10 posts tagged “random”

Since I spent most of May not blogging, here's a random update to kick off June.  (You're welcome.)

• I bought a bus pass/student ID holder at the dollar store last month to use in my commuting.  It is awesomely: a) originally from Korea (and came with a subway map of Seoul), b) called a "Multi-Trance Pass" (pretty sure they meant transit), and c) has a picture of a cartoon dog wondering, "Are you happy?" on the front.  (Answer: yes, but only because of this pass holder.)
  

• Shane accompanied his tennis partner, Etienne, up to the Lynn Headwaters in North Vancouver recently to get some fresh mountain spring water.  They stopped by the side of the road and simply filled up some jugs from an aquifer there.  It was easily the best water I've ever tasted.  (Fuck you, Aquafina.)
  

• The herons have been back for awhile now, so we are well within the months of late-night heron brawling (which sounds not unlike a ten-car pile-up) and all-night chirping heron babies.  Ah, nature.
  

• Two of my seven classes ended last week, so I can now enjoy five weeks of no school drinking on Fridays.  Woohoo!  I plan to savor this time, as the term after this is supposedly downright hellish.
  

• The weather here has been ridiculously beautiful lately.  The sun has been shining, the temps have been warm, the breeze has been cool and the bikinis have been plentiful.
  

• With all my recent school-inspired hoodie-love, Shane decided he wanted to give hoodie-dum a shot.  In the past couple of weeks, he purchased three new stylin' hoodies, all of which look fabulous on him.  (If you bother him enough, maybe he'll let me take a picture.)
  

• Our new favourite joint along Denman Street is the place that moved in to the old Cupcakes location: Qoola.  They sell a fantastic frozen yogurt (among other goodies, including loose-leaf tea) and the majority of their trash is biodegradeable.  Compost that, bitches.
  

• I was recently inspired by one of VeryScaryCarnival's posts to start assembling a "Things I Miss About the States" post.  So for those of you worried we were so over the U.S. of A., look for that in the coming, uh, weeks?  (Or at least sometime before August.)
  

• Shane is gearing up for a 5K PR on June 12th.  He's been training to beat his old record while running a race out at UBC (on a Friday night, strangely).  I have been training to steathily sneak myself some of the post-race veggie burgers.
  

• I just learned that Dollhouse has been renewed for another season!  While this news was not met by the insane rejoicing of FNL's multi-season renewal, our household is pleased.  (Especially since Without a Trace had its series finale last month and Grey's Anatomy is still sucking lots of ass.)  (Thank god The Office is still funny.)  (Oh, and the first person to mention 30 Rock will get a complimentary shot to the nuts.)
  

1)       As part of a charity fundraiser for United Way, Shane’s work held a winter Olympics competition on Friday.  The featured events were the biathlon, luge and curling.  Shane participated in the final sport on that list, helping his team to earn a bronze(-wrapped chocolate) curling medal!

2)      One of Shane’s co-workers invited him us to a wine and cheese party on Saturday night.  We enjoyed the opportunity to socialize and meet some new people, although I must admit my introverted self was equally excited to simply spend time in a Vancouver house (in the Point Grey neighbourhood, no less).

3)      Saturday was also the day of Vancouver’s local election (for mayor, city councillors, park commissioners and school trustees).  In the months leading up to the election, the major centre-left parties joined together in hopes of defeating the centre-right incumbent party.  The result was a thorough trouncing of the (centre-right) NPA, much to our delight.  Congratulations, Mayor Robertson!

4)      We used our Nexus cards again when we traveled down to Washington on Sunday.  The wait at the Peace Arch crossing was estimated at 25 minutes, but we FLEW down the Nexus lane (passing long lines of cars on the left) and waited for one car before clearing the border.  The way back was much the same, with a projected half-hour line-up that we sped past to enter Canada five minutes later.  Those pieces of plastic are totally worth the $50 (for five years) price tag!

5)      The reason we went to Washington this weekend was to help Ian (and his roommate Noah) move into a new apartment.  Combined with our recent trip to have dinner with him last week and his plans to come up for the (U.S.) Thanksgiving, that makes for a total of three times I will see him in one month.  It’s a little mind-boggling to realize that’s more than I used to see him in one year.

6)      Since the Canadian Thanksgiving takes place in mid-October, Shane and I have found that there is no real buffer between Halloween and Xmas here.  Once the first of November hit, the seasonal decorations, music and lights went up everywhere.  Weird.

7)      One thing I really appreciate about this month is that it marks the beginning of low season for tourism.  I’ve found the extra level of quiet (not to mention the extra space along the seawall) quite enjoyable when out and about.

8)      On the other hand, November and December are also the rainiest months of the year.  So we have definitely been getting a taste of the “real” Vancouver the past couple of weeks, with plenty of wet (and extremely windy) days.  I can’t say I mind that much, though, as I’m still convinced it beats dealing with snow!

9)      The coming winter will bring us something awesomely unexpected: an upgraded bathroom.  We attended an apartment tenants’ meeting last night to learn about water pipe renovations planned for November-January, and it turns out the plumbing fix will include replacing our current pink bathtub and shower tiles, and may even extend to a new sink, medicine cabinet and flooring!  This definitely makes the inconvenience of several months of construction seem worth it in the end.

