More Photo

This used to be a patch of bush and such that little birdies and bugs could frolic, make babies, and drive out hawks and crows and such. Then developers bought it and turned it into condo land. This is a growing trend around this area - no longer the boonies, it is now suburbia. :( 

How many times can you say the f-word in one sitting?

FUN FACT!:
In a normal day, whatever that may be around here, I will either piss off or be piss off by mama at least two hundred times.

FUN FACT! #2:
Most, if not all, student-teachers who graduate after university don't give a crap about their parents afterwards and get bombarded with job offers at their desired locations.

FUN FACT!!!11!!:
Ontario teacher certification suxx0rs.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

The most retarded thing about living in Quebec is that there are huge bike paths sprawling across the city, but none that actually go from "down" town (which is pretty much anywhere except near the St-Lawrence river) to uptown, which ironcally is downtown. I am left with about 4 paths to hazard...

1) go uphill from St. Sacrement, a huge S-shaped road that weaves itself through some thickets and such, while inclining at about 15% or something huge. The advantage is that you can be relatively assured that no one will run you over from intersections, as there are none. (This leads up to Holland and Chemin Ste Foy, which is relatively busy.)

2) go uphill from Marie l'incarnation, which is like riding a gravel pit. There is an intersection at the first bend, and another one at the second bend, which have neither lights nor very patient drivers. Also has about 15% incline but sprawled out a bit further.

3) go really really far east until the railroad tracks cross with the road, then bear part of the highway south to take a less inclined path (I believe, I haven't tried this yet), then go back west. This would probably take a good hour longer than the first two paths.

4) go really really far west along the smaller tributary river (St Charles) until reaching the old port. Then maniacally head up the old city streets, or head out around the tip to go up the even crazier 30% incline to the Plains of Abraham.

Being the weak bastard I am, I never managed to make it up any of these hills without collapsing after 1 minute of pedalling. What happens is that I end up walking most of the hill, watching most of the Olympic-trained bikers pass by upwards effortlessly, and then relax when I get to the top. The fun part is going down - my brakes don't work very well.

---

I rode by the Leclerc "Nutri-art division" factory on Thursday. For some reason it smelled like strawberries... but not just any strawberry smell - it was like the smell of Frankenberry. Can it be true? ...!

Rant arrgh

Mama's being all pissy again. This is her point of view.
1) I am too stupid and ignorant of the "real world," I can't communicate properly, and I can't "yell at the kids" to "make them listen to me," thus I will never be a good teacher, or any kind of teacher whatsoever.
2) She has known enough people in her lifetime that she knows how people should act in certain roles. Which is also why I will never be a good teacher.
3) I sit around at home doing godknowswhat because I enjoy it, and I don't do any jobhunting whatsoever.
4) The internet is stupid and high-speed cable is completely useless because it's too expensive.

She went on and on into a huge blanket lecture (yell?) about how I will never amount to any sort of teacher and that I should just do whatever, and sometimes lie in job applications... especially to be hired as a secretary (or whatnot) since it apparently doesn't matter that the job qualifications state that you have to be vocationally trained in secretarial studies.

---

I don't think there's any amount or set of words that can quite convey the complete rage and frustration put together into a hurricane of pent-up yelling and destruction that I could possibly contain inside my chest and throat. Who doesn't yearn for the day when they can utterly defeat the spite-filled words of their unbelieving parents by just simply doing everything that they never trusted or understood what you could do?

But that day does not come soon.

I'll let you know what I am doing after it is done.

Ms C's Random Food Review (part 1)

Today: Nestle Nesquik Strawberry Flavoured Syrup (a.k.a. radioactive red goop)

Comments: I don't know why mama bought it, but it's been in the fridge long enough. Anyway, I went out to buy 4 L of milk and my mama yelled at me for getting so much when I'll be the only one to drink it.

Review: The syrup is translucent, thick, and very red. Kids love eating things that are red or chocolatey-brown. I'm sure if they were told that "natural" red food colouring comes from insects, they'd still eat it. Anyway, the ingredients are basically sugar, corn syrup, glucose/fructose (etc.), water, and red. The bottle is cute though - it's the notorious Quik Bunny (now renamed Nesquik Bunny I suppose), happily guzzling down huge glassfuls of syrup-flavoured milk the same size as itself.

