I lost the chiming ring of keys to everything.

I can't believe that I am three short school days away from the first long weekend of the year. It's October now! What happened to September? Where does the time go?

I'm quite excited for the long weekend. I'll be taking the late train to St. Ratford on Friday night (it's $10 cheaper, plus eliminates the need of me rushing home from work), and then spending a good three days there. I'm super excited for Saturday night, because my group of friends from high school is having a social gathering, and each and every one of us has RSVPed via Facebook with a yes. Drinks will be consumed. Plus, one of St. Ratford's infamous crappy bars has re-opened with a new name, and maybe, just maybe, a few of us will have enough alcohol in our bloodstreams to venture there. It'll be sketchy, but I'm in the mood for some St. Ratford-style sketch.

This weekend I lay pretty low. I went to the annual Word on the Street book festival, and frequented the same tents that I always do. I went to the magazine that sells subway station buttons, and bought a new button, since I live at a new station. I also informed the dudes at this tent that they really need to listen to the song "I Will Never See The Sun" by Great Lake Swimmers since it mentions four subway stops. I chatted a little bit with an author of a book I really like at another tent. I bought a few dirt-cheap books, including one for my dad who is back to reading lots after he had a cataract surgery.

I've got lots of fun stuff coming up in October though. I have a Tori Amos concert, probably a shopping trip to the States (yay Loonie!), and two very special blog-related visitors who are venturing to the big TO.

Did anyone see the Colbert Report where he complained about the Canadian dollar being higher than the US dollar? He called the loon on the loonie a duck, which made me laugh really hard and still is making me smile.

I bought the new Dashboard Confessional CD today and I'm so in love with the first three songs that I haven't been able to get to track 4 yet. Can we all say emo-licious?

Now I have to go finish a book for my work book club. It's Simon Winchester's "The Professor and the Madman". Anyone read it? I'm having a tough time getting through it. I started it in the summer, but kept getting distracted by other books and shiny objects.

The pause feels like an extra year of high school.

Today was one of those odd days where you end up doing a bunch of different things, and having a bunch of different emotions and feelings and experiences, so that the day feels more eventful than some entire weeks you've had in the past.

It was just busy because we had a special day at school, during which I ended up bonding with a classroom of grade 10 boys over Feist's 1234 of all things, then I had an activity-filled rest of the day, then I went out for a yummy dinner to celebrate a colleague's birthday, and finally I ended up having a couple of friends over to watch the season premiere of The Office.

On the way home from dinner, a couple of my colleagues and I got into a total Oprah conversation where we discussed insecurities and things in our lives that have messed us up, and ways to cope with life, emotions, and feelings. You know, definitely very Oprah-y stuff. It was weird because I actually opened up to them about some things that I very rarely talk about, even to my closest friends who I've know for a long long time. In fact, I think it would give some of friends quite a surprise to hear me talking about these things so matter-of-factly. I'm lucky because I realize that I do have colleagues that I totally do consider friends, and it's neat to have people at work that you like spending time with and consider friends on a personal level. Anyhow, as I was having my Oprah moment, one of my colleagues commented that I sounded like I'd come to terms with a lot of this stuff, which I really had thought that I'd more or less bottled away, but maybe I'm coming to grips with things.

Enough Oprah talk. The Office was hilarious. Oh, it was nice to see my old friends again. I love that show. :D

And... of course you know I've been obsessively listening to the new Weakerthans CD and, of course, I am in love with it. My current favourite song is "Reunion Tour", which didn't stand out to me at the beginning, but after a couple of listens, its instrumentation converted me to loving it.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, so happy weekend!

I know I know it's the sky that makes the ocean blue.

It's late Saturday, technically Sunday morning, and again I'm amazed at how quickly weekend days fly by. I wish I could slow time at will.

I recently bought season 1 of Heroes on DVD and my pal Becca T and I have been working on watching it together. We're almost done. On Friday night, we got take out sushi, and watched a bunch of episodes during which we consumed a bottle of wine. We've just started disc 6 out 7, so we've almost reached our goal. The season premiere is on Monday. We won't be done in time for it, but I'll tape it and I'm sure we'll be caught up. I really like the show. I figured that a good Monday night show would be a good addition to my week. I love having TV to look forward to.

Today I slept in and lazed around my place using the fact that I'm trying to get rid of the last vestiges of my cold as a reason for my sloth. I read a bit and watched the 1998 movie Elizabeth. In the late afternoon, I tackled my dishes and brought down the large pile of recycling that I'd been avoiding for weeks, so I don't feel that the day was wholly unproductive.

This evening I went to a party at Becca T's. It was pretty fun. I got to see a couple of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, plus my dear friends Jon & Ali showed up unexpectedly and we had fun.

It's crazy how fast time flies. I'm still amazed that people I met in university, who I consider my "new" friends, have actually known me for almost 10 years now. It's weird talking to new people and realizing that this is my fifth year teaching.

I guess it all makes me wish that I could bend space and time just like Hiro on Hereos.

ps The new Ben Lee CD is super fun. I recommend it if you like fun poppy music that you can sing along with.

I was kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream.

You know it's Monday when:

a) You put on outfit #1 for work and then turn on the TV to find that the weather will be too cold for outfit #1. You change into outfit #2, and realize that the shirt just isn't doing it for you, so you make do with outfit #3.

b) You arrive to work early so that you have time to well, familiarize yourself with what it is that you do for a living, and find that your office is cold. As in Antarctic cold, and there you are without your parka, snowpants, mittens, and winter boots. You forgot them at home, since it still is technically the season of summer.

c) Every time you make the trip from your office on the cold cold cold third floor (Hey isn't hot air supposed to rise? What happened to that?) to the main office downstairs, you realize that you forgot things upstairs and have to make the jog back up. At least the physical activity is warming you slightly.

d) Your "clients", as I'll call them, are super energetic after having a weekend to rest up, and you are exactly in the opposite state of energy since you feel a cold coming on.

e) You go downstairs to make *one* photocopy and the damned machine jams, and you can't fix it even though you spend 10 minutes of your precious time trying to fix it, and you know very well that it's not actually jammed, but in fact it just wants you to fiddle with its knobs. So, your only recourse is to ask the secretary who scares you for help.

And that's how you know it's Monday.

Note: I actually had an all right day at work today, and despite all this, I enjoyed myself overall, as I frequently do. I was just inspired to write a bitter post.

Also, Tuesday's gonna be good because there is a new Ben Lee CD coming out, and I'm going to buy it at the record store where the cute boy works, and it will be warm enough tomorrow to wear outfit #1, which is super cute, and I'm glad that I didn't waste it today. ;)

So find a sweater, and you'll be better.

My old pink-and-black-and fun template randomly stopped working, so I had to quickly change to a new run-of-the-mill readily-available blogger template. Maybe someday I'll have the time to find something better, but 'til then, this nice green template will have to suffice.

I've survived week 2 of being back to work, and it's going well. Knock-on-wood of course, but even though it's still the honeymoon period, my classes are giving the vibe that they'll be pleasant for the long term.

I had a crazy-busy weekend last weekend, so I'm really excited not to have any big plans for this weekend. Last night I went for some post-work drinks with colleagues, then ended up having to run home quickly as opposed to wandering around some stores to avoid being caught in a thunderstorm. After dinner, I passed out on my couch watching a movie and woke up there this morning. I think that I just may have be tired.

Today was a crisp cool fall day, which reminded me how much I love love love autumn. I went for a walk this afternoon while listening to my iPod and noticed how a lot of my favourite artists like Christine Fellows, Death Cab for Cutie, Hawksley Workman, The Weakerthans, and Neko Case actually sound a little bit better when the weather gets cooler.

Yay for fall!

My book, my book's gonna make you look.

I survived the first week of school. In a way I'm glad to be back; I honestly do miss the little urchins during vacation. I see a lot of them in the halls, and when they say hello, I remember "Oh yeah, I really enjoy this person!" Anyway, my classes are great so far; I love the September honeymoon period. I hope it can last all year.

I'm also not mourning summer too much because I'm not letting myself get so caught up with work that I neglect my social life. On the evening of the first day of school, I went out for drinks with a couple of dear friends, and that was such a remedy for the back-to-school blues. I had one of those moments when I felt that all was right in my life. I realized I had enjoyable friends, a great apartment, a job that I love, and I had a really yummy caramel apple martini in me.

A friend of mine from home came to stay with me this weekend. Friday night was filled drinking and some trouble-making at the pub across the street from my place. On Saturday, we went across the border to Niagara Falls NY to do some heavy duty shopping. It totally felt like I was back on summer vacation what with going on a mini-road trip and the sunny warm weather.

Tonight was another fabulous night. I met up with my dear former roommmate whom I haven't seen since her wedding in BC. It was great meeting up for dinner, which was followed by seeing Damien Rice in concert. And oh, was it a great concert. If you are not familiar with Damien Rice, you should: a) familiarize yourself right now; and b) make it a life's goal to see him life. He started by playing my three favourite songs (Rootless Tree, Amie, and Eskimo). Actually, it's hard to call three my favourite songs since they're all so good, but I do really like those three. My favourite concert moment was when he held a long note during the song Eskimo. As he did, the lights became all star-like and it was just very cool. His band is amazing. It was honestly one of the best concerts I've ever been to. I think it made my top ten. Hmmm, one day I should sit and ponder what my top ten concerts are. That would be interesting to quantify.

