Saturday, March 31, 2012

Just so it doesn't look like I'm playing favourites.

I don't want it to seem like I favour Alyson's talent over Jess's so I just wanted to say that I both think they have great musical talent which the world has a right to see:

Jessica Morgan's interpretation of "You Raise Me Up"

Thursday, March 29, 2012

They grow up so fast

Well tonight was a really nice evening. There was coffee, cake and the long overdue début of Miss Alyson Davies. It was lovely to see her have the confidence to take her music outside of Grenville (although it is nice to hear it here as it is a break from the drunken screams and the LOUD beats being pumped through my walls each and everyday) and to see her perform in front of people and get a really good reaction. And I, proud parent that I am captured the whole thing. Here is the best of the evening (unless she beats me and makes me remove it, but I hope she won't because I think it's really good). It is the best because even though she stumbled once or twice it was her own song and she only fully learned the words an hour or so before she went off to the show and dammit it is catchy.



I totally want some Alyson Davies merch.

Salut. Je m'appelle Plebhead

Just a quick one regarding my plebbish nature. I definitely feel like it is the end of term right now and that my body and brain have shut down. This morning when I went to brush my tooth I very nearly made a pleb move. I had my mug in the cabinet so I wasn't really looking. I grabbed the first colourful object sticking out from behind said mug assuming it was my toothbrush..even though my toothbrush is blue and not pink and was on the verge of dowsing my razor in toothpaste before I realised what a tit I am. At the time I kind of laughed and smiled at the situation, I wouldn't have been laughing, smiling, talking, eating etc. or doing anything with my tongue for a very long time. Although, if it meant that I would stop talking..there are probably a lot of people who would have been egging me on to go through with it.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dungeons and Drags on and on and on and on

Hello world. Although I have noticed that a large chunk of people who read this are located in Ottawa so I always have to remember to be careful not to offend..or not to offend too much anyway. One guy didn't take too well to being called passive aggressive. However, he vaguely reminds me of a fisher price man:

So I'm not concerned. Also, if he is mad...he's passive aggressive so really what is he going to do. As a side note, my computer temporarily crashed while getting the picture of the Fisher Price Man, so if anyone has a right to be angry it should really be me.

Anyway, so yeah. I'm writing a blog and for once I am not in my French class. I am not avoiding work. I am writing because I have free time. Time which is for me. Time where I do not have to think and it is lovely. And to think all it took to get here was a couple of nervous breakdowns and about 11,000 words worth of essay gold   silver   bronze  pewter shit. They still need some editing (although some of them are beyond repair most likely), but dammit they are still done in my eyes. I do still have 2 books left to read this semester...and by this semester I mean BY NEXT WEEK yaaaaaaay. I have just finished a book - The Book Thief. It was in my children's lit class...it didn't seem very child appropriate. I don't remember THAT many books in my childhood where it ended "and then pretty much everyone died and humanity turned to shit". Although, the Jacqueline Wilson books of my youth were actually pretty horrible and serious in some respects, but luckily they used out-dated teen slang and cheerful illustrations

so by the end of it you aren't really that fussed about the fact that one of the main characters has fallen out of a window and died.

This whole blog is supposed to be about my experiences in Canada though so I should probably talk vaguely of stuff that has been going out here in this beast of country. Well..summer came. It was hot. People laughed and played music out on the grass till the small hours. I slept with my window open and was still too warm. I sat writing my essays unable to shed tears because the moment they fell they evaporated in the blistering heat etc. etc. And then friday came and summer was over. Really. It was so weird. I probably have experienced heatwaves before in my life..but in Canada??! It blew my mind. It was nice to get a little bit of warmth during my year abroad though (apart from 10 days in Miami of course). I mean it was warm when we got here, but hideous warm. It was the kind of warm where you want to have 100 showers a day and when you arrive in jeans and you get heat blisters and then you feel vile and can't wear shorts and then get more heat blisters and then when you shower you look at yourself in shame and wonder how any man could ever love you. Then you have a shower and feel clean and everything feels pretty much ok again until you've sweated out another bucket and you have to go through this ordeal again.

