Last Night

I'm traveling with my friend Jordana. We've known each other since high school but really became friends in university. We also went to Mexico together a few May's ago.

Anyway.

She's a big hockey fan and I'm always up for hot dogs so we decided to go to the LA vs. Pheonix game last night. We tried getting tickets online but it was near impossible (and we didn't want to spend forty bones on thirty bone tickets) so we headed down to the Staples center to try our hand with scalpers.

Actually we first gave the box office a try, waiting in the long lineup only to find out the remaining tickets cost no less than $125. We walked away dejectedly, wondering if there were any movie theatres or restaurants in the neighbourhood.

Then we met a man. He had tickets for forty dollars. We wondered if they were legit but took a risk and bought them.

Then we watched the most exciting hockey game ever. EVER. Slow start. Goal by other team. LA tied it up, then pulled ahead, then Pheonix tied it up. Then Pheonix scored again. Then in the last thirty seconds of the game LA tied it up again. Then overtime. Then a shootout. Then a win! The crowd went wild! We went wild! I ate nachos!

What a night.

I'm here!

From Wednesday morning at 5:45am until Sunday evening at 6:00pm, I have undergone the longest period of no-internet access/internet usage in my internet-ed life. And I survived to tell the tale.

I don't even really feel like writing about things because I'm so not addicted or into the internet...

Today Jordana and I drove from San Francisco to LA along the windy, hilly cliff that overlooks the Pacific and is bordered by highway 1. What a way to get back in the driver's seat after over a year and a half of a driving hiatus. I love driving! I prefer mountain-lined straight freeway, though, in many ways, to curves and hills and near-deaths. That's a joke, we had no near deaths.

We did have a great time in San Fran, though. It's a rad city and we ticked all the touristy things off our list and then some. Even experienced their coldest day ever AND two (two!) earthquakes. Small ones, but earthquakes non-the-less. I was wondering why my bed rocked a little bit one afternoon. Yes, I even spent some time in bed in the afternoon. What a great holiday.

America has some great things. Particularly California. Like Tri-Tip! And Coldstone! And huge portions! And lines that are well thought-out. And The Cheesecake Factory! And I've gained ten pounds in four days, no question. My belly hurts. All the time.

Now that we're in LA I'm not sure what we're going to do. We're staying with my aunt who lives in Playa del Ray - near the LAX airport. Tonight we ate pizza and watched a movie about crossword puzzlers. It's called Word Play. It's good. I want to have a passion that I've been nursing since childhood, even if it makes me a geek who attends ridiculous weekend puzzler conferences. Reminds me of how I used to wish I had a twin sibling.

Well, bed is calling. I'll be home in time for New Years. Dinner party at my place, y'all. Merry Christmas to you.

Prolonging the pain

Noo!!! I've gone and done the worst thing ever - I got an extension on my immigration paper. Now my holiday will not be my own.

Oh well.

I leave on Wednesday for California. San Francisco and LA here I come!!!

Pointers? Tips? Anyone?

Happy Chanukah!

My parents had a party and both my brothers came and we all brought some friends.


It was great fun. Except for the time when brother Brian and I fake wrestled and I fell and broke the door in front of everyone. Why do I always come off as a freak-a-zoid?

Sunday

Lazy and a procrastinating pro, I have hardly done any work on my immigration paper all day. And I meant to finish it tomorrow. Noo!

I was wondering why my cell-phone alarm didn't do its job either yesterday or today. Then I realized it's the weekend. Who knew?

This afternoon I drank a coffee which makes me feel crazy, as does the spring-like weather and sunshine which is now gone, gone, gone.

Tonight is a big, bad Chanukah party at mom and pops with both brothers and friends. Should be smashing. I need to collect my laundry now.

Peace.

Next in line!

I finished, I finished, I finished. The grading that is. Fourteen and a half hours yesterday and about three hours this morning was all it took. I think if I were to strategically place my paper in a pile to be graded I would want it near the beginning but not the very first. The last ten are definitely the worst off. Uh huh.

This week has been full o' Christmas parties. I took many, many pictures which you can check out online.

Here are some for pictures of my life of late:

These are the ladies I research with out for lunch with our supervisor at the faculty club. How very fancy it was.

Here are some of my classmates at the faculty Christmas party on Thursday night. People kept expressing such surprise that we actually like each other and insist on spending time together.

