with them, so YAY! :DDD I've also decided I'm going to go WOOFing (organic farming) next summer in Canada, the US, or Mexico, so DOUBLE YAY! Farming + travelling + sustainability + volunteering + almost-free = ALSO EVERYTHING I LOVE IN THE WORLD. I just need an Adam Lambert concert and I will be SET FOR LIFE, Y/N?

To Do Today:
-go for a run (if Ottawa's not going to cooperate by being cold I may as well try to work off all that birthday cake)
-actually study Arabic (did not get accomplished yesterday) for Wednesday's exam
-send EWB emails: to the teacher to get the times for Friday's presentations, and to everyone else (Jason, Mama Hen) to get volunteers
-drop off Mama Hen's agenda back on campus, go to the Royal Oak to see if they found my gloves
-congratulate Jeremy on his conquests (due to a text I received at 2:13 am)
-buy nutella, bread, and ORANGE JUICE (I've been out for three days, and I've had a wicked headache for two of those. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT)