A Chinese New Year Tale Told With My Ugly Calligraphy

Happy New Year! That is what I wanted to write to my mum.

I asked Felix last week to help me write the message, as I am nearly completely illiterate (in Chinese). Felix gladly obliged (I think), and sent me an image of the computerized version of the message:


My knowledge of the writing process consists of my parents telling me when I was in kindergarten, "Here's the order of the strokes you should write in. As for the actual characters, here are the million different characters you will need to memorize just to be able to read this paragraph." Of course, the million characters unanimously decided to elude my brain and thus I was stuck with only being able to write my name (at most) and the numbers from 1 to 10. ("100? What's that?" Yeah, I couldn't count to a hundred until grade 2.)

Fortunately, language acquisition and mastery is not limited to the early childhood/late childhood phases, as many, MANY (talented/dedicated/stubborn) people have proven throughout the ages. If my mum can bargain with people in local flea markets in 4 different languages down to 25c regardless of item, then it surely can't be that impossible, right?

I started asking Felix incessantly about the different strokes, such as if the vertical lines were meant to end straight down or had little upward turns at the end, etc. Being as patient as he is, he sent me this other MSPaint file to illustrate:


Oh, OK. So I practiced the writing twenty times before I had something readable, and I sent him back my draft:


The whole reason why I wanted to get it right was because I couldn't write in the New Year card I had made, printed from the Canon 3D website, until I was absolutely sure the writing was perfected. It was far from perfect (pretty ugly, in fact) but I had already been too late in sending the card for the New Year so I just sent it in the way it looks above. The card?


It took me 5 hours to recolour, cut out, and paste together into a functional fancy folding fandangle. And after I had gone over all the ornamentation in the background with an orange gel marker, I realized that I could not put a light pencil draft on top of the gel, which meant that if I were to write the message in ink I would have to get it right the first time.

I messed up the "ma ma" part before I got that far, so I started whining for Felix to help. Thank you Felix!

After sending the card and practicing the writing so often, I kept writing it all week and I am still practicing it. Then I started practicing it on Photoshop. Surely there was some brush setting that would give me that fancy calligraphic result?

The closest I got to a real brush stroke was with the settings of "Shape Dynamics" of "Size/Control: Pen Pressure", "Angle/ Control: Initial Pressure" and squishing the pen shape to an oval with a roundness around 28%. The actual act of making brush strokes is a bit trickier, as it necessitates a starting angle different from the direction of the line. The results are the small ticks at the beginning of the horizontal strokes, while the odd angle that the vertical strokes take was from my inability to keep my hand from making it completely straight.

Unfortunately, the sensitivity of the tablet is lacking. The banana I am referring to is at the end of every single damn stroke - when the real life brush is lifted off the page, it gradually creates a point (or blob) as needed, but this (Wacom Graphire2) tablet does not have enough levels of sensitivity to emulate this point; the abrupt "banana" (or "condom tip") result shows this all too painfully.

Thus ends my tale of Ugly Calligraphy.

P.S. My mum received the card and hadn't called because she "forgot."

A Can of Worms? Open?

To my relief, I secured a part-time job teaching math at a private high school outside of Waterloo, with Jorghnassen's help, starting in early January. The details of the job are still lacking, but the major detail in my quest for sanity has been more or less fulfilled. On the other hand, it caused a much bigger "deal" than it fixed: zero public transit and a 20 km commute.

I had thought of every single possible way I could get there on a regular basis.

Carpooling would be the most obvious one (and most feasible) if only I had asked the principal when he offered me the job; but I was only given his cell number and it apparently costs a crapton for him to use it for incoming calls... thus I am still rather reluctant on calling him through that number again. (And I know what you are going to say, so don't say it and stop saying it!)

Someone suggested getting a bike; cheap and ideal, but I loathe to find out what kind of physical shape I am in right now. Last summer, it took me 2 hours to travel 20+ km uphill, and 1 hour to roll it downhill.

Car sharing is great, but would run up quite a bill for daily commuting, compared to the final option:

Buying a car.

(The absolutely, unquestionably retarded option my mum demanded from me, despite it not being her decision, was that I take a cab every single day until I "matured" enough to know enough about cars to get one, which would take at least a year, and even then she told me I was "too stupid" to own a car. I won't even begin on ranting on the stupidity of this.)