Anyway, enough about puss and sweat and more about me. It is now 4 weeks until I go home and it is pretty exciting/weird/not soon enough in some ways. I didn't really think about home too much until Charles came out. a) because he's an all right guy and I would like to spend more time with him than 2 weeks out of 8 months. b) because when he left there was only 2 months to go and it started to really feel like I was going home soon and it was like...Waaaah? Where did the time go? I still have stuff to do and exams, but I really must crawl out of my lair a few more times before I go home and actually see some stuff in Ottawa. I do in fact have THREE events coming up on my calendar though. Yes. THREE! Tomorrow I'm watching Alyson Davies perform on campus which I'm exciting about because it has been in the pipe line since..the dawn of time. On saturday - I'm going out to celebrate my 21st. This means I'll have to make a trip to the LCBO. A place which is just a distant memory this term. On wednesday - I turn 21 (Please send cards/presents ASAP) and my Dad flies out to Ottawa...so I guess the week he is here I might even leave my room every day. If you can even believe something of that sort is even possible.

I am also in a play on Monday for my Drama class so you know..if you are at Carleton. I hope you have a nice evening and I will see you after the performance. I'm only in it for a few minutes, but it's still quite fun. There was more to do last term in that class, but it is still different to all my other classes and offers a bit of reprieve from monotonous lectures about Quebec writers and how Folk Tales might have travelled from Venice to Naples. We had to perform it the other day for grade 9-11 students. I'm not 100% what that means, but they were definitely a few years younger than me. Unsurprisingly. I'm nearly 21. I should probably start checking out retirement homes. Having children there was probably more intimidating than the real thing on Monday. I've been a grade 9-11 before..and god I/You/We were horrible. What they really thought of the play will forever remain a mystery, but on the whole I think it went reasonably well. I was amused by the fact that they thought one of the other people in the class who acts with a kinda faux-british accent was actually British. I can understand why they think that because of what damn films have made us look like, but it is all lies. I can detect a fake british accent a mile off. Really, if we spoke in those fake accents do they have any idea how long it would take to get things done? It is so bloody slow. Although, I wouldn't say no to speaking like Patrick Stewart, because he is a genius:

But it made me slightly concerned that perhaps people think that I don't sound british. It has happened since I've been here. Twice. Once on the bus by and old man who was defiant that I was lying about my heritage and another girl in my Children's lit class. Me: blah blah blah. Her: You have an accent! (I have issues with that from the start. Everyone has an accent. There is no standard voice, but ho hum. That's another debate). Me: Yes...I'm from.... Her: NO! Let me guess. Well....it definitely isn't a british accent...
Me:

So, before I sign off the night and go do something wild and exciting like chug some water and watch the Apprentice UK I just want to make it clear that although a select few british people talk like the Queen and ride a swan to their luncheons at the croquet club and a few others have a knees up in cockney London before climbing the apples and pears to bed...the rest of us speak in many ways, just like in every country in the world.

Britain at it's finest.


Actually. I lied. I just realised what the title of this post was and how I haven't touched upon it at all. So I will take two more moments of your time. As I said I have been a bit of a recluse as of late, but in the last few days I have been making more of an effort. Well. I was partially made to leave my room by Eli who needed me to edit his essay. His essay due for over a week ago and which contained few words which exist in the English language. He also told me I had to italicise his quotes and write him a conclusion before he went off for a relaxing shower. And isn't shameless manipulation really what friendship is all about anyway? I also left my room last night where I was invited to play Dungeons and Dragons. I had hoped that it would serve as something to do for an hour or so before bed and that I would be able to take some joy in mocking it, but it wasn't even worth mocking. I think we 'played' for about an hour. I never made a move. I spent most of the time slumped by the bed on a pillow, lying quietly as my eyes glazed over and I contemplated whether perhaps purgatory and life were the same thing. On the plus side, when I went to bed I managed to get to sleep within 5 minutes of putting my head down on the pillow. I can't recommend Dungeons and Dragons for entertainment purposes but it is a damn good substitute for a sleeping pill. Although, the emotional scarring and guilt you feel after an hour of Dungeons of Dragons is surely a lot more painful and long lasting than the side effects of even the strongest of sleeping pills.

