Random thoughts (because I