squirrels are wicked-awesome animals. Wicked-Awesome! This time of year is great for squirrels cuz they're FAT. This got me thinking (interesting how fat squirrels are what make a civil engineering graduate student think)... Every one knows that squirrels eat nuts - BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE NUTS! What i mean is, how many nut trees have you seen down town Toronto? So, squirrels have to eat more than just nuts. I know they eat all the crap people feed them, like bagels, and muffins, and oat-fudge-squares from starbucks, but did you know they eat grass? True story, i saw it. A big fat squirrel with a huge tuff of grass in its mouth. I dunno if its that they all eat grass, or just this guy, cuz he was extra fat, perhaps a heifer of the squirrel world. So maybe he just ate anything. He was still cute.
You know what else is cute? when they pat the ground as they burry their nuts (or other morcles of food with i doubt are actually nuts). I also like how they hop around to get from place to place. I want a pet squirrel, but they do make weird angry bird noises.
I had my chance to get a pet squirrel the other day. I saw him (or her) in Queens park. He would hop, hop, hop - then tip over. He never moved more than about a meter and a half, hop hop hop tip over. And i don't mean that he just fell, he actually tipped over, always on the left side, like a cut tree falling. It was sooooooooo funny looking. So of course i went closer to check this dude out. A woman had given him a piece of toast and he was trying to carry it away but wasn't getting far. But even once he tipped over he didn't give up on the bread, so tipped over on his side he would keep chewing at it. He was obviously hurt, but determined. I was able to get about a foot away from him and i just wanted to pick him up and take him home. He woulda bitten me tho. So no go. When i got to close
he would make himself get up and he moved over a bit, no tipping over, just sitting and chewing away - but not for long. Just sitting there chewing HE TIPPED OVER AGAIN. I was gunna die laughing. I'm bad, laughing at the poor squirrels expense. I wish i got a video, the best i could do was this picture from my cell phone.
i hope he enjoyed that toast.
now i remember why i wanted to be a student again. And so far grad school hasn't been too bad, some really busy times, but for the most part i've become a socially accepted bum. Today i finished my exams and course work, and can be a total bum until Jan 8th without feeling any guilt or remorse. 3 and a half solid weeks of whatever i wanna do, when and however long i wanna sleep for, all me time.
Some may argue that the working world is still better, because there are no assignments or homework, when your home you have you time and of course, best of all, the money. They say once you start working you just can't go back to school. Well i'm happy to say that i haven't been in the real working world for longer than 3 months... 3 months that i wished i was back in school for... so i guess i didn't adapt to it enough to not want to leave it. I definitely don't miss it, which is ok by me.
So what do i do now? Well first of all i know my apartment is gunna finally get a good cleaning. I'll get the christmas shopping out of the way. Do some yoga (i pretend i can do it... i really want to get into it but i'm as stiff as a steel pole... practice practice practice!). For now, i think i'll just sit and watch a movie, no rush for anything right now.
So i got the privilege of proctoring an exam today... wow, i shoulda just been shot, i don't think i've ever experienced a longer 2.5 hours in my life. It was like the feeling i get when i'm running. I hate running. I know its good for me, but every minute running around the track feels like 5, times slows to a crawl i'm dying. My bet is people who enjoy running would also enjoy monitoring exams, its that same great feeling.
In the middle of it, my prof said to me "well its not too bad, at least your not them!" pointing to the ppl writing... but no, i really would rather have been them. When you're writing the exam the 2 and a half hours just flies by! It's great! Plus, cuz i TA'd the course the exam woulda been fairly easy - i woulda rocked it! and that's always a good feeling.
Here's what i learned tho. Don't bother asking questions in the exam. No one is allowed to answer you, and the prof doesn't even answer your questions. At the start of the exam i might as well said "If you have any questions through the exam here is your answer: Re-read the question, then read it again, then based on your understanding make the best assumption you can and state it." I think i answered 20 different questions from 20 different ppl with that same one answer. Useless.
So what did i do to ease the time? Looked for interesting habits that people have when they write. This one girls spent the whole exam smiling, grinning as she answered... i doubt it was cuz she was happy, because honestly, for most of the test she was behind in her answers, i don't know if she finished in time. Bet she doesn't even know that she looks all silly, grinning there like an idiot. But when i think about it, whats so wrong with being a grinning idiot... i mean they're happy at least aren't they?