Good night.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

P.P.S

Oh. and another 'and another'.
I installed Google Analytics a while ago and forgot it existed, but I remembered. So here are a list of the places that I had to look up. If this is where you are from. Congratulations.

-Wicken
-Grays
-Crowthorne
-Duisburg
-Addlestone

For those who didn't make the list - please move to somewhere more remote/obscure.


P.S

I forgot to mention....

CANADAHASBEENWARMINMARCHWHATISUPWITHTHAT!?!


Faecal Solace.

This won't take very long as I have done pretty much nothing as of late so there is nothing worth telling. Actually I did go out once. We went to the Fox and Feather and played, pool and darts and they served me a Long Island Iced Tea which didn't taste of pineapple and disappointment for a change which was nice. One man asked me if I played darts professionally and if I had played many tournaments. I'm pretty sure I was busy scoring a grand total of 9 as he said this, but I guess he just thought I had the figure for it. I also had my first pizza pizza which was a blessing and a curse. I enjoyed it, but due to my slow eating habits by the time I had finished half the second half had done cold and dry. Candian pizzas have no stamina. Dominos at home takes at least a night before it goes into dry, stringy shameful mode...and it is only FIVE weeks until I am back in the UK and can test that theory as I watch BBC3 and play on Charles's trampoline.

But, until then it is going to be a little grim. I feel like I've gone back to school. I have work for everything all the time and it never seems to go away no matter how many essays I finish. It is a shame that I don't have so much of a chance to enjoy the last month or so here, although I am going to try to find some time for doing so during the exam period when I'm not packing/crying about my lack of knowledge of Sanskrit fairy tales. I'll also do some nice things when my Dad comes here in two weeks. I nearly wrote when my Dad comes out, but I realised that might lead to some raised eyebrows. When he gets here it will be my 21st, but hopefully I'll still be young and charming enough to get some free meals out. If not...I cry. I'm not sure how I feel about having my 21st in Canada. I rarely do anything that exciting for my birthday, but I usually do something. Here..who knows..who knows. Potatah. I can have my 21st next year anyway. Also when I'm back in England Charles is going to take me to the zoo so I can't really complain too much..although I'm me and I'm callous and ungrateful so I most likely will.

Anyway, I should do some research for this weekends essay of choice. I'm going back to basics and writing about women and gender in hope that I can make up for the shambolic essay of last weekend. I have accepted that all of my final essays are going to be fairy shambolic and this disheartens me somewhat. So much so that the other weekend I found myself at an all time low as I found myself starting to tear up to this:

Somebody help me.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

I lied.

Yesterday I said I wouldn't post for a while but then I was talking to Jade about all the UK things that I'm struggling without..even though some of them exist here too but it just isn't the same. I won't bore you with the details though. I'll let the pictures tell the story..the story of how I want to be hoooome!





Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Reflections.

As tomorrow it will only be 6 weeks until I leave it has made me reflect on the 6-7 months which have passed already. Well..I'm not going to write about all of those because I think I might send myself into a coma and I still have a few essays to write this term so I think staying concious is the only thing I can bring to my work right now.

Instead the other day I was looking through my early messages to people after I came to Canada and here are some of my first impressions. Many of which I have taken out of context. Also they were from Facebook so this is why none of them follow any grammatical laws known to man.

Some of my views have changed...some haven't....but you'll never know which ones mahaha.


they ok”

“people all very friendly. but you know you can talk to people without actually making connections.”

“some canadians say 'eh'”

jess had root beer. It was lame”

a boy let me blow his digeredoo so its all ok now”

was invited shopping this eve but all boys. i dont want to go watch them buy hammers and protein shakes”

“well there are canadian girls”
“are they any fit?:p”
“id do em”

“canadians say every animal is a pest .. i guess they spend too much time loving their fellow man”

“i also met some friendly raccoons while playing badminton”

“he plays the fool very well”

“i also just downed a vodka shot and felt nothing. not even the desire to vomit.”

“One guy is just REALLY irritating”

 “i think my fingers have turned to grass”

 “he's passive aggressive. which is another word for canadian.”

