Some :( and :) but more :(

Some time last week, my mum told me that the water spout leading to the outside of our apartment in Quebec exploded and flooded my room. Fortunately only the floor was flooded, but unfortunately it destroyed all the stuff that was paper and lying on the floor. Which was everything under the bed. She had to throw out all the things that were soaked. This soggy wet pile included artwork from high school, school notes, some other books, and other mementos from the 199X's.

However, I have come to a reluctant acceptance of how these things were by no means something I would miss terribly. They were items that did have some significant meaning at the time, and that is why I kept them. But if they had been of more meaning I would have probably put them somewhere not under the bed. (Kind of like the Clean Sweep philosophy.)

This holiday weekend has been rather unexciting. I have a pile of midterms yet to finish, but that is my own fault for being a procrastinator.

Next weekend however, we're heading to Ottawa to hang out with Donnah. :D Jorghnassen has a conference, and I'm going to be taking Monday off so I can stay a bit longer.

Yes, big news looms ahead...!

In the meantime, I have more work to look forward to. The kids want cookies...

Holy carp holy carp holy carper

Dawson College shooting:
I sit at home pretty much all day (except the 1 hour a day I get up and go, as per yesterday's post and I don't have much else to do except look for a job and read the news. Except I didn't read it until 3 pm, after I turned on the TV and there were images of cops running around Montreal downtown and people being loaded up on stretchers.

Donnah lives next to College Lasalle, which is right in the neighborhood. I called her a little while ago and she said she was fine. She was taking the 24 bus from Westmount to home, and first spotted a bunch of students running in the opposite direction. (She thought someone might have bombed one of the jewish temples or schools again.) Then the bus divered its route, but was stalled on the road. The police cordonned the whole area, and there was apparently a dead body on the road. @_@ ... Later, she got off the bus still far from home, but the police denied access to everyone for the whole block. So she got home by taking a (rather long) detour by way of orange line to Sherbrooke and back home by 24 bus in the opposite direction.

Then we chatted about finding jobs again. Life must go on, eh?

I'm freaking out because it happened downtown and everyone I know in Montreal has at some point needed to go downtown to do something, so any one of us could have been a bystander or witness. Also, I'm angry because, and I quote what I told Felix: "kids are still kids and they're stupid!" >:@ (By kids, I am referring to the shooters.)

Montreal residents, please report your status!

Norm and Davy!

I had a devious plan. It was to organize a (reverse) surprise party for everyone (especially Norm). In fact, it was so devious that I had others do my bidding without knowing what it was for! Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Like the classical evil masterminds, I divulge my plans to you, dear readers. Here's what happened in chronological order.

Felix went to visit Davy in Seattle. Davy told Felix that he was quitting MS and coming back to Montreal. Felix told me, correctly surmising I would be ecstatic. I told Jorghnassen. Then Davy told Felix not to tell anyone. Of course, the buck stopped at Jorghnassen, since he was too busy to tell anyone else, but I was almost ready to publish a front page story in the National Post. :| In the end, we agreed not to tell anyone else since Davy wanted to surprise everyone.

The second step was to produce this surprise to everyone at the same time, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep it a secret from everyone. So I had to mastermind a party plan, which wasn't hard. The hard part was to get this plan going. I don't know how other people make parties in cities they don't currently live in, but I just had no bleeding clue.

Hence, the puppets! Now, Norm is usually the one who plans the gathering because he has the most contacts and the best ideas. On the other hand, it would be too much to ask him to do the arrangements, so I had sent out an email asking for suggestions. This was around 2 weeks ago, to ensure people would not make other plans for the event.

After a week of consultations, I was ready to get Jorghnassen to make reservations and I was about to send out a last email to confirm these things, but then Norm sent out an email to everyone, as he had gone out of his way to set up a reservation for us. He sent to people on and off the initial list (which I was expecting, since it would reach more people), thus started the confusions.

What works the best for surprises is to make sure that the planner is completely in control and the planees are not suspicious of anything off the mark. So I had to justify getting more seats than people had confirmed. (Of course, this led to more confusion after.)