I thought of buying a scooter or car as the absolute last option (barring the above), as I know probably less about scooters and cars than anyone I know, and I have the most overbearing, insane family of anyone I know. Fortunately, as I am the most inept of all my acquaintances, I have the option of asking advice from everyone else. And here are a few nuggets!

Rachel's brother, Pat, who had accompanied us to Bwawston, works with and studies in cars, and has a classmate who could probably locate a suitable used auto. He also offered to service it in his school. This would be in Montreal.

Ian has prevoiusly advised me to buy in Ontario, as the transfer between provinces would cost more than it was worth, but as I was uncertain whether I had time to do that before the job started, I opted for the former.

Shhh! told me that car dealerships would take care of everything in a pretty timely manner, and that it was well worth it for him.

Davy said to look into cheap enough cars within $3000 (if I could only think the costs would end at $3000 :( ).

And alas, I know naught about scooters except deep-voiced Eugene has one that he commutes with in Ottawa to the bus station. Though scooters seem quite cute. :)

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To excuse my absence, I have been helping Jorghnassen fix up his presentation for his Ph.D. defense last Monday. Which he then passed with flying colours!

Free Samples!

I visit RedFlagDeals once in a while to find some online deals in Canada, and often I will just click and browse the Freebies. Well, nothing beats the perplexed expression my mum gets from the odd freebie arriving in the mail, addressed to her, opening the envelope and the "WTF" reaction. Except I was not awake this morning when this 59-year-old woman pulled out the o.b. sample, with a letter expressing futile hopes that she enjoys the trial pack.

Today, I signed up for the Olay regenerating cream sample, to make up for the awkward morning.

Ms C's Random Food Review: More Junk Food

What: Double Stuf "Cool Mint Creme" Oreo

Comments: It is green. Very green. Like those glowing fluorescent neon colours from ten years ago when Nabisco thought it would be a great idea to make Oreos more "totally rad." But it is double stuffed, so I thought it would be okay. I think my mum bought this on sale (when does she not buy on sale?) at Zellers when Nabisco stopped producing this particular kind of Oreo because I can't seem to find a picture of it in their catalogue.

Review: At first, I thought that "cool mint" would mean a slight reminiscence of mint ice cream. But mint ice cream doesn't remind me of eating toothpaste. Nevermind that the cream looks like toothpaste...

The positive thing about the Double Stuf Oreos is the nice touch on the cookie itself - it not only has the familiar "Oreo" relief printed on it, but a detailed "Double Stuf" ornament, reminding us that Nabisco cares about our "double" stuffed cookie sandwiches so deeply as to create a completely different cookie cutter die that proudly decorates their concern for our satisfaction.

But it still tastes like toothpaste.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Cookies.

RUN FOR THE C-uh oh...-#@$!ing PARANOIA

Now I don't want to alarm anyone by writing this, but I couldn't sleep at all last night. (Why would we be alarmed, Ms. C?, dear reader would ask, but I'd only shake my head disapprovingly and point to the subtitle of this blog.)

I had planned to go to bed at the more reasonable hour of just after midnight and I felt myself dozing off in my chair, so I schlepped myself to bed (a whole 5 feet away).

As I was laying there, I felt a panic attack... What's wrong with the lower half of my body? I suddenly bolted awake. It felt tingly, a bit like when someone sits too long in a chair, except kind of different. (No, it wasn't that time of month.) And then I tried to go to sleep, but I knew this would probably bother me all night.

Thus started the cycle of wakefulness and sleepiness... the next thing I knew, I was wide awake trying to convince myself that my heart had not stopped beating, that I had to keep breathing steadily lest I pass out, that my body was feeling numb from all the panicking. At every hour I would get up and shake myself awake, dispelling the night terrors for another minute, but sleep was not able to overtake my wide-eyed brain. Maybe brain is too much flattery for it, after all it tortured me with last night - I'll go with pile of grey goo.

At 5, my mum's alarm went off. She took about a half hour to get ready for work, and then I heard the door shut and lock.

I was barely concious of what I did the next four hours. I don't fathom why I did any of this. I remember getting changed into garish running clothes (pastel green sweatpants anyone?), turning on the TV to watch the weather channel, turning off the TV, turning on the computer, turning it off, sweeping the floor, washing a quarter load of laundry, reorganizing my stuff, turning the TV on and off again, boiling water, turning the computer on and off, checking the TV, drinking an entire litre of water, checking my email, drying the quarter-load, sticking my nose in my plants and then inevitably falling unconcious in bed, at a not-so-healthy 9:30 a.m..