Anyhow, I guess as an update to my current life, I can summarize by saying everything right now is fabulous, and the forecast calls for fabulousity remaining throughout the fall for sure. :)

Then labour day came and went, and we shed what was left of our summer skin.

I've got my lunch made, my newly-purchased school supplies all packed up, and my outfit for tomorrow picked out. It's 8:10 pm and I'm ready to go for the inevitability of going back to work tomorrow. Am I glad? Sure, it'll be good to go back to the normalcy of having a routine. Sometimes, one can get a little bored of summer vacation, but I really haven't had time for that this year. Between taking a course, packing, moving, unpacking, travelling, a visit to St. Ratford, and various social activities, I haven't had much time to get bored yet. So, in that respect I could use some more time, but I guess I can go back to real life tomorrow. Since they're forcing me. Actually I could really use a paycheque right about now too.

Anyway, I've gone for a couple of long walks this weekend, and during these walks I've reflected on the summer that was. However, since my iPod was on, I spent more time thinking about the songs that will always be associated with the summer.

Summer of 2007 Soundtrack:
1) When it Flows - Great Lake Swimmers
2) Moving Pictures Silent Films - Great Lake Swimmers
3) Imitosis - Andrew Bird
4) Heretics - Andrew Bird
5) The Night Starts Here - Stars
6) Take Me to the Riot - Stars
7) Window Bird - Stars
8) The Con - Tegan & Sara
9) Call it Off - Tegan & Sara
10) 1234 (Van She Technological Remix) - Feist
11) Born Losers - Matthew Good
12) She's in it for the Money - Matthew Good
13) The Devil's in your Details - Matthew Good
14) Young Leaves - Attack in Black
15) Northern Towns - Attack in Black
16) Time Won't Let Me Go - The Bravery
17) Walls Fall Down - Bedouin Soundclash
18) Eyes - Rogue Wave
19) Civil Twilight - The Weakerthans
20) Night Windows - The Weakerthans

I started the summer listening to a lot of Great Lake Swimmers. Then I picked up the new Andrew Bird CD which had a song with the word mitosis in it, which made my inner science geek happy. The new Stars CD was then released solely on iTunes and that dominated the old iPod for awhile. I'd been really looking forward to the new Tegan & Sarah album, and I listened to that a lot during the summer.

At the end of July I was off on my trip, but not before I bought the new Matthew Good CD from iTunes so I could listen to it during my trip. I spent long train rides and walks down the beach in White Rock listening to Hopsital Music. On a whim, I picked up the Attack in Black album "Marriage" since I'd seen them open for the Weakerthans in June and it was only $10. That turned out to be a great decision since I ended up listening to it the entire time I had my rental car. It's a really good road trip album by the way.

When I got back from my trip, I went to visit the 'rents. A visit to my 'rents usually involves me driving a lot and listening to the radio. The two radio songs that I picked up on and actually enjoyed were "Time Won't Let Me Go" by the Bravery and "Walls Fall Down" by Bedouin Soundclash.

I recently purchased the first season of Heroes, and Becca T and I have been watching it together with the goal of having it done by the time the second season starts. (I wanted to have a new TV show, and I'd heard good things about it.) I heard the song "Eyes" by Rogue Wave on one episode and made a point of getting it.

My summer has ended with the relentless playing of two songs from the upcoming new Weakerthans album. I love both of them, and I am so excited for the new disc which comes out on Sept. 25th. If these two songs are any indication whatsoever of the quality of the new album, it'll be pretty swell.

Tonight I have to try to get my night owl-self retrained to going to sleep at a decent time so I can be up at 6-ish. Yuck. I'm currently read a fabulous history book called "Sex with the Queen" that is about the royal affairs of queens/princesses through history. It's great; it's like really juicy celebrity gossip, yet educational at the same time. Anyhow, I'm going to do a bit of reading, then hopefully fall asleep at a decent time. Happy back to school.

Wake me up when September ends. Seriously.

Saturday turned out to be one of my most enjoyable days of the summer. After an unexpected awesome concert discovery, I was able to spend the afternoon hanging out with my university crowd of friends. I love my university crowd of friends. There always seems to be a rotation of who's in Toronto, and who is not, and now there are a bunch of kids in the mix, but it's always a great time.

Becca T and I actually ended up being the first to leave the party (that never happens) so that we could catch Sloan at the Ex. It had been raining, actually pouring, for most of the day, but it all cleared up just in time for Sloan. It had actually cooled down too, which lead to Ms. It-will-never-get-cold-enough-to-require-a-sweater (aka me) getting a bit chilled, but once Sloan was on, I forgot about my goosebumps. They are such a great live band. I love seeing them for free (OK - I had to pay $14 admission to the Ex, but it was totally worth it). They played a lot of my favourites, and they were stellar as usual. Did you know that they are my second favourite band? Best song was a super-fast version of HFXNSHC.

After the encore, we decided that we wanted to go on a couple of rides. We spent $10 each on tickets, or credits as they are now called, and that will buy you 2 rides. I tell ya, when I was a kid and went to the fair, you got a heck of a lot more than 2 rides for $10... Anyway, we decided on the Ferris Wheel and the Scrambler, or the Sizzler as it is now called. Lucky for us, the guys at the Sizzler let us on for free, so we got a bonus ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Man, I forgot how much that thing whirled.

After that really good day, I've been kicking around in Toronto working on my back-to-school wardrobe. I think I've got it completed now. Let the madness begin!

I am also sadly aware that my stellar wardrobe isn't really going to teach the kids about atoms, ions, and how to balance a chemical equation. That meant that I had to drag myself into the school today. I got some photocopying done, so I feel much better about the whole having to teach next Tuesday thing. Photocopies are my security blanket. I kid you not, but each summer I do have a nightmare about going back to school and standing in front of the class completely unprepared with no photocopies. This year I had it in July. Anyhow, at least I don't have to worry about that becoming reality.

I typically get a little anxious before a new school year. I think it is partially because I worry that my classes will be bunches of hellions, and that I kind of forget how to teach over the summer. I still am not sure how I am able to fill three 75-minute classes a day with learning. Amazingly, I seem to figure it out each year, and I'm sure this year will be no different.

Even though I've been slowly accepting the inevitability of fall, I was able to rebel a bit today. When I went to Starbucks for a well-deserved frappucino, I resisted the new Pumpkin Spice Frappucino and went with my summer Orange Mocha deliciousness. It's so not time for fall frappucinos yet!

When the walls fall down on your old town...

I've been neglecting the old blog as of late. For the past week, I've been visiting the 'rents in St. Ratford, and spending a lot of time running around and visiting people, so my dial-up internet forays have been limited to mainly email and facebook. So here is a long overdue post.

I spent an enjoyable week back home. First of all, I scored free rides there and back (woo-hoo!). I visited with quite a few friends too; I even got to catch up with a fellow colleague from my days teaching in Northern Ontario. I was quite pleased with the social aspect of my trip. I spent some time with my parents and watched some movies with them. Also, my uncle and his family from Ottawa were visiting so I got to see them too.

I caught my free ride back to Toronto yesterday, and I have an awesome day planned for today. There is a going-away party for a couple of my friends from university, since they are going to teach in Korea for a year. The party was going to be on Centre Island, but since the weather is really crappy and rainy, it's been moved to a house. Which is actually okay, because I'm feeling lazy and don't feel like taking the ferry.

This morning I got a pleasant surprise as I read the Toronto Star online with my breakfast. Sloan is playing tonight at The Ex (a really big fair that goes on for the last two weeks of summer - I hate when it starts because then I know summer's really coming to an end), and seeing them is free with admission. Woo-hoo! So, Becca T and I are going to go there after the party, catch the show, and then wander around the midway. I haven't seen Sloan since, oh goodness I can't remember - it may have been 2 years, so it's time. I really hope they play some of my faves from the new album. :)

Perhaps later in the week, I'll publish some deep thoughts or at least something more substantial. I have to admit that I'm getting a bit mopey. I'm going to have to go to school next week and start prepping for the new school year, which means using my brain, and my brain has been protesting muchly. It's much happier just reading fluffy novels, thinking about music, and staying up late to watch the Daily Show.

Just back where we belong.

Well, I'm home! Not for long though, since it looks like I can snag a free ride to St. Ratford on Saturday. This is ultra-convenient since I've not been there in a dog's age, and I was indecisive as to when I'd make the trip. I'm always happy when fate makes decisions for me.

Anyhow, my West Coast extravaganza has come to an end. Yesterday was an exhausting day of travelling from Seattle to Vancouver, and then flying from Vancouver back to Toronto. I spent today catching up on my sleep and ignoring the whole unpleasant task of unpacking and doing laundry. That'll be for tomorrow.