I woulda loved to do something that made me grin like an idiot for 2.5 hours.
If you were to ask me "hey nastassja, what have you been up to lately?" I'd have to say eating... and not just eating... eating WELL!
I'm going to attempt a hail-marry on a diet for these 17 days before i'm in barbados, having said that... i'm no good with diets... i give this idea until tuesday night.
my point in a nutshell (otherwise i'll never make it), go try these places:
1. Yamato Japanese Restaurant (rated #31 for all toronto restaurants, according to yahoo)
2. Plaza Flamingo (rated #71 for all toronto restaurants, according to yahoo)
Just you wait... my list will go on... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm food.
i just wrote a nice blog, but my computer died and it all went away... now i just can't reproduce it. this has happened to me many times before, but not with blogs, with reports, and i have to try to reproduce... but its never as good as the first time.
life's rough sometimes... meh
ok, i enjoy tutoring, i really do. I like knowing that i can help the kids learn and figure out stuff that they didn't understand before. There's nothing better than when you see the look on their face when the concept just clicks. Its great... that and the money's good too.
BUT, this one boy has got me vexed, REAL vexed. I've been doing my best to help him understand but he doesn't put in any effort to understand it. He's a smart boy i know that, but soooooooooo unbelievably lazy!
check this email out that i got from him, no lie, these are his words... (well the purple parts in the brackets are my thoughts as i was reading through)... and i changed his name to BOB, don't wanna disclose any personal information...
Hi, This is BOB. I not seeming to get the questions. (ok i'll see what i can do to help you out...) It's only the first three questions that are due for tomorrow (no problem i'll give it a look-see). Please look at it if you have a chance (ok). Ok. Possibly maybe even do them (hu?), then send it (ok...?). You don't have to give explanations (whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here!?!), I'll just look at it and try to figure it out (by figure it you do you mean you want me to do your problemset so you can copy it?). I know it's kind of late so I'm just wondering if you could help me with it (your fuckin' retarded boy, i could get you in big trouble with school for this).
Wow! is this kid for real? I told him to get ready to fail the course. Does that make me a bad tutor?
Ok, i know i said it, and i meant it, and for the longest time i actually held up with what i said... but i broke. As many of you have figured out, as reluctant as i was, i finally submitted myself to facebook.
How did this just happen you ask? boredom, paired up with curiosity... or maybe it was the millions of emails i kept getting of ppl asking me to be their friends... maybe it made me feel popular, all these ppl wanting to be my friend... even tho they were all ppl who already are my friends... but lets not mention that. i was just sitting around, bored one day, and i actually clicked on the link in one of those emails... add the 12 friends who have been waiting about a year... then i started browsing... and found more ppl and more ppl and more ppl.
I have to admit, the facebook concept is alright... i mean, i can keep in contact with friends, find out what they're up to, who they're going out with, who's wall they've written on, what their status is, when they changed their status, who all their friends are and the same information about all them! AND, if for some reason i forget to go to the facebook website to check, they'll send me a message telling me that so-and-so has done blank... (don't worry, i've realized i can turn that feature off, i don't need 20 ppl emailing me telling me that!) Ok, lets just say some features are more usefull than others.
I'll have to say that i'm a selfish facebooker... maybe its because i'm new. I don't really go and read other ppl's information or write on their walls etc etc etc... but i like when they comment on mine! i feel special! definitely a selfishfacebooker (dont let this deter you from writing on my wall!!!)... or maybe i just need to find another bored/curious moment when i'll browse for hours... then i'll be hooked, so maybe its better that i don't... i could end up like tom, going for 2000 photos of himself on facebook without owning a camera. Ambitious boy, good for him!
One thing i'm not a fan of is when ppl i went to high school with, but didn't actually know because they're about 10 years younger than me ask for friend requests - and i reject them - then the next day they ask again. Eager young'ns... just wanna be cool with the older crowd i guess. Or maybe its just me and my super-coolness. Move over Vanilla, i'm the next ice-ice baby.