I wish I could say that I got all the sleep I needed because I have a run tomorrow that happens to start at 10 a.m., but I kept getting woken up by a number of things. Somoene cleaning the balcony. Jorgh calling. Jorgh calling again. My mum arriving home at 1. My mum waking me up because Jorgh called yet again. Then I felt bad because Jorghnassen kept calling because I asked him to, so I stayed awake.

Anyway, if I don't get such astounding results tomorrow (eg. falling flat on my face, running the other way, calling a cab mid-run) then you can blame it on PARANOIA PARANOIA PARANOIA PARANOIA and some LSD OCD.

Needless to say, I didn't go running today. My mum thought I became colourblind.

Birthday Mommy

Yesterday, I woke up bright and early at noon, walked to the grocery store (which seems infinitely farther than when I'm jogging by there), and bought stuff for a cheesecake. Then I got caught in the rain on the way back, while my neighbours who happened to be walking down the same way spotted me attempting to jog home. I ran into the pharmacy and bought a box of white almond bark and a lotto ticket. Then I got home and made the cheesecake (which, by the way, can gain interesting texture with a layer of almond slivers on top before baking):

TEH RSUMIST CITRUS CHEESECAKE

2 packages of softened cream cheese (I suppose even the store-brand one)
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1-2 tbsp each lemon and orange juice (fresh squeezed or whatever)
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1-2 tbsp melted butter... make that 1. No, 2. Well, you'll see.

OPTIONAL:
almond slivers
orange and lemon zest

1. Set oven at 350 F. Use an 8" springform pan, or regular cake pan, or a pie plate. Whatever's clean. And ovenproof.


2. Mix together the crumbs and the butter, and line the bottom of your pan with it. We used to use a pie plate because my mum and sister didn't think of using other things in the house. Then I discovered one day at a restaurant that cheesecakes don't have to look like pies...? Yeah we're really messed up.


3. Using a mixer, beat the devil out of the eggs (lol), and add sugar. Then add the cream cheese. The mixture might be lumpy at first (especially the store-brand one), so you have to keep beating until everything is smooth, otherwise something disastrous will happen!!!1!


4. Add in lemon and orange juice. If I had cleaner fruit and a zester I would have added lemon and orange zest. And if I had found limes yesterday I would have added one too. But I couldn't find squat at the store. >:(


5. Pour batter into crumb-lined pan. Layer optional things on top, like almond slivers. Man, those things are tasty.


6. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the center is no longer gooey.


7. Let the cheesecake cool otherwise you might get an upset tummy. :(


8. Feed to mommy. :)

Put in more sugar if you like a sweeter cheesecake, considering there's not much sugar for the lemon and orange juice in the batter. My mum actually doesn't like sweet stuff (despite her chocolate cravings) so she said this was just right. :)

Then we won the 6/49 :D:D:D:( No we didn't. Now I have to go wash the floor by hand. :(

T-3

As it stands right now, I'm going to Montreal today to get out of this rut. But not without a long set of scathing words from my mum. Grrr! *shakes fist*

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I can't begin to say how sorry I am for one of my heroes Steve Irwin's unfortunate demise. It seems like a miracle that he lasted this long among the poisonous, the fang and claw equipped, the swift, the noxious, the gigantic, the violent, and the rest; it led us to believe that he was invincible. To end this on a well worn racetrack of cliché, he died the way he lived. Impossibly brave!

Pet Spider

A spider made a web on the blinds in my room. I'm going to leave it there at least until tomorrow, to see if it catches those annoying flies that happen to stay stuck in the vortex a.k.a. my room.

UPDATE: My mum found it horrific and got rid of it pretty much right away, so now I still have little flies hanging around. :(

Mini Rest

I took a few days away from blogging because I realized I had nothing constructive to say, and stories don't come so easily.

Anyway, Davy and Stefan (?) are going to come to Quebec City tomorrow, and we're taking a day trip to Chicoutimi to pick blueberries. I should also prepare for the next wedding in Toronto, next Saturday the 19th, thus once again I will be heading south for a while.

Lil V is back from China and she's got stories to tell. Right? :D

I'm sorry I missed brem's birthday. I hope you had a good one!

Jorghnassen's likely to head to UWaterloo in the fall, once he's finished his Ph.D. thesis, and I think it's also likely that I will be going with him when time comes. (You know. Guys.) It's not so likely that I will have a job myself when I get there, so I'm still kind of holding out on whatever will keep me around here.

