squirrel please!

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.

socially accepted bum

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.

let the good times roll

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.

yummy in my tummy

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.