So, anyone who's been over to my place may have noticed a few things. 1) Its definitely roomy for one2) Its definitely got a nice view3) Building Science is running ramped!
What do i mean? Well, basically because of a little flood that Adam and Jess had last year the glue attaching the wood tiles to the ground re-emulsified, and basically died. Not too much of a big deal when i moved in, but now that its winter the amount of moisture in the air has gone down and the wood is shrinking, a bit, but just enough to cause the tiles to stick to my feet and pop out whenever i walked over them bare foot. Sooooooooooooooo annoying. It got to the point were i was about to go nuts with a bottle of glue and try to stick them all down.
The other thing was my bathroom... a bit on the ghetto side. I guess somehow the sealant holding the tiles on the wall failed and moisture was getting behind the wall cuz it was starting to bulge out (i mean my shower wall literally had curvature to it!), so much in some places that the tiles had just popped off!So what did i do? Wrote a letter to the super of course. I was totally expecting nothing to happen with either of my comments - but within 3 days ppl were in my bath room ripping stuff apart and a new coating of something had been put over the wood floor. Yesterday i came home all gross from volleyball and there was a huge hole in my shower! The faucet was gone! 
I couldn't of turned the water on if i wanted to... i know what your thinking, i worry not, i got clean! bum style, wash cloth and the bathroom sink, classy i know. But tod
ay i came home to a whole new shower (that i can't use until 4pm tomorrow, but worry not, i showered at the gym today so i'm good to go)! New tiles and faucet and everything. Is nice. I like.So what got this all done so quickly? One little word, and it wasn't please... MOULD! I've unlocked the secret, i can get anything i want now... Maybe a swimming pool on the balcony?
Weddings are funny. I keep hearing that its my day, and i get to do what ever i want because its my day - then why do other people try to turn it into their day? Take my mother for example, i'm definitely sure that a part of her thinks that its her day too. Squirrel PLEASE!
We decided that we were going to do it all in Barbados... it makes for a couple of reasons:
1) Chris has way more family/ppl coming than i do, hence the overall cost for ppl to come would be less if it were there.
2) Plane tickets to Vancouver and Barbados (from Toronto) at that time of year differ by $50, and lets face it, you can go to Vancouver anytime, how many chances to ppl get to go to Barbados?
3) It'll be a cultural experience for everyone. Sure for Chris its home, but for everyone else (less his friends there and family) its something exotic. Everyone loves exotic.
4) The party there would be WAY more fun. Lets face it, White Rock (where my mom wants the wedding) is not a party town.
oh right, back to my mom...
So it was decided to have the wedding in Barbados, and one day out of no where (almost in tears) my mom calls and tells me that she really wants me to get married in Vancouver because she wants to be able to plan everything and she feels that if its in Barbados she wont be able to. She's scared she's gunna be left out of the wedding planning loop. Thus for this reason she's jealous of Chris' mom who will get to help with a lot of planing cuz she's got another daughter to do it all for later any i'm my mom's only one.
I dunno, but most people would like to avoid planning a wedding as much as possible (a little thing called stress!!!). She also wants to show me off to all her friends - she wants to invite her friends to the wedding just cuz she was invited to their kid's wedding, um no. We're not gunna do that. People i care about and want to talk to only please, i have no time for the others. I am not her project to show off that day.
But i understand where she's coming from with all the planning worries, but she can't guilt me into doing what she wants, its my day! ME! I'm not worried tho. I know what i want and don't need to spend hours flipping through magazines trying to decide. No fuss.
Other than being all about me, its all about no fuss... but my mom can sometimes be the queen of fuss, so we'll see how this goes.
WOW.
Monday nights are the best. I look forward to Monday nights all week. Co-ed volleyball. Now our team has a bit of a reputation for being a little bit cocky. Its not that the members of our team actually think that way (or at least i don't), we just really enjoy acting that way. If some one asks me if i'm the best player out there, not way can i say yes, but within my team i will... of course i'm the best, worship me. I'm mean, its fun playing it up.
So we joke. We joke a lot. From playing totally drunk out of our minds to laughing at the other teams when one of our players packs them hard to other things like our new team shirts.