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Now I know my mum is certifiably insane and probably has Alzheimer's, not to make light of those who have acute cases of this disease. Some years ago while I was in Montreal, she brought me a pair of shorts that are pink, red, and white checked, too small for me at the time, and absolutely hideous. She claimed that they were cheap from Simons (probably knowing her, "2 bucks!"), thus I should wear them. I was fortunately too tubby to fit into them so I hid them away (except for one day where I had a lapse of judgement and there are photographs to support this... Lil V would know).

Today, my mum washed all my wearable shorts, and thus I am stuck with... the hideous shorts that I would only consider wearing if all my other summer clothes were in the wash and I wasn't going anywhere. (Maybe I should have put on my suit.)

She looked at them and said, "What the hell are those?"
"You bought them."
"No way! YOU must have bought them because they were on sale!"
"Nooooooo way in hell would I have bought these on sale."
"Yes, you said they were '5 dollars!'"
"Goddammit! I would have never bought anything this ugly!!!"
"See? They're ugly."

This is me.

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Salon has a literary guide on Montreal. Personally, I don't feel as I know Montreal as well as some of you out there, because I've lived outside of Montreal about 80% of my life. Alas, as one of the comments put it, "Quebec is more than Montreal." And Montreal's not quite Quebec.

The Body is Willing

I've spent a lot of time in the last few years sitting. Sitting. That's not even for a job. Just sitting. And probably a few hours jogging. Then sitting.

There are three things going on in my head. Firstly, I don't really understand how other people are able to secure jobs (in the plural). I don't understand because secondly, I can't see myself knocking on employters' doors or ringing them up and demanding attention because I feel so woefully inadequate for every single job posting that exists. Thirdly, I feel like I haven't learned anything and have regressed to a period when I was similarly being berated in high school for not being ambitious and money-grubbing like "all my peers."

God, I need to get out of this city. *weeps*

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My mum's sushi boss apparently had this happen to her yesterday. She was sleeping and woke up to part of a wall hanging over her head.

---

Ursj. og upi fpm'y drr ,r [pdy gpt s vpi[;r pg fsud oy'd nrvsidr O', ypp fr[trddrf yp/

Es-see-pa-die-nah***

I remember going to Toronto during the 2003 gigantic SARS scare. SARS was a terrible blow to all the Chinese communities - financially, socially, and probably even weakened family ties ... (that's another story). Due to the western world's irrational fears of contagious disease being transmitted through foreign-looking people regardless of nationality, and then people actually dying in Toronto of SARS, everyone avoided downtown Chinatown. And every Chinatown in the country.

So for the first time, ever, there were parking spaces on Spadina avenue. Every single restaurant had opened all their doors wide and advertised inexcusably cheap lunches, hoping for some customers to fill their unusually empty tables. Eddie wasn't concerned about SARS, and neither was I, so we went to a place for lunch (which was also deserted). We had only ordered one dish to share between us, as most Chinese restaurants make oversize portions with this intent. (It surprises me sometimes how Jorgh's family doesn't really understand this concept... but I guess it's a cultural thing.)

The waiter brought a massive bowl of tasty soup (one of those that you usually split between 6 to 8 people). "Included." Well...

After failing to consume enough soup to fill one of the great lakes, the waiter brought our oversized plate of "General Chow's" chicken and rice piled to the ceiling. Ok, I'm exaggerating - it was only halfway up to the ceiling. Even with Eddie's above average appetite and me being starved on the train for 4 hours without breakfast, we barely finished half of the meal. I thought it was a hugely overcompensating meal until the bill came... for 5 dollars. Now that was just ridiculous.

*** Say it like a middle aged chinese woman having been born over there but lived here for thirty-odd years yet never really got rid of the accent. Yeah, like that.

Flying Spiders

Most spiders don't have wings.¹ But there are "flying" spiders.^1.5 For some reason, my mum was pointing out some spider next to the side door earlier, saying something like, "Oh, that spider's flying about."²

I was wondering what one would look like. I mean a spider with wings.



Yeah that's not what I expected.

¹In fact, as far as we know, all spiders don't have wings.
^1.5See: Ballooning Spider.
²In fact, it's not an exact translation. I don't know my chinese too well.

