Free at last!

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What's that? Am I to understand that I am DONE FOR THE SEMESTER???? Yes, it's true. I am finished school for the semester!
So I have a few plans for the winter break. Here they are:

• do my holiday baking, possibly with Haroulla
• have a sugar-cookie decorating party with all my high school buddies (Ira, Ben, Josephine, Peter, Sivan, and Esther, THAT MEANS YOU!)
• Paint and redecorate my bathroom. Doesn't that sound like fun?
• help mom with a SUPER DEEP CLEAN of her room
• clean out the storage room and put all the extra clothes in a bag for Between Friends and the rest of the junk in the garbage
• clean the front hall carpets
• dig up my old holiday tapes and copy them to DVD with Richard's DVD/VCR player
• start a deep clean and organization of the basement
• have various people over for tea and cookies, including but not exclusive to: Laura, Rohit, Valerie, Feesh, Brandon, Peter and others
• start investigating new blinds for both sets of French doors
• catch up on my school reading, get ahead, and rent and watch "The Crying Game" multiple times
• organize my exploding/clothes-vomitting closet
• make latkes! Lots of latkes! Hannukah means lots of latkes, yessirree! (to all my Jewish friends, YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!)
• Organize the guest list and cook for Christmas dinner on the 23rd

And the list goes on. But for some weird reason, I'm really excited to do all this. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm happy to get it done.

To any or all people who see their names on the list: contact me so we can stamp out the details!

-Laura Rose

1 more test!

Ooooooh I'm so excited! I have one more test to go, and then I'm officially half way through my university career! Woohoo! I'm also lucky enough to be free for 5 weeks, but since I'm not getting enough hours at work I'm not sure how good that is. I'll be able to get some home improvement jobs done, but whoop-de-do. There's no money in that.
Anyways, tomorrow I'm going to dress fabulously and head downtown to the Eaton Centre, where I will do all of my holiday shopping. Then I'm going to meet Brad for lunch and we're going to have a lovely catch-up meal. I'm just happy to have a free Wednesday. I haven't had one since August, and it will be nice to hit the mall and get my shopping done before the holiday rush truly begins. And of course, it will be nice to see Brad.
Yay!

-Laura Rose

No more York after dark

I'm scared to go to my own school. Isn't that silly? I have the grounds to be frightened, though. I was watching TV and researching Steel Pan music last night while I was babysitting, and a newsbreak in the commercials came through that really got my attention.
Over the last semester, muggings have become a real problem at York. The campus is located right next to the seedy Jane and Finch area, which has been a pretty big contributer to the crime rate, but assaults with weapons and such have been ocurring more and more frequently since September. The attacks culminated on Sunday evening with a sexual assault at gunpoint near the intersection of Murray Ross Parkway and Sentinel road. A female student was threatened with a gun and forced into the shadows between two houses, and sexually assaulted.
I don't want to be on campus after dark anymore, and I suppose I'm lucky because only one of my classes puts me at the YRT bus stop after 6 pm. The Number 3 bustop is located on a somewhat secluded corner of Ian McDonald blvd and York blvd; it's not lit very well, and it's too far from the safety of York Lanes for comfort.
So tonight I'm not going to my 6:00 tutorial or my 7:00 lecture. I'm not going to wait for the bus at 9:10 pm, when everyone in their right mind has already gone home. Next week I'll have enough courage to go back to a normal routine, but I'm going to stick my keys between my fingers, just in case.
-Laur

Mmmmmm sushi...

I've decided to give up boys for sushi. Or find a boy who likes sushi. Not sure which one is more financially forgiving.
Mom and I went shopping for Sarah's Christmas present and then we went to Hockey for some delicious sushi for dinner. It was super nice.
Now I'm going to go babysit, where the boys and I will watch "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" and eat popcorn, and then I will relax after putting them to bed and watch "Last Holiday".
Today I changed lightbulbs and got the humidifier running. That was pretty productive. Then I was going to come downstairs and vacuum, but there was a knock at my door and two beautiful girls by the name of Esther and Sivan were here to visit me! We had a lovely chat for about an hour and then my mom came home, which is when we went present shopping. So the dreams of vacuuming were not realized, but tomorrow morning before I go to work I will probably do it. And then I need to go to Chapters and buy "Eldest" by Christopher Paolini with my crazy coupon.
I'm feeling much more relaxed now that some of my work is out of the way, and since this week I work very little I can get even more done. I really need to keep working on my room, and I also have to review for my upcoming tests and catch up on my reading.
Until December 1st...
-Laur

I am holding your hand...