This is the sky as seen from my walk to school on Friday. It's lovely.

This is me, modeling some new clothes I bought for myself on Thursday when I should have been grading but instead went shopping and had fun spending too much money. I was impatient for the flash, hence the crazy-face.

That's all she wrote. Now I must, must, must edit my suicide bomber paper and write some kind of conclusion. Tonight! Then tomorrow I start my immigration paper and Monday I finish it. Whoo!

If only you (you who I cannot guess because I have no more brain) were correct in your calculations.

It is now 10:57 and I have 17 more papers to grade. I'm going to try to do seven before bed and then finish the rest off tomorrow.

My eyes are burning.

It's the first night of Chanukah.

...

Grading now for close to nine hours. Almost halfway done. I hate the world. And all students everywhere. Even myself. Is it dinner time?

Help!!!

Today is dedicated to grading papers. I have 47 to grade. I started at 9:30. Now it's 3:07. I have 12 graded.

Which means I have 35 left. And they must be finished by tomorrow. And then I have to write a long paper by Tuesday.

Life sucks.

If you come to school and grade with me I'll pay you.

Actually making progress

Well, well, well! It's only a quarter after nine in the evening and I've got a mere three and a bit more pages left to write. How did that even happen?? I still have to write an introduction, a conclusion, and one other key point (which I haven't figured out yet, but I will soon enough). That should be perfect. Yay!

Last night the entire MA cohort had a Non-denominational Holiday Party and Gift Steal. It was fantastic. There was food, and fun-ness, and great gifts. I got a tool kit. I needed a tool kit! At least twice I've lamented not having a hammer and now not only do I have one of those, but I also have a measuring tape, some pliers, two screwdrivers, and some other stuff. Can't beat that. Well, I suppose you can beat that. Other good gifts were: women's underwear, a USB key, a Kama Sutra book, a piece of artwork, a hip Toronto 'zine collection, a Chinese tea set, and some other things that slip my mind. I feel lucky with my tool kit. The gift I brought was a U of T t-shirt which was alright and well-liked by its recipient.

I didn't get to go shopping yesterday as planned so now I have nothing to wear to the faculty Christmas party that's happening tomorrow at a pub. Open bar and kitchen! Right on! I need an outfit. And a new mp3 player because I lost my ipod which I bought at Technomart from a very cute man who had me call him Opa and who wanted to drink beer and eat some crazy food with me but it never happened. I want an FM tuner on my next player and I'm considering not being sucked in my the crazy apple marketing scheme. I don't know if I can. That shuffle's mighty cute. Maybe tomorrow I'll go shopping for a bit.

Back to work. You should see my desk. I look very academic.

Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug.

That stats exam was a piece of cake! Alright! Onto the next item on the list: finish that damn paper from last week - and that's to be done by tonight if it's the last thing I do.

I got a stack of papers to grade and the prof casually said he needs the grades by Saturday. This Saturday. Screw you, asshole.

After that I have one more paper to do by Tuesday and then I'm off to California on Wednesday. Can I do it??!? I have no choice.

Bahh. Better get to work.

Fan-stats-ic!

Lame title, I know. I never claimed to be cool.

Tomorrow is the big, bad statistics exam. Perhaps some of you recall when my heart and soul were eaten right out of me during the midterm. Luckily I feel surprisingly well-prepared for tomorrow. We'll see. I've also scheduled in a shopping spree for tomorrow afternoon so I'm feeling good.

As a necessary part of my studying I have fallen victim to the grips of yet another internet addiction. It's called Facebook, and for those out of the loop, it's basically an online network where people collect lists of friends from different areas in their lives and display these lists, photos, and other things about them so everyone can see how many people they've crossed paths with in one way or another since birth. Great. It's pretty ridiculous, I guess, but it's also incredibly fun to see who knows who still and what so-and-so looks like ten years later.

Add me! Add me!

Today I fulfilled my undergraduate goal - to dine at the faculty club. My advisor/professor/mentor/employer took all her RA's out for lunch. What a let down. The food was good, I'll admit, but the aged white population mixed with the heavy wood and awful wallpaper and minority staff made me want to hurl. The wine steward, Jim, was dashing. Monica gave all of us planners from Holt Renfrew with our initials monogrammed (?) on the cover. Holt Renfrew makes me want to hurl, but I do like my initials.