 “they like everythingthe buses tell you to have a great dayand their washing detergent is called 'totally awesome'”

that explains the moist sensation of a canadian September. any more questions?”


Now back to listening in French...or starting a game of Mahjong Titans.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Reading books finally makes me a hero.

Prof - Today we are doing group work on Harry Potter and A Hat Full of Sky
Group member 1 - I haven't read the second one.
Group member 2 - I haven't read the second one.
Group member 3 - I haven't read the second one.
Group member 4 - I've read a little bit of the second one.
Kate - I have read errrrrrrrrrrrverything! Bow down to me with my infinite knowledge of children's books!!


No...but seriously Carleton. Reading the books makes life substantially easier...give it a try some time.

Adieu. 

I just did a terrible thing..

I'm having a little trouble sleeping these days. I have too many thoughts and not enough sedatives. I barely even drink any more so I can't even kill off a few brain cells and pass out on the pillow. As if this isn't tragic enough a scenario for some reason I decided to punish myself even further by going on my old hotmail account. Luckily it isn't my oldest hotmail account which got a virus and I forgot the password for many eons ago, but my hotmail account which I got towards the end of 2006 when I was about 15 I guess. Realising that I was 15 at the time has only made situation even more distressing. Up until this moment I had convinced myself that I could have only been 12/13, but deep down I knew that was impossible because I was getting emails from people in Luxembourg - well I say emails, I mean regular chain mail insisting that I forward it to 30 people so that my true love would kiss me at midnight...but from looking at some of my older emails I find it hard to believe that I've become someone that anybody would want to kiss..or even be around.

I guess this is the double-edged sword of technology. On the plus side it helps you organise your life and keeps a record of your past..and on the negative side it keeps a record of your past and all the stuff that you thought was cool at the time. A few of my chosen words/phrases that stood out were:

"crazified"
"Hi! This is another Katey Updatey!"
"relllllli funny! lolololol!"

and about a thousand more no doubt, but after a page or two I had to stop looking.

It has made me perhaps wonder if at the end of the year if I should keep this blog or not, because I have a horrible feeling that in 5 years time I'll be looking back on this with the same level of disdain and wondering why I use swings and roundabouts in every other post whether it is relevant or not. Or even more worryingly maybe I will be exactly like I am now and still think that the things I say are acceptable and I will end up sad and alone cuddling cats.

mmmm cats are fun.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The inevitable nervous breakdown draws closer...

Well look at me back on the blog a few days after a post as if it the most natural thing in the world. I figure is rapidly running out I should probably try harder to keep up with the documenting...although there have been pretty much no documentable events in my life as of late. One of the things that has been keeping me amped up this week is that on Friday (TOMORROW) I am going to buy a bag of crisps. When I'm at home in Luxembourg Friday is a day to be excited for - everyone is out and the buses run til 3.30 am..but in Canada it's all about the crisps. I don't even eat crisps that often here, but it is good to focus on something. It did get slightly worrying when Jess and I would use a bag of crisps as a monetary unit i.e "It cost 20 dollars! That's like 4 bags of crisps". Yes. Crisps are expensive. Canada is expensive. One of the first things I need to do when I come home is to do the Pound Shop Spree - Poundland, Poundstretcher, Mighty Pound - all the classics. Not long to go though. Yesterday us Brits received our ceremonial "You are leaving Canada" Canadian flag. It made it all hit home. Also I say 'us Brits'. Will didn't get one, but really it serves him right for integrating into the Canadian community and doing something with his time in Canada. When Simon and Becca left they had their Canadian flags signed, but I don't know if that will happen. A part of me likes it just the way it is and I figure that probably if I hung it on my door here that it would probably take about 3 minutes before someone had ripped it down in a drunken frenzy. I know things seem more exhilarating  when you are intoxicated but still..ripping stuff off doors and walls just doesn't do anything for me. 