Yesterday while I was sitting in the Vancouver airport waiting for my plane, I took out the little notebook that I'd brought to use as a travel journal but ended up neglecting for the majority of the trip. I made a list of the highlights and
lowlights of my trip as I waited for my plane, and laughed aloud a couple of times as I was doing so, which caused an old man to give me a strange look which incidentally made me chuckle a bit more. I decided that my list would make a fabulous post-trip blog post, so here it is.

Highlights:
1) West Edmonton Mall - This is first since it's really the first thing that we did, plus I'd always wanted to go there when I was a materialistic middle schooler. It was cool.
2) Whyte Ave in Edmonton - Honestly though, I liked the shopping on this funky street in Edmonton much more than the large mall. If I was an Edmontonian, that's totally where I'd shop.
3) Seeing the Rockies for the first time



4) Dinner on Earl's Balcony in Jasper - This restaurant has the best view in Jasper. It's fun dining with the rockies as your back drop.
5) Columbia Icefield - We took the trip out to stand on the ever-shrinking Athabasca glacier outside of Jasper. It was really fun.



6) The town of Jasper - The whole place was super cute. I would compare it to those mini ceramic picturesque houses that people can buy and use to make their own cute little town.



7) Jasper to Edmonton train ride - Even though it was 17.5 hrs, it was relaxing, had some fabulous sights, and I got a good 7 hrs of sleep on the journey.
8) Vancouver Sushi - We ate a lot of sushi in Vancouver. There were three reasons for this: a) Becca T is a sushi nut; b) Vancouver sushi is super cheap (half of what it is in Toronto; and c) sushi is tasty.
9) Biking in Stanley Park - So pretty and so much fun. We were lucky to have great weather on this day.



10) Drinking in Gastown - Definitely my favourite Vancouver neighbourhood.
11) Walking around Victoria - Very pretty city.



12) Whale-watching in Victoria - It was so cold, and we only did see one whale (a grey whale), but I thought it was fun. At least we got to see some bonus sea lions and seals.



13) Renting a car and driving over the Granville St. Bridge in Vancouver
14) Walking up and down the beach in White Rock - That's the lovely little beach town to which I travelled for the wedding.



15)My roommate's wedding - Don't you love it when two lovely people get married? I'm going to miss them since I won't see as much of them.
16) Returning the car safely without having injured self, others, or the car - Did I mention that I'm a nervous driver when I'm driving in places I don't know?
17) Green Tortoise Hostel in Seattle - If you are even in Seattle, stay here. Thanks to a friend at work for this tip.



18) Seattle - I loved the Pike St. Market, visiting the first Starbucks ever, Pioneer Square, the Experience Music Project, and the Waterfront. Great city.



19) Meeting new people - I got to meet a lot of new people on this trip from coworkers of Becca T's who took us in and/or fed us, a super fun blog buddy who showed us around and was brave enough to get into a car with me behind the wheel, and random wedding guests (especially the cute boy who I talked to for most of the wedding). I had a lot of good conversations on this trip.
20) Arriving home safely

Lowlights
I made a list of lowlights not because I'm a negative complainer, but because I think the few random bad things that happened on my trip were actually rather humourous in retrospect.
1) Becca T giving me a nasty ginger candy while waiting in the Toronto airport - I can't believe she likes those things.
2) The really long probably about 5 hour wait in the tiny crappy isolated Edmonton train station. We had to wait the same length of time in Jasper, but we were downtown so we could check our bags and walk around and go for ice cream and what not.
3) Getting hit by a car in Burnaby - Yes, I was actually hit by a freaking car, but not injured in anyway. Let's just say that if you are a pedestrian, you must be very wary of Vancouver drivers. Becca T and I were crossing a street, and the light changed, and I did not see a car who decided that it should try to turn right at the same time I was in the intersection. It turned into me, and only hit my shoulder. Honestly, I felt so lucky it didn't run over my foot. I was in shock, and kind of assumed it was my fault (it totally wasn't), so I didn't react at first, but luckily there was another pedestrian who yelled at the driver. I have never been so rattled in my life. Again, I'm so lucky that I wasn't hurt. That would have ruined the trip.
4) Arrving in sketchy Seattle bus station - I did the Seattle leg of my trip by myself, and ended up taking a bus that got me into Seattle at 11 pm, and during the trip I wondered what the hell was I thinking - how safe can it be to arrive in a strange city, late at night, by yourself? When I saw the sketchiness of the Seattle bus station, I questioned my idea even more, but luckily, that bus station was the worst thing in Seattle; the rest of the city is lovely.
5) The bus trip back from Seattle to Vancouver - I scheduled a lot of time in between my arrival in Vancouver, and my flight, but I'm a worrywart, so I didn't really enjoy the trip. Well, part of that was the fact that I had to go back to the above bus station, and the fact we got held up at customs.

But when one compares the highlights to the lowlights, you can see what a really great trip I had. It's sad that it's done, but I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. :)

I am too tired to think of a title.

All right, it's been awhile since I've done any vacation blogging. I tried once when I was at the hostel in Vancouver, but I ended up having problems with the internet and got rather fed up and went to bed. Right now, I've just arrived in Seattle and I'm just waiting to check in. Everything has been fabulous so far, but this internet is also slow, and my words are appearing on the screen slower than I am thinking them, so I'm going to quit and try blogging another time. You might have to wait until I'm back in the T-dot on Wed morning for all of the details of my West Coast craziness.

Update: It's the morning now and I'm well rested and a little bit more coherent. I have an exciting day planned of Space Needles and Starbucks. I'm pretty excited. I really like the hostel I'm staying at, but that may be more because I just had waffles for breakfast than anything. Ha-ha. No, but seriously, I liked it before the waffles. The waffles just sealed the deal.

My former roommate's wedding was also fabulous. Not that I had any doubt that it would be, since the girl has always had impeccable taste (as you can no doubt tell from her taste in roommates). The funniest part of it was that I had to rent a car to drive to the wedding, which really made me super nervous, since I rarely drive, especially in areas with actual traffic in highways. I have to say though, driving over the Granville St. bridge was really really really fun, and worth the nervous spazzes that preceded me renting the car, and the ones that I had when I got lost on the way back to Vancouver from the wedding.

Anyhow, I really hear the first Starbucks calling my name, so I'll catch ya'll when I'm back in Toronto!

Just hop a train you hate to fly...

Greetings from a random internet cafe in Jasper Alberta. I'm on day 5 of my Western Canada Extravaganza vacation! Thus far, it's been really awesome. We started in Edmonton, where we spent Tuesday and Wednesday. When we arrived on Tuesday it was freaking cold, and started to rain, so we thought it would be a great day to spend at the West Edmonton Mall. I think said mall still holds the title of World's Largest. When I was in grade 6, and really into shopping, and dismayed by the lack of shopping in Stratford, I really wanted to go to the West Ed. Well, my inner grade 6 was appeased, however, 8 years of living in Toronto has left me far too accustomed to great shopping, so all in all I was meh about it. All I ended up buying was a fun belt.

The next day, we spent the whole day walking around Edmonton, and spent some time shopping on Whyte Street, which is a really picturesque little street in the older part of town. There are lots of neat stores there. We had dinner at some friends of Becca's and played karoke games on their playstation. That was fun. Then we headed out to a pub downtown.

The next morning we were up early to catch our supposed 8:50 train. We arrived at the station, and it was running 3 hrs late! Gah! Now, if we were in Toronto, or even Stratford for gosh sakes, we could have just checked our baggage, left the station and wandered around downtown. However, the train station in Edmonton is way in the middle of nowhere, so we were stuck. I found it rather ironic that we ended up probably spending just as much time in the little crappy train station as we did at the mall. Anyhow, we eventually did get to board the train, and the ride itself was pretty good. It got awesome when we arrived in the Rockies. Lots of pictures were taken.

We ended up arriving in Jasper about 5 hrs late. We checked into our B&B then headed to town for dinner. We found a restaurant with a patio overlooking the mountains, which was awesome. After dinner, we wandered around for a bit, then it was off to sleep since the next day we had to be up early for a trip to the Columbia Icefields.

The trip to the glacier was really amazing. We got to see lots of scenery, and actually go out on the glacier. It was really cool, literally, ha-ha. There were all kinds of signs showing where the glacier ended during different times, which reminded me of An Inconvient Truth.

We returned in Jasper in time for supper, did some shopping, then hit a place where martinis were $1.00 off. I love martinis!

Today our train is scheduled to leave at 3 pm, but we'll see what time that turns out to be. It's okay if it's late here, since we can spend more time in town, and I've found a coffee shop that I'm in love with. Really, I wouldn't mind if the train was late since I feel they owe me 5 more hours in Jasper. Watch it be on time. Actually, I'd rather to make it to Vancouver sometime on Sunday morning, so hopefully it's not too late.

Anyhow, I have a 17.5 hr train trip separating me from Vancouver. I'm excited for Vancouver, because I'm looking forward to biking in Stanley Park, going to many sushi places, seeing the ocean, meeting up with a blog buddy, taking the ferry to Victoria, my old roommate's wedding, and eventually making my way to Seattle. Yay!

Gone Fishing...

Well, not really. I've fished once and it was a horrible experience.

