Happy Holidays!

Essentially, I'm done right now.

So I'm heading home.

To Quebec.

City.

Thanks to all of my fans (you know who you are) and to my friends and family. I'll be back next week or so. (My family is lacking internet access at this time for some odd reason.)

Lil V, got your card. Thanks for driving me nuts. :)

Davy-san (or according to big pu, Aira-san), thanks again for the camera. I'll be taking it home to take more pictures. Hope to upload them by January... ^_^

Big Pu, happy holidays! I hope you'll be fine while I'm gone. I'll try to check your blog too. :)

Anyone else... uh... drop me a line.

*out cold*

Dim Sum

I had so much food at dim sum I think I nearly exploded. But then an hour later when I got home I was hungry again. I wonder why?

I was pleasantly surprised to see Laura, whom I haven't spoken to since cegep. She's out in Kingston now, and extended me a warm welcome. Actually, she was surprised to see me too because she had brought everyone Christmas cards except for me. ^_^ Oh well.

Marie Claude got many interesting items. One being a pair of chocolate breasts from Brenda. >_< Well... I'll have to up the ante next time we give presents to her. First it was the penis pop during the summer from Rachel, now this chocolate. I think I'll bring a "pain à fesses" next time. Then someone'll have to bring a cotton candy crotch or something. I don't know.

Studying?

I have been drifting in and out of studying lately. I only have two electives exams left: World of Chemistry, whose lectures are online, and Introduction to Japanese Culture class. I haven't done any readings yet for that one (eep!) so I should get cracking on that once I finish watching all the lectures. This is why I'm writing at 4:42 a.m. Figures.

Anyway, I'll be heading back home to Quebec City on Friday afternoon with Jorgh. It'd be very unlikely for me to have any internet access, so if I forget to post before I leave, I wish you, dear readers, a happy holiday and restful break!

The Terminal

Boy, were we tired.

... I really didn't feel like writing or talking about it yesterday because I was just so tired. Rachel spent the night on Wednesday here because she lives on the south shore with her parents, and we had a bus call at 5:00 a.m. at Berri (at the bus terminal) to get to Mirabel airport at about 7:00 a.m. So we were supposed to wake up at 3:30 or so but everyone kept us up until way after midnight, and I ended up not wanting to wake up at all until Jorgh was telling me "It's 4:40! Wake up!"

There was this mad rush to get everything together because I didn't pack or eat or anything. Then I had to wake up Rachel, who was still in a state of half-coma but managed to get her stuff together in record time. Everything was such a hurry because it takes half an hour to get downtown usually during normal hours (so how long would it take to get there under such craziness?) and we had to find a cab.

Of course, finding a cab at 5 a.m. in Montreal is like finding a cab at any other time in Montreal, which is relatively easy and sometime misintentioned. The cabbie was quick but not crazy-quick like other drivers of cabs I have taken who like to think they can break laws of physics. We made it by the terminal at 4:58 a.m., and got a receipt from the guy for $11.45. (That's amazing. It usually costs 12 bucks just to get to McGill, and that's *closer.*)

We climbed onto a school bus whose drivers claimed it went to Mirabel. There were all sorts of people who seemed to come from all sorts of backgrounds. Then the bus idled... (Oh geez. The shuttle was slotted to leave at around 5:30. GD those bastards on the phone!)

We arrived at Mirabel, but there was seemingly no real indication that there was a massive Spielberg-Hanks production going on inside. When we got inside, there were signs and people hanging around who seemed to be from the production. But in the end, Mirabel looked exactly as it did back in 2000 when Jorgh was supposed to be leaving for France. (ie. quiet, deserted, pretty pathetic.)

The Deep, Dark, Secret

Rachel and I were told individually earlier this week that we were supposed to have a "winter" set of clothes and a "spring" set of clothes, that were of bright colours and no "black or white." Also, we had to bring a carry-on luggage of a sort, but since we were bringing backpacks it was supposed to be sufficient. Well, doing just this, we were analysed by the wardrobe department, especially by one of the girls, who then thought we were not quite sufficient.

"I can't decide which I want to make you - the funky students or the chinese-y style."

...
Indeed, this is the deep, dark secret.
...

The Rest of the Day

We barely had time to eat a muffin and apple after wardrobe and props, and thus we were whisked away to the set.

I seriously thought the rest of the day was just a total sleep-fest. In fact, we both slept at some point, Rachel more than I, because there was nothing much. Usually, they'd tell us to move around or something, in a vague direction or natural direction, but no one told us to move or anything, so we spent a while standing in one spot, or a while walking, or a while just standing in line. Additionally, we had no idea what they were filming, so there was barely any clue as to what was going on.

We had a craptastic box'o'lunch with a huge roastbeef sandwich on a panini bread. Both of us were sick of the bread, and the food was generally bad. In the meantime, Robert (the agent from C501) was a background extra working that day as well, and since he's an Actra member, got a choice of either "steak, fish, or a ravioli-thing."

... grumble grumble.

Montreal, What Happened to Thee?

They let us out at 5:00 p.m., but I got home at about 8 or so. In the meantime, during the day, some sort of demonstration (ie a bunch of people walking around protesting) happened which caused the buses to stop.

What? I leave town for a day and this happens? Why??? :o

I was so tired that I went to bed at 10. The end.

Me too!

I stopped at American Elf a second ago, which had this comic where Magic Boy threw a tantrum and tossed his supper into the garbage. In the end, he had to eat that supper anyway. He blames Quebecor :p .

A few hours ago, I threw a tantrum and tossed my studying materials into the recycle bin. Of course, I still have to study from them. Fortunately I don't have to eat it. ^_^

---

A Mad Mario Player!

Jorgh and I (... okay, I did...) found a very famous video on the net where a guy finished Super Mario Brothers 3 (on the old Nintendo system) in 11 minutes. Amazing feat, nevertheless, but it turns out it wasn't a one-shot deal, and the video actually spliced several videos together. The japanese player had actually used an emulator, which means no world record...

Anyway, I became curious to see what other amazing videos were out there, and I found the 8-part Super Mario 3 videos which show the player playing every single level and stage in the game. It comes out to less than 2 hours, so it's rather long to sit and watch. Nonetheless, this is an even crazier feat because this guy had to sit out probably weeks and weeks perfecting each stage himself. You can sometimes even imagine the emotions the player endures, as Mario paces back and forth out of sheer tedium.

All these videos you can find on the net, or on Kazaa, or wherever you usually look for porn- I mean legitimate non-copywritten videos.

Advisor's response

Monday, my request was towards Harris (my advisor), if he could do something about the craptasticness of the you-damn school. Donnah and Ivo-san told me to try to get "the link cut" between McGill and you-damn. Harris didn't know if it was possible, but I told him my friends knew it could be done, so he decided to call Dawson Hall to figure it out with the higher authorities. He told me to check on him again in a few days (meaning a few days ago).

So his response was basically, it turns out no mark ever comes in to McGill, so nothing will ever show up on the records. Thus, even a failure will not show up either. It's all transfer credits anyway. This is a relief, I suppose. Now to focus on my other exams.

Bastards at you-damn.

Damn you, you-damn!!!

In other news, a few more pictures up!

Insomnia for no reason

Geez what's the matter with me? I'm up at 5:45 a.m. but I woke up from a nap between 8 and 11 pm and now I can't sleep. Is there anyone online...?

Nope. I guess I'll just try to sleep now. Good night.

Photos, finally!

I gave in and started uploading my photos to Yahoo! photo albums. There's a link on the sidebar now.

There's three of them taken from about three years ago, when I was just starting at McGill. God, I miss that hat... (I lost it in the metro.)

---

My Numerical Analysis Group Assignment (or num anal group ass) is finally completed! Now I just have to wait until it gets published online for sure. I'd like to extend a really really humungous thanks to my group mates, Greg and Mike, who have been absolutely phenomenal throughout the project. If it weren't for the whole team effort, I'm certain nothing would have been done at all. Or at most a web page would have been put up with a whole lot of nothing.

I'm 1 000 000% certain that this is the best group I have ever been put in. Actually, this is the best group I've ever worked with, period. Better than the stupid education classes groups where we did squat, like that terrible group that ejected me unanimously without even consulting me, or that 8 member group with absolutely no clue as to what we were doing, or that lab partner in physics who got overstressed and it was later discovered that this partner was manic depressive. So, yeah, this group is just great.

*snif* I'll miss you guys. :)

---

"Bel-ge-lon tai." No. Just isn't right. :(

---

Thanksgiving's a bit far behind but...

I'm grateful for my friends and my two families, mine and Jorgh's. I have been keeping to myself much too long, and I think it would be a good time to start reconnecting. I have been trying to since my father passed on, and it's been a bit frustrating at times because I am a generally shy and non-assertive person.

So I'm going to Marie-Claude's birthday on the 14th. I hope. If they'll have me. :)

It's funny.

Our group project in Numerical Analysis has a snazzy look. I made it. But you can't see it (yet). It's uploaded on McGill's WebCT, and I believe that it will be available for viewing by the public after the entire project is completed, by December 3rd.

Greg, Mike and I are in this theoretically five-person team that has practically always been three people. (One dropped the course, the other disappeared... ugh. I won't even talk about that one. It's just too infuriating.) We've been way up to our eyballs in work for this one course, and especially for the group project. While other groups are five people (one group being "only four"), we are intimately associated with each part of our project. In fact, if you asked any one of us about random aspects of any part of our project, we could probably BS something close enough about it. And it's a BIG project.

Greg, a music/physics guy, is the main coder since I suck at coding, and Mike does a lot of communications and some of the engineering work (since he's a mechanical engineer). I pretty much manage the group in terms of organization and I fix the website since neither the other two are as experienced. Since HTML/CSS was what I did all summer instead of working. And mourning a lot.

We were in Burnside Hall, R911, Saturday afternoon trying to figure out our PDE, the largest part of our project (mainly what the hell it is). Greg was in one of his frustrated-over-stupid-MATLAB pauses, and looked at a few other group's sites that were myseteriously available on WebCT, which we are supposed to be blocked from viewing.

Let me tell you, if I was disappointed before about my template for our web page, I was no longer ashamed of it from that point forward. Those pages look so terrible you'd want to burn your monitor. Then you'd burn your hard drive to remove any traces of it from your memory. And then you'd gouge your eyes out.

