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Thursday, September 28, 2006
Dear Internets, I Love You Within hours of making that last post about the run, I reached 38% of my goal to raise $150. It was awesome to check up that night and I actually Yipee!-ed for joy. Donations hit a wall within twelve hours or so (I can't believe I worried that much after half a day), so I sent a little email love to some family, some friends, some acquaintances, some of everyone. Not even four hours later and there it is! $150! FOUR HOURS. Not even. You amaze me, internet peeps. Amaze me. So it looks like I (with your generous, generous help) have raised that $150 before the run - we didn't even need four days! Amaaaaze. However, this doesn't mean that donations need to stop - keep them coming! Phew. I'm running 5k on Sunday despite the fact that I skipped going to the gym for about two weeks, despite the fact that I've run so hard in the last two days that my muscles and ankles are sore, despite the fact that my lungs seize up in the cold, despite the fact that I'm not really a runner at all. And now that you've helped me reach that goal, I REALLY have to run that 5k without stopping, don't I? *** Update - 12:39am: Another $100. Now we've hit $250. $250. Amaze amaze amaze. - 8:30am: $310! Ahh! 8:37 pm Tuesday, September 26, 2006
I'm Running For The Cure! I have about five days before the CIBC Run for the Cure and I haven't gone to the gym in about two weeks and I'm kicking myself hard for it. I can't remember the last time I ran 5k without stopping. I know that sounds horribly wimpy, but I'm not so much a runner as a I am a jogger or a galloper or really, a trotter. I'm a relaxed runner. Anyway, I'm hoping that I can run the 5k without stopping, and I'm also hoping that you'll sponsor me to do so! I don't think I need to write a speech on why breast cancer is bad or why it makes people's lives suck just a little bit or how your money is going to a good cause because really folks, you know why and how. And if you're not into donating moola to support breast cancer research, then surely you'll donate to see me post pictures of myself collapsing after my legs have turned to jelly and my lungs have caved in on themselves. Think you can help me raise $150 in 4 days? Please? Spread that internet love, peeps, spread it good. 10:54 am Friday, September 22, 2006
Comptine D'un Autre Ete 8:36 pm
Thank Goodness My Family Doesn't Need To Deal With Surgery Too Often It's not so much that my trip from school to home via bus, train and foot took me over four and a half hours yesterday (when it would take just an hour and half by car), but a license would be really handy when I need to go to the pharmacy post-haste to get my dad his medication because no one else in my family bothered to get it last night when he came home from the hospital. So I walked, twenty-five minutes there, twenty minutes back, and thought of how it would have taken all of three minutes to drive. It's not so much about saving me time and hassle, but about getting someone their painkillers when they need them. I don't know what horrifies me more, the fact that neither my mum nor my brother got his prescriptions filled when they were fully capable of doing so (apparently my mum wanted to get home right away to start dinner), or the fact that my dad took a bus to the hospital alone, stayed there for three days and two nights alone, or the fact that he went without food or drink for twenty-seven hours while waiting eight for his procedure, or that when I called home to see how he/things was/were, neither mum nor brother knew the name of the hospital or the phone number. They hadn't spoken to him and had no idea what was going on. They said that he'd call home when he was ready to leave. The one piece of information they knew, the intersection of the place, I took and within minutes of using handy internet resources, I was on the phone with my dad and a nurse to find out what the goddamn was taking so long. My family. I don't get them. When I came back from the pharmacy this afternoon, I surprised myself when I realized that I knew how to say "painkillers" in Cantonese. I wish I knew how to say all sorts of other things like, "Lonely" and "Care" and "Why don't you?". I leave to go back to the Loo tomorrow morning and can't imagine what it's going to be like for him to be alone in the house for four weeks. Who's going to make him noodles and tea and makes sure he takes his medication? Moreover, who else is he going to talk to about vaginal hygiene when he's bored? He's fine though. Probably doing better than me in some respects. 3:00 pm Monday, September 18, 2006