Basically this past Monday me and Ron (who i believe to be the heart of our bombastic attitude, and i love him for it!) gave out t-shirts that we made for our team. Each t-shirt had the face of the person wearing it in a star with the phrase "i'm no. 1" written below it and a big #1 on the back. Priceless. The apex of our swaggering attitude was now shown to the world. I kinda felt bad putting it on to tell [you, whoever you are] the truth. I mean, its fun saying i'm no. 1, but to write it down and put it on a t-shirt with my own face on it takes some guts... guts i wasn't sure that i had.
but we all wore them for the game anyways... a game that we nearly lost, and probably would have deserved to because we were being lazy... which i think is what made the other team even more mad. First our boastful shirts, then our shitty game, then still winning... meh, Maybe we just are no. 1.
Emotions are crazy.
What gets me the most is just how much control they can have over you. You can tell yourself a million times that your either being unreasonable, or over reacting, or irrational, or insecure, or paranoid, or whatever - and even though you know that to be the truth in your mind, your emotions aren't convinced so easily.
Its hard enough to convince yourself everything is going to be ok... how do you convince someone else. Sometimes i feel useless because i never know what to say, or am lost for words... the best i can do is listen and say that everything is going to be ok, cliche i know... its so easy to say but sometimes so hard to believe.
Dispite how put together i seem sometimes i crumble into the biggest emotional wreck of them all. My body turns into an empty bottomless pit. My mind wonders and it gets WAY ahead of me, til i have to run to try and catch it but i'll still never reach it.
Emotions are crazy.
Being the reasons behind some of the worst times in our lives, emotions also bring us to what we consider to be the best times of our lives.
They go hand in hand... but i guess it takes the lows, to appriciate the highs... i've had lows, but definateloy many more highs!
I don't know if this sounds weird, but when i look at myself in the mirror i see one person i know as me, and when i look at myself in pictures i see a different person that i also know as me. But it's my opinion that the person i see in the mirror is better looking than the person i see in the pictures... so then i wonder about how other people see me? Do they see me like the person in the mirror or the picture, or another "look" all together.
The worst part of this all is that i actually think about these storts of things. I try and tell myself not to be superficial, but lets face it, i'm a girl. I want the long skinny legs, and the tight ass, rock hard abs, round boobs and pretty hair. And all the while, i sit and eat chocolate. I dunno if i'll ever be completely content... maybe when there's such a thing as calorie free ice cream... mmmmmmmmmmm ice cream. But maybe content isn't good either, cuz if your content you don't strive for change.
For now I'll keep hitting up the gym. Maybe next week will be better.
I found this man's (Barry) cell phone on the ground yesterday. The thing was crap and the battery dying, but luckily there was enough juice left for me to call the last number he dialed and figure out a way to find him.
He turns out to be this guy who was running in theToronto marathon with a really low low voice. He kept calling me sweet heart and love and angel and stuff. It was weird when I was first talking to him on the phone cuz at first I thought he was just going to be some student, not a 45 year old correctional officer from Brampton.
When we met up later that day for the exchange (he had to drive all the way back into down town from Brampton) he brought me chocolates and melba-toast crackers (he didnt know if I liked salty or sweet, but melba-toast? now I gotta go buy cream cheese and stuff to eat them... but the chocolate truffles are good... mmmmmmmmmmm chocolate - I HAVE WAY TO MUCH CHOCOLATE AT HOME). He told me if ever I find myself in jail I should give him a call... maybe I should save his number...
Cell phones are so much trouble, but we can't live without them. I can't go anywhere without it... its not that I'm always on the phone, but its a secrurity blanket or something, at the very least I'm able to tell the time.
Mine broke the other day, now mom had to mail me an extra one, cuz who in their right mind can afford to just go buy a new one with out getting a new contract? I wasn't about to pay the $200 cancelation fee to get a new plan with a free phone, but the sad part is that, if mom didn't have an extra one, I might of had to. All I can say is, at least Barry doesn't have to worry about all that.
That's right Barry, I saved the day!