I'm leaving for the airport in less than 5 hours and I'm not quite yet done packing. I'm sure that I will be blogging from the road, so I'll catch ya then. :)

Edit: It's now 1:34am, and I'm more or less packed, except for my toothbrush and other stuff that I will need. We're leaving for the airport at 5 am, which means I need to get out of bed at about 4 am, which means tonight's sleep will be more of a nap than anything. I'm kind of hyper right now, so I figured I'd see if I could use my computer as a sedative.

I was able to download the new Matt Good album from iTunes shortly after midnight, so I'll have that for my travels.

The itinerary is Edmonton/Jasper/Vancouver/Victoria/back to Van/White Rock (wedding)/Seattle. I'm excited. We're taking the train from Edmonton to Vancouver (stopping in Jasper) and I'm excited because I'm a bit of a train geek and excited to be taking the train somewhere other than St. Ratford. I really do enjoy trains, and the one through the Rockies is supposed to be beautiful. And did I mention that 8+ years of frequent train travel has earned me the trip for free? Woo-hoo.

All right, I'm going to try to have that nap. Catch ya somewhere northwest of where I usually type from. :)

Or will you spend your life in the cinema?

I'm just back from seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (And you thought things were going to get less Harry Potter around here since I finished the book.) It's my favourite Harry Potter movie hands down. I loved it. I think it's because I am quite partial to that book because I think young Harry's got the makings of a fine educator. Even they changed some details, and left a few things out, I think it was a fine adaptation and I can't wait for #6. Oh man, the stuff that'll go down in #6 will be crazy.

Anyhow, I'm coming to the close of my first week of real vacation (i.e. no course). It's been swell. I'm totally finished unpacking, and I've got all of my stuff up on the walls, so my apartment is feeling quite like home now. All I need is a coffee table. I'm using a large blue Rubbermaid container as a makeshift coffee table right now. It's actually making me quite nostalgic for the old apartment because the very same container was used as a coffee table before my roommate got one.

One thing I really do miss about having a roommate is having someone to show stuff to when you come home from shopping. One thing I find dangerous about summer vacay in Toronto, is that I have a lot of free time, and I like to go for walks in my free time, and it means that I invariably end up shopping. Now, a solution for this problem would be to leave all forms of payment at home, but unfortunately, I end up actually having to go shopping for a specific item, and leaving with a few extras. Today's task was to buy a sweater to go with the dress I'm wearing my old roommate's wedding, and I ended up with that, a new T-shirt ($7!) and two pairs of shoes. In my defense, the shoes were super on sale, and will be really good for work once I have to bite that bullet. Anyhow, earlier in the week, when I accidentally bought a different super-cute shirt (damn these summer sales!), I got said shirt home and wasn't sure if I liked it anymore. So, I used the self-timer on my handy camera, took a pic, and sent it to some friends who assured me it was indeed cute. Technology is great, eh?

Okay, tomorrow I have to go shopping again, this time for a wedding present for my old roommate. Which brings me to the topic of my trip out west, which is coming upon me really fast. I leave on Tuesday! And, I'm starting to think about all kinds of last minute details that I need to iron out soon. Thank goodness I have this weekend.

Anyhow, it's late so I should go to bed. I need to get up early tomorrow since I have a bajillion errands to run. Hope you all have excellent Fridays!

I've been under the ground, eating prayers from this old book I found.

Well, I finished it. One kind of wants to slowly read a book that they've been waiting 2 years for, but when it's very good, the idea of slowly relishing it goes out the window.

Side note: one thing I learned from this volume of HP is that Harry was born in the same year as I was. There's a scene where he goes to his parents' grave, and their death date is Oct. 31st, 1981. Since they were killed when he was 1, I did the math, and yeesh, if I'd been a fictional girl in Great Britian, I would have been in Harry's class. Freakin' hell, I would have been Hermione, since like to think I have her brains, her righteousness, and yes, her tendency for know-it-all-ism. To top it off, I'm Muggle-born.

Anyhow, I'd give the book, nay the entire series, about a million stars out of ten. Best. Heptology. Of. Books. Ever. (Thanks Jon Stewart for the word heptology.)

Well, I'll come down from my HP-induced state of euphoria since those of you who aren't into the heptology (shame!) are getting bored, and those of you who are into the series are getting sore necks from nodding in agreement with me. Basically, this whole Harry Potter phenomenon has re-affirmed my hypothesis of happiness.

Basically, I think happiness lies in enjoyment of the little things in life. I am a generally happy person, not because I have an amazing life; I mean, my life's pretty swell but there are aspects of it that I could dwell upon and act grimly about, but I find my overall cheery demeanor comes from the fact I get true joy out of little things like:
a) the final volume in a popular children's heptology
b) the use of a weird word like heptology
c) concert tickets
d) new albums
e) frappucinos
f) movie dates with friends
g) sleeping in on Mondays
h) trips with friends
i) shiny objects
j) hilarious TV shows
and I could go on. (Okay, I kid about letter i, but I got a small amount of joy out of making that joke even if it's little cornball. The little cornball reference reaffirms my enjoyment of letter j. )

So, I say to all of you, find some little thing to be happy about on this Monday. :)

That what's mistaken for closeness is just a case of mitosis...

Holy long time without a post Batman. I'd like to say that I've been busy unpacking the remaining boxes that are littering the floor of my new digs, but you can just tell by the construction of this sentence that's not the case. I suppose the knowledge that there is still a lot of time left of summer vacay promotes procrastination.

Today was the last day of my course - woo-hoo! Yay for that being over. Although, I did enjoy the people in my class; you get a little bit close to people when you're stuck together in a windowless classroom for three weeks during your summer vacay and you're forced to discuss a wide range of controversial topics. We went for some drinks after today's class; ya gotta love sitting on a rooftop patio drinking beer on a Friday in the summer. I just slept off the effects of my beer; I hate to say I'm becoming a bit of a lightweight.

Tonight, of course, is the release of the seventh of last Harry Potter book. I got into the Harry Potter series during Christmas of 2000. Basically, I wanted to see what the fuss was about, so I asked for the first book for Christmas. Well, I got hooked and here I am today waiting for the clock to strike 12:01 am so that I can get my hands on the very last book. It's totally going to occupy me until I'm finished, and I might just read it for a second time after that.

In other news, I'm digging the Andrew Bird album "Armchair Apocrypha". I dig that there's a song that actually contains the word mitosis. Continuing with music news, I got tickets to see Damien Rice at the beginning of September. Today I found out that Ben Lee is releasing a new album on Sept 18th. Yay!

Hmmm, not much else to say for the day. Oh yeah, happy bday to Wes, one of my fave bloggers. :)

Today, today is gonna be a better one.

Quick post - I should be in bed right now, or at least finishing my homework assignment for my course (5 days left!). Or making my lunch, but I've been wasting a little time online since I found out that my internet is working a day early. :)

Anyhow, the move went well - it took longer than I anticipated, and it rained a bit, but those were the only dilemmas. Oh, I had a minor panic attack when I thought a box of my CDs went missing (I'd mislabelled said box "books", because I shoved a couple of books in there, and therefore thought it was a box of books, hence the mislabelling.) After finding the box of CDs, one of my kind St. Ratford pals who came down for the move, put some of them in my CD holder, which toppled over not once, but twice, luckily not taking anyone out, but damaging a few CD cases. It apparently is not as steady on carpet as it was on hardwood. I think I've remedied the situation, but I think it would be rather ironic if I was hurt by my beloved CD collection.

After completing the move, we went on a break-neck Ikea trip, where I dropped a lot cash. The cashier actually asked me "are you ready?" before giving me the total, which turned out less worse than I'd anticipated, mainly because they were out of the coffee table that I wanted, and I was too indecisive to pick out a dresser quite yet.

Post-Ikea trip, we went to dinner at a really good Middle-Eastern restaurant in my old neighbourhood, which isn't too far from the new neightbourhood anyway. Then, one of my friends went home, while my other friend, who was staying overnight, declared that she wanted to get drunk because she typically is stuck driving, so we found a pub, and stayed out quite late. After last call, we stopped at a 24-hr grocery store for cake, and then stayed up pretty late. So my first sleep in my new place was a short one.

Today was spent getting odds and ends for the place, going for a long shopping excursion downtown, putting up curtains and some of my new furniture. I've unpacked a lot of my boxes, and now all of the empty ones are an eyesore on my living room floor. That will be something I can tackle tomorrow after class. (Did I mention 5 more days?)

I also called my old roommate to see how she was doing. She is going to keep the old apartment, and her fiance has started to move in his stuff. On Tuesday, I'm going by there to thoroughly clean my old room and bathroom, and then we'll have dinner. It's cool having my own apartment for the first time in my life, but when you have a roommate that you get along with really well for 2.75 years, it's really bittersweet to move on and out.

Take me take me to the riot....

Well, I'm thinking this will be my last blog post written here on the 27th floor. The move is on Saturday afternoon. I got a lot of packing done this weekend, but I've been slacking these past three days, so tomorrow and Friday will be busy; hence no blogging will be done. The internet will be working at my new place as of Monday, so I'll update you about the move and the new place then (while I'm most likely waiting for the cable guy).