I am a bit puzzled as to how people think pictures of old, dead guys will even help the content of your web page. "Sure, the guy's brilliant, but you aren't."

BURN!!! :)

(I'm feeling so evil today.)

Holy cr- Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe I forgot to talk about Thanksgiving in Toronto last month. Well, since it's the Thanksgiving weekend in the states, where my dear friends Felix-chan and Davy-san are both residing at the moment, I would like to share my Thanksgiving story for my dear readers. (If any.)

Friday - Jorgh's birthday I missed

The day was supposed to go like this - my class would end, I would get home, pack, and wait for my mother and my brother to arrive in their car at my apartment because they were supposed to leave me something. (Which they eventually forgot.) My sister and her boyfriend, Brian, were supposed to come by at the same time in their car and I was going to go to Toronto with them. I completely forgot about Simon coming by, and I saw this guy on our doorstep with a huge hat and a bike, so I thought it was a weirdo. (Which he is, but I mean another kind of weirdo... uh... nevermind.) Anyway, he ended up buzzing a million times before I finally recognized him and let him up.

Brian and my sister waited at my apartment for a good hour later than planned. Finally, my brother buzzed my door, and stormed up to my apartment. He muttered something incomprehensible, as younger adolescent/post-puberty kids do, and hid in my washroom.

We were puzzled as to why my mother was not coming by as well. My brother finally vacated the washroom (and then suddenly everyone had to go at the same time, of course), and told us that they were held up by the cops.

"What the crap did you do?"
"I'M NOT PAYING MY TICKET!!!"

Somehow, we found out from my brother's irate garbling that my mother and my brother both got a combined ticket for not wearing their safety belts properly in the car. My mother was driving, but she's short so she tends to put the shoulder strap of the belt at an odd angle, which renders the seat belt completely ineffective. My brother was in the back seat, being his lazy self, without his seat belt on. They were stopped by a police car down my street because the cops were diverting traffic, and one noticed that neither had their seat belts properly put on.

Then my brother started protesting to the cop that it was "legal" for him not to be wearing his belt because he was no longer a minor and he was in the backseat. He also argued that he knew the legal code...

Well, then the cop must have been pretty pissed at him because (1) my brother was completely wrong in both counts and (2) both my mum and he got fined.

Anyway, we finally set off towards Toronto, and arrived at Kingston for supper. At Harveys, my sister insisted heavily on the veggie burger, while I had naught but onion rings (ha ha, Jorgh!). [ed: That restaurant was packed with white trash...!]

Finally at Toronto, we settled down at my loving cousins' house. Eddie and Rebecca were busy making a huge-assed fudge cake for a friend's wedding. Apparently, they worked all day and night, well into the night, playing with fudge and butter and more fudge and cake and cream... Rebecca was definitely sick of chocolate by that point.

There was this tremendously long battle over who would sleep where, which in the end didn't matter because I ended up on the faux-snakeskin stiff-as-conrete bed in the basement, as usual. I swear, every time I go there with my family, it's always that scary-assed snakeskin thing.

Saturday - the Boredom...!

We had all sorts of silly things happening during the weekend, I can't remember which order they were in because of all the crappy things that happened as well. I'll just summarize the day below.

• The crappy: Sitting in those damn chinese malls for hours and hours, eating and sitting, eating and sitting, eating some more until we were about to fall asleep, sitting and waiting for *more* food... etc.



• The good:.... Sprawl malls. We lived in Old Navy for three hours or something.



• The remarkable: Brian, Simon, and my brother slept in the living room. Brian told us that at some point in the early hours, he woke up and was walking about, when he noticed Simon making a weird scrunched up face, curl up, stick one leg in the air, and then let out a really loud one. Then Simon went back to sleep (or maybe he wasn't awake).

Actually, a lot of stuff that occured happen to revolve around how Simon acted during the stay in Toronto. He was literally freaking over every single thing he was seeing because he had never been in Toronto before. We sort of questioned his parents' judgement in his upbringing occasionally. Often. Most of the time.

My cousin Eddie found his pants sitting on the stairs because they fell of the banister. He picked them up.
"Whose are these?" he asked.
"You don't want to touch them," my brother responded.
"Why's that?"
"They're Simon's."
"So?"
"[He doesn't wear underwear.]" [cantonese]

With that, we all erupted into a giant chinese mess of laughter. Brian was told the joke, and he joined in. Simon finally entered the room, but no one wanted to tell him the awful truth about what we were laughing about... He then got upset and ran off with an ice cream bowl out to the street, down the block...

"Don't you want to go after him?" we asked my brother.
"He'll be fine..."
"Seriously, go after him."
"Arrgh... SIMON!!!"

It led to a long walk. I followed along with Eddie, Brian, and Eddie's aunt from Victoria, to the Beaches area. My brother finally caught up with Simon, talked briefly with him, apologized, and my brother went home. Simon seemed to continue walking into the cemetary, I think...

The Beaches area at night was charming and bright, but with hardly many people walking about because of the cold. It wasn't even cold, it was "Toronto" cold. Meaning something like 10 degrees.

I slept on the snakeskin thing but it was getting harder to sleep due to the carpeting. And it does get freaking cold at night in a basement when it's 10 degrees outside.

Sunday - Prelude to the Banquet

My family was slotted to visit my mother's godmother, and then join her (80th!) birthday banquet at some restaurant at one of the chinese malls. (Pacific Mall) Simon was gone off to downtown Toronto to wreak havoc. (I think it was just to make sure he wouldn't get lost in Scarborough and cause even more craziness.)

We ended up going to Scarborough City Center for a few hours. My brother had bought two ridiculously priced t-shirts and pants from Bluenotes on Saturday, for which we (as siblings) chided him greatly. In fact, we told my mum and she freaked for a good two hours at what he bought. He returned them at this mall, but was starting to eye some things so we pulled him out of there.

Afterwards, we visited popo in these fantastically tall apartment buildings (she lives in apartment number 911, if you can believe it). We napped some more because we did absolutely nothing that day anyway.

Finally, we changed and went to the restaurant.

The Banquet

My brother built himself a reputation the last year he went to the birthday banquet. Basically, he was bribed into eating a chicken head, and he pretty much did that. With pictures. Dammit.

So this year, he wanted to outdo himself. The cousins were watching him like hawks, waiting for him to do something stupider than last year. Finally, they got this idea to get him to strip and play the violin with only a tie and pants. Of course, our goal wasn't to traumatize my mom's godmother so he demanded more money, but he found he wasn't drunk enough yet.

Throughout the evening, a wedding party right next door to the banquet was disturbing us with its crappy 80's-90's romance/pop music so we dared him instead to streak into the next room. The aunts and uncles got wind of his antics, and tried their best to persuade him not to. They even stole the chicken head from him this year. Eventually, he chickened out.

Finally, we were all totally boozed up (even me, but not to such great extent). My brother finally drank enough to get his inhibitions out of the way and crashed the wedding party with his violin playing the wedding song. Through the flimsy wall. Then he ran away but he got enough applause. The cousins were lamenting that the hadn't had the initiative to pass around the hat because it *was* a free performance from a very talented classically trained violinist, of course.

Anyway, the funniest part of the evening was the drive home. We hadn't realized it but Brian was boozed up so much he was starting to spew out weird things from his mouth. Us siblings were totally gauding him about his drunkenness, but of course (as anyone will tell you) the ones who are drunk will be the ones vehemently denying it.

So he basically taunted us about being too uptight and kept repeating some question for half an hour about something (I can't remember anymore either). When we got home, Eddie and Rebecca were totally amused by his weird conversations. Rebecca said, "I like you better when you're drunk. You promise you'll be like this from now on?"
"I'm not drunk!"
"So do you promise you'll be like this tomorrow morning?"
"Okay."

Monday - hangover blues?

Actually, my brother said that he drank 6 beers. They happened to be Coors Lite, so he wasn't even the slightest bit drunk from them. It was the rest of the alcohol that did him in. I had two glasses of red wine and turned beet red, apparently. My sister had about the same. My mum had a little sip of red for toast, but she was driving so she declined everything else. Brian had some questionable amount of alcohol.

My sister woke up Brian, but he was completely disoriented. She came back and told me that he didn't remember anything from the previous night, starting from the ride home. "He doesn't know how he got home, so I told him he strip-danced when we got home."

The entire day was spent making fun of him being so funny last night, and how he danced around without his shirt on. Rebecca reminded him of the previous night's conversation. "What? I said that?" I don't think he believed these crazy stories, but it was funny all the same to tease him.

Ah yes. We ate turkey that afternoon. It was a *lot* of turkey. And it is dry. I don't care what anyone says, it's always too dry to enjoy all the time.

Anyway, we went back to Montreal that evening. All I brought back was a lot of red envelopes, and a bunch of clothes I bought at Old Navy for Jorgh's birthday I missed on Friday.

---

I had fun. Let's go again next year. This time I'll get tons of pictures...!

Graduation Postponed

Tuesday, I found out the lab was last Tuesday. Yesterday, I was advised by the professor not to write the final exam.

---

During the years I have been in school, there are some days that I feel like finding something to smack me on the head or slice myself up just to keep myself from admitting that I am unable to depend on myself (to work by myself). I shafted myself in the end, and I felt that I had let myself down irrevocably.

So after spending so many months on this course, and depressingly going through the motions, I reached one of my very deep lows yesterday and the day before. I knew that I had screwed up, but this time it was worse than all the others.

My entire family was counting on me graduating this semester so I could go home to my mom, and work at QHS in the meantime, and finally get things back on track. But now I have to stay in Montreal another semester, to go through one course, and figure out how to support myself now that the student loans are maxed, and keep myself sane.

I miss my father very much.

---

In the meantime, thanks to all my friends for their kind support and advice. I will be calling the ombudsperson soon to set up an appointment, as big pu has strongly suggested.

STRIKING IS BAD FOR YOU.

By YOU, I mean the maintenance workers of the STM. Seriously, no one is on your side except yourselves. You make on average more than my mum and dad did together in a year. And they didn't have the option to get a bigger pension or to get a fat pay hike over four years. Maybe they weren't skilled workers, but 23$ an hour is something like a fortune for even a regular trade-school-trained worker.