And I
I'm dreaming of sleeping next to you and feeling like a lost little boy in a brand new town
I'm counting my sheep and each one that passes is another dream to ashes
And they all fall down
And as I lay me down tonight
I close my eyes
What, what a beautiful sight
Sleeping to dream about you
And I'm so tired
Of having to live without you
But I don't mind
Sleeping to dream about you and I'm so tired
I found myself in the riches
Your eyes, your lips, your hair and you were everywhere
I woke up in the ditches, I hit the light and I thought you might be here
But you were nowhere (you were nowhere)
Well You were nowhere
And as I lay me back to sleep
Lord I pray that I can keep
Sleeping to dream about you
And I'm so tired
Of having to live without you
But I don't mind
Sleeping to dream about you and I'm so tired
It's just a little a lullaby to keep myself from crying myself to sleep at night
Oh just a lullabye to keep from crying myself to sleep
Oh just a, just oh, just a little lullabye,
Sleeping to dream about you
And I'm so tired
Of having to live without you
But I don't mind
As Jen put it. Turkey's die here. Like many other years, here, was my apartment, and I guess the turkey didn't actually die there. It was just stuffed baked and enjoyed by 10 of my friends and I (Yay! Gus came!).
Now this is the 9th turkey dinner I've cooked by myself (well mostly, enough so that I can say "by myself " without shame) and when I tell people that some find it hard to believe. Their surprise is generally associated with the idea of me being domesticated and not utterly feeble in the kitchen - let me cook you dinner sometime, I'll remove any doubts.
Now to prove that I did in fact cook the turkey we had on Monday on my own, I was asked to document the actual process and post it for the world to see. Here goes...
This is the prep work for the stuffing. Diced onions, shredded carrots and cut up celery get cooked together in a pot. I dunno for how long really. Just til it smells right. Did I mention I cried.
Then I have to make maaaaaaaad amounts of garlic bread. When its nice and crispy I cut the bread into bite-size cubes and let them dry out in the air a bit. This whole process takes a surprisingly long time because the bread is REALLY REALLY hot for quite a long while after its done toasting. I learned the hard way that its better to be patient and just wait for it to cool. Waiting is bad cuz I end up eating a lot of the pieces that I've cut up... meh.
Then the veggie mixture and the bread bits get mixed together. Like the bread, it is very important to let the veggie mixture cool. I don't think I learned that one until the 7th turkey.
Yes I'm mixing this is a juice jug.
I'm a poor student and my kitchen has the bare essentials. Deal with it, I do.
Then I stuff it. Top and bottom, like a confused under-developed hermaphrodite in high-school... bad image. Basically the bird gets fisted again and again. The stuffing tastes the best when it comes out of the bird so I have to make sure I get as much in there as possible. I generally over stuff it - oops!
Then the bird bakes. How long? I dunno, I just keep it in there until everyone arrives and it doesn't look jiggly anymore. That generally works, no one has died yet.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm turkey.
Forget the turkey, Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm STUFFING!
I think its safe to say that every long term plan I have ever made for myself has either come undone or altered by the time I would have expected to be experiencing it.
I said that I wanted to be a doctor, that was short lived. I said I'd never leave Vancouver, I've reconsidered. I said I'd go home and start working when school was done, I find myself back in school. I said that I want to be a professional engineer, but more and more every day I realize I dunno if that's really what I want to do forever. I said I'd never become a teacher, but its been in my mind for a long time now. I said I'd find and marry someone in Vancouver, that's now as far from what's happening as possible. But I'm so happy and I wouldn't change any of it.
Not that my plans were bad, but why do I need to plan every step of my life in such detail. It always takes something to realize what something else is. Right now I think the only thing that's safe to say is that I know what makes me happy, and I know who makes me happy, and I know that knowing those I'll continue to be happy for a very long time. Knowing that is more than 1/2 the battle, but we really only know about 1/2 of the time. So I'm still about 3/4 off.
Did I mention that I KNOW I want a pet goat?
So this is my first attempt at this blogging thing that has gotten so much hype. What is a blog exactly? Is it an online journal? A way for me to give information to people I know (and don't know)? A place to shoot the shit? What ever it is, I have one. We'll see how long it goes until I forget that I even set it up.
he would make himself get up and he moved over a bit, no tipping over, just sitting and chewing away - but not for long. Just sitting there chewing HE TIPPED OVER AGAIN. I was gunna die laughing. I'm bad, laughing at the poor squirrels expense. I wish i got a video, the best i could do was this picture from my cell phone.