Anyhow, as of today 7/14 days of my class are finished! Woo-hoo! There are 4 different units in the course and a different instructor per unit. Anyway, we are now done two of the units, and I think the 2nd set will be more interesting. I think the course is on an upswing... I hope...

Yesterday I found out that Stars released their new album 4 days after completion on iTunes. The physical CD won't be out 'til Sept 25th (coincidentally the same day as the new Weakerthans album). Anyhow, I had to get it right away and it is excellent. Yay!

Well, I think this will be a concise wrap-up of my blogging from this apartment. Catch you on Monday from the 4th floor of a much smaller building that is about a 20 minute walk northeast of here.

With your summer hat and smile, you came here to leave there.

You learn a lot about yourself in the midst of packing. I've learned:
a) I own a lot of Tshirts that I forgot about.
b) I save shopping bags for some reason.
c) I save shoe boxes.
d) I have a box of stuff that I haven't unpacked since I moved here. I've decided to not touch and bring it to my new place, where I'm sure it will remain packed up.
e) I have too much junk. I'm trying to get rid of it, but I get sentimentally attached to the stupidest things. Luckily I have shoeboxes to shove that stuff into.
f) I have a bad habit of holding on to mail. I'll just shove it into a shoe box or shopping bag and leave it. I've been shredding stuff from 2004!
g) I really should dust more often.
h) I have a lot of socks.
i) I've thrown out enough old lip glosses to, ummm, hmmm, it's hard to come up with an analogy for that, but let's just say it's a lot of old lip glosses.
j) I love Lifesavers story books, but I never eat them. I just gave my roommate's fiance enough Lifesavers to last an eon.

Anyhow, I pledge to become a better-organized, neater, tidier, less materialistic, less pack-rat-ish individual when I move into my new apartment. I'm sure if there are any neatfreaks reading this, I've given you a heart attack with some of my descriptions.

I'm onto season 3 of Arrested Development during my packing downtime.

I accidentally flagged my own blog for objectionable content. Has anyone done that before? That button is quite easy to accidentally click. Yeesh.

I have a homework assignment to do tonight. Boo!! And, had to break down and buy printer ink so I could print out said assignment. That was an expense I could have done without.

I know it's real slow, honey...

2 days of my course done, 12 more to go.

I laugh at the ridiculousness of *me* having to sit in a student in a desk in a high school classroom. Although, it's strange how one can morph back into student mode very easily. Yesterday, I showed up to the first day, only carrying a pen and a little notebook in my bag; there were some people with neatly organized binders with actualy dividers. I tend to be like that when it comes to my actual school work; but since taking this course is a contractual obligation, I decided that my act of rebellion would be to be a little disorganized and shove my papers into my bag just like some of my own students do. Heck, at the very least, I felt that I was representing my school with flair.

Anyway, today at lunch I broke down and bought a folder for my papers at Grand & Toy. I couldn't hack the disorganization anymore; but still, at least I'm not one of the people who has a binder with dividers.

After the irony of me sitting in a desk wore off, I was surprised at how easily I morphed into student mode and how comfortable the familiar position felt. I listened most of the time, but my mind did wander and when it did, I made up math problems for myself to solve. I wish I had a cooler talent like drawing, but no, that's what I was given.

I was lucky enough to sit behind the class clown. Even in a room full of teachers, there's one. He teased me for being a keener and highlighting what I read; it's really not a strategy to enhance my learning; I've always done it to stay awake when I'm reading something that I'm forced to read. Then we noticed that our intructor had left the room, and everyone was still quietly reading, and then had a good laugh picturing what would happen if we left our classes in the same manner. Reading is the last thing they'd be doing.

Being a student in a classroom setting made me wonder how I was able to hack being a student for 18 years. I think it helped that from grade 11 on, I more or less took stuff I was interested in (math and science) and that I wasn't in the same windowless room for 6 hrs a day. Yeesh.

After class, I had a productive evening scrounging up some boxes, and adhering to the packing schedule that I made myself yesterday while half-listening to the introductory material in class. Today was clearing out my bathroom day. I have an unfortunate condition that I will call BPADD - Beauty Product Attention Deficit Disorder. I'll by a new shampoo, conditioner, eyeshadow, moisturizer, what have you, use it a few times, and then awhile later I'll go shopping and find a new product. The old product will be shoved under my sink, and I'll try the product. A lot of half finished bottles of product were chucked today. When I move, I'm going to put myself on a strict cosmetic diet - I'm not allowed to buy anything new 'til I finish what I have. Yeesh.

Aside - I have the sweetest friends. One of my fave coworkers went to school today, and noticed a that a shipment of paper had come in for summer school, so she unpacked it for them and then brought me a bunch of boxes. I'm so lucky.

Okay, bed time. I'm going to try to be super attentive in class tomorrow.

At 3 am, they play O Canada... True patriot love a la la la la.

Goodness! It's 11:27 pm and I almost did not do my Canada Day tradition: listen to the song "True Patriot Love" by the Joel Plaskett Emergency. Rest assured, I have righted my wrong just in time, and I'm listening to it now, and I'll listen to it a couple of times, just to be safe.

I've been having a pretty low-key long weekend. I spent Friday recovering from Thursday, pre-ordering my Harry Potter book, and getting a stack of books from the library.

On Saturday, I met up with a couple of friends for sushi, followed by a beer on a patio, and a bit of shopping.

I also picked up season 2 of Arrested Development and have been watching that. I never was into that show when it was on tv, but I had a friend lend season 1 to me awhile ago and I've watched that season twice. I like the show so much that I figure I'll just break down and buy the other two seasons instead of waiting to have them lent to me. Then I'll have to of course get season one as well, so that I will have the complete series.

This morning I went to pick up the keys to my new apartment! It looks great! They remodelled the entire kitchen for me and it looks beautiful. I'm excited to move in; however I'll miss this apartment, my roommate, the balcony, and the view, though not necessarily in that order. My roommate is #1, of course. Today we discussed the necessity of going out for an end-of-successful-living-arrangement dinner sometime before I get too busy packing.

This evening I took advantage of the view by watching Canada Day fireworks across the city from my bedroom window. Have I mentioned that I'll miss this view? ;)

I'm also obsessed with listening to the stream of the new Matt Good album "Hospital Music". It's amazing. I love every song. Yay!

Hope you all had wonderful Canada Days. :)

Notes from the crawl...

1) We started in Yorkville yet again, and I'm pretty sure that we saw Jude Law at our first stop. We were sitting on the patio, right by the entrance, and he was leaving. My friend and I were talking and we both stopped and gave each other a very pointed "Is that Jude Law?" look. I'm pretty sure it was, even though he had a totally awkward haircut. About 20 minutes after he left, he returned with really red eyes. Oh yeah - my first celebrity gossip scoop!

One of my coworkers at this point spilled a glass of merlot all over one of my other coworkers. The waitress brought us a spray called "Wine Away", which totally got all of the wine off her jeans. Miraculous!

2) Our second stop was a book launch. My coworker had a couple of poems published in an anthology. We stayed for all of the readings; they were mosly pretty good. However, standing in a hot little bookstore for 1.5 hrs killed the buzz that I'd gotten from stop #1.

3) We moved from the launch to dinner at a cute pub we discovered last year. I now know where to get Toronto's best Mac & Cheese.

4) We meandered to College St, were we ran into two teaching assistants from our school who thought it was hi-larious to see 6 teachers out on the town. We told them to bring us someplace to do shots and we ended up at this club that was in a garage on a side street. There we saw a few men in skirts dancing to house music. We had shots of amaretto and sambuca, and joined in on the dancing.

5) Next stop was a grungy bar that one of my coworkers loves. We slowed down our drinking pace momentarily and slowly sipped our drinks to loud rock music.

6) At our next stop, I moved on to drinking peach martinis. We then made plans for next school year - important stuff like starting a Friday lunch tradition and stuff. At this point, we were all pretty drunk and high-fiving each other a lot, because apparently, I tend to high five people a lot when I'm drunk.

7) Last stop was Sneaky Dee's - which I honestly think is the best last stop on a pub crawl because they have pretty great poutine. Anyhow, our waitress ended up spilling a plate of poutine on my coworker (who was wearing white, of course). My other coworker exclaimed "Oh no! My ketchup!" as this happened. We were all laughing hysterically at this point, and the waitress was apologizing profusely. She spent 10 mintues with us, cleaning off my coworker's sweater with baking soda and club soda as we continued to laugh. She ended up bringing us a round of apology shots.

I think it was about 4 am when I made it home. Ahhh, I love the end of the school year. :)

Thanks for the memories...

As I was watching the class of 2007 walk across the stage this evening, I remembered something: I am a member of the class of 1997, and approximately 10 years ago, I was making a similar walk. Now, that of course, was back in the day of Ontario's archaic education system where there was a grade 13 (OAC) for those who were university-bound, so I graduated from high school knowing that I'd be back again in September taking fun courses like physics and calculus.

But still - it's been 10 years since I graduated high school. Yikes!

It's been a pretty productive 10 years for sure. In that time, I completed my OAC year, got two university degrees, racked up 4 years of teaching experience, kept all of my close friends from high school, made tonnes of new ones, and developed my refined taste in cool music. Not too shabby.