A Wet Bum, A Prick, Higher Education, And Then Some Of course, the one time that I decide to leave my bike outdoors overnight, it rains. Of course, the one day that I decide to wear light khakis and a white t-shirt to school and not bring my umbrella, it rains. The one day that I've ever had to ride my bike in the rain, I learn the lesson that the back wheel splashes water UP onto your upper bum so that when I dismount, I have a patch of dirty rain+wheel water on my lower back. Attractive. Next time: Raincoat. Fanny pack actually worn over the fanny. Umbrella hat. Glasses with wipers. That's how I started my day. Then I was late for my appointment with Canadian Blood Services (I signed up to donate blood (for the first time ever!) last week), which hardly mattered because they turned me away in the end. Here I am, wanting to save lives, and they tell me I have to come back in January because I was in Malaysia during the past 6 months which is a high-risk area for malaria. Pffft. I suppose this can be seen as a good thing since I was nervous as all hell about having blood taken from my body as opposed to the blood leaving it on its own. I've never donated before (I know, I know, It's In Me To Give) and the only time I remember having blood taken for a test, I was unconscious in the emergency room. It's also probably a good thing because the tip of my finger is still sore from where they pricked it to test my hemoglobin and iron levels. I can't imagine what reaction I would have had if I had actually been able to go through the procedure of losing half a pint of blood through a very large vein/artery. I can't help it, I'm a wimp. I did feel bad though - sure I was super nervous and lamenting the fact that I hadn't called anyone to join me as moral support, but I figured this is one of those good, character building things you do by yourself. Being scared is good! I repeated in my head, because then you can conquer it. Alas, t'was not to be for me this aft. When the reality of, "There is a six month deferral period for malaria" finally sank in, I looked forlornly at my 1st time donor! sticker on my chest and handed the cookies back to the nurse because I felt like I didn't deserve to eat them. I'm not saving any lives today, I shouldn't be eating these Oreos. In my class tonight, I felt like a big snob. Taking notes felt useless because I either knew that already, or it was just obvious. But honestly, isn't EVERYTHING a social construction? And can people please not relay their comments to the class if most of it is going to consist of "Uhm, well" and "Whatever" and "Stuff like that" and "Yeah" and incomplete sentences and thoughts that just don't make sense because you can't speak them properly! See what I mean? I'm a snot. Then I came home and had salad at 9:30pm and further lamented the fact that I didn't get to donate blood because it meant that I didn't bring my gym stuff with me to school (no strenuous activity for six to eight hours after donating!) and therefore did not go to the gym at all for no good reason. People who save lives can skip going to the gym. Does anyone out there use MSN for Mac? Because Adium is being a bitch and though I'd like to think that I'm not hardwired to my instant messaging, I can't do without it for too long. 11:15 pm Sunday, September 17, 2006
Food For Thought Don't overcook the broccoli. Paprika on potatoes. Eat less red meat. Boycott white bread. Peanut butter, banana and honey on english muffins. Granola, blueberries and banana with your corn flakes. No raspberries. Do not be afraid of expired salad dressing. Be very afraid of expired chocolate milk. A little bit of marmite goes a long way. Spinach dip. Spinach dip. Spinach. Dip. 6:40 pm Friday, September 15, 2006
Still Alive, Not Kicking So Much Life hasn't really been conducive to blogging lately - which is strangely good and sucky at the same time. A good way to start the day: Corn Flakes, almond and raisin granola, blueberries and banana cereal. Chatting with your awesome roomster. Riding to school on a red, red bike that used to belong to your little brother when he was 12. A bad way to start the day: Getting dumped. I think. I'm not really sure what just happened here. Am I actually feeling hurt? Huh. Is that ...my heart? aching? Did I just hold back a sob? Strange, I thought I was numb to all that by now. Dammit Heart, STOP FEELING THINGS. Why the hell do I keep thinking that relationships are going to be good for me? Eff this, I'm going to school. 11:36 am Thursday, September 07, 2006