In the meantime, I've been walking around Montreal every day since Monday. I think I walked an average of 2 hours a day, just to get between home and McGill, McGill to University of Montreal (the jungle), and from University of Montreal to McGill again. It's been some nice weather though, so I won't complain as much. In other news, I can finally see my toes again! (j/k.)

PHYSICS SUCKS @$$

I took out three other texts today. Light reading, you see. One is something to do with Fundamentals of Modern Physics, some other about plasma spectroscopy, and another about atomic structures. All these four books I have are supposed to be references to the shitty notes I bought for 25$ from the department, which was absolute crap because I don't understand it.

I've been looking for a tutor for this course over the last five weeks, but no one has even been able to offer any leads. I even emailed the bastards at MSPS who didn't even bother to respond to tell me they didn't care about me. Well... at least to tell me they couldn't find anyone. I want my &$#!ing money back.(*) I have a few options left - to go to a random graduate student who has some time, or to a professor (either Buchinger or deTakacsy, if I can ever find him). The only drawback is that I have two weeks left, a laboratory exercise (for some reason) and three assignments to do.

If I have to spend another freaking semester at McGill, I'm going to kill those little bastard nerds in SUMS. As a release, of course.

(*) I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in this student society, so I want my student society fees to be refunded. Right now. For the last four %^@#ing years I spent in McGill. Or MSPS can offer me the head of that bastard Simon. But he's gone now.

Moronic Hobbies

I've taken up stupid online hobbies when I should be studying. I really shouldn't be doing any of these things, but here they are:

• SIMS - I have been doing less of this lately, so I won't start again until I am certain I passed this dangerous course.


• Gaia Online - I'm not sure why I even registered. Josh Lesnick mentioned something about giving fake money from this site for one of his wallpapers, but I don't even have that much yet.


• This blog site - I shouldn't be blogging right now. I think I should be sleeping. Yes. I should. No. Yes. I need to vent.


• Neopets - ... That's it, I'm sending those damn pets to the inn.

Oh Yeah... Oh Yeah... Ohhhh Baby...!

Today Jorgh, Norm, a friend of Norm's named George, and I went to the (first) Annual Montreal Sci-Fi/Anime/Comic Convention and had a very interesting time. (Well, actually, it was wicked fun but only because Norm had all these crazy ideas...! You'll see.)

The freaking tickets cost 12 dollars for a day. I was totally shocked that the anime stuff was 25 dollars even for a day, so Jorgh and I bought the Comic convention tickets. Norm and George registered under weird fake names, especially Norm's "Edward Penishands," so Jorgh and I took on fake names >_< and fake address (no -es... Jorgh says we live together but I didn't think these two would)...

My first impression of the Palais des Congrès is that it has a lot of vast space for nothing. Jorgh was worried and/or mad because I kept running around like a crazy person, but I was completely freaked out with all the space available to me to run around and got scared. :(

Anyway, we arrived in this relatively large dealers room with everyone inside. It was a bit of a downer... there didn't seem to be as many people as I thought it would have. And the special guests were all sitting at tables in the back.

RIPOFF BASTARDS

First, I was dismayed at the wretched unfriendly crap-assed anime merchants. There were two tables in particular which had items I would have considered buying if not for their stupidness. One was an Inu Yasha wall scroll which they wanted to sell at 15 bucks. Norm later tried to get the guy to sell at 10 but he wouldn't budge, and then immediately afterwards made fun of him to his parner merchant. Stupid bastard.

The second merchant Norm pointed out to me was a table full of manga books, which the guy was selling at 14 bucks each, or 2 for 25. I was fuming because why would I buy these books four dollars more than I can get them outside the stupid convention?

Fangirl MAYHEM!!!

The main attraction of the convention, though, was the various guests. If I recall anything during Anime North, I knew nobody, especially the guests. Well, those same nobody guests came to the anime convention in Montreal.

Actually, that's not fair to the guests. They're somebody. The fans of these guests were nobodies. (They were Dragon Ball Z voice actors put together in this sorta small band. Just like at Anime North)

After some wandering, Norm and George came by and told us how they saw the guy who plays Neelix on Voyager, Ethan Philips, was sitting at a table without anyone coming by to him, and next to Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis. Basically, they were making fun of most of the guests because they *are* somewhat washed-out actors who rely on these kinds of conventions to get money.

Jorgh and I walked by them and I saw the guests. The other side to Neelix was the guy who plays the Klingon Gowron, and then there was the freaky actor for Chewbacca, and some chick I don't know. Unfortunately, the original Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, did not make it to the convention, which disappointed many people (and possibly killed a lot of sales).

Superstar!

Later, Norm pointed out James Kochalka, whom I was dying to meet (and probably only went to this convention to meet), but he wasn't happy that the "Monkey vs. Robot" CD was too expensive for him. So I dragged the Jorgh to the table where James Kochalka was sitting at, and there were these fantastic books and CDs and I stared at his face...

Then I suddenly lost all words because this is JAMES FREAKING KOCHALKA "SUPERSTAR" from the world of comics and internet culture and whom everyone is always looking up to and talking about...

So I stood there stammering next to Jorgh like an idiot for a minute while James Kochalka stared at me, hopefully amused at my blushing. Jorgh was rather amused I was blushing. I was mortified that I was blushing.

Anyway, we started chatting lightly, calming me down enough to buy his first book "the Sketchbook Diaries" (which is EXCELLENT by the way), and have him sign it with his elf self saying my silly name... :)

Neelix!

We had this terrific idea / prank? to play on Neelix, which we tried to present to Norm until he told us he said something "bad" in front of him.

"What is it, Norm?"
"I said, 'Sucks to be Neelix!' and I think he heard us."

Well, my original plan I forgot completely, but I formulated another one...

We were supposed to get Neelix to sign my belly for cheap because I didn't want to pay 20 bucks for a signature. Nor a scary looking photo. Anyway, Norm and George thought it was a good idea so I attempted to chat up Ethan Philips.

"How do you do?" I extended my hand out to shake his.
"Hi, where are you from?"
"Uh... Chicoutimi."
"Chicoutimi!?" He seemed to say it with such ease that I knew the jig was up.
"Yeah..."
Well, it turns out he knows more about Quebec than anyone around us thought. "I was in Chicoutimi a long time ago, nice town... I travelled around Quebec, courting my wife... Chicoutimi, Gaspé, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City..."

Aw geez... I lost the nerve for a signed belly... :p

Anyway, after a longer than necessary chat with Ethan Philips, aka Neelix, about French, Quebec, translated Star Trek Voyager, etc., we went back to Norm and George and said it couldn't be done because I couldn't bear to discourage the guy who has been to my hometown and called it a "nice town." *weep*

Norm in the Spotlight

Anyway, Marina Sirtis in the next table came back from her break, and suddenly all these nerds flocked over to her table to get her to sign the various objects they had. She reminds me of my CT (cooperating teacher) from Laurenhill Academy, namely because my CT is greek. Norm then decided to try to get her to sign his belly, and got Jorgh to pay 20 bucks if he succeeded.

Norm got to the beginning of the line and tried the belly, but she refused, thus he got his arm signed for ten bucks. We agreed to pay him 5 bucks in compensation. We get to take a picture of it later. :)

The rest of the convention

We saw Chewie walk by... OMFG he's a freak. He's 7 feet tall and he was wearing this huge top hat, and walking around with that strange Chewie walk even without costume. (No one among the guests was in costume. Which was good.) Jorgh thought he was the Undertaker, but we verified later it is not true.

Norm and George tried to get the Stormtroopers walking around and Boba Fett to take on Neelix, but none of them would do it, so they offered ten bucks, to which some guy not in costume spoke up and said he'd do it. But then Norm told me that the guy started hitting on a 13 year old girl passing by so they quickly retracted their offer and ran away.

Jorgh didn't end up buying anything because there wasn't anything he liked at his price range, so we left the convention. Then I came home and I read the Sketchbook Diaries and it's so good I want the rest... (I knew I shouldn't have just bought one.)

In Summary

Overall, I think the convention was way overpriced as an entrance fee. Come on, twelve bucks to go in and stare at a bunch of people who want to sell you their name on a photo of themselves, and to get gouged by a bunch of assholes who think pepole will pay anything they write down on a piece of paper. And they do because they're STUPID*.

But it was so worth it to go see James Kochalka. Can you tell I'm a big fan? #_# (starstruck)

I only wish I brought a camera...

---

Jorgh thinks I'm silly. I'm just happy. Now time to study for World of Chemistry.

(*Refer to rant about end of society due to no one barganing anymore.)

Actual writing.

Little V thought it was weird (hypocritical?) that I would rant about losers who thought it was unclean to not shave the legs, yet I still shave my armpits. Well, that's a long story... (...) ...

...

... And then they traumatized me so much I started shaving under there. Now there's so much that if I stop now I would cause intense rug burns to everyone I hugged. But it's not necessarily for aesthetic reasons.

Poetry at its laziest

Prose.

---

Thank you, thank you. No applause, please.

Lunar Eclipse

If you looked up tonight in Montreal, you would have noticed first between 6 pm or so and 8 pm, the moon was getting swallowed up by the rabbit. (Thanks, Shin!) Then we went inside St Hubert for supper and didn't come out until 10:30 pm. By the way, the service at St Hubert was so craptastic I highly recommend it as a place to send your worst enemy to eat. After giving him or her cancer. (BOOO!!! BAD JOKE!!!)

And then the moon shone like a freaking spotlight on stage!!!

I feel so slazy slazy lazy alazy ... xzzxzzzzzzzzz...

---

Your attention please: this weblog has been taken over by a 13 year old girl! KAWAII!!! SUGOI!!!11!! LOLROLMAOFNAGEEWQPSE!!!1111@@222
Like i am seewwww kewwwllliess!!! i wanna find some hawwwtiesssss and LeTs Go PaRtY!1111LOL:);)^_^:D:D;dpaSs mE sum Gewwwdd StofFF!!!! nooo won >understands me they all <think i'm like sooo immateur but i'm not i >BOLDhave a bf< online like hes sooo mateur and hes got this wifebut we dont carecuz we totally connect and i have a gf who like is totalli bysuxual too and we like go places n stuff wheee we so kewll!!!!!