Oh. I just remembered another reason for me to gain some cool points. Earlier today I received an email from my Drama teacher to say that Monday's three hour class is cancelled meaning that on Monday I am free til 6pm and my reaction was "Yes! I get extra time to work in the library!" This is a tragic state of affairs. Once again when I return to England I hope that when I can actually afford things and I have BBC3 and Charles's trampoline under my feet that I will return to life and stop being such a pleb. Right now I feel like I have a hideous amount of stuff to do. On my Word at the moment I have 3 documents open all for different assignments. One on existentialism, one on the American Dream and one on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Having so much to do at one time is probably going to make my head explode so I figure the best thing to do is be irrational and try to do it all at once and fail all my courses because I have overstressed myself unnecessarily. But I suppose if I was a rational human being then I wouldn't be me. Although probably if I wasn't me people would think more of me and we would laugh at the moronic girl who lives in her room and who coined the term "Crisp Friday" like a fool.

Anyway I'm going to go play mahjong titans and set various alarms for the day to come. I think I've rambled enough. Just as I thought - as I have started blogging again the number of views I have been getting has severely declined. When I wasn't posting I had 100 a day, now that I have posted it is about 5 a day and 3 are probably me. 

I will try to leave in a slightly more exciting way to bring back those who have lost faith in me by sharing a quote from my renaissance teacher without giving the context so that in a few years I can look back and try to work out what an earth could have provoked this and hope that nobody says this after having read my blog

"It's worse than a gang rape I would imagine"

Goodnight. 


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Ooops.

Maybe should have been listening a little bit harder in French and the test would have been less painful, but you live and learn. And perhaps if Sarte was a little less of a pain in the arse to read I would have remembered the reason why they attacked the man in the street. I'm an innocent victim of the self-important ramblings of the existential movement.


This is a reminder of when Canada was colourful and fun. 

7 weeks until home time. Prepare the monkeys. 

You don't have to be crazy to work here but it doesn't help.

As I sit in my French class for one of the final FIVE French classes of the year (THANK YOU GOD) and we talk about whether a bottle is a bottle or it is just playing the role of a bottle my thoughts since then have turned towards insanity and along the same vein they have turned towards the cafeteria.

Carleton University is home to Canada's second best cafeteria or so is the word on the street. I think it also has Canada's best university basketball team but I have seen a lot more Cafeteria propaganda than Basketball. If I was one of the best uni basketball players in Canada I would be slightly disheartened if I told someone I was at Carleton and they asked me if that was the school with the nationally acclaimed cafeteria. Luckily the Basketball team said I was too talented to join so I have never had to be in this situation.

Anyway, as I was saying....Carleton's caff is allegedly among the best. The food itself has a reasonable variety to it, although after a while it all tastes a bit the same which is why I occasionally go off on a vegan binge because the vegan section is one of the few sections where they use seasoning. Either way, the food isn't the real reason to enjoy the cafeteria. It is the colourful nature of the workers there and as everyone knows "colourful" is another way of saying strange, odd etc. without sounding too rude...but really...there are some characters.

One of the things I will miss about Carleton will be laughing whimsically on a cold, dark spring afternoon with Jessica and Alyson... imagining what lives they must lead when they are not wheeling plates from station to station or having conversations with the air. It is really great that even when the rest of society has rejected them Carleton has accepted them with open arms.

A few that will be in my memory long after I have left this place (in 7 weeks and a day might I add!)

Monique, who left after term one but whose face of sadness and despair was topped by a santa hat during the festive season regardless of her clear lack of christmas cheer.
The girl whose name I can't remember,  who died her hair blonde and fooled us all temporarily into thinking she was a whole new person, but no she was the same disinterested card swiping drone.
Jean, who despite people's attempt not to make eye contact with her has never stopped trying to strike up a conversation or to begin a jig and damn the consequences.
OCD cup man, who regardless of social etiquette lords over you if you fail to put the cup in the correct place in the tray.
OCD meat man, who cuts meats so slowly and lovingly that when you finally get it it feels like it has been seasoned with love.
Pasta Man, who is abusive to other cafeteria workers and to students because he is an unspecialised cafeteria worker and we are mere plebeians who will never reach to his intellectual heights.

And last but not least...
Cathy who we have seen move from "Cathy in training" to simply "Cathy".  Despite the perilous challenges faced by cafeteria workers on a daily basis she has never let it crush her spirit and she became a fully established card swiper and hasn't looked back since.

I know that it will soon be time to bid adieu to this fair land, but I know that there are some things and people that are now a part of my very being and I will carry them with me no matter the distance between us..

"These fragments I have shored against my ruins"
 The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot



Katharine. 


Friday, March 2, 2012

Oh and.

I hope all my readers in the Philippines are enjoying this.

This one is for you as you seem to enjoy irrelevant things such as my blog:

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

According to google stats over 100 people have viewed my blog today. Not posting anything has really seemed to have done wonders for my blog's statistics. I don't really care too much how many people read this stuff anyway. It is more for me so that I have a means of reminding myself of my year abroad, although most of what I post is exaggerated and unfair but that's me in a nutshell so potatah.

Speaking of my year abroad I recently received an email from the scholarship people saying that I still haven't sent them a picture and a statement about the joys of doing a year abroad. I keep meaning to do it but I'm discovering it more challenging than I at first expected. I am having a nice year, but it is in my nature to find it difficult to be overly enthused about anything. I'm not an unhappy person, but I do tend to look at things with a somewhat critical eye. I despised writing my personal statement. My original draft read something like this: "I would like to study English Literature at university because I think I will enjoy it and that I am good at English. There will probably be lots of other people who are good at English too, but I will try my hardest even though I might not be best. I'll understand though if you don't accept me because I'm sure the other applicants are very talented. Looking forward to reading your letter of refusal in the near future. Kate" This isn't what I submitted, but I feel I have lived up to what I wrote. Oh well. Worst comes to worst I'll just eat a bag of sugar and spew some crap about how studying abroad has helped me not only find out more about other cultures, but has helped me find out more about myself. Then I'll just roll around in the money they gave me....oh wait...no. I spent it all on zoos and chocolate oranges.

Yes. It has been a busy time - hence my absence from the world of blog. Well that is a bit of a lie. I have had plenty of time to write as my body seems incapable of sleeping before 2am and my mind seems incapable of doing any work past 9pm but somehow I have still managed to convince myself that I don't have time to write anything on here. As the introduction to my Children's Literature essay currently stands at six words..which probably need changing..and is refusing to write itself I figured it was about time to write on here.

The first half of this term went in the blink of an eye and even though I feel like I was working an awful lot of the time..right now I feel I have nothing to show for it apart from decent grades. Life is hard. It does feel a lot harder to fit things in (that's what she said) this term though as I have had to bid adieu to my Thursday free day and I am taking 1 more class than I did last term. One class is 3 hours a week, but it feels like a little bit of my soul has died. Here is a brief run down of this terms selection:

Children's Literature : We read The Silver Chair from the Narnia series so I feel pretty content at this point. The essay will most likely be fluffed but at least I've got denial. A couple of things have irritated me in this class...I know I know..me being irritated. How refreshing.
1. Group work. I don't mind it that much..apart from the fact that I have to come out of the English closet and watch people try to work out if they should react to my swoon worthy accent. Lies. But in the most recent group work where we had to answer questions from the book I was in a group of googlers. They thought I was the crazy one for having read the book. I thought if I heard the word "audiobook" one more time I was going to put a gun to my head. Towards the beginning of the year I had wondered why nobody seemed as stressed as I did about the workload. Apparently I was the only one foolish enough to do it. But now I feel my subconscious has been tainted as it has forbade me to get any work done and has turned me into a zombie. Excellent
2. Harry Potter - Studying this book was fine, but I had a few issues with my prof. who was talking about how British children react to the reading of the book. There were a couple of points where I was raising my eyebrows, but I think my eyebrow went highest when she said that we associate Harry with Prince Harry. No. When I was 11 I associated wizards with wizards. 11 year olds are not avidly looking for subtexts on the monarchy and criticisms of the class systems. There are frogs made out of chocolate that move!