Shout outs to my dear friend and travel adventure-buddy, Shannon. First her younger brother, now her grandmother have become seriously ill in the space of 2 and a half months, and I just want to say that in my heart I am holding your hand, Shan.

I can say, and I am ever-thankful for this, that my own younger sister and grandmother are doing just fine in the health department. It's a wonder, seeing as my Gramma is 82 and living on her own, that all she suffers from is the occasional bout of loneliness. She has a teddy bear named Holty that she talks to sometimes, which I guess is okay, but that's about it. Otherwise she's one of the coolest Grammas I know.

Anyways, it's late and I finally stamped down a thesis statement for my gender studies term paper. I'll work on the arguments tomorrow after I finish my contemporary literature test.

When it rains, it pours.

-Laur

Tuesday Morning

So it's Tuesday morning and I'm kind of getting into the swing of things. My house is blessedly empty right now, so nice and quiet. Emily is sleeping on my bed, in the little dent that she made right beside my pillow, and Xander is in his chair, snoring away.
A few weeks ago I sent my Gramma a letter with some pictures in it. I forgot to put a stamp on it, and dropped it in the mailbox. 48 hours later I realized my mistake and mourned the loss of 10 fine pictures that would have wound up displayed on my Gramma's bay window. But she got it anyways, and without a penalty fee! I love Canada Post.
I need to email my cousin and ask him if he's still coming to Toronto over Christmas because his phone just goes straight to his voicemail. I wonder if he broke it for good this time.
Maybe I'll make another post in class while I'm researching Jamaican Ska music. I can't use Wikipedia, but there's always the free subscription to Encyclopaedia Brittanica online that we lucky TC's can use whenever we feel the urge. Woohoo!
-Laur

Miss St. Kitts

Let's just think of the beach...

I'm so amused. I'm sitting in my Caribbean Geography lecture right now and my prof just mentioned that the most popular event in St. Kitts is their Miss St. Kitts pageant. So funny.


I got my test mark back for this first test and I passed quite handily despite having crammed my head full of information for only 24 hours before I wrote it. I wonder how well I could do next time if I spent more time studying?


I'm having trouble focussing on my Shakespeare paper, and I still have that Grammar test to write in a few hours. I'm a little overwhelmed right now, and for good reason; here is a list of the things/tests that I have coming up over the next 3 weeks:

• Shakespeare essay November 8th
• Geography virtual tutorials from November 8-28th
• Contemporary Lit test, November 15th
• Gender Studies term paper, November 17th
• Contemp Lit creative essay, November 22nd
• Geography test, November 28th
• Grammar quix, November 28th
• Gender Studies mid-year test, November 30th

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then on December 1st my life begins again.

So for now I'm just going to take things one step at a time. I refuse to be overwhelmed! But it's raining, and it's very hard to be cheerful when the sky is crying.

Wasting time

So I was thinking about the title of this website and how weird it was that I only had one picture of my superpet up. Here she is, though, in all her tiny black glory. She's just too cute for words, honestly. This picture was taken on the day that Mom and I went to Futureshop and replaced all that stuff that was stolen from me when my house was robbed in August 2005. She was completely obsessed with getting inside all the boxes and making as much trouble as she possibly could. She was also one of the first pictures I took with my brand new digital camera.

Here she is in her favourite spot, right on my lap, relaxing. She hates in when I read sitting on my bed, so she comes and makes herself as annoying as possible in my lap. But I love her anyway :D
I was thinking about the weather today and wishing that campus still looked like this. Right now every passage between buildings is a veritable wind tunnel, blowing icy gusts of air against students and strees and construction barriers. None of the many trees have leaves, so everything has sort of a grey cast to it. Very sad. If anything, there needs to be snow so campus can be somewhat visually stimulating again.
Here are my two babies eating cat grass. It's the rare time that they're not trying to bite, scratch, wrestle or jump on one another. Xander isn't a very aggressive opponent, but Emily can be quite the force to be reckoned with.
Another moment of tentative peace, until Emily tries to get on the window sill and Xander pushes her off. He's so heavy that the window sill in that room has actually fallen crooked on one side.
That is my entry for today. I have an essay to write on two minor characters in one of Shakespeare's plays that is due on Wednesday, plus a grammar test on Tuesday night. I think I'll write on Oberon and Titania from "Midsummer Night's Dream", but I'm not sure what to say. Toodles!