---

I swear, I will never do that again.

It snowed...

I can't remember why I wanted to mention this, but it snowed on November 3. McGill's lower field and environs was completely covered with falling leaves, and then some snow dusted over these leaves. It was rather pretty in fact.

And then the gardeners inevitably started raking the leaves along with the snow. And by raking, I mean blowing with a leafblower. And by gardeners, I mean total tools who don't know that they would save so much money on re-seeding the grass etc. per year if they didn't do so much crap to the lawns. For instance:

1. Blow the leaves off. And then throw the leaves out in the garbage inefficiently. I have proof. (If only I could upload it.) They could recycle the plant matter in the leaves at least, by composting.
   


2. Cut the grass when it's only a millimeter high. (... no comment.)
   


3. Water the "grass" in the middle of the day during the summer, when it's 30 degrees outside and probably 25% of the water would be evaporated just by spraying it out into the field the way they do. And the grass is already dying anyway from the crappy treatment it's been getting all year by everyone.
   

Now don't misinterpret me - I'm not saying that the gardeners are totally at fault for the state of the lower campus. I'm also blaming the McGill administration for such incompetent ideas about environmental friendliness (which has constantly been under extreme criticism for being so slow and ignorant of such policies), the froshees for "watering the trees" with random liquids (thereby killing everything on the lawn every end of August), people who throw garbage on the lawn after their lunch is finished, and them damn pigeons. It's always dem pigeons.

Stupid People: Part i+1

WARNING: Beware! I'm going to talk about PORNOGRAPHY!!! Not for the squeamish or easily disturbed by the sight of the word "PORN." Which I write a lot.

I don't know why the internet culture is so stupid. Maybe because the popular media keeps representing stupid ideas in beautiful packaging that prevents people from actually forming their own ideas.

So let's start by PORN. It's a disgusting business. I'm looking at it in terms of as a buisness, not as all the flaky "female empowerment" sayings that the bleach-blonde fake-everything porn stars like to tote as a media grab bag. I'm just going to briefly mention the fact that PORN is out there. And everyone's seen some of it. I'm sure. (Hey, you wouldn't know what it was if you didn't see any of it before.)

Anyway, visual pornography is viewed by many people. It's a representation of the "ideal" kind of sexual situation that many people would like to have, without the societal bounds that prevent people from actually barging in on a couple doing it in the middle of the subway and engaging in some sort of perverted game of mass Twister. Or Dance Dance Revolution with a bunch of furries with their genitalia hanging out. I don't know. (I made those up, but who knows...)

As a result of such underground but mass popular exposure, porn is full of "beautiful people," mainly because they seem to enjoy (?) the sexual act so much that the viewer may think that the "actor" is simply the "most beautiful." It's also put ideas into people's heads that pornography has these fantastically beautiful actors that everyone in society should be, in fact, emulating in style and/or appearance.

For instance, almost everyone shaves everything in porn. Pubic hair, armpits, legs, arms, chests, ... not head... Possibly for the purpose of making the sexual act easier to see or to do. (How would I know all this? I don't. I'm guessing.) Then the ideal of the viewer of beauty is to shave everything off. So mainstream media decides that beauty is such that everyone shaves everything.

Now we have these huge, sprawling billboards of men with completely bare and shiny chests, and women with absolutely no body hair of any sort. (Don't get me started on body size...)

And then you get the responses from the mainstreamed public, obsessing over body hair and such. Bikini waxes and "Brazilian" waxes are very popular topics for some reason, when I open the Mirror or Hour.

And then you have the slightest mention that Shania Twain doesn't shave her armpits.

And then you get the completely blown-into-the-stratosphere outcry about how not shaving is completely unnatural, uncivilized, and unhygenic.

*Sigh*

I had this reaction one time from a fellow student during my five week stay during the summer in the cegep Ste-Foy. I mentioned to her that I don't shave my legs because I don't actually have much body hair to speak of. (Asian.) She procured a sour face like a black hole lived in her skull, and spouted out the uncleanliness of not shaving. "Why?" I asked, genuinely curious at her reaction. "... Just because!" was her very intellectual and stimulating reply.

Well, this couldn't be more interesting as a topic. I don't shave my legs or arms, but I'm sure that if you were to look at them you couldn't tell anyway since it doesn't grow crazy like yours!!!. *grumble grumble*

And then there's the pubic hair debate. ... Let's just say that pedophilia is more than just implied in this action in pornography, and propagated through Britney Spears.

---

Wow, n hours of typing and this is what I came up with??? Stay tuned next time when I discuss more Stupid People: Part i+2. Now with more rant!

Davy-san!

Davy did a very silly thing last week. Basically, it was silly because he did it for me. ^_^

I was admiring his lovely photos of Seattle that he occasionally sends the links of, and I told him nonchalantly that I was hoping to get a digital camera one day. It would be nice, since my last cheap-assed film camera just decided to stop taking pictures where I'm aiming at, due to possible repeated dropping of said camera a thousand times over many years. Anyway, Davy takes really great photos, and he apparently has a new digital camera which he adores very much.

I had always wanted one since I got my hands on that camera in the CEMIS center within QHS back in 1996. It was this huge black and white digital camera, worth a thousand dollars, and could only take weird dinky things that would eventually upload and print with a resolution of 50 dpi if you were lucky. I still have this classic picture of B hiding in her hoodie with two thumbs up, showing only her nose. She didn't like it very much as she was decidedly against having any pictures taken of her back then to be printed, but I learned to be a paparazzi type and I would have done it again if I could. (How terrible, I know.)

I then lamented to Davy over the net that I don't have the means to buy one at this time, and he informed me that I could obtain one for less than a hundred, at Future Shop. I also lack a credit card, I told him.

Anyway, next thing I knew, Davy asked me what my mailing address was. I told him it was not necessary even though I was flattered and flabbergasted.

So this morning I got a UPS delivery with two boxes, one my new 1 Mpx camera and one a CD inside a DVD container. I was having fun all day... :)

Now, if only I can find a place to upload the photos for free... :):):)

Thank you Davy, from the bottom of my heart! *Hugs and kisses!*

In Other News

I went to Toronto for the Thanksgiving weekend, with my family. We were visiting my mother's godmother for her 80th birthday, and we had fun at the banquet. :) I'm sure I could go on about the weekend, but I'm really tired right now. I'll write about it later.

In the meantime, I want to upload those photos...

Puni Puni Poemi!

Yeah, I also watched Puni Puni Poemi, after having watched the entire series Excel Saga. It's so effing funny. Jorgh, you should watch it too - it's full of fan service. :)

Ultimate Skank-O-Rama!!!

You can tell... there's this girl who's walking around McGill while it's raining hard and it's cold this week, with flip flops and a tank top. Who the @#$% wears flip flops in the rain? Unless you're a girl who lives in the women's residence across the street of Burnside, for insane amounts of money a month, and all they do is hide guys in their dorms doing who knows what...

Speaking of skanks, there was this really awful one at Snowdon while I was transferring metro stations to go to UdeM. (Or "you-damn.") Anyway, this girl was definitely skank material... her skin-tight pants were falling down below her

SKANKY-ASSED PINK G-STRING

. And a skank belt. I don't know why these people wear belts, when they're clearly hanging even further below their underwear. And don't say that I was staring at her because I was being envious, because I wasn't. On the contrary, I wanted to avert my eyes but it's hard to do that when you're walking down the stairs right behind this skank.

Sarah...? :(

Wednesday, I spent all day doing my physics homework, and writing MATLAB code by hand (for Numberical... that's another story), as I didn't have MATLAB. Then Thursday, I spent a good while working on my code on my computer (which then mysteriously got MATLAB somehow) from 7 pm to 3 am Friday... completely frustrated over my stupid code not working. I was ready to punch out someone, until I felt asleep and woke up the next day to go to class at you-damn. Then I worked from 3:30pm to 7 pm just trying to fix my code, which in the end didn't work. Since I had no time to fix it, I submitted the entire homework. Nigam said that if the code doesn't run at all, then the question gets a zero automatically. I can't believe I spent 5 hours working on that stupid thing and I didn't get any marks for it. :(

So understandably, on Friday I was rather pissed off at a lot of crap, but no one in particular except myself. I was looking forward to seeing Sarah-chan for her birthday that day. It was reported to me that she would be at the bus station at 9:30 pm, to head to Moovenpick at 10:00 pm for a 2 for 1 crêpes special. Except Felix was having a party at 9:00 p.m. that night at Foufounes.

Cheryl, Derrick, and Amanda were planning to go to Felix's bash by Cheryl's (father's "ghetto") car for 9, so I went with them for a drive down to Berri, hoping to have enough time to see Felix-chan and then get to the bus station.

Of course, parking is a nightmare downtown Montreal, so it took twenty minutes to find a space. By then, it was a bit too late to go see Felix, so I bade them goodbye and headed for the metro (St-Laurent). I should have just walked, because it took another 15 minutes to go one stinking stop because the metro was a bitch.

At 9:35, I got to the bus stop but there was nobody around. I figured maybe they left to go to Moo, so I took another metro at 9:40 by orange line (which was stupid because I should have taken the green one). Another several dozen minutes later, I get to Moo and see everyone there...

Except Sarah-chan, who changed her plans at the last minute. Of course, I didn't get any messages because I hadn't been home for the whole day.

Everyone was ticked, but we decided to hang out at Moo anyway. Even poor Jesse-kun. :p We did have fun, even having conversations initiated by Kathy about the "male strip club." That was hilarious. :)

I got home at about 1 am, pretty tired and weirded out. Roomie then told me what happened while I was gone, as she was totally freaking about how everyone left messages saying they didn't know where whoever was... and then she didn't know where anyone was, and then got even more confused.

It was a big mess. Anyway, I got an email from Jorgh telling me to call him in Chicout even if it was 3 am. So I called at 3 am, pissing off his parents. It was his fault, tho.

I slept until noon. It's so nice to sleep until noon.

The Ultimate Venting Machine!