To top off this one fine day, I just went for my first real outdoor run since the one time in 7th grade when Alexis and I wanted to be hip and healthy so we ran halfway to Bishop's Cross before it started to rain and her mother came and picked us up. I ran East on Ulster to Markham, up to Harbord, across to Grace, South to College, and home. The Christmas lights on Grace look sparkly on wet pavement.

They are selling dreidel cookies at the Second Cup in the JCC and I heard a little boy tell his father that he liked his 'dustpan'. Ha.

Extravaganza what?!?!

The plan has been revised: write two and a half pages each day for the next three days and then the paper will be finished. Why kill myself...

Plus last night instead of working I hung out with my friend.

Three days until my statistics exam, for which I'm shaking in my boots. Any pros in HLM, Panel, and Event-History want to be my tutor?

Extravaganza continues

After I made dinner plans and blogged I chatted with my mom on the phone until dinner time.

Sushi was pretty good.

Then I came home and finished a job application (which I'll tell you about soon).

Then I typed my essay intermittently while chatting to all my program-mates about how much work we have to do.

Then I ate an apple.

Then I chatted more.

Now it's 11:30 and I have four of twenty pages typed. The trouble with this is that I'm nowhere near done at according to my outline I should actually have six pages typed. Ah well, the outline has been revised and myself two hours from now will not be pleased.

One page down, nineteen more to go

Alright, folks, let it begin! The Friday night final-paper writing extravaganza! And I just made dinner plans...

It's okay and under control. I've made myself a false deadline for my theory paper and that's tonight at any time. I have most of my ideas outlined in detail, ready to be typed, though I haven't quite yet figured out my actual argument...

I'm writing on Durkheim (a famous sociologist from the late 19th century), his definition of altruistic suicide, and sucide bombers. Is you is or is you ain't an altruistic suicide?

Today was the official last day of classes for semester one. Hip hip hooray! I may have a near breakdown when I start studying statistics for my exam on Tuesday, but I'll choose to think positively.

Half an hour until dinner. Go, Jessie, go!

The reason

I was curious so I emailed:

Hey,

I feel like I failed to get the job despite some really good interviews.

What's the deal?

J.

He called immediately and told me he didn't feel a romantic connection.

And to that my friend says:

Whatever, he's gay.

Totally.

Meeting the deadline

I have a long theory paper that I need to finish by Friday. So now I am playing guitar, uploading pictures, and blogging. Of course.

Last week I went to the doctor and learned that I'm at my lowest weight since mono. Right on! Right before I left for Korea I was at my highest weight since ever. Let's take a look, shall we?

I feel healthy and good about myself.

If only that blasted two-date boy knew what he was missing. Evidently he doesn't...

And while I'm showing pictures, here are the things I have over my bed. For three months that large composite frame had all the standard frame-insert people still in it. Anyone who came over would stare at it with a perplexed expression on their faces. The other weekend I finally filled it with Southeast Asian memories and it looks great. The postcards on the left are from Tokyo and Mao is from Beijing. The two little ones are from Thailand. La dee dah.

Oh me oh my

So the first date was fabulous and the second not far behind, aside from a minor case of weird-vibes at the end. That was Thursday and now it's Monday morning. No sign of him. You think it's safe to say I failed the interview? Or am I an obsessive woman who should chill?

Bahh!

A friend of mine at school is against real Christmas trees because they are bred to be cut down. When asked how she feels about cut flowers she had no objection. She's a very successful student who has a Louis Vitton change purse dangling off her Coach shoulder bag. I still like her in spite of these things.

3 AM

Shit, can't sleep again and today it's the caramel coretto to blame.

I'm in Thornhill after a lovely shabbat dinner with the family. Matzah balls and challah and candles - the whole deal. Brisket over chicken. My stomach is a bit angry with me.

The wind is angry too. It is howling outside and the trees are casting shadows on the closet door in my brother's old room where I'm sleeping. I just went on a hunt for the electric blanket my mom bought for me a couple of years ago but it's nowhere to be seen. And I'm freezing. Brrr. Puh-leee-ching.

I was thinking recently about Korea but what was it... hmm... nope, can't remember.

There is a website for the school I taught at and every now and then I check it out to see how my kids are doing. They look older, and some are gone. Where's Mindy? Jamie looks demonic and sweaty as ever.

I really want to sleep but don't feel like it's going to be an option right now. I'll give it a go.