The syrup nestles itself very snugly at the bottom of the glass of milk. Using my cute birthday present from Jorgh's parents, a "milk frother," I very quickly turned my drink a mysterious shade of pink. The overall experience is rather unsettling. Slight strawberry flavour is present, but it tastes like sweet milk. I enjoy chocolate milk as much as the next non-lactose-intolerant individual, but I have frightening memories of receiving a glass of milk with a good inch of undissolved sugar at the bottom of it. Needless to say, I'd rather be having the chocolate-sugar mix.

Rating: 3/5 just for being an interesting distraction.

Look at me!

Eddie asked me to take a picture of myself in the cute jacket set that he and Rebecca gave as a graduation present. I don't have the pants from the set in this photo, but I am wearing some, yes. 

A Note About Pictures

Now that I have nearly unlimited uploading and hosting for my Yahoo photo album, and this nifty Hello picture thingy feature, I have noticeably slacked off in the photo editing department. Why? Well, it's time consuming for sure, but it's not like I didn't enjoy doing it. It's because of one thing: this computer is f@#$ing too slow.

Let's say I want to take a picture of about 600 x 400 pixels. That's pretty near the max resolution of my camera anyway. Suppose I take it to Photoshop 7, which takes a minute to load, and then play around with it. A complicated filter that could take about 5 seconds on an average PC of today takes damn near 5 minutes to run on this machine.

I try to tell Photoshop to select certain blobs of an image and it'll sit and think for a moment. "Well," the computer thinks aloud, "I think this person wants me to take this selection, but I'm not sure if th-" The mouse slips and I click by accident something else. "Holy sh#@&$*!" the computer bleeps, "M#$%!#&^?@!!!" Sparks fly, small explosions and mushroom clouds, you know the rest.

In short, I like computers. Even this one. I think I'll take it outside and shoot it.

Start Me Up

So just to keep this blog supposedly HIGH OCTANE UPDATED!!!1111! I am uploading another picture of when I was cleaning up my room a few weeks ago. This is how my computer was being used for a week. No desk, no chair. On the upside, I could claim that this configuration drove me to actually start cleaning my room. 

Blog

Yes I was attempting to post pictures on my blog, since I figure it'll get me more comments to my posts. I'm using Hello (?) software which was bought out by our good friend Google, and this allows me to share photos online with people AND get free hosting for photos in my blog. Isn't that something? :) 

Aha!

The Cleaning Ninja strikes again! 

He Ain't Heavy...

I am trying to put together a Hollies collection for my mum since she's such a big fan of them... and other old 60s bands. (That reminds me... SNL and BeeGees made us all sing "Nights on Broadway" like it was hip again.)

One of the songs is "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)." Of course, no one can listen to this without the visual imagery of a boy carrying another boy (at least larger than the former) and get all tingly inside. This pretty much details the origins of this song as well.

"But I'm stroooonnnggg... strong enough to caaarrrrr-rrryyyy him..."

I have my own imagery when I listen to this song; it's of me carrying Big Pu on my back from Shatner to Burnside when he somehow passed out in Shatner, for some odd reason I forget now. I think it was because he forgot to eat or somthing strange.

Indeed, he wasn't that heavy, but mostly because "he's my brooootherrrrrrr."

I hope you're doing well, wherever you are in Japan, Big Pu. :)

For Sale - A lot of garbage

After bringing home nearly all of my Montreal effects, save large furniture I loaned to my brother for his use, I realized how much complete crap I have in total. Five years worth of textbooks, notes, course packs, and other looseleaf is accumulated in my living room and quarters. Another lot of papers, electronic equipment, toys :) , presents, and such are scattered around here still.

I'm completely baffled as to how to deal with all this mess. I have a dinky desk with very little space for my computer. On top of that, now I need to get a printer since my brother took his all-in-one.