Yes sir, ma'am, this is the ultimate in self-congratulating, self-expression, self-exploration, and self-pleasing device, called Blogger. Get one for yourself, your friends, your brother, your sister, your mother and father, your uncles and aunts and cousins galore, and yes 'em, even your gammers and gaffers. It makes online forums look like a crude soliloquizing soliticizing mesmerizing desensitizing method of communication between you 'n your family and friends. It's fast and easy as it is to say "Look 'em, ma, no brains!"

Anyway, I wanted to mention that sometimes communicating with other people makes life look so taxing that you don't want to associate yourself with human beings ever again. My Numerical Analysis group is somewhere in limbo. I have four other random people in this group I was supposed to be working with since last week, but for some reason there was only one other person in the group who even attempted to contact anyone else in the group, through the miraculous instant communication method called WebCT.

Now, if anyone else out there knows about WebCT, you will know that it is a crappy form of communication. In fact, I think I would rather use the most spammarific email address I have (my Excite mail address) to email my group with than use WebCT. But alas, there is no way to email them from this program, or even through this class, unless they directly gave me their email addresses through WebCT. For you see, for some reason the remaining group members who haven't attempted any contact through WebCT is still in limbo and I don't even know if they even exist or if my professor is playing a cruel, cruel joke on us. Silly Nigam. ^_^

So for now, I have contact with three of these people. On the other hand, I don't even know what they look like or if they have a head attached or not. Hopefully they do.

And I haven't finished my first physics homework. But it's on its way tomorrow.

---

I would like very much to continue with the Tuesday tradition with Ivo-san and Jesse-kun if they don't mind. It's a great practice for me to actually play the violin again, especially with my esteemed friends. I really missed playing violin, but I missed especially the playing with others, and all the silliness that happens during crazy practice sessions. Especially because being mathematicians, we can't count nor keep pace with each other.

Maybe by the end of the semester, we'll be able to perform for the others from SUMS and it'll become a mini-concert! :):):) I'll have to propose this to SUMS and maybe even enter us into SUS variety/talent show...!!!

Oh boy, this thought just occured to me. Oh boyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy...........

*Squirming in chair, happy*

More About School Stuff...

And now I have to mention the usual. The froshees.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a froshee. I was one myself, if you can believe it. Really. (Hey, I haven't been in school that long. Look at Jorgh!) There's nothing wrong with being so heartbreakingly new to a city and a school with no one to really turn to at times that you pain everyone around you who's a veteran to your type.

It's just that there's so many of them that do so many things that piss you off! "You" as in "me."

First off, I've never been in a real "bird course" yet at McGill until this year. Sure, there's education courses, but those don't really count since they're actual required courses. I mean, you could submit a pile of dung and it'd be given an A. Or an A-, depending on how well you argue your way to making people think that it symbolizes a student's strife. Really.

So at these bird courses, there lies the few-hundred froshees. And they all tend to show that they're froshes. Let me categorize in broad, general demeaning but TRUE statements:

1. The slut froshees: Females who wear tube tops, floppies, and not much else to class (especially in the winter), and put on tons of make-up and make their hair into little coiffes that look like they sprayed entire cans of laquer on their heads. Males who wear lots of cologne, brand-name shirts, pants, socks, underwear, tattoos. Like to talk a lot. Even when the professor tells you to shut up.


2. The keener froshees: Like to pretend they're still in high school and communicate with the professor in flowery language, ask unnecessary questions, quote from course packs that everyone buys but no one is supposed to read, present uninteresting assignments in expensive bindings and folders, like to talk a lot. Especially when the professor tells you to shut up.


3. The bastard froshees: Come to class one day out of a month (if they bother)... when they actually do attend, they sleep through it, eat loudly, talk loudly, ask bonehead questions, never write notes, and/or disturb other students in the class. Likes to be told to shut up, it seems.


4. The sweet-but-so-very-confused froshees: Basically so confused because they took all the wrong classes at the same time. Like six core courses or something. And really, really don't like to admit they made mistakes until it's too late. The professors don't even know they exist so they can't be told to shut up.

Seriously, how many of you feel like maiming some of these people sometimes? (Or all the time, in some cases?) I mean, you could probably see yourselves in the fourth category (I know I did), but I'm sure I pissed off a lot of people when I was a froshee. I'd have took me aside, pinned me up to the lockers, and give myself a wedgie for being such a damn piss-off. I mean, seriously, if I hear any person whine like that and never do anything about it but whine, then I'd definitely give them a stern talking-to. And a wedgie.

This is why they invented buddy programs. To prevent the seniors from killing too many froshees.

---

Speaking of nerds... ah, no, that'd be too mean. Let's just say it has to do with SUMS and newbies.

---

The U of M course is such a different experience. I haven't spoken to anyone yet other than the professor. When Jorgh and I went to U of M on the first day of class, we found his office but the door was closed. It was then that Jorghnassen noticed the sticker on the door I completely missed.

At that moment, I had a little fear (aptly named Jacques) that the fact a McGill (a Liberal-anglo-federalist supporting school) student would be taking his class would affect the way he may behave towards me.

Nevertheless, the professor is a fair and polite person, despite his slight attitude towards me and my ineptitude in French. Well, at least he won't be marking me off for having bad French. How lovely. :)

---

Heh. I was looking for an image to link to that "sticker" above, and I don't know if you want to know what I found on the Google Image Search (GIS) under the word, "oui"...

More of School

History of Japan is actually Introduction to Japan Culture. Meaning that all we do is watch japanese movies (we just finished Princess Mononoke) and read articles about how weird the japanese are compared to western culture. And read mangas. :)

The Numerical Analysis class is actually pretty hard-assed. The professor already assigned the first problem set for TODAY AT 5:00 P.M.!!! Well, it was assigned a week ago. But still... All I need now is some sort of program to convert text files to pdf... or something that will create pdf files on Win2K. And Matlab or Maple. For free. But that ain't going to happen. *sigh*

Art of Listening consists of sitting and listening to classical music with a bunch of idiots who can't sit quiet long enough through the class to keep me from getting pissed off. It's a very large effort to get me pissed off if you're being noisy. So it's pretty noisy.

World of Chemistry is taught by three professors, in fact. My peer has actually told me that the multiple choice exams are in fact tricky, despite what the professors claim. So I may need to establish some ranting protocols for myself this semester. (Otherwise I won't be able to graduate in many cases!)

And finally... U of Montreal. I guess it's pretty much as I feared. I don't understand squat in the class, content-wise and vocabulary-wise in either language, the professor is one of those microscopic-scrunchy-writers-type, and I have an assignment due next week... requiring me to write longer sentences in French than I can probably manage without messing up. *Snif.* Jorgh, help me!!!

Why isn't the Architecture Café open anyway? And why the hell is the Bistro so damn expensive now??? And why don't they make cheaper food around campus? Is everyone a millionaire/millionaire's kid around here??? WTF HAPPENED TO MY MONEY??????

In other news, Datoo has resigned from presidency of SSMU. Everyone's pissed off because there won't be a by-election, according to the usurpers- oh sorry, I mean the rest of the executive and the acting president, nearly-acclaimed VP University Affairs. If I had been more of an activist, I'd be running around with those placards and stuff, but it's not much of a big deal anyway. What, will the acting president get both salaries then? Then maybe... No, but seriously, I think that there's too much going on behind the scenes to make anyone feel secure about the executive this year, as is. So whatchu gonna do?

Holy crap, I'm so dizzy and tired right now. Why did Jorgh tell me to wake up at 7??? I don't need to finish the Numerical Analysis assignment due on Friday this early in the morning!

Happy Birthday!

To me.
I'm 23.
Whoopee.
Party!
Later!
I'll talk about it then!

---

I remember the first birthday I had in Montreal. It was a pretty pathetic day, actually, since it was my second(?) day at school and I was going to a field experience day with three hundred other froshees at an elementary school in the middle of Montreal North. I was an hour and a half late because I underestimated the time to get to the metro stop, and then I underestimated the time to take the bus from the metro to the school by an hour. In any case, it was a very pathetic day.

So I decided to head back to McGill and plop myself in SUMS, when I didn't know anyone yet anyway, except Vito. I sat on the couch and listened to a very complicated ("complicated" being a very wrong description, more like "$@!#ing nuts") conversation between Seb, Marco, and others. After an hour of listening as confusedly as I was, I felt like exploding. Something compelled me to finally speak up, after a week of being invisible in a city of a million, after having to be forced into a situation no one wanted, and after feeling lost and alone for too long. I blurted out, "It's my birthday today."

Seb finally turned towards me and started talking to me, as later I found he would be so sociable. The others resumed babbling, while I talked about my crummy day and that I was new to the city and I felt terrible that day. Happily, Seb decided to invite me out with a few others from SUMS for the evening, which made the day so much better.
So Seb, Marco, Marcus, Gabe, and I went to the Eaton Center (back when Eaton was still in business) for supper at the food court. During supper, Seb presented to me a box of Daskelida's chocolates which apparently came from all the guys. I was very touched. :)

Afterwards, Marcus left but Seb wanted to treat me to a movie. We went to see "The Sixth Sense," which Gabe promptly ruined the ending for me about a minute before the ending. So I won't talk about the ending and what shouting I inflicted upon him for this terrible crime.

In any case, this was probably the beginning of my wonderful and not-so-wonderful adventures in SUMS, as a cronie and as an exec, and then as a cronie again, and then as an exec again...

---

An even more unforgettable event which I want to tell before I go to sleep (!) is what happened two weeks before that birthday. I have always felt guilty abou that day, and the events leading up to that day. I could only attribute such foolishness to my deeply rooted self-doubt and lack of any common sense.

My entire family left to Toronto the previous week before McGill Science Frosh, leaving me behind in Quebec, and they just returned to Quebec two days before Frosh began. I neglected to tell them that I needed to go to Montreal right away, before they left. As soon as they arrived, they were outraged at my terrible timing and my incompetence. And I had no one else to stay with in Montreal, except my sister, but she was reluctant to accept me at her place.

I packed quite hastily and my parents exhaustingly drove me to Montreal the next day. I was barely into the appartment when the entire shouting mess started. I vaguely remember my mother and my sister yelling at each other, about me, and how my mother started crying about how we sisters couldn't ever get along especially when we needed each other the most, and my sister crying about something else. Then I started crying and yelling and then it was just a big mess.