Crazy Trip Crazy

Due to my unable to go home from Boston on Monday as hoped, I chose to stay in Montreal on Monday and Tuesday. ('Course, during that time I was feeling pathetic because I was supposed to go home to tutor, but that didn't happen.) Wednesday, Jorghnassen and I hopped on the train and headed southwest toward his dreaded destination, Anglo-land aka Ontario. It was a long ride, starting at 5 pm, switching at Toronto to the London train, and we arrived at around 11 pm. I missed seeing my cousins' house along the train tracks in Toronto because it was pitch black and thus I was not able to determine if their balcony was completed. Yay balcony.

Waterloo-Kitchener was peculiarly quiet. It is known as a student town, with student population estimates at approximately 30% (from what I heard they say anyway), and every house had a "FOR RENT STUDENT COME HERE LET US GOUGE YOU" sign in front of it. Yet, it was too quiet... I think it was attributed to the fact that exams were about to begin and people were theoretically studying for them. Maybe.

What was particularly cute at first then disgusting was the Canada Geese. We spotted a group of them hanging out on campus, eating the food and drinking a pond. The chair said that they stayed year-round now, feeding off whatever, which I thought was (unnaturally?) charming considering Montreal only has year-round stupid pigeons.

Then we came across the green sidewalk sausages. Lots of them. Everywhere. Then I didn't think the geese were so charming.

I felt kind of stupid when Jorgh had to drag me everywhere to talk to various professors in the Statistics and Actuarial Sciences Labyrinth Department. One: because they were more or less interviewing him and I was making him look bad by having nowhere else to go; and two: because I had no bloody clue what anyone was saying. Then I felt doubly bad because they took us out to lunch and paid for me as well. :( :) :(

Still, they responded pretty favourably to his presentation that I was sooo instrumental in setting up. And I still had no idea what was going on. Perhaps I'll make an S5 version of the thing so he can show it online and then I can link to it. Then maybe you might have no idea of what I have no idea of what Jorgh is talking about.

My favourite part of the trip was coming back home and finding my mouse crapped up probably because my mum doesn't know how to use a mouse.

Couch-to-5K

I don't know why I didn't find this webpage last year. This program recommends jogging interspersed with walking, spacing out the workout days. This way, the body can tolerate the stresses and adapt to the workout.

I didn't do this. I needed a sped up schedule, because the run was barely a month after I had registered in September, and I was definitely not in any sort of shape. Well, maybe if blob counts as a shape.

Today, the temperatures did not let up. It must be in the 30s with humidity here, and everyone is praying for rain. (And now as I am typing this, the rain is starting to fall.) The humidity was thick enough to cut with a knife when I went jogging this morning (quite a bad idea today for me - I was ready to keel over from the heat).

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We visited an old couple from church in Ste-Foy this afternoon because my mum heard that the woman had broken her ankle from a fall and was going around in a wheelchair. In the meantime, the man is fighting cancer while having recovered from a stroke last year. It is most frustrating because the woman is 75 and fiercely independent. They still live in a rather large house with a large yard teeming with flowers and growing things.

I had one very embarrassing moment (or should I say many continuously embarrassing moments) while in conversation with them due to my mum. She is very vocal about how she feels about aging, and she considers herself, that 58 year old knucklehead, WAAAAAAAAAAY OLD BEYOND BELIEF. Now, talking to two people in their mid 70s, she proceeds to completely dismiss how anyone their age can "do anything." It doesn't help that the people the couple know are all in their 70s or older, who apparently can't "do anything!!!"

They were pretty lighthearted about it though, laughing at me while I hid my completely flabbergasted face, as my mum kept going on and on about how these old people were simply incapacitated from disease and illness or just ready to croak. I was most grateful for them not to have kicked us out of the house after having fed us a light lunch.

I swear, she'll last another hundred years, be able to totter around and do a billion things, and still hammer out the same schpiel.

Run For the Cure: Progress?

So far, I'm into two weeks of jogging and I'm concentrating on increasing my endurance. Funny enough, I've increased the length of the jog but I have yet to increase the time jogging... maybe I'm getting faster? And paradoxically, lazier?

No donations yet as of today. I haven't really been campaigning much, nor advertised the running thing yet to people, except my mum and some more perceptive readers of this blog. Stephen, yes.

Now, I am probably the last person in the world to ask anyone of anything. If I were a plant, I'd be that 4000 year old tree holding onto nothing but rocks on a cliff side, waiting for the day someone comes by and says, "OMG DOODZ THIS GUYZ 4000 YEARZ OLD!" thus validating my existence. Anyway, how this relates to jogging I don't know.