Anyhow, back to my mind wanderings during the ceremony... There was at least on good thing about graduating from a St. Ratford high school. All of the graduating classes were given free tickets to a Festival Production. The play for my year was, I kid you not, Death of A Salesman. Could they not have found something more depressing? It was a good production, but I left with a "gee life sucks" feeling, which isn't particularly what one wants to feel as they move into the next chapter of their life.

Tomorrow we have our year end meeting. There are a couple of people who are leaving our school of whom I'm quite fond, so it'll be a bittersweet day. At least I'll end it with a kickass annual pub crawl. :) I think I've mentioned the pub crawl. Oh, how I'm excited for the pub crawl.

I also have my "lessons" planned for my first day of vacay (Friday). School-year habits, such as planning your days, are hard to kill during those first few days of vacay.
1) Sleep in.
2) Drink lots of water, and eat something to hopefully minimize effects of hangover.
3) Mail ring back to Sweden? (See note below)
4) Walk to children's bookstore that is near my new apartment to pre-order next Harry Potter book. I know, it's shocking that I haven't ordered yet, but I don't until I find a place that will put the book directly in my hands at midnight for at least 30% off.
5) Continue jaunt to neighbourhood library and check out a few books. I haven't done that in a long time.
6) Take books to a coffee shop and read them while enjoying a frappucino.

I love summer!

Note: Less than two weeks ago, while perusing celebrity gossip, I read about a ring made in Sweeden called Singelrigen. Bascially, it's a ring to signify that you're single, and you're cool with it, and whatever. I liked the idea, and I really the look of the ring, so I ordered one. It arrived today, but is a little too big for my ring finger (I was between sizes). It fits on my middle finger and index finger, so I'm debating whether to exchange it or keep it.

It never once bought me a drink.

No more pencils, no more books, no more students' dirty looks!

I have 2 more days officially on the clock. Exams are marked, marks are in, and I'm in the process of cleaning my desks (don't ask, but I have multiple). I have a couple more binders to organize, and a few other assorted chores, and that's it. Tomorrow night is graduation, then on Thursday we have our year-end staff meeting/lunch. And then, you know what comes after that? Pub crawl!!! Woo-hoo!!!

It's been a busy time since the fantabulous Weakerthans concert. I went to St. Ratford this weekend. The honest-to-God highlight of the weekend for me was that I went for a long walk around the river on Sunday afternoon, and a little weasel scurried past me, and stood still so that I could get a good look at him/her. I don't think I've ever seen a weasel in real-life; they're smaller than I imagined. While I was looking at the weasel, I remembed back to the mammology course I took in university and how weasels have a special jaw that clicks in just the right way that makes their bite pretty powerful, and how I was lucky that said weasel was not trying to bite me. Then, my mind wandered to a favourite line from the Simpsons: "Marge, don't discourage the boy. Weasling out of things separates us from the animals. Except the weasel."

Okay, I'll stop indulging in my weirdness now. Whose weekend highlight is seeing a weasel? Yeesh, I get stranger by the day. But honestly, I'd never seen one in real life, except for the human type, of course.

This evening I went to a wedding shower for a coworker which was conveniently held at a pub in my neighbourhood. It was fun as far as showers go; no corny games or anything like that, just people getting together and having drinks and snacks. There were teachers from a bunch of school there. It turned out that one of them was actually a Canadian pop music star from the late 1980s, whose tape I totally dug. It was kind of funny because my coworker (whose shower it was) came up and asked a group of us if we'd ever heard of the singer, and I of course was all geeky and exuberant and noted that I loved her when I was 8. So, my coworker introduced me to the woman like I was a big fan, and it was a little bit embarassing, but not too much really. It's more funny to think that I've ended up working for the same school board as a childhood idol. I had to call my mom and tell her when I got home though.

Anyhow, I should get going to bed. The faster I go to bed, the faster that I can awake and get myself to work to finish off those last pesky tasks.

Measure me in metered lines and one decisive stare.

Well last night was my enjoyability of enjoyablities - a Weakerthans concert. The long over-two-year drought is over. It was awesome to the power of infinity. My coworker who went with me teased me about how when I really like something I say "I love it/them/whatever dearly". So after the concert she said "Did you love it dearly?" and I said "Of course I loved it very dearly!"

As you know, it was in downtown Hamilton. Downtown Hamilton is pure sketch, y'all. There we were, two Toronto girls, debating where would be the safest place to park the car in a parking lot. Should we park by a nice truck? Maybe then scoundrels would break into the truck and not our car... Or perhaps the truck would just shade the car and make it an easier target. When we were driving home after the concert, we were very sure to have our doors locked. Anyway, I don't think that Hamilton's sketchy area is that bad, after all, there are some very sketchy areas of Toronto (like where I saw Joel Plaskett), but unfamiliar sketch is scarier that familiar sketch.

The venue was a total hole, but holes are fun, and my coworker loves holes so we were quite happy. The opening band, Attack in Black, were quite enjoyable. Then it was a very short while and then the Weakerthans came on! Yay! How can I describe them? I really and truly believe that they are the best live band around. Am I biased? I don't think so. All I know is that I liked the Weakerthans. Then, in the summer of 2001, I saw them live and after that I loved them dearly. After a few more shows, they became my favourite.

Anyway, they did not disappoint last night. (They could never disappoint.) They played a lot of new material, all of which was amazing. Oh new Weakerthans record, how I await you! There was even a song about curling. Also, for one of the new songs Christine Fellows took the stage and played keyboard (I think). I couldn't see much on the stage, even though the venue was tiny. All I know was at the end of the song, John K said "Christine Fellows, everyone" which I assume meant that she was playing on stage. She is someone else who I love dearly.

I also enjoy how there are songs, that on CD you might overlook or which might just not be your favourite, but when they are played live become standouts. Last night, the song "The Prescience of Dawn" totally stood out for me. My breath was taken away. It was awesome.

Below are some pictures of the show. The first one is taken from my vantage point. The others were taken by my tall coworker. In desirable traits for a concert-going-buddy, height is definitely on the list.



So that concet will definitely tide me over for awhile. I hope that there will be another long Weakerthans-concert-related post coming in the near future.

I actually don't have to be at work today because all of my exams have been written and I'm caught up on my marking. Next week, I have to go in and tie up some lose ends, and on Thursday is our year-end staff lunch and then it's good-bye to the 2006/2007 school year!

I get to laze around my apt until when I have to catch my train to St. Ratford. Happy weekend to everyone!

I know you may roll your eyes at this, but I'm so glad that you exist.

Tomorrow night is my Weakerthans concert in Hamilton. Woo-hoo! I am beyond excited for this. Now, I'm sure I'm complained a billion times on here about the fact that it's been over two years since my last Weakerthans concert, and man, am I happy to be ending that dry spell.

Initially I was going to rent a car with my dear friend Becca T to go to Hamilton for the show, but stuff happens and she can no longer go. Luckily, I have a friend at work, for whom I've made Weakerthans mixed CDs, who was more than willing to pick up the slack. Plus, she's got a car, so I do not have to deal with my Toronto/highway-driving anxieties at this point in time.

In university, my pals Becca T, Alison and I coined a lot of words in our personal lexicon. We were weird like that. One of the best was the term enjoyability (noun) which is a term for something enjoyable. A Weakerthans concerts is one of my top enjoyabilities in life. Since I'm in a happy mood, I'm going to list some more enjoyabilities, just for fun, since making a list of enjoyabilities is an enjoyability in itself.

* Today's weather - it was a little cool, but I love not sweating!
* Sitting on my balcony with a yummy Orange Mocha Frappucino from Starbucks. I'm sad that I'm moving away from said balcony. I don't go out there often enough, but man, the view is breathtaking.
* New CDs! I picked up the Silversun Pickups (haha) and Imogen Heap on a whim today.
* Students who write me happy notes on their final exams.
* The Daily Show/Colbert Report - I haven't watched them in awhile, but I did today and laughed a lot. My fave line from Colbert "Oscillating fans: pick a side - left or right. We're at war!"
* Planning end of school pub crawls.
* Nice marking pens.
* School staring a little bit later during exam week.
* Taking the train to Stratford. I complain a lot about the train's lateness, but I do enjoy sitting on the train, listening to my iPod and daydreaming. Incidentally, I'm attempting another trip home, provided I do not sleep through my train again.
* Fresh laundry. That reminds me, I'd better go get mine from the dryer. Later!

Because the air outside will make our cells divide at an alarming rate.

Oh goodness gracious, my shoulders and, for some reason that I don't understand, my neck, are sore from all of the paddling this weekend. Thank goodness today was a relatively easy day at work, with only short classes and then exams.

Anyhow, my fellow Torontonian Scott made up this meme himself, and I'm going to do it right now, before I forget. What's better than a home-made meme??

God doesn't care whether or not I follow all of the little rules. He cares that I'm trying to make my corner of the planet a little bit better and that I love my fellow humans, even though some of them make it tough sometimes.

I adore sitting in a comfy chair, reading a good book while listening to my iPod and drinking a latte.