The bookshelf is so fragile looking and old that I doubt it would hold up all these damn textbooks. I have way too many notes for it to look anything but messy in the bookcase. And I don't even want to think about sticking everything under the bed, like I used to do.

Would I count as a candidate for "Clean Sweep"?

Probably not since I don't have a job. :( And I live in a crap-assed apartment anyway.

A Big Fat Lie?

The more I keep searching for a job (online, which is my only tool at the moment), the more disenfranchised I get. I keep having that nagging thought that everyone @#$!ing lied to me throughout university. Particularly in the Education program.

School boards have a weird hiring policy. They don't take just anyone who waltzes by with qualifications. Really. Despite what newspapers and administration say. They have a list of people they put on the side during the year. When the need arises for a replacement, or something less permanent, they look at the list. The people on top are those who have more experience. The people in the middle are those who sorta have experience. The people on bottom are silly people like myself who decided to start teaching at this time.

And it doesn't even matter what you are qualified to teach. The one school board last month called me for a French teaching position. {I'm not even going to start on that one.)

I have two bachelors. My life is/was? geared towards using these two credentials (and the permit to teach that is hanging on my wall) to get my foot into some position for the betterment of society, through the instruction of the young 'uns. Seriously. It has been this way from as far back as I can remember having concious, non-idiotic, unselfish thoughts. Which didn't happen often, but did happen somewhat during early school years. [If you think I'm BSing this stuff, you should come by and rummage my box 'o crap in the basement.]

But now I am at the barricade. Not the crossroads. Not the freaking superhighway. Not even a stinking orange pylon in the middle of the gravel pit of a path. It's a freaking police barricade.

I contemplate. Surely, a province with supposedly a shortage of qualified mathematics and science teachers would be pounding at the door? And this province would also be crying softly in the corner for the wave upon wave of teachers retiring? And as such, there are even fewer new teachers who wish to isolate themselves in the rural regions of the motherland to teach her children?

All the stuff I pondered about above was fed to us during my several years in this B. Ed. I'm not saying that it couldn't be true. I'm reiterating that I feel like I've been led astray and everyone wanted me to go through this program just to give them an extra ten grand of my life. Or just to laugh at me.

---

Digression

Everyone suffers through the teaching program. Some pretend they have everything under control. (A few are naturally talented and have no problems "whatsoever" but those are the exceptional ones.) Some have issues with how the system is set up currently. Some ultimately decide they never wanted to do this job. And then there's me.

My expectations going through this program was to "change myself," to a certain degree. Coming in, I was a lonely, depressed, shy, unassuming, wishy-washy student, readying herself for the real world. Coming out... well, let's say that I have somewhat lessened the extent of all these weaknesses. Maybe.

In the end, it was about growing up. And I learned my own lessons out of this experience. Life, death, love, betrayal, strength, weakness, joy, sorrow. (How do you compress all this in a few years? Or a cheesy teen novel?)

---

It's a barricade because they want to weed out the ones who weren't paying attention in the fog. I was too busy "growing up" to notice how much I screwed up. It sounds teen angsty, but age doesn't matter. [I could point out a lot of acquaintances who haven't even begun to go through "puberty," and they're at the university level.]

So now that I'm out, into the "real world," I felt like I was pushed out of a fog into a dense forest. With rain. And no yellow plastic poncho. But a cute little hat, yes.

Anyone want to hire a newly qualified, permit-holding mathematics and physics teacher?

Today is my birthday.

On SUMS, and Moving On

Many people I know as of late have been complaining about the poor treatment SUMS has been giving them. (I won't name them. But seeing as I am usually the most vociferous of the SUMS alumni, I feel as though some injustice is done if I don't say anything.)

Now, no one is disputing the definition of SUMS. Indeed, it was created as a place for undergraduate mathematics students. The acronym is "Society of Undergraduate Mathematics Students." This was in response to these students requiring a space and support amongst their own, in contrast to the graduate math society students.

Over the years, many, many people have passed through the doors of ol' Burnside 1B20. Some have stayed and some have left, but came back to visit. Some graduated and continued to stay at McGill. Even fewer (but significantly) have graduated, stayed, gone abroad, came back, and found themselves crazy glued to fixtures down there.