In fact, it turned out no one had any idea who was coming because Norm had been waiting at the restaurant with place for exactly 8. I had counted 10, but I was also expecting more. The waiters didn't want to arrange for more if we weren't sure.

In the end, after Davy arrived (after running into Ivo and Donnah, of all things), we ended up being 14. That's the last time I'm going to organize these things! >:|

Anyway, it was enough to get (some sort of) reactions from everyone when Davy announced he quit MS. It was all worth it though to see Norm completely dumbfounded while he kept asking if we were all kidding him, and Davy showing him the newly signed lease to his new apartment downtown.

Yeah, all you suckaz who didn't make it, don't say I didn't tell you this stuff could never be repeated again. In verbatim:

It is also imperative that you attend (with whomever I haven't done
gone put on this mailing list), for the sake of an evening that will
never be reproducible again forever and ever. Even for the first two
hours or one hour. I'm serious!!! ... I mean, I'm serious.

I'm mostly sorry that I didn't write this in a 60 point font.

I'm so, sooo sorry that the picture came out so badly. :(
From left to right, front row: Stefan, Lisa, Donnah, Cheryl, me, Hana; middle row: Ivo, Derrick, PJ, Felix, Lil V; back row: Jesse, Stephen, Norm, Ivan. Josh was taking the picture. 

And now my favourite part of taking photos of people: I like my friends so much that I enjoy catching them on camera when they're not watching. 

I had a much better picture previously but I decided to upload this one. (... do you believe me? I wouldn't.) 

I admit, Davie doesn't look like he's sulking in this picture. ;) 

A poor attempt at camera fun. 

I Took a Trip

I spent the last several days out in the sunny south called Montreal. How warm it was compared to this Quebec. Yeah. No. Well, somewhere in between. Actually, when I got back last night, it had snowed here at some point, so there were some icy patches and white fluff lying about here and there.

I managed to burn myself while making supper on Thursday for us (including Jorgh's brother and girlfriend). Blotches of hot oil will immediately cause burns because it doesn't evaporate and likes to spread itself on your body. You know, like hot oil massages. Mmm mmm... ... I'm not a masochist. Really.

But it was worth it! I made a butternut squash soup, courtesy of the Kraft Kitchens. Basically, since Caroline is vegetarian, I figured that she wouldn't mind a hearty soup made of a local (doubtful) gourd. And I admit that I took a long time to finish cooking the stir fry and the tomato-egg dishes, but only because the stove element seemed to be malfunctioning.

But I was upset with Jorgh's brother's remarks after he volunteered for the dish duty, It fell along the lines of "WTF if I had known it'd be this messy/long/inconvenient then I'd have just ordered out." And my reaction was more like a muffled "OMFGWTF IS HE ASKING FOR A BEATING LATER FFFF???"

Seroiusly, this is *not* what you want to hear after spending 3 hours in the kitchen.

Tho the tables were turned on him on Saturday, because he and his girl friend decided to repay (?) us by making a spinach flaky thing. (I forgot what it's called.) It took them 2 hours to figure out what to buy, and 3 hours to cook it. But strangely (and masochistically) enough, at the end, he also said the same remark as above. I think if his girl friend wasn't seriously second-guessing herself before this incident, then she probably is doing it now.

Or not. I find couples which compose of one strong-minded character will have the other quite complacent and flexible to a point. The stronger one extreme, the more the other will compensate to the other extreme.

At least that's my experience...

I had lots of fun seeing my old SUMS-ite friends on Friday night for supper. Norm, Vito, Derrick, Ivo, Donnah, Jorgh and I partook of the chinatown 8 person peking duck meal (while Davey, Lisa's younger brother, sulked and claimed he wasn't hungry but we forced him to eat something just for the sake of it).

Afterwards, we had a romp in Old Montreal with ice cream, and continued our rampage downtown to Tim Hortons on Rene Levesque, near University. It was a great evening. :D

I think I have pictures. I will get around to uploading a few later on today. (I have an excuse this time!)