They always say that you should keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Lucky for me, I don't have much in the way of the latter, 'cuz it would really suck having to invite enemies to concerts.

Yeah, it's true that I'm a huge nerd, but I'm comfortable with it.

At one point I said that I would never, ever be a teacher. Mainly because at that point, I was a teenager, and lots of people said "oh, you should be a teacher" and teenagers like to be contrary like that. Trust me, I am an expert in the contrariness of teenagers.

Why should I care about celebrity gossip? It's cheap, meaningless, tacky, and crass. Yet it's the first thing I turn to after a hard day at work. It's my crack, I tell you.

Real men find smart women sexy.

I always return to St. Ratford. I love to badmouth it, and mock it, but it will always have a special place in my heart. I don't think I'll live there ever again, but I'll always have a connection to the place where I grew up. Plus a lot of my peeps still live there.

The music I love makes the soundtrack of my life. I love how I can listen to songs, and they vividly bring me back to memories of past times, and people.

I've never really had a broken heart because I keep myself way too guarded to be heartbroken by anyone. And, I've never met anyone whom I've loved enough to be hurt that deeply.

Someone told me that going to the University of Toronto would be a huge mistake because I'm not suited to living in a big city. Me - 1, that person - 0.

I can sit and pretend that summer will last forever, but Septemeber always creeps up on me.

The funny thing is I really should be cleaning my messy apartment instead of blogging. I wonder what percentage of my blog posts have been written under the auspices of procrastination?

So let go, jump in, oh well, whatcha waiting for?

This weekend was the big dragonboat festival. We had 2 races yesterday, and 2 today. The races on Saturday were the heats to determine what divisions we'd be racing in. They had put us in the wrong heats actually; we were with mixed teams when we were an all women's team. Now, we were told that we couldn't use this as an excuse; women's teams can paddle just as well or maybe better than mixed teams since women do tend to be good team players, which is what dragonboat racing is all about. Nevertheless, we came in last in our qualifying heats, but at least our times were on par with the lowest division of women's teams.

Our first race today was a diaster. We were racing again against mixed teams for the education cup. Again we finished last and had our worst time ever.

However, we had one race to go: the final for the lowest division of women's teams. We buckled down, practiced our start while sitting in rows on the grass, and stretched beforehand. We repeated our mantra for the upcoming race: reach out, head up and focus on our boat. We also had to borrow some paddlers from another team to fill our boat (a couple people left early for no good reason - boo, they're off the team next year I say).

We got yet another coach to steer us for this race. Apparently this year, everything was rather disorganized as compared to other years. We didn't even get a consistent coach from week to week, like we were supposed to. This last guy was really good; he got our sagging morale up and give us good last minute tips.

The race started. We reached out. We kept our heads up. We focussed on our boat. (Which is so much easier to do when you are not in last place with all of the other boats ahead of you.) I had no idea where we were compared to the other boats. At one point our coach said we were in third place. Everyone was screaming. For the last 100 m we paddled like crazy. The finish line got closer. The coach screamed "Go you sexy bitches!!! Reach!!" We went all out screaming like crazy. We got to the end and had no idea how we did; there were two other boats really close to us. Even at the end, we weren't sure how we did. All we cared was that we weren't last and we gave it our all.

There was less than 1 second between first and third places. One of the several coaches that we had throughout the season told us that it's often the push at the end that determines the winner. Well, the push that we gave at the end did it! We won the last race! We got a gold medal! Dammit, we were sexy bitches!!

(Note: we loved this last coach and asked him to be our coach next year. He said sure, if we were willing to drive all the way to Pickering. We were very disappointed to find out he wasn't in Toronto.)

Anyhow, below is a collage that we made to celebrate our victory complete with a medal, our trophy and our plaque.



One of my coworkers had to leave early because she had a bad knee that got really bad from being knocked against the side of the boat. We called her to tell her that we won the last race and she wouldn't believe it. Hahaha. We're all going to wear our medals to school tomorrow.

Anyhow, it was a great experience. I'm so that I decided to sign up for dragonboating. If you recall, I did so when I was a bit drunk. I honestly don't think I would have done so while sober. I'm not the most sportive of individuals, and I haven't been on any sort of sports team since fourth grade and haven't even thought about joining any sort of team since then either. It's really fun doing something unexpected and out of the norm like this, and I guess it goes to shows me that I should take more risks in life.

(Note: I just remembered that my friend begged me to be on the broomball team in teachers' college. I reluctantly agreed. We only played in one tourney I think. We were the Mighty Ducks of broomball: we didn't even have our own helmets. I think we actually won a game which made us very happy. We had no chance agains the likes of the Faculty of Pharmacy who had jerseys and were sponsered by Advil for crying out loud.)

Also, perhaps I would have been better in sports if I had had someone screaming at me "Go you sexy bitch!"

Anyhow, I think I'm going to be hurting tomorrow. But, it will be hilarious wearing my gold medal all day at school.

Well, off to do some marking. I've got two sets of projects to mark (well not complete sets, some are to come in tomorrow still, but I promised those who got them in on time I'd have them marked for tomorrow). Tomorrow is a short day of classes and then exams in the afternoon. I'm not even doing anything with my classes: I wrapped up everything on Friday. Oh summer vacay, you're getting so close that I can taste you!

We're back where we belong.

The big news is that tomorrow is my last full day of teaching for the 2006/2007 school year. I can't believe how another year has flown by. Next year will be my fifth year of being a teacher; my fourth at my school.

The year end has sort of sneaked up on me. I mean, come May/June, there's always a countdown going on in my head, but this year, I've been so busy that it's like BOOM! and there is one day left. Tomorrow I'm going to play exam review Jeopardy in my classes, and give them treats, and maybe get a little mushy on them.

I love summer vacation, of course, but it's dull compared to the school year. I have my share of days of frustration, where I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. My school is not especially academic (although there are some really sharp knives mixed in with the spoons, so to speak), and they like to give me some of the more challenging classes to teach, which is actually a compliment. Anyhow, despite the frustrations, I have so much fun at work, and during the summer I miss the little moments that I have during the average day that make me laugh and warm my heart.

So, as an homage to the school year that was, I'm going to share some of my favourite moments from this school year, most of which are from the last few weeks.

*Kid comes in for extra help at lunch before a test. I say "So what do you need help with?" Kid looks at me as if I'm kind of dumb. "Well, science..." he says, as if I was going to help him with English. I bite my tongue and don't point out that science is a rather broad field, and I was hoping that he'd narrow it down for me.

*Kid puts up his hand during a test and asks about a particular question which was "Is your home wired in series or in parallel?" He says "I never thought to look." I do my best not to laugh and explain he is supposed to use his knowledge of circuits to figure it out.

*A couple weekends ago, I tell my period 3 class that I really like them and I'm going to miss them. To which one clever kid replies "Miss, if you're going to miss us so much, why don't you give us 5 more minutes to study for our quiz??" So I do. Then when I say put your books away, it's quiz time, they all say "Miss, but remember you are going to miss us, right? How 'bout 5 more minutes?"

*I have to teach a unit on space, which isn't my favourite because I don't know all of the answers to all the questions they have. One kid asks me "Miss, how long would it take to fly to the moon?" I reply "I don't know, I've never been." They are nice enough to laugh and leave it at that.

Anyhow, I'm going to miss them during the summer. Remind me of this when in August I start writing my whiny "I don't want to go back" posts.

Sleepless long nights that's what my youth was for.

10 random things that have been running through my mind:

1) I just ate strawberries and yogurt. Strawberries are my favourite of all the berries.

2) I'm wearing new jean capris that I bought awhile ago. I like them a lot.

3) I dance better in my mind than I do in real life.

4) I need to get a light-up sign in my room that says "Do not think about anything stressful past midnight!" The past two nights, I've been tossing and turning in bed thinking about the most ridiculous things, and gettting stressed out and irritated. Then, the next day, I realize the stupidity of my thoughts and wonder why I got all worked up. In general, I tend to be a pretty laid back person, but I guess when I'm over-tired that goes out the window.

5) I booked my movers. I just need to book the elevator and pack my stuff up. Moving day is July 14th by the way.

6) I've also booked my flights for the Western Canada Extravanganza.

7) I spent 15 minutes today looking for my misplaced keys. (They had fallen behind a chair.) I honeslty got convinced that I'd left in the door and that my sketchy neighbours across the hall must have stolen them.

8) I'm hoping that the course I'm taking this summer might be a good place to meet guys, because really, that's really the only way I can make myself look forward to it. I'm required to take this course to get my permanent contract, and I don't think it will be hard like the course I'll be taking next summer (which will result in me getting a raise). I dunno... maybe there will be guys there. But, they will be teachers. And, in theory, dating a teacher would be okay because we'd have the same vacay time, but on the other hand, teachers are an odd sort and there really aren't that many younger males in the profession... or at least not that I meet.

9) Today I ate the most delicious fudgsicle.

10) There are three more full days of teaching left. And, for two of those, we actually have shorter classes. Oh summer my friend, you are so close to being here!

I'm capsized staring at the edge of safe..

I've been trying to blog all week, but I start a post then I read over my writing and think "this is the most boring thing known to humankind!" and delete it.