But I'm just saying I don't like having to ask anyone for money especially when I am quite certain they don't have any to part with in the first place. So I won't. I'll send an email out later in the summer but I won't beg for donations.

All that I ask of you is that you might think of me when I'm huffing and puffing on October 1st, chugging away at the last few hundred meters of the run, and send me a thought, a slight hope, that I don't collapse before the finish line. :)

Yes I Was Travelling.

I'm currently listening to this orchestral but hilarious History of Canada on CBC Radio One. Radio Two will be playing the program again.

Sunday June 11, 2006
From the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia
the CBC Radio Orchestra welcomes Canada's favourite storyteller, Stuart McLean - the
host of Vinyl Café - for a program of words and music
Stuart McLean, narrator
Mario Bernardi, conductor
CBC Radio Orchestra
Clifford Crawley: Overture on a Canadian Theme (or two)
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: History of Canada
John Beckwith "Polka" from Music for Dancing
Cameron Wilson & Stuart McLean: I Remember Wayne (world premiere)

I went to Montreal this weekend, but it was a bit too hectic to do much. So you'll have to forgive me if I haven't called anyone nor posted. On the other hand, I witnessed PJ getting a nice suit. Finally!!! (We'll have pictures up when he comes by later next week.)

I'll have to take back that "Worst Onramp 3V4R" on the Quebec map that I commented on. I haven't driven very much throughout this city, just up to boonytown Valcartier and back. I avoided going on the highway, due to my complete disdain of Quebec drivers stemming from the funeral incident.

But I decided after having sufficient experience, I was ready to tackle the disgusting roadways of Quebec near the bridges. My mum had warned me that it was kind of crappy.



For the first time driving by myself, I actually thought I was going to die. There are stop signs on the onramps. Mysteriously appearing onramps. LOTS of mysteriously appearing onramps. And then a really weird curve in the road. With an onramp on both sides mysteriously appearing. LOOK.

If the highways look like spaghetti to you, that should explain why Quebec drivers are completely insane.

Tales of Gardening Feats

My mum, brother and I took the time this afternoon to get some flowers for my dad's grave and plant them. I finally brought the plastic green dividers that I bought from the school's rummage sale last year. I also finally got to dig up old useless roots in the soil and plant living things in the bed. Like LIVE flowers. Anyway, it's looking a lot better now. Such a pretty day...

Some cute LOST gifs made by an SA goon.

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I was working the last two days so I hadn't posted. One of the things I noticed is that students were definitely going insane. Secondary 1 to secondary 5... they were all going positively insane. It is warm, it is green, and it is SUMMER. I got fed up with having nobody and nothing to back up any discipline cases (especially being a supply teacher), so they were treated to a two-day WTF marathon where anything went. Fortunately, the more sensible ones were plodding along fine, but the crazies were just absolutely crazy. These are 17 year old mental cases I'm talking about.

If it were up to me, I'd have expelled their asses a long time ago, or just let them go out to the workforce and try their stupid antics and see how long they last when their boss asks them to do something and they defiantly yell "NO."

Arigato, minna-san!

Attribute the absence of posts during long weekends to travelling.

I had some great moments this weekend. One was jamming with Davy on his gui-tars in his fantastic loft downtown Montreal. Not that I know how to jam on a guitar. Jorghnassen kareoked to Davy's strummin' to the oldies. He also invited us to taste the 99% chocolate-with-warning that left some of us (Jorgh and I) quite shocked at its profound... cocoa-ness.

Related to this thought, we made brownies this morning before I came back to Quebec. After a few chunks of semi-sweet melded with oil, flour, eggs, sugar, and even more oil, I wondered why one cannot eat the baking chocolate in a similar fashion as mentioned above. Of course, the answer lies in the fat content and the nature of the product. I also discovered that the cheaper the chocolate, the less you're likely to enjoy it. (Case in point: milk chocolate Easter bunny priced at 89c ... before Easter.)

I also had a nice Schwartz lunch with friends yesterday, followed by a pretty entertaining game of Cranium. Unfortunately, Jorgh and I were an over-powerful team, since we had the greatest factor of communication between ourselves (6 years of experience and counting) compared to Johanne and Rachel's teams that knew each other for barely 5 months. Also, Johanne's boyfriend Francis was clearly more francophone than his anglophone game-handling skills could compete with, which did lead to many hilarious moments for which we all did applaud in merriment and good show. (Push versus pull?)