10)   Finally, I’m sure some of you have been wondering what exactly I’ve been up to in my not-yet-working life.  And while I am hesitant to give the specifics of my plans until they are firmly in place, I can say that I am taking concrete steps this week to start a process of moving forward, and I look forward to sharing that with you soon.

A few weeks ago, the ground-floor elevator call button broke in our apartment.  When the service person came to fix the button, s/he had apparently run out of arrows.  So now the only direction we can take the elevator from the ground floor is...41.

41 is the new up

Overheard on the elevator: “I’m really impressed, really!  This yo-yo camp has been very good for him.”

I never realized rodents could be so entertaining...

Melon: The Ultimate Hamster Picture

Good karma, this is my 100^th post!  I guess that goes to show how addictive this online journaling thing really is – who knew I would stick around for 99 more after that initial post?  (Hint: not me, but possibly my horoscope.)  Even more amazing, who knew anyone else would stick around after reading my occasionally narcissistic, often asinine ramblings?

Asinine is one of those words that just pops off the page, isn’t it?  An all-around badass.

I had a terrific English professor in college who, on the first day of class, went up to the board and announced that he would reveal to his students “the most beautiful word in the English language.”  He then took a piece of chalk in hand and wrote out the word CHLAMYDIA in big, white letters.  So there we all sat, staring up at the bold CHLAMYDIA on the board and wondering if this was actually the Fiction and Poetry class we had signed up for or something more in the Department of Insanity.  But his point – as he went on to explain – was that how a word sounds may be contradictory of what it means, but it is still important, something worth considering in our writing.

This professor went on to teach us other concepts in equally unforgettable ways.  I learned so much from that class about sounds, syllables and style in writing; lessons I managed to store for the long-term because of the memorable way they were presented.  He was a very eccentric man, with a habit of sharing strange, self-deprecating stories of his college exploits (read: drug experimentation) and impending divorce, but I was sorry (though not surprised) to hear he was fired at the semester’s end.  He may have been Out There, but he still got through HERE, in the classroom, to us.

I’ve now completely forgotten where I was going with this story, but maybe it’s enough to say, “Yay for blogs and writing and semi-crazy, pot-smoking profs.”

Now, who brought the celebratory cupcakes?

Hey, I’m back!  So for those of you who tuned out for the past week because a) the posts were too long, b) the rambling descriptions of what I ate for EVERY SINGLE MEAL in Africa weren’t utterly thrilling to you, or c) the cold, hard edges of the Times New Roman font made you feel sad inside, despair no longer!  I have returned to grace you all with my up-to-date writings and warm, fuzzy Comic Sans.

(And to conclude the story in the quickest possible way: I worked my ass off on our documentary during spring semester and through the summer, and it eventually aired on our local PBS channel.  Later that year, we received a nomination for a regional Emmy, but did not, unfortunately, go on to win.  All in all, it was a pretty successful venture, especially considering the lack of work ethic of most of my classmates!  And I had a BLAST editing every minute of the piece.)

Now here’s a brief summary of the excitement you missed in the past couple of weeks.

Let’s see.

Did you hear that one about Britney Spears shaving her head?  Yeah?  Because it's definitely important news when someone who used to be famous for singing other people's music (and gyrating a lot) (in tight clothes) decides to be bald?  Oh.

And there was this one time that I figured out challah can also be pronounced hallah, thus leading to the invention of my new catchphrase, “hallah bread, hallah back.”

I clearly need to stop watching The White Rapper Show on VH1.  (I hate VH1.  Really.  I just can’t seem to stop watching reruns of their stupid reality TV shows.  I mean, I gotta know who has love for New York!  Don’t you?)

In other news, two of my favorite artists are releasing new albums this spring!  Hanson’s The Walk comes out May 22, and Maplewood Lane’s as-yet-untitled record comes out sometime in spring 2007 (such is the unpredictable life of a truly independent band, I guess).  Shane and I are crossing our fingers that we can pick up their latest gem when we’re in Vancouver this May.

Finally, this post would not be complete without a gratuitous picture of a teeny tiny kitty.

Almost makes me like cats

I normally pass on being “tagged” to do something (I’m INDEPENDENT!!!) (or possibly just lazy), but I can make an exception for Elena.  So here is a small collection of strange, random facts about me.

1.       In middle school, I raised chickens in my basement for a farmer in Wisconsin.  We took them in as eggs,  hatched them in an incubator and kept them in a cardboard box (under a heat lamp) until they began to grow real feathers.

2.      When I was still in high school, Shane’s sister told me I would marry her brother, well before he and I ever met.  <insert Twilight Zone music here>

3.      Steven Williams’s publicist sent me an autographed picture of him, in exchange for a copy of some sheet music.  I got to know her, back in the day, through a Compuserve (anyone?) message board for The X-Files.  I guess dorkiness sometimes has its advantages.

4.      I have a cousin who was a porn star, once upon a time.  My family knows about it because an uncle recognized her in a film he was watching (I know, eww) and saw her name in the credits. 

5.      Unless the air is absolutely freezing, I will not be able to sleep with my feet covered up - no socks, no blankets, nothing.  Even when I was little, my mom had to cut the feet off my "footie pajamas" so I could be comfortable.

6.      I officially graduated from college Cumma Sum Laude, despite the fact that I chose NOT to complete the defense required to earn this extra honor.  Best Clerical Error Ever!