I will never forget the moment when my parents were about to leave. My father was standing there, silently witnessing the fight, not daring to contribute nor provoke another mess. As they were leaving, he pulled out from his pocket a red envelope, and calmly proclaimed, "Happy Birthday."

Then I started crying again, having completely forgotten my birthday and that I would not be with my family for the first time.

Needless to say, I can't think about that day without welling up in tears again and wishing things did not turn out that way. But if I had to sum up my father in one story, this would probably be it.

---

By the way, the worst part about this story was that Science Frosh was a complete waste of time and money. I wish I had never went, and if I could, I would sue them for false advertising. "No need to drink to have fun at this Frosh" my ass.

This is also the beginning of my animosity towards SUS. Not so pronounced as with the entity called McGill, but it is still there.

Back to McGill

First day back in school... I really hope this is the last time I get to say this as a student. ^_^

I have Numerical Analysis with apparently ninety other students, most of them in engineering for some reason. Engineers at McGill are very strange, as they have a completely different studying mentality in general. Whereas McGill science students have a superiority complex towards the engineers and like to complain about the engineers in their classes. But for good reason, I suppose (then again, I'm biased).

I have Art of Listening with a professor who admitted that this is his first semester teaching at McGill. But the course content is completely the same as when Jorghnassen took the class back in 1998. In fact, I don't think that classical music changed at all during the last six years. So why the F@#$ING crap did the publishing company make another edition of the book in between for this class??? WTF is wrong with these capitalistic bastards? [Edited long string of swear words and threats to all capitalistic dogs.]

I have one of the World of Chemistry classes, taught by the infamous Professor Joe Schwarcz, of radio, television, and newspaper fame. Apparently, there are three other W of Chem classes - drugs, food, something else - and then this one. This one is the leftover stuff from the other three more theme-based ones that didn't fit in any of them, and they put it together in a class called "Diversity of Chemistry."

Tomorow (today) I will have a History of Japan class, and then I will have to shuttle myself to University of Montreal to take the freaking frightening physics class. *shiver*

I will let you, dear reader(s), know how that goes soon. Ta!

Welcome Home Us!

We came back from a week long trip in Chicoutimi and a day spent in Quebec yesterday night. With Total Blueberry Conquering Action Pose and Renovating Floor Furniture Moving Stance!

I have been watching Excel Saga, yes.

In short, school starts on Wednesday, and I have not yet even been done registering for all my classes yet. All the ones from McGill are done, but not the stupid inter-university transfer (IUT) to U of M. Why? Because this #$^@ing piece of @#$! I used two months ago sent my request to the @$^%ing math department at McGill instead of physics, and the @$%!ing math department decided not to tell me anything. For two months. So I got pissed off (it's not obvious, is it?) and have been trying to contact someone to work out the details before the first class on Thursday. It's exceptionally frustrating, I'm telling you.

I haven't sent my last form to get my student loans for this semester yet. I have these two things to sort out tomorrow.

In the meantime...

Happy Labour Day!

It's Not Nice to Stare...

Jorgh and I were going home last night on the metro at about 11:00 p.m. from his place, having done the laundry (for free... ^_^ ) over there and after a wonderfully home-made supper. Except it wasn't made at home, but at a restaurant (Eurosnack). And it wasn't so wonderful because there was a fry with eyes on it. All deep-fried and scary.

Anyway, I've been in Montreal for four years now, going on my fifth year, and I must say that I find people in Montreal to look more or less a certain way. Sort of hip and crazy, or refined and smelly, or whatever. I mean, all the teenagers here I've seen either fall into two categories: the poser slum wannabes, or the scantily-clad disasters of parents without morals.

Actually, I lie. There's the third category of "other," who tend to be the minority of decent teens.

There's also the characteristic businessmen and businesswomen who are so primp and classy that you hardly ever see them in the metro or bus system, as they would rather not be associated with the rabble of the city. And there's the lower-class but decent men and women who make as honest a living as the poor non-ghettoized students. (Of course, there's the tons of students in Montreal, like ants flowing between school and home in the middle of nowhere with cheaper rent.)

And everyone else is a tourist. So even the strangest of the bunch seem to match the city or fit in, somewhere. I have yet to see the farmers, pig farm or no pig farm. And I had yet to see the mulleted white trash of the boonies (ie. in the bigger-than-pig-farm communities) with their tow of hick kids and trashy parents...

I said had.

Last night, the most ill-fitting people of Montreal speaking french came into the metro car and had the decency to place themselves in front of Jorgh and I. The white trash gang of three kids, their parents (supposedly), and an older woman gawked at things in general, as I stared in disbelief.

The older woman had a mullet. Not just a mistake of a mullet - a real, live, puffing-like-the-80s-never-left, dyed blonde, something-lives-in-my-hair-cuz-I-let-it mullet.

I thought that the older woman was weird, but then I watched the couple. At first, the younger woman seemed content on sitting on the single seat by herself, but then she induced the man to sit on the chair, and then plopped herself on top of him. It's not unusual to see this kind of affection in the metro, as the younger twenty-somethings and teens do this often, but it's very difficult to watch two fourty year-olds do this with their kids running amok in the metro.

The woman of the couple was wearing the stereotypical tight leopard-print clothing, stilleto high heels, and had a mop of a hairdo. The man was undescript, but would remind me very much of the people I have seen during my years living in Chicoutimi.

Then there were the three kids. I shudder to think of what kind of crap they go through at home.

Think of all those television shows. Then say to yourself that television is not reality. Then think of what you would think after seeing these people.

Yeah, I thought so too.

---

It is not nice to point and it is not nice to stare... but when it comes to white trash I don't think they care.

The Party's on the 7th Now.

So you're wondering if I'm having a birthday party, right? Well, initially it was on the 1st, Labour Day, but it turns out that most people aren't even in town or available on that day. As well, it's not even my birthday on that day. So I'm moving it to the actual birthday of myself, on the 7th. ("Good for you," you say.)

Where: the park across the street from my appartment
When: the 7th, at noon
What: a picnic, with possible games and crazy crap happening
Why: 'cuz.
Who: everyone and their kitchen sinks. Especially the kitchen sinks.

Now, why would I make a big deal out of my birthday, as I hardly ever made one every other year... Well, considering the mess that happened this year, and the fact that I won't be staying in Montreal for the next birthday, I figured I would go all out and see everyone together for a possible last round of craziness. And I'm not talking about your namby pamby naked-streaking-drunkenness...

What? I'm not as innocent as I look.

I'm expecting a nice, calm picnic in the park, then a little round of stupid games like the three-legged race and blind man's bluff... then it gets a bit nuttier as the afternoon wears on. May involve togas.

I also want to do the speech. 23 isn't a special milestone year, but it is a very special year for me and there's certainly one issue I want to talk about to everyone. I don't know if it will come across as being self-righteous of me or ridiculous, or being selfish and rude, but if I don't say it then I don't know how much I can keep longer with such a false face.

Anyway, bring a beach towel to sit on otherwise you're sitting on grass. And see if it will double as a toga.

I'm Back In Montreal

Well, I've been back for at least two days, so it's not really big news anyway.

Sunday, my mom, brother, Simon, and I drove our way to Montreal and stopped by my place to drop off a lot of foodstuff. Mmm, foodstuff.

We met up with Michelle and Brian and headed off to dim sum in Chinatown. It's so great when it's festival season... it was the mid-August (Harvest Moon) Festival, and there was a crapload of people bopping around. At the dim sum place, the cool dancing dragon thing came by, and my mother told us of the ritual:

The dragon goes by each place of commerce, dancing and more or less annoying/harrassing people. The storeowners, or restaurant owners, have to dangle a red envelope (with possibly more than a hundred dollars in it), tied to a bit of greens. The dragon is attracted to the green, and "eats" the thing, with the envelope, and then spits out the green only because it doesn't digest it well or something. Then it dances away to the next place of commerce.
Much like the mafia, except it's a dragon, really.

The money is meant as something of a compensation for the costumes, as apparently they make new ones every year. We spotted two dragons, in fact, one male and one female. Of course, the dancers inside the costumes are male, and so are the drummers and percussionists.

Sarah!

Saturday, Sarah came over after she got off work, and we went to the Quebec Arts Museum (Musée du Québec) for a while, before supper. I was quite impressed with the Riopelle exposition, as I spent a good ... uh ... long time admiring the long collection Homage to Rosa Luxembourg (L?Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg). Most of the trip was spent examining his works, including the really neat giant abstract canvases with layers of paint so thick you want to squish them with your fingers.

Then we went back to my place for supper, hoping to have a nice calm meal with my family. Then it turns out my mum just finished cooking and then zoomed off to play mah-jong with the chinese ladies. As usual. And then Simon was also over, so my brother and he had the brilliant idea to sit at the opposing closer sides of the table. Directly in the middle. Which left me and Sarah to sit at the opposite far ends. Stupid kids.

But to compensate for such a stupid arrangement, they decided to have the most brilliant conversations about sex using euphemisms that a six-year-old would have pointed at and laughed. Sarah was quite amused, while I almost choked on various food items.

We spent much time reminiscing about CEGEP and things that happened between the last time we were all together. A lot of memories are bittersweet, and it becomes terrible to talk about a few things for long. Memories are like that.

But there are cute stories, like the time I slapped B in the library. Or the time I was so bored waiting at the rehearsal for the Talent Show with my choir, because they kept testing the mikes for more than two hours, that I shouted at the stage (at Dominique), "TAKE IT OFF!" (That was rich. But you had to be there.)

And then there were the millions of shorter stories, like the guys who we had crushes on, the crazy girls who fell for them, the friends we made, the people we hated with a passion (okay, that we didn't fancy much with a passing wind), the professors who were cool, the professors who scared the crap out of us, and so on.

This was before we found out who was married, who was gay, who sadly passed away, who became drug addicts, who got pregnant before their time... Well, those I don't know.

I was very happy to have been able to recall so much, especially with someone who could remember more than I could. I was especially happy to be with Sarah, and hang out like a long time ago (woo, I feel old). All we need now is a barbeque and a lot of mousseux, with a set of badly edited yearbooks...

Whatever Happened to Haggling???