My most unfortunate change of plans was to discover that the learning center cancelled my Thursday and Friday dates, but wanted me to come in tomorrow. SEE BELOW. Unfortunately this message was left on the answering machine on Friday when I had already left Quebec (and my mum only told me in the evening), and today is a holiday. I hastily left a message on their machine Friday evening from Montreal... So they will probably already have either someone else scheduled for tomorrow, or I will find out in the morning if they confirm this message.

EDIT: No, my mum misheard. It's 2 Tuesdays from now, not tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day!

My mum and I were debating on whether we should go to the flea market in Ste-Foy yesterday or just go home. She says that she enjoys looking at junk and not buying it versus actually buying useful things. Although last week, she did start eyeing the suspicious looking 80s pattern chairs (you know, charcoal flecked with random green and pink specks - I'm sure you had something like this in your house) and then I said "Let's get outta here." I think if I had a couple of bucks to set on fire, I'd do that instead.

I planted beans outside in the garden that I dug up. I just hope that nobody steals our beans or sprouts like during the year my dad died - they stole our melons. >:( As I previously mentioned, there are rednecks as far as the eye can see around here, so what would they do with a chinese melon?

Our garden is too desolate for any sort of raiding though. For now, there are only tulips growing by the side of the building, left by my brother from several years ago. There are also metric tons of vines overgrown on the fence that nobody ever tends to, so I take it upon myself to cut back some of the vines. I don't even think the landlord intends to do anything about them. In fact, they were creeping across the entire lawn last year before I viciously pulled them out of the ground and slashed the bastards to death.

Soon the rain will come. When it does, the vines will start showing their leaves. That is when the massacre will begin. Mwa ha ha ha ha!!!

Rant :(

I come across as a manic-depressive kook but I often feel terrible at times of inactivity like this. It's pretty easy to put aside the feelings of depression when there's a steady job, and one is surrounded with friends and good people, projects to work on...

But depressing feelings are like raisins in a glass of soda (try it if you haven't seen it before); they bob up and down unless you take them out of your drink and deal with them before they plump up. Ahh, silly analogies.

My day starts with a noon breakfast of champions (a bowl of cereal), followed by a few hours of "what the hell," and then a supper of random food. Then I'm back to "what the hell." My mum comes back from work and gets exasperated at me for a few hours. On Tuesday I tutor. On Wednesday I watch LOST, if it's new. Sometimes I get to bed at 2.

Jorghnassen has always been good to me. He tells me great things and supports my projects, comforts me about the serious dicking (pardon my language) I get from this place, and usually peppers his conversations with "Come back here :(" ... which everyone says.

Of course I have thought of it a lot - every time something stupid happens (March), to name a few), every time I see my friends, whenever I see youth retention reports (especially about anglos), when I visit my dad, and then when I make food enough for ten when I'm the only one who's going to eat the damn thing.

It pains me a lot to think that I am not needed here. The last two years I've been sitting on my ass here making myself pretty depressed, but I tried to convince myself that the reasons I chose to stay here (for now) were valid. Well, they're not so valid, just probably ridiculous from everyone else's perspective.

I am not convinced any more that I was meant to do what I thought I could. What's the use of two degrees from a university when I don't remember any of my training or make any use of this knowledge? Why did I have to go through so much pain and suffering over five years, only to come out feeling like I learned next to nothing? Why did I stay on this train when I didn't want to go to Alberta, but to New Brunswick? (No, I don't want to go to Alberta nor New Brunswick - it's another stupid analogy.)

But I'm not convinced I wasn't getting anything out of it. I enjoyed moments when things went well, with my own abilities. I was always happy to help, maybe too happy to help. I would go out of my own way to make my charges happy and keep them on the better path. I think I would have even quit if my charges told me it was better that way.

(Oh, but I didn't quit. My charges were actually getting along better until the bosses got rid of me.)

I'm probably the only person stupid enough to think this way, but I gave up a job once for a friend whom I believed was better suited for the tasks, and because he wanted experience in it. And I would do it all over again given that choice. But I'm tired of popular opinion trying to make me feel entitled to things or feel guilty for not being more selfish, because I really, really want to do great things for deserving people. (But I don't want to be a total tool either... I'm not like that.)

I just feel that I can't do it.

Of course I won't leave this post on a sad depressing note, so I'm linking this freaking cute corgi. (I think it's a corgi...)