Renaissance - The definition of a curveball class. Got in there expecting to be greeted by Shakespeare, but instead I was bombarded with the likes of Strapparola, Basile et D'Aulnoy. I bet you are sitting there going "Ah all the classics"..because I think that is what our professor expected. Alas no. I am no expert on 17th Century Folklorists and I fear I never will. I enjoy my degree, but sometimes when we are debating the moral implications of a Tuna fish impregnating a Princess I do have to slightly question it. I think if my professor wasn't as...unique...as he is I would have been whipped up into a coma by this point. I can't tell you anything about Folklore but I can tell you that my prof.
1. Likes spunky girls.
2. Doesn't agree with beating children...but a slight tap lets them know who is boss.
It's enlightening.

French Literature - Attendance is at an all time low. Last class there was maybe 15 people out of 45 left at the end...but really if you are going to assign a text where the protagonist is questioning the character of a bottle , you have to expect it really. Dommage.

American Literature II - It isn't colonisation or slave narratives. That's all I need in a course.

Drama - I got an A plus in it last term. I realise this won't happen this term as I have fallen into an academic ditch, but hopefully it will still bump up my marks a little bit before the inevitable failure that shall be my dissertation next year.

Next year seems ridiculously soon I might add. Picking modules for Exeter next year is really reminding me how soon this year abroad is going to end. It is kind of weird, but mostly I am looking forward to having baths and double beds on demand. I think I'm too old and decrepit for university accommodation these days.

I did have a brief flirtation with double beds and  (Whirlpool!)baths over reading week though and it was amazing. I should probably also mention that I was sharing them with Charles, but nobody really wants to read all the love stuff. What people want to read about is penguins.  

After showing Charles bulk barn  the sights of Ottawa we took a trip to New York via Montreal. Montreal was nice. It felt a lot more European than Ottawa and I kind of liked that. It was a touch of home with a beaver or two thrown in for good measure. On the second day we went to the biodome for said beavers, as apparently beavers don't just roam the streets as I had first thought. I have to say they changed my life. It also made me think that the Eden Project needs to get together. I mean the Eden Project is ok but I couldn't help but think that maybe a monkey or two might spruce the place up a bit and then maybe people's favourite attraction wouldn't be the emergency cold room in the rainforest dome. Montreal Biodome on the other hand had everything a 20 year old girl needed to forget education for a while - beavers, penguins and a MEAT spaghetti bolognese (yeah...I'm looking at you again Eden Project. Meat isn't THAT bad).

We then left my our luxury bathtub behind and hit up New York after a 9 hour bus ride including an hour stop at Albany bus station where we stared dreamily into each other's eyes over an array of chicken strips and reece's peanut butter cups. Part of me wished we could stay there forever. A much larger part of me thought it was uninspiring and so we decided not to leave our possessions on the bus and make a life for ourselves in the bus station and we continued to New York. Our hostel was nice..not perfect..but nice. The room smelled somewhat like rotting carcass, but it had a fully equipped kitchen so....swings and roundabouts I suppose. New York was really good. As we'd both been there before we didn't feel so obliged to stick to an itinerary so it was pleasant to be able to walk around and take things in. Although the giant screen showing the american flag in LED lights was a bit much and made me feel a little nauseous. A trip to M&Ms world sorted that out though. We did do nice things there though : we went to a restaurant where the waiters sang show tunes as they served you, we went to Central Park zoo and I fell in love with Red Pandas, we went to the Museum of Modern art where there was an exhibit which was simply a room full of sweets and we went to see Porgy and Bess where I found myself sitting next to an odious woman who complained the whole time and failed to deliver when she said she was going to go home at the interval.

If you want to see more of my wild adventure....or if you need a reason to procrastinate here is it in video...although it is mainly animals, but animals are far superior to humans so it's all good. Also I had a fairly limited choice of music as I only have about 4 songs on my computer...if you are wondering why these are the songs on my computer then I have no idea why you would think I had better taste than this. I have filled my room with owls and children's toys - I have no shame.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150665351719441

Anyway, that is my life thus far in term one. I feel like there must have been some more events that happened, but they have been pushed the back of my subconscious not be found until the time is right.

It is nearly 9pm so it is time for 40 more minutes of procrastination before I can finally declare this weekend begun. Library floor 3 - I'm coming for you.

Gus says goodbye.