The Leaky Tire and the Asian Posse:

Dear god...so hard to type right now...
fingers...cramping...too...much...climbing...

More about that later.

So today (well, yesterday) was kind of eventful. First, we discovered that one of the tires on our car had a leak. To my mother, it was almost like the worst thing that could happen in the world. "We need to get it fixed TODAY! We need the car tomorrow!" Technically, that was a false statement. My brother had taken one of the cars since he has army training this weekend. I was going to go indoor rock climbing with friends in the evening, but we still had the van. Tomorrow (i.e. later today) my parents are going out all day and I'm going downtown but I could take a bus, I'm going to take the subway anyway. My mother was of the mindset that I needed the car to drive to the subway station. I don't know, she's weird that way. In any case, my dad and I took it to the dealer and got it fixed within half an hour. No problem.

So I went rock climibing tonight. I realize now why I didn't find it too difficult at Joe Rockhead's when I went last week. I had forgotten how tough Rock Oasis is. I was climbing 5.7 and 5.8 walls at Joe's with minor difficulty. But at Rock Oasis, I could barely make it to the top of a short 5.6 wall. Stupid handholds...how are you supposed to grab something that's almost completely spherical and smooth? I have decided that I like Joe Rockhead's better. Good thing I bought the membership there.

The rock climbing brought two of my worlds together. On the one hand, there were my close friends from high school (Em and Ada), and on the other there were people from university (Stacey, Danny, and another girl who I just met today). After the climbing, we went to Chinatown for a really late dinner and met up with a couple more of Stacey's friends, one of whom was the infamous Arthur (who else?) and another friend I just met (Jimmy). Suddenly, I looked around and realized that we had formed an Asian posse. The greatest part was that we all spoke Cantonese, which made it all the more authentic. I was proud of myself for being able to recommend a place where the food was good and cheap, and we all had a good time eating and getting to know each other. But some of us were having some issues using the chopsticks with our cramped fingers.

Lesson of the Day: It's easier to pull the snail out of its shell if you try sucking it out first.

"But when you feel so powerless, what are you gonna do?"