Saturday Night

This Saturday evening has proven to be somewhat disappointing. I thought I was going to see The Prestige with Michela but she went and copped out on me. So instead, Mommy and Sarah and I are going to see Flushed Away. Woopee. The concept of rats getting flushed down the toilet is simply riveting.
However, I did have a pretty good day. Met Peter for lunch at Ginza at noon, discussed his future job at Ernst and Young (very exciting, yay Peter!) and our goals for 2007, and then I came home and discussed home improvements with Mom (windows, hardwood, then paint? The dilemna!) and then we did a little yard work. I got stabbed in the thumb by a rose bush, and then promptly cut it down.
I just put some pictures in a photo album, and I wish I had accomplished more in the way of room cleaning today, but c'est la vie.
I'm going to get ready to go out now, a review of Flushed Away to come in the next post!

Good morning!

It's time to go to school. I feel like one of those children's shows where they're unbelievably perky and jumping all over the place on the outside, but you know when you look at them that on the inside they're asleep and the perky behaviour is actually sleep walking.
Today I have my Shakespeare tutorial from 10:30-12:30 and I haven't read either of the plays from the last two weeks, both parts of Henry IV. After that I have my infinitely more interesting Gender Studies tutorial, in which we will talk about Dionne Brand and her distinct method of writing as a Black lesbian woman with ties to Trinidad, Grenada, and Toronto. As I said, distinct.
Then I have work from 3:30 to 9 pm. Hopefully after that I can come home, work on my Shakespeare essay, and sleep.
Ciao for now.

Halloween

So before I get into what happened BEFORE Halloween night, let me just explain what happened DURING Halloween night. My lovely sister Sarah had invited me to join her and her friends in a foray down to Bloor Cinema for a 9:30 pm showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, only one of my most favourite movies of all time. She had decided to go as a female version of Rocky Horror, so I decided to come up with something almost as exciting.

I went as a Transylvanian Convention-Goer (all those well-acquainted with RHPS will know what that means) so I donned a pink wig, wore a pink bow-tie and cummerbund (sp?) and dressed almost entirely in black.
On the way down on the trusty TTC Bathurst 7 bus, we spotted many characters in crazy costumes, but this guy was probably the best: his best friend's mom had made him a Banana in Pyjamas costume. Back in the day (maybe 7 or 8 years ago), Bananas in Pyjamas was a popular Australian children's show, involving the antics of several person-sized Bananas in their pyjamas, who were constantly harassed by person-sized animals like rats and such. This guy was really amused by how impressed we were.
Sarah's friends Toni and Mel came with us, each of them dressed as harlots, respectively.
This is me showing off my crazy costume in the kitchen at home before we left. I'm so cool!

But getting back to the beginning of my Halloween day: on Halloween morning I went to see my mom's lawyer with her in anticipation of the November 1st court date. My front walk was still undecorated, and I felt awful about that. But once we got home and I sent Mom on her way to school, I began to decorate like my life depended on it! Spiderwebbing, skeletons, garland and pumpkins, everything came out of the box and onto the walls of my house and front vestibule, and this is what I created:

My front walk, isn't it pretty?

Matthew, my 12 year old next door neighbour, decorating his front walk.

My Jack-O-Lanterns, one of Jack Skellington's face and one of Oogie Boogie silhouetted against the moon.

My door, with our hokey Happy Halloween poster on it.
It was a really good day, and even though I didn't get home until 1:30 am and was pretty sick the next day, it was worth it.
Now onto my next escapade!

This is interesting...

So I've decided to create an official blog, one that I will use throughout the balance of my undergrad years as well as into my teaching career. I have a few friends who really own this business of blogging, for example Rohit. He has a blog for every major move and/or travelling adventure he's ever experienced, and I think that's great.
Anyways, no time to report anything exciting right now, but there are huge things happening in my life, huge, very important things that I will tell you about later. For now I'll say Happy Reading and talk to you soon.