It evolved into a society where not only math undergraduates fraternize within the dank, stinky walls of the room, but undergrads of other faculties, graduates and sometimes staff (Loveys) came by to chat and/or used the couches to sleep upon. And so evolved SUMS for the betterment of the math undergrad experience. (... I think...)

Then when it came time for the yearly turnover, the alumni or the older residents would inform the freshmen and the inexperienced about the culture, the camaraderie, and the experience. It would be always hard to take the changes, since it indicated that life was actually physically moving forward.

Hence, here I am ranting about SUMS once again, probably for the last time. I'll just tell it as a story, names have been changed or hidden, yadda yadda yadda.

Once upon a time, Jorghnassen and I were still in SUMS. We were amongst a handful of alumni and people having stayed beyond 4 years (me) at McGill. Ours was a cute, friendly and sometimes deranged group within a group. But we never thought we would feel excluded from our own home away from home.

Then suddenly, the new executive embodiment of undergrad math students decided to ignore most (or all) of the old cronies' advice. Even as they hypocritcally revered the SUMS "mama" (me) and stood in awe of the l33t math graduates and superbrains, in general they returned very litte in terms of compassion, respect, and ... manners.

The cycle was broken. Very few alumni even wished to come visit. Sometimes they walked in and immediately out, seeing that no one within the room would even give them the time of day. Thus, the cronies, who felt isolated from the froshies, had no more place to pass on their experience.

My role as a SUMS crony was effectively diminished. Despite 5 years under the belt, I no longer felt welcome nor respected. And this role was pretty much all I had. I am neither well-versed in mathematics nor in physics, and I am certain that no one would regard my academic habits as something to be desired.

I could outline the problems of the past a million times to the executives, but not one of them would understand the mistakes and carry out the resolution.

So one day, when not one of us gave a crap anymore, we disappeared.

---

I feel very sorry for the new froshies and cronies in math for not having people around with enough sense to welcome them in a non-idiotic fashion. Ours was an inclusive, sometimes shy but friendly group. This is a gang of anti-social, disrespectful butt-lickers. My hope has faded for a renewal of SUMS.

As for the exec, if you are reading this, I hope you are happy. You managed to alienate the old cronies who would have supported you in your endeavours, if you had even bothered to care.

And then this morning the secretary called to apologize, and said I am not needed this week.

A Pleasant (?) Return

For the sake of organization to those who really, really, really wanted to know what was going on the last few weeks I mysteriously disappeared from the web, I'll bullet them below:

• My brother cut his Suckpatico account shortly after my last entry, and I suffered from that point on without any sort of connection. But I called Videotron and made the transfer from the old now-converted bachelor(s) pad in Montreal, to my new (unfortunate) digs here in Quebec. They installed my happy and damaged cable modem last Friday and now I am back. How exciting, eh?


• At some point during the month (I forget when exactly), I went to Chicoutimi with PJ to pick blueberries and probably other things. Though I would have picked more than about two boxfuls (since we bought five)... we, and by "we" I mean "I", were attacked mercilessly by hundreds of insects until we gave up after two hours. Then I came back to Quebec and made a pie with papa's pie crust, which he had hidden in the freezer downstairs before he died. I took pictures.


• I quit buffeteering on Saturday.

The reason I hadn't written much after getting back my cable account is because I am utterly depressed. Or at least I *was* ... Here comes another list.

• I didn't get a full time job for the year. I only had one offer from one Montreal school board two days ago, to be a French teacher. Some people have said I should have just taken it, but I seriously think that it wouldn't be fair for EVERYONE if I did. Especially all those certified language teachers aching for a job right now.


• Mama went to Toronto yesterday to hang out with the cousins. I have the entire ugly apartment to myself, but sadly no one to party with. :(


• It's my birthday next Tuesday. I'm turning... uh... 18.

Well, this morning my old alma mater called (thus waking me for the second time today) and offered me substitution for Thursday and Friday. At least that's something, right? (And I didn't have to call them this morning like I was going to. *nyah*)

I'm cheered up a bit but I don't suppose that'll last for long... :(