This could be indicative of two things:
a) my life is really, really boring right now; or
b) I'm in June ADD mode and my attention span is just slightly higher than that of a gnat.

Anyhow here's the weekend rundown, put into a numerical list to help me organize my wandering thoughts.

1) Rowing was cancelled on Friday because of a wicked thunderstorm. Myself and a couple of coworkers got there just in time to head down to the beach, get a bunch of sand blown into our face only to meet the rest of our team running to the parking lot. We made it to our cars just before the torrential downpour.

We have one more practice (Wed night) until the big races this weekend. Hmmm, do you think the fact that we haven't practiced in a couple weeks bodes well for us?

2) Friday evening I went to a coworkers' place to beverage, eat homemade eggrolls, and play Apples to Apples (a great party card game - buy it if you don't have it!). It was good times.

3) Saturday was errand day. As well as running errands, I booked some accomodations and train travel for the upcoming Western Canada extravaganza. I still have to book my flights.

4) Today was my roommate's wedding shower out in Mississauga. It was good. Hard to believe that in a month and a couple days we're no longer going to be roommates.

5) This weekend's much repeated song on my iPod is The Con by Tegan and Sara from their upcoming album of the same name. It is fabulous. I'm excited for that album.

Did I mention that I have 5 more full days of teaching 'til exams?? Woo! I can't believe this school year is almost over!

Who'll give you time to cry and time to find yourself?

What's better than seeing two bands, ones that you would actually pay to see, for free?

Perhaps seeing them in a venue that allows the second band to play the multiple encores that you're accustomed to?

But, really, one cannot expect perfection all of the time in one's life.

Anyhow, my free Stills/Hawksley show was awesome, awesome, awesome. The Stills are a pretty great live band. Now, I'm pretty unfamiliar with their music other than the fact that I love the song "Lola Stars & Stripes", and own their CD "Logic Will Break Your Heart". (Confession: I bought that CD a long time ago and never really bonded properly with it. I think I got it as one of those 2 for $25 deals along with Damien Rice's O. Usually, when I get two CDs at once, a sort of natural selection occurs and one CD prevails over the other. I really will listen to more of the Stills now that I've seen them live.)

After a good set by The Stills, my dear friend Hawksley took the stage for what I think is the eighth time I've seen him. He put on a good show as always and played a good mix of newer stuff and old classics that I love. He also had quite a few rockstar moments during songs like Anger as Beauty, Smoke, Baby, and Jealous of Your Cigarette. He is such a great live perfomer.

The show was at the Harbourfront Centre which is a good outdoor venue with covered seats (thankfully since it started to pour at one point). The only thing that sucks about the HC is that it is near a bunch of condos, so the music can only be so loud, and the band must be done at 11 pm, which limits encores. However, tonight it was a bit more special there was a light show going on a the same time as a part of Luminato (a 10 celebtration of all things creative that's going on right now in Toronto).

Anyhow, I must say that my concert-going of 2007 has hit a better stride then in the beginning of the year. I've had Ben Folds, Great Lake Swimmers, The Joel Plaskett Emergency, Hawksley Workman, and, in 2 weeks and 2 days, the Weakerthans. I may not have quantity, but I definitely have quality.

You gotta roll with the punches to get to what is real.

Remember how I said that the cancellation of rowing practice was going to allot me a bit of extra time before I caught my train? Well, I decided that perhaps a little nap was in order. I didn't worry about setting an alarm clock or anything since it was only 5 pm, and my train didn't leave until 10. Well, apparently a busy week with performance appraisals, accompanying 92 kids to the science centre and very warm temperatures takes its toll on a person. I didn't wake up from my little nap until 9:37, thereby missing my train.

However, it might be a blessing in disguise... I was able to cancel my ticket (however, I incurred $25 worth of cancellation charges 'cuz I'd gotten the discounted tickets... boo!) and I'm sticking in Toronto for the weekend. I have a tonne of work to get done, not to mention the usual chores and errands. Staying here will facilitate everything much better. I was able to get a lot of the chore and errand type things done yesterday, so here I am on Sunday procrastinating the inevitable schoolwork.

And what better way to do that then to fill in the latest survey that's been making the Facebook rounds? (For the record, I prefer doing surveys the old-fashioned way still: on my blog.)

1. Initials: CAW

2. Name someone with the same birthday as you: Matt Groening!! I think that says a lot.

3. Favorite fruit? Bananas and strawberries.

4. For or against same sex marriage? Very much so.

5. Are you allergic to anything? Not that I know of.

6. Are you bisexual? I don't think so.

7. Have you ever slept in someone else’s clothes? Yup.

8. How many U.S states have you been to? 10. Might add another one this summer.

9. How many of the U.S states have you lived in? Zer0.

10. Have you ever lived outside the U.S? Always.

11. Name something physical you like about yourself? I like my hands.

12. Something non-physical you like about yourself? I've always been a fan of my brain.

13. Do you have any pets? Not at the moment, but I plan to get a cat when I've moved into the new apartment and have returned from my summer travels.

14. What is your dream car? Mint Green hybrid VW Beetle. I don't think VW does hybrids yet, but one can dream. Actually, if I've dreaming, maybe it'll be a Mint Green VW Beetle that gets 100 Ks to a thimble-ful of corn oil.

15. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go? I'd love to go back to the UK. Also, I really want to visit France and Greece and Italy and ....

16. Are you bipolar? I don't think so.

17. What dream car do you want your husband/wife to drive? An environmentally friendly one. That's all I ask.

18. Where would you want to go on a first date? Depends on whether it's a good first date or a bad first date... A good first date could be anywhere, quite frankly. But if it's bad, I just ask for lots of escape exits.

19. Would you date the person who posted this before you? Hmmm... it would give me a good excuse for going back to the UK. ;)

20. Has anyone ever sang or played for you personally? Yup.

21. Ever been kissed under fireworks? No... I tend to lead a life void of anything that resembles romance.

22. What was the last text message you received? Becca T saying that she got my message.

23. Have you ever bungee jumped? Nope.

24. Have you ever white water rafted? Nope.

25. Has anyone ten years older than you ever hit on you? I'm sure, but I don't keep a tally of these things.

26. Are you racist? I don't think so.

27. What song are you listening to right now? Just Friends by Amy Winehouse

28. What's your favorite song at the moment? Hmmm... maybe either Lazy Eye by the Silversun Pickups or 1234 by Feist

29. What was the last movie you watched? Pirates of the Carribean 3. Boo.

30. Where was the last place you went besides your house? The mall.

31. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? No.

32. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? Of course.

33. What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? I'd have to say how they are dressed.

34. What's your fav. body part on the opposite sex? Forearms and eyes.

35. What do you usually order from Starbucks? Right now a Grande Light Orange Mocha Frappucino is my heaven in a cup.

36. Say something totally random about yourself: I'm a klutz.

37. Do you have an iPod? Yes!!!

38. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? My friend Becca T told me that I have the same eyes as Mike Myers (the comedian - not the psycho from the Halloween movies.)

39. Do you have freckles? Nope.

40. Are you comfortable with your height? Yeah. It's average.

41. Do you love something right now? See questions #35 and #37.

42. How tall are you? 5’6"

43. Do you speak any other language other than english? A little tiny insignficant amount of French, but it's very rusty.

44. Have you ever ridden in a limo? It was the only good thing about my high school prom.

45. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? Yes.

46. Do you watch MTV? Never.

48. What's something that really annoys you? People who are nasty and disagreeable and petty.

50. Do you like Michael Jackson? I will quote Bart Simpson - "It's just something that's made up to frighten kids like the boogeyman or Michael Jackson."

51. Have you ever surfed? No.

52. Do you know how to pump gas? Yes, but I prefer if someone else does it.

53. Do you drive? Only when in St. Ratford. Although, I will be overcoming my fear of driving in Toronto in a few weeks.

54. What's the latest you have ever stayed out? All night.

55. Have you ever thought that you were honestly going to die? Not in the immediate future though, but I am aware of the inevitable.

56. Were you ever rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No.

57. Have you ever been dared to do something you didn't want to do? Probably. Nothing stands out though.

58. What's your favorite state to live in? A perpetual state of happiness and dogoodery works for me. -> I'll go with Claire's answer.

59. What color is your hair? Brown with blonde highlights for summer.

60.What color are your eyes?Brown.

61. Do you have any special talents? Lots.

62. Favorite non-alcoholic drink? Chocolate Milk.

63. Favorite city? I love London England and Syndney Australia but deep down it's always gonna be Toronto.

64. Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull? Good Lord no.

65. If you were working on a pirate ship, what would you most likely be? I'd probably get stuck mopping the poopdeck... But, if one Captain Jack Sparrow was on said ship I'd like to be his romantic lead, even if the last movie did suck.

66. Who do you live with? With my roommate. Only for 6 more weeks though. :(

67. Last thing you watched on TV? The news.

68. Do you wear glasses or contacts? Neither.

69. Have you ever taken a roadtrip? Tonnes of times. My favourites involve bands (such as the Sloan roadtrip and the upcoming Weakerthans roadtrip.)