I went to the mall today. *Note to self: "I went to the mall today" not a good impression as a first sentence if you're not a teenager.* My mother works at "Les Delices de Bankok" in the food court at the Galeries. She had called me to come by and shop for Clarks sandals, which she apparently spotted at one trendy franchise shoe store.

So I head inside and I can't find them, then I roam around for another half hour until I go back to where my mother was working. (Indeed, she's working hard at the time. Peeling apart spring roll skins. Very exciting.) She then decides to take her lunch break (at 6 pm). Funny thing about her, in that she likes to argue with her boss about all sorts of things, but he's cool about it. That's the way my mum is.

Anyway, she and I walked back into the store and then points them out to me. They fit wonderfully and they're very comfy. *Drool*

They're also a hundred bucks, minus 25%. "That's sale price for you, with Clarks," my mum says.

"But isn't there like a discount for you because you work at the mall? Or a student discount?"

"Well, we'll have to ask now."

The guy was so unhelpful in that sense. He couldn't give us a discount because he says that the pair he was giving me was the last pair, and that makes it more in demand. Yeah right. My mum started yelling at him, "Give me 35% discount!" The guy says no. "35!" No. "35!" No. "Yes!" No. "Yes!" ... anyway...

So I got the sandals for the advertised 25%.

Then I wandered by myself to Simons, where they had absolutely no more summer clothes on sale, except in dark corners and scary alleys where they also sell the skanky stuff. I finally picked out a pair of shorts (not as short as my short shorts but still pretty short), a shell top, and a pair of pants where you can roll up the cuffs and tie them with a cord at the hem. As I was trying the pants, I found a disgusting wad of gum spread out all over the cord. I tried pulling off as much as I could, but in the end, it was stuck like ... gum.

I told the salesperson what was wrong. I wanted those pants, as it is very hard for me to make a pair last longer than a change of clothes. But there was only that pair in that size in that colour (I'm tired of beige! I have 4 pairs of beige! Dammit!) with the big gummy cord. The cord is essential! (Not. I could have just brought it home and cleaned it myself, but why eat a bagel outside St-Viateur when you can get it served inside by a waiter/waitress?)

The salesperson seemed really new at this store. She called the service desk to send someone to help her deal with it. Another woman came by and said she'd find out what could be done. So after a while, I was told I could get the cord exchanged with another pair of pants of the same style, and it would only take half an hour. Since I was waiting for my mum, I figured why not.

"Est-ce que je peux avoir un rabais?" (Ah, mother's genes working on me.)

Unfortunately, no because it was already at final sale price, ten bucks (I'm supposed to be a cheapskate, remember) so no rebate.

Anyway, the salesperson rang up the three items, and I paid, expecting two dollars in change. For some reason, she forgot to give me the change, and closed the cash. I then kindly reminded her, to which she then called the service desk again. (Must be her first day or something.) The same woman came back and kindly opened the cash, giving me my change. Ah, the value of a toonie.

---

So whatever did happen to the fine art of haggling? My mother must be one of the last generations of people who had to haggle for a living back when she was younger, at least. She still does it, but with much less success. My sister tries as much as possible to do such haggling, but it's hard.

I blame the multinationals and the big chains of boutiques. The policies may be different at each store, but overall it's been "Here's what we're selling, you pay what we say." It's advertising and accepting these ads that make people brain-dead when it comes to being a consumer. Sure, let's pay 200$ for a pair of torn, faded, acid-washed-in-HCl, short shorts. Oh wait, that's a label? Then make it 500$.

When I was younger I used to be embarrassed when my mother would go arguing each price mentioned, but then I realized how much it makes sense. Of course some kids are embarrassed when they have to talk to older people when they buy things. I never went to the store and never bought anything because I was so damn scared of talking at all (this lasted until wa-a-ay into high school). But anyway, I found that even teens now have much more buying power, and much more inclined to spend on things. So stores set prices for their cute or sexy (*shiver*), trendy things, and the teens will buy it - no questions asked.

No more haggling ever again?

Sure, there's student discounts, and senior discounts, fidelity discounts, and other group-type discounts, but that doesn't really mean you're haggling. It's just letting the stores know what kinds of people are buying what kinds of things. I mean, the company doesn't know who Ms Chow is, but it knows that there are students in Quebec who will buy stupid looking hand-print-on-butt pants that have big holes in embarrassing places everywhere.

But of course, you can always go to independent and market-type places where employees gladly chat with you, discuss the weather, girls, boys, the state of the world, fractals (I'm serious), etc. and then offer you a discount if you keep yelling percentages at them.

Big news! From Jorgh! Future Shop has a national policy of haggling!!! Go there and talk their ears off with numbers until they give in!!!

Black-out in Not-Quebec

As if Toronto and New York needed another problem...

It’s amazing what’s happened in Toronto/Ottawa/New York today…! My Torontonian cousins are having a barbeque. That hottie Ian Hanamansig guy on CBC looks so haggard... ;p And Peter Mansbridge looks ... weird...! Like Patrick Stewart in Moby Dick, or Star Trek when he was tortured or something. Except not as hot. *double ;p*

Anyway, I spent the day vegging. That's about it. Oh, I finished Vito's site. If it would only send now...

A Title

Indeed, I have not done anything of note today other than untangle the melon plant from the vines, and cut the vines, and throw out the vines, and pull out stupid dandelion weeds, so I don't have much to say today. But I did make muffins. *mmm*

I told my graduation project plans to my brother, and he doesn't think I have enough courage to do it. I am very intent on doing this project, and I told him so. He said to discuss it with Simon. (Ah, yes. The crazy other little brother.)

You're asking yourselves, What's this graduation project plan? Well, I'll tell you in due time. When I graduate, that is.

My Lunch with D

He hasn't changed a bit. He's just as bubbly and loveable as always, since I last saw him four years ago. Perhaps the word is "sweet." But if I use it too much, Jorgh would probably start getting a bit jealous. ;)

I must have talked about an hour straight. It seemed that the time passed too quickly, because a brief lunch turned into an hour and a half, then he had to go back to the lab.

It's funny how people can get me to talk excessively when they ask the right questions. In fact, all D had to ask was how I got on with my in-laws (to be) and I shot off like an electron. (Stupid nerd joke.)

I even forgot to order for a good half hour. Well, not that there was too much to order anyway - it's all grease and deep-fried things. I was somewhat surprised at the greasy diner in that it seems like I've been somewhere similar in Quebec...

D was very happy to have a good long talk with me. I was very happy to have the opportunity to, since he works and I don't. In fact, everyone works, while I sit here getting flabbier. (Actually, I forgot to check on the garden today. I'll have to wake up early tomorrow to untangle the vines in the back.)

After lunch, he offered to give me a lift to Mount Hermon nearby, so I gladly accepted.

The Hour with my Dad

D declined going to the plot with me, not that there's much to see except a pile of rocks anyway. I agree. It's a very personal time and I had a lot of it, while he had to go back to work. D dropped me off at Maguire and Saint-Louis, and I bid him farewell for the time being.

As soon as I walked onto the cemetery grounds, I realized I had to go to the washroom. Really bad. But I wanted to see my father's grave first.

I walked down the hill to the "Q" plot and found the pile of coarse dirt. There is still no monument, as my sister just sent us sketches of ideas on what should be engraved on the granite.

I brought four sticks of incense, one for each family member, and a stupid matchbook that had matches that didn't light, until I set the paper side of two matches on fire. I think I tried at least six times before something would light up.

Not knowing the proper rituals, other than the bowing three times, I basically winged it, and then stayed until the sticks burnt out. It took about an hour. During the time I watched it burn, I talked to my dad.

It's much different when you're alone visiting a grave. It becomes a private conversation between the deceased and the living, with all the questions and comments you can't tell anyone else, spewing out like a broken sewer pipe. And it somehow resembles one as well.

I can't remember what I told my dad, but I did mention how I really had to go pee. And then muttering, "Why? Why is it so hard? And why did the waitress have to bring such a big glass of water?"

I cried a lot, more than I expected, but I tried to convince myself that I didn't have to cry anymore. I mean, tomorrow it will be two months since his death. People lose their loved ones all the time. So I shouldn't have to cry anymore. Right?

I tossed out the burnt sticks and proceeded back to civilisation. I couldn't figure out where I could go, as I had such a full bladder that I would have peed on the street if no one was watching.

Somehow, I made it to University Laval, which is quite a distance on foot with a crazy full bladder. The sun beating down on me wasn't really helping, but I'd rather it was really hot than really cold (thus contracting all my organs...) and I didn't really think about it at that point. What I was thinking about was more like, "WHERE'S THE CLOSEST FREAKING WASHROOM???"

I know what you're thinking. Maguire has all these restaurants. Why the heck didn't I go in one of those? Well, to give you the short explanation, I'm - as my dad would call it - "chicken shit." But I mean, if I could get to Laval campus without exploding, then I don't need to dirty the washrooms in a peaceful, charming, small bistro. Instead, I can void into a university campus washroom where they clean them every other hour anyway.

And it was a refreshing walk. No it wasn't. Man, it was so *not* a refreshing walk. It was refreshing afterwards. Oh, yes... ahhh...

Anyway, that was most of my day. Actually, sitting here and typing everything up consisted of the rest of my day. And finally getting those "Quebec allergies" that I keep experiencing every time I come to Quebec from Montreal.

***Disclaimer***
For those of you who found that the above bathroom mentions, shall I say, gross, please don't hesitate to tell me all about your discomfort.

And as Another Solicitation...

I hadn't gone through the details of the actual funeral because, simply put, it wasn't that great. Let me take the time to explain it today...

First of all, there's this big chain of funeral homes called "Lepine Cloutier" in Quebec. My family is not very well informed about funeral arrangements, but fortunately we had friends around who would be able to help us. The chinese families in Quebec City used LC's services due to their respect for our traditions and such, and as my father was not Christian (rather, he wasn't anything I can think of), it seemed a good idea.

Well, it seems that once we choose the funeral home, the hospital then sends the body to their care. And then the home needs the family to choose the services and stuff. Usually, at these sad moments, the family is too grieved to think like an actual consumer. So the funeral homes tend to offer the most expensive, useless things to them, and they usually accept paying more than they should. So they make a ton of money.

But they haven't met the likes of my mum and sister. Together. Heh.

They went to pick the coffin and services. Knowing my dad, there would be no religious services, except for a relatively short thing with Mia for the burial. That was for my mum. My sister would make sure there wouldn't be too many religious things at the funeral.

When it comes to coffins, they show you the most expensive thing first. Sure it's pretty and all, but it's just a box really. My sister immediately said no to the first half dozen or so, until it came down to a very attractive bronze one. (For probably less than three quarters of the price of the first ones.) She told my dad it was the colour of money, so it was very nice, indeed.

Then it came to the flowers. (Hoo boy.) My mother was rather discouraged that the funeral would cost so much, but this was definitely a put-down. 300$ for a freaking bouquet to put on the coffin, and it would be completely white.

I think she snapped.

She wanted to have a dozen yellow roses. Apparently, the director didn't think there would be such opposition. They told her for a funeral at such "short" notice, it'd be hard to get that many yellow roses. How about champagne yellow?

"NO! I WANT YELLOW YELLOW!" In my mother's very familiar bartering/yelling voice.

Come the wake, there were seven dying "yellow yellow" roses in the giant bouquet of white flowers. We were all seething.

My sister and mother chose the plot on Mount Hermon. It is very peaceful, as cemeteries should be, but the view is, in fact, spectacular. It seems like a bargain to buy such plots in pairs and have "perpetual care" for 99 years. But then we have to contend with a monument, or a tombstone.

Either as a tie-in with their partners, the funeral homes, tombstone companies send their pamphlets like flies to our house. Some are really godawfully ugly. Nevertheless, it is necessary to get their help to engrave things on the stone, even though we have a stone from my brother's friend's father. I figure that we should get that tombstone done before fall.

And those things don't come cheap either.

The costs of all these things together, I figure... 12000 (services) + 2000 (plot) + 2000 (stone) = 16000$

Now, that's a good reason not to die. /morbid humour

The Wake

There's this really eerie feeling when you go to a funeral. Like it should be a whopping party or something, with so many people, but the guest of honour is lying there...

Anyway, what I meant to say is that the funeral was something I haven't ever experienced before. If I think about it too much, I start going numb. But I recall feeling something in between dread and loneliness, and half the time keeping tears to myself and half the time with Jorgh telling him not to freak out with my cousins and relatives. And all the other chinese people.

I mean, the entire chinese community in Quebec City came to this funeral. I have seriously seen few chinese congregations in Quebec with so many in attendance. The place was packed with so many asians that at the peak, they were spilling outside. And in chinese customs, those who are older than the deceased usually can't go to the funeral (I think) so there were many more who would have attended. Then again, we don't know how many people could have attended if we had let the funeral happen in the Quebecois traditional week's time.

A man perhaps less fortunate in life enriched so many even at death.

The body is prepared by the funeral home and placed in the coffin, and displayed during the wake. I have never seen someone dead before in person, and it is definitely much different than a televised thing. It's very cold and somewhat stiff. There's so much makeup on the body that you think they're on a Broadway show. And...

"Hey, he looks sorta weird."
"What?"
"Yeah, he's got this weird little smirk or something on his face. Daddy never smiled like that."
"Well, he's also not that colour either."
"It doesn't even look like him."
"I think it's because they trimmed all his nose hairs and ear hairs."

Okay, I heard that when they prepare the body, they block all the orifices in the face (at least). They somehow seal up the mouth and eyes so they don't open and... ugh...

Then later in the wake, my sister spotted something next to the bouquet on the coffin. My cousin looked and said, "It's probably something they're used to doing." My sister didn't like it at all. I mean, we were paying the home to *not* put religious icons, and this was their thanks?

"I don't think daddy wants to be stuck in the coffin with this thing."

She picked up the crucifix with Jesus on it and tried to hide it somewhere else, but we couldn't do it without people seeing. My mother told us to just leave it be. (?)

Just before they were about to close up the casket, my sister removed it and tried to stash it behind a drawer. It was too noticeable so my cousin picked it up and hid it in the next salon. Heh heh.

It's a big deal to be buried, isn't it?

We realized that we wanted to bury my father with a few items of his that he was hardly ever seen without in life, so we put in:

• a pair of reading glasses


• his Cross pen


• a copy of a 6/49 lotto ticket.

Not that the ticket won anything. I think there was only one number on it. But after the funeral, I realized I forgot his comb. I went down to his room and found five. Sheesh.

Yes, I know the afterlife isn't like taking a plane trip to Las Vegas, but I thought he wouldn't mind having a nice 'do.

The Service

We were all very emotional at the service. Especially when my brother played a violin solo for a good fifteen minutes. Very emotional.

And then my cousin gave a bilingual eulogy. English-chinese bilingual, that is. It was very concise and touching. Extremely emotional.

The Procession...

... Then Jorghnassen found out his bowels couldn't take it anymore, nor could it take an hour for a really slow car ride, and with our permission walked to the bus stop in the proximity. (He went back to Montreal.)

So this is the first time I had a limo ride. I think. And it was very hot. The limo driver definitely was not very accomodating to our "Help we're burning up back here turn on the A/C or help us open the windows dammit" screaming.

We (my siblings and I) learned a lot about chinese funeral traditions. I found them quite interesting:

1. Red is the colour of life, and white is the colour of death. So red is a big no-no during funerals and mourning. No red clothing for at least a month, although my mother said for some places it lasts a year or three.


2. As white is the colour of death, we give out white envelopes ("white gold") with money inside to anyone who comes by to visit the family. There's also a piece of candy that is included in the envelope, but we couldn't find envelopes big enough to fit both the dollar coin and the candy so we made a bunch of envelopes with white paper and a bit of origami.


3. The mourning period is a lot like other cultures - we're supposed to wear something symbolising our grief for a long period of time. My mother said that the children are supposed to wear some coloured flower in our hair. If it's a parent, the flower is white. The other colours I can't remember for whom.


4. For the procession, the body has to pass by home first (in this case, in front of the school), and then go to the final resting place.

For that last point, we had to lead the procession from Ste-Foy back to our home in Les Saules/Duberger, and then finally to Sillery. This meant that we have to travel by highway both ways, on the Henri IV first, and then through the Capitale, onto du Vallon.

There are a lot of irate and stupid drivers in Quebec City around 4 pm on Monday. Most of them SUV drivers. During the procession, one stupid motherf^#@er of a SUV tried to cut in between the limo and the *hearse*, driving on the shoulder of the highway and then speeding up to pass the directional car. And my cousins told us later that another car cut in front of them in the procession and pretty much f@$!ed over the line of 20 cars behind them because then they got lost along the way.

Anyway, we all know that average Quebec drivers are stupid.

---

I have a very special message for you, anonymous SUV driver from f#@$ing hell: next funeral procession you cut in, I hope you roll over on that shoulder and get crushed under your own truck's weight in a ditch, leaving you paralyzed on half of your body. And then live like that for the rest of your wretched puny life.

---

The Burial

It seems that LC hires the oldest, frailest men to work or something. We were imagining six well-built (or at least younger, fitter) men to be pallbearers, but we got these guys who almost seemed to keel over while they were lifting the coffin. Well, at least it's done.

LC also hired this old man to take care of the building during the wake, and all he does is stand around and smoke in a little room waiting for us to come and go. Apparently, he's also responsible for the cleaning of the washroom. My sister suggested we make it worth our while to hire this guy by messing up the washroom, like picking our noses or something (worse). I think that's how we got into a discussion about what happened one time while she was working at Second Cup, but I'm not sure.

But anyway, the thing about burials is that it doesn't hit until you see the box going down the hole. And as it slowly heads into its final resting place, it punches you like a boxer delivering vengeance. It's the feeling that the person who you've known for your entire life is gone forever, and the inevitability of your own fate (but not as much). As much as we kept our composure for so long, it really hurts to lose your father. And it still hurts.

So at the burial, Mia was delivering her last... uh, I would say "line" but it doesn't seem polite... prayer, she asked that we all throw in some dirt. The groundskeeper was standing by, having just dug the hole earlier that afternoon, and seemed at a loss for dirt. In fact, the pile next to the grave was all *rocks* so he had to get some dirt from the next grave over (from the Wong plot) to give to Mia to throw. So in the end, the only other person who threw in dirt was my brother, and he got the dirt from the same place. Sheesh.

Then after the service was over, the chinese congregation started staring at the Wong plot and commenting on the monument and plants. Helen Wong had lost her husband a year ago and had him buried at this spot, which is why my mother chose the spot next to his to bury my father. (It seems that they're the only two chinese people buried at this cemetery. Maybe I should check.) There were four plastic bunches of roses nestled in the ground in front of the monument, while there was no actual greenery in front of it. If you ever see television graves supposedly made within a year, they always appear green and lush with grass. So don't believe anything you see on television.

The Reception

We had a buffet reception at Thomas Tam, on Hamel. This was when I felt most awkward and lonely after my father passed away. Jorgh was gone to Montreal, my friends hardly knew what was happening, although Julie and Guillaume came to visit me at the funeral, and my siblings' friends came to visit them. His friends were all people I've hardly ever heard of, while my sister's friends were more spoken of. (Well, in particular, Anne-Marie Withenshaw is one of my sister's old friends from cegep.)

In the meantime, I spoke to my brother's friends, while he seemed particularly annoyed that I was taking room at his table. Then I moved to let his friends sit together, and sat with my sister's friends, who were busy eating as much as possible. Especially Galit, or "Gidgit" (Rebecca was convinced that was her name up to this point). Simon K. was also there, and somehow let out that he was up to his eyeballs in debt... but it's not supposed to get out, so it'll be between you and me, ok reader? :p

But I still felt left out, despite everyone's good intentions. I did receive a bouquet from my friends in Montreal a few days later, which was quite thoughtful and kind of them, but I still had feelings of resentment because of this day. It was mightily hard to tell people what happened, two months ago, but it's even harder to tell them how I'm really feeling. Maybe because I have no idea what I'm feeling.

Stop Whining Already and Get to the Point!

Well, today I am in Quebec again, and we just got a piece of mail from LC. I think I'll just let the scan of their letter tell the story.

EDIT: The link doesn't work yet.