Tick Tock

Well like I said I want to try to end at 99/100 posts before I leave to make my departure seem even more monumental and worth celebrating/commiserating (delete as applicable, but if you are Canadian and you are celebrating my departure...ouch..). Having my Dad here and having exams has meant that I have now got plans/life etc. so keeping up on my blog schedule is proving tougher than I thought. Probably by the end I will end up cheating and posting one word blogpots or pointless youtube videos. Actually, this blog post is pretty much a cheat in itself. I would like to write more, but once again my body has gone into shock from having had to do some exercise. Although today I went on a 10 mile stroll with my Pa so I feel my knackeredness is fairly justified, especially since I spent the whole journey into town reading about the failure of the Melting Pot in America to the point where I could feel my soul crying. It was sad. But I intend to give a real update on my life and actions tomorrow in between revision periods and the standard "I HAVE A VISITOR SO NOW I HAVE  A VALID EXCUSE TO GO TO THE WORKS" burger trip. So until then here is some proof that against all odds and about 6 months later than planned...I made it to Gatineau Park!

Classes are dead to me.

Well classes are over for the year. It's quarter to eleven at night so naturally I am pissed out of my brains and ready to go mental and celebrate this glorious moment in my education. Or perhaps I am just curled up in bed watching the Apprentice UK just because I feel too ashamed to go to bed so early...even though I was nearly out for the count a few hours ago. Eli put some cartoons on for me and I think I dropped off for a few minutes, but I am still very much a child in my head so I guess it makes sense. I guess I am partially tired a) because of my coma inducing Renaissance class where I learned about CAT scans, bear attacks and erm. I think that's about it apart from the fact that I'm probably going to do excruciatingly badly on the final exam b) because I went on a lengthy stroll down the canal with Big Papa Stewart and naturally because I have done nothing but be a pathetic hermit since...September, my body has gone into shock from having to move and do something which could perhaps even be called exercise. The fact that I left my room and saw some of Canada might seem unbelievable so I took some photos as evidence:

 I will miss those groundhogs. Legends.

I took my Dad for the canal walk and to the cafeteria, because lets be honest....they are by far the two best things at Carleton. Carleton isn't the worse place in the world, but it's not the kind of place you take someone on a scenic stroll around...unless they like brickwork. It lacks a bit of the old Exeter charm:

My Dad was also asked by immigration why he is was coming to Canada. Obviously he said that he was visiting to come and see his wonderful daughter who is studying in Ottawa. However, when they asked him where I was studying and he said Carleton the man's reaction was an awkward "oh...." and a quick change of subject. Ouch. Poor Carleton. That's the good thing about being at Carleton on exchange. I can defend it when I need to, but when it's under attack I can deny all allegiance to it...even though they did make us participate in the cult-like convocation ceremony all those months ago to the sweet melody of the crazy frog.

Well. Now I am officially old and one year older to a lonely life with my entourage of cats. I will continue to use cool words like "entourage" when this happens, but it won't make a difference to them. They are just cats. I had my midnight serenade from Jess and Alyson in the dark bathroom. We had the Birthday cake in the afternoon. Alyson awkwardly had to ask me for the communal birthday candles so it wasn't much of a surprise when there was a knock on the door a few minutes later, but as they old saying goes "Cake is cake." I also got some Canada themed gifts and as I am overexcitable, childish and tacky it was a dream come true.

I then, after my painfully boring Children's Lit class, ambled over to Ottawa train station to meet my dad. Ottawa train station is a bit of a strange place. It is hauntingly quiet. I was pretty much the only person there. There were definitely more taxi drivers than passengers present and from what I could tell in the 20 minutes that I spent there, there only seemed to be one train. Train 656 to Montreal is now boarding. Train 656 to Montreal is now boarding. It was hypnotic..which is pretty much the same as just being tedious. I had a nice time with my Dad. We went to Lone Star grill, I got the Strawberry Daquiri that I was denied more than a month ago because I forgot my ID. Muhaha! I saw my Dad to his hotel which has a bath, so I'm probably going to head down there for a dip at some point because dammit 3 weeks to wait for a bath is just too damn long. The BEST thing that happened (apart from the seeing him again after 7 months...of course) was in the printer box. I asked for a pack of biscuits and a bottle of squash so I was pleasantly surprised by this beast:

I'm pretty sure my Dad has forgotten that I'm only here for 3 more weeks and not 3 more months. So if any of you are ever hungry and you can use your genius to find out where I live you might get something in return. And if I feel selfish and can't finish it off I guess I'll just unwrap it all and roll around in it just because I can and once again...I'm leaving Canada soon so I don't care too much about any distress I cause people in the near future.

Well, I should probably go to sleep in preparation for the inevitable diabetes that I will be diagnosed with after getting through this lost. I know sleeping isn't a cure for diabetes, but if I am diabetic and sleep deprived I'm going to be even more of a sourfaced, crabby bitch than usual.

Sweet dreams Canada.
I. Am. Hilarious.

I am older.

I am now officially 21. Worship the ground I walk upon.

I had some serious trouble trying to think about songs with the word '21' in them, but I feel this song sums me up pretty well and what I am into. 

Anyway, have to go live my life until Big Poppa Stewart flies into town. Last year I got a GIANT umbrella for my birthday that no person on this earth would be able to carry. Fingers crossed for something equally as amazing this year! 

Procrastination Celebration.

Hello! Yes. I am posting yet again. I have decided that I want to get to 100 posts before this year is out...or possibly do my 99th post on the 25th April and do my 100th when I am back in England as a kind of conclusive "yaaay we made it" kind of thing. I don't know who the we is in this equation. I guess the we could be a number of people. It could be me and Jess (and Hannah...but not Hannah because she is travelling around like the little voyager she is) who ambled to Canada at the same time and shall arrive back in London together...unless one of our planes beats the other one to Reykjavik by a long way. It could be about me and Charles as we have long distanced it up for the past 7 months and have only seen each other for two weeks. It could be me and all of the Canadians who  have tolerated me and my ways and who I have tolerated when they used to endlessly speak to me in a poor cockney accent. Or it could be me and the people who read this..especially the people who have read this and who have had to put up with a lot of gibberish and whining and not enough pictures of cute animals.

In the last two days I have given in a final essay and finished two classes...although I still have my exam for my French class, but for the time being I am in blissful denial about that. Should definitely finish the book some day. Definitely. Yeah. Just need to stop myself from getting distract....AAAH a groundhog!! Finishing my French class felt a little bit like heaven. When he said we could go an hour early I thought I was going to cry with happiness. The only good thing in this class is that we are allowed the book in the exam and I have been scrawling notes like a BEAST in the margin over the last few weeks so hopefully when I have my standard "OH FUCK IT IS A 7PM THREE HOUR EXAM" nervous breakdown I will have something to fall back on and I can try to construct an essay or two out of my poorly written, grammatically incorrect annotations...most of which are probably just "eww", "aww" and "argh" but it's a start. Hm. What is the French for "argh"?

Finishing the Drama class was a more sentimental affair. We had our final performance of the play which I think, on the whole, went pretty well. I felt pretty much okay about the play up until just before the beginning. First my renaissance teacher plonked himself down in the front row which was a little off putting and then Courtney was frantically reciting her lines before we went on set. I was a little tempted to lie down and play dead, but I thought that it would perhaps be a tiny bit unfair on the other people in the class so I decided to man up and do the scene, even though it meant I had to scale the steps of doom in the Architecture Pit 3 times during the performance. I was pretty sure I was either going to fall or flash the audience on one of these trips (this isn't a pun about tripping over), but I figured if it did happen I'm going to leave the country pretty soon anyway so I might aswell leave my mark. Even if that mark was a horrible image, burned into the eyes of an audience who would spend at least 4 years in therapy trying to get over the horror I would have exposed them to. Luckily, that didn't happen and it all went pretty much to plan. My scene was on pretty early so for most of the play I was just sitting around and listening, but I also had some other jobs like carrying a mic stand and switching on the outside lights so I'm pretty sure Hollywood will be on the phone by sunrise.

Afterwards we went to Ollie's where I got to drink wine and appear the sophisticated British girl with the sophisticated drink, but in reality I'm just a sad, pathetic Wino who was lamenting the fact that it wasn't 2euros and I couldn't drink outside a bar from the bottle like a Luxembourgish street rat. Not long to go now though. On the whole it was a good night. Got to know some people better....got to know more than I needed to know about some people, but luckily I have a poor memory so it will all be gone by sunrise...just in time for my Hollywood call. I did get that weird feeling of "Wow. I am actually leaving." and realising that people who spent 3 hours a week with every Monday for a year I won't see again.I think I would probably feel that more in that class than in any others, just because it is one of my few genuinely fun classes....not that I don't find incest in small Quebec towns a blast and a half, but you know what I mean.

I also just did the ceremonious removal of door tags from my room door in Grenville. This isn't strictly necessary right now, but I felt on the eve of my 21st it had some symbolic value. I have no idea what that value is, but I feel like if you say something has symbolic value people will probably believe you and not ask any questions..unless you are like my English professors who don't seem to approve of my outlandish unexplained statements, but you know. Tough. It is also probably a good idea to take them down as school is coming to a close, because I'm sure Grenville is going to get a little rowdy and my door has thus far survived the drunken 4am rip downs, but I don't want to get too complacent. There are some things I will miss about Canada...but 4am drunken rip time..you are already dead to me.

Well, I should probably go spend the last hour or so of my 20th birthday chowing down on some MLA citations. Feel free to wish me a happy birthday and worship me as your idol, because like I said...I'm leaving in 3 weeks. Make them count. Whereas, I will just sit back and wait for people to come to me like the lazy slug that I am.

Goodnight!

hm.

I find it hard to believe that anyone in the Palestinian Territories would want to read this, but then again people are pretty strange.

It begins.

This post is pretty much redundant. It is more for me than for anyone else. I could tell the world about the fact that I can smell popcorn right now, but that would just be to kill time. I guess I want to kill some time before I go to bed - I can smell popcorn. 

The main reason for this post is that I am about to go in to the final work of my final term at Carleton..ever. It is the strangest feeling. I knew we were going home, but now it really feels like we are on a time limit. To be fair I haven't spoken to too many people in a lot of my classes and some of the people who I have spoken have hurt my soul, but even so it feels so strange that in the course of the next week I am going to leave my classrooms and never ever see the people inside them ever again. It is a surreal feeling.What is even more surreal is that probably when I get home it won't even feel THAT surreal and this whole year abroad will quickly feel like quite a distant memory. I guess I am just used to moving around a bit now and I kind of just get used to wherever I am pretty quickly. It will be a bit weird though. Last year I had to say goodbye to my Australian flatmate and I knew I wasn't going to see her again and that felt odd enough, but now when I say goodbye to people, I will pretty much only be saying goodbye to people who I am never going to see again. I guess to cut a long story short - everyone should just show that they love me and idolise me as much and as soon as they can, because there aren't that many chances left to admit how great I am. Hurry Canada! HURRY!

Also my Dad comes to Ottawa on Wednesday. Haven't seen him since September - strange, but also an excellent opportunity to go to the Works Burger restaurant for dinner catch up. 

Anywho I'm going to go procrastinate elsewhere and dream about the Easter section in Walmart...

Goodbye in advance Carleton!

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"