Here! iHeart my iPod and now my new MacBook too. Woohoo!  I'm looking disgruntled in that photo probably because it took me ALL DAY to transfer my measly files from my desktop to the new lappy. Turns out the network in my house isn't actually networking anything. Who knew. Getting used to Mac OS X wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be; it's actually been fun clicking around and discovering all the neat little features that have totally won me over to the Apple side of things. For example, I can train my new lappy to recognize my voice and certain commands. I just say "Charlotte" (yeah, I named my new MacBook Charlotte), it responds with a purr (you bet!) and then I can ask her to tell me what time it is, open a new document or quit the application I'm finished using. Pure awesomeness. Tomorrow, I pack bits of my life into boxes in preparation for The Move Back to School. And only, ONLY, when I've done that am I allowing myself to pop downtown to see The Weakerthans and Metric (again). Yay for getting into other another university's Frosh Week concert for free! PS: You're not the only one who's noticed that this blog has gotten boring as of late. I'll stir up some drama soon so that there's more to report. Here's a fun story in the meantime: Last May, a good friend (Pratik) and I were heading downtown to grab some lunch, see a Jays game and generally catch up with each other. This story actually starts in the middle of a flight of stairs. We were climbing up to get to the train platform when we heard it pull into the station. He, having the luxury of longer limbs, managed to race up the steps two at a time and leapt into the train car just as the doors slid closed behind him. But in front of me. Being fairly petite, my short little legs couldn't carry me as far nor as quickly, so I missed the doors by a MILLISECOND, I swear. We stood on both sides of the door gawking at each other and laughing a bit at the sheer ridiculousness of how movie-like the last three seconds had been. We were waving pitifully to each other as the train pulled away (not to worry, he wasn't going to leave me there, we agreed to meet at the next station) when I heard a voice say, "Did you lose a friend?" This wasn't any normal voice really, it was a British voice. And when I turned around, there was a young man standing there, wearing some sort of cowboy hat if memory serves, and he was smiling at me because he had saw what had happened to Pratik and I. "Yes! I did lose a friend!" I exclaimed...and thus began our conversation. His name was John and he was studying at a school in Toronto on exchange. England was home and he was bumming around Toronto for a few more days before taking off for more American travels and then heading back. In the few minutes it took for the next train to arrive and pull up to the next station (where Pratik was faithfully waiting for me) I had decided that this British John character was really rather nice. And so, when it was time for Pratik and I to get off at our stop, I asked him if he'd like to exchange email addresses. With a smile, he agreed. Pratik, by the way, thought it was very strange and awkward for me to do this (again, if memory is doing its job correctly) but it worked out nicely in the end. John and I chatted a bit online every now and then. Not too often at all. But a few weeks ago, I got a message from him saying that he was coming back to Canada to visit friends for a few weeks and that he would love to meet up if I had the time. Love! To meet up! "Yes!" was my response. You can imagine my surprise when he actually called my house tonight looking to hash out plans for getting together next week. It was exciting and unbelievable and wow! I'm meeting John next week. He's coming to the Loo to check out the night life in a university town and I was elated to promise him a good time. So that's that. A funny incident at the train station, a simple comment from a stranger and all of the sudden I have a friend who's visiting me from England. Hopefully he'll be around when it's my turn to get to the UK. 10:45 pm Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Almost  It's like waiting for Christmas on the night of the Eve. I'm totally going to bed early tonight so that morning will come faster. 4:47 pm Saturday, September 02, 2006
I'm Baaaaaaack...And Then I Leave Again So the run didn't work out as well as I wanted it to. Next time, I'll try eating more during the day (or how about during all times?) and keeping myself hydrated so that I don't nearly pass out from sheer exhaustion 3/4 of the way through. Phew. And the Indian foodies? Didn't work out either. Both friends I was going to go with ended up having lunch without me. Buh. So I had Extra Creamy Kraft Dinner instead. With extra freshly ground pepper. So it's 12am right now and I have to get up at the unholy hour of 5am so we can leave for The Windy City. I promised myself that I'd get Singapore photos out of the way before I left, so here I am! Travel and photo-treats for you to feast on while I'm gone. Asia - Volume Four: Singapore SINGAPORRRRRRE!!! After a nice long drive through the Malaysian countryside, we made it into Singapore and we survived customs! It reminded me of crossing the US border; we had to throw away all our chewing gum (it's banned in the country) and all the men had to share their cigarettes because one person is only allowed to bring one pack into the country. What an awesome country/city. No gum. No littering. Little to no crime. Clean drinking water. English as a working language and FOUR official languages. Multi-ethnic. Special owner's licenses are needed to drive cars (it controls traffic). No drugs. Low unemployment rate. The only thing that made me pause was the fact that they still enforce capital punishment. They do so by hanging - being caught with drugs is punishable by death. No doubt they've got strict laws (they're called "A Fine City" for a reason); there's two years mandatory military service and punishment by caning (people are beaten/caned with long sugar cane poles soaked in horse urine). But. It is a Garden City. And they have a Merlion. And "Singa Pura" means "Lion City". And their national flower is a hybrid orchid. And they have an awesome botanical garden that Annia would LOVE. She'd go nuts over the trees. Monkey Pot trees! Canonball trees!   Left: That's me and the Singapore skyline. I'll never get over the fact that someone's arm is in my cliche-tourist-and-skyline photo. Stupid arm. Right: That's the famous Merlion and the skyline. Ooh. Ahh. The Merlion:  This isn't the one pictured above; this one is on the island of Sentosa. Our tour guide kept saying mer-LIE-on. It got really annoying. One of our destinations was the Jurong Bird Park where we saw...well, birds. We got to ride on a panorail, and see a bird show and do typical fun things like that. Tanya would have loved it here. (Can you tell I'm missing my peeps by then?)    Left & Middle: These are lorries! They're gorgeously colourful and enjoy being fed by people, but I was too afraid to get close and I didn't have my camera with lots of zoom. Alas. It gives me a reason to return, no? Right: Flamingoes! Sooo pink. Singapore is a very tiny place - I think I heard that you can drive across the whole country/city/nation state? in about 20 minutes. We only spent a day there and took another day to visit Sentosa, Singapore's island resort. Singapore from a distance:   Left: Moi with a bit of Singapore in the background as well as some of Sentosa (you can see the island across the water). We were waiting for the cable car at the top of Mount Faber (Singapore's 2nd highest mountain!) to take us to the island. As you can tell from my glistening glow (okay okay, it's dirty, sticky sweat!), it's HOT there. And those awful tan lines? I got rid of them! Whoooo. Right: A view of Singapore from the cable car. Sentosa is totally a vacationer's paradise. It's HOT (spicily so) and beautiful with lots to see and do. After gawking, our first stop was the wax museum, which not only taught us the history of Singapore, but also swept me off my feet with it's delicious and absolutely fantabulous museum-ness. Best museum I've been to in a while, if not ever. I wish I didn't have to race through the end - I could have had the nicest conversation with a character about his hut and his twin brother. It was HUGE and I miss it already. (Again with the nerd talk.) We then took an air conditioned coach to Underwaterworld! I'm not too big on marine life, but these creatures were fantastical...    This is a cool photo of The Parentals and I on the Movator in Underwaterworld. You stand on a belt and it takes you around and through a huge tank so that you're surrounded by water and fishies. You can see sharks above our heads.  A Benz bus passing Benz taxis took us to dinner (during which we were served a whole cooler of rice), and then we saw the musical fountain show which impressed us all muchly. It was a bit cheeso-beezo for me at times (see: singing-dancing fish and Princess Pearl). The show managed to turn an ordinary stage and fountain into something that used water as a projection screen and managed to make neon come out of EVERYWHERE.   Right: Check out the neon-green rays of death coming from the Merlion's eyes. Our night in Sentosa was probably the most memorable night of our whole trip: Then. Oh, then. A walk to the beach and a night swim in the ocean!! It was an awesome time - NIGHT SWIMMING! A few gulps of salty water, a game of tag, a run, a freaking good time. The Southern Most Point of Continental Asia! Our family made friendly with a bunch of other people so we all partied in the ocean that night. It was unbelievably fun. It was somewhat creepy to be stepping into water that was pitch black (the only lighting came from the strip of bars down the way), but you make do with what you've got, yes? And to think! I was swimming and playing and splashing and running right at the Southern Most Point of Continental Asia. Damn, that's pretty cool. Singapore was great and I suppose I miss the good times I had there, but I'm not sure if I miss the place necessarily. It's a great palce to live because it's safe and clean and modern...but maybe it was too modern for me? I'm not sure. I love the fact that there are four official languages and it is very multi-ethnic, but because English is the working language, everything seemed to have a strange Western glaze to it. It was curiously familiar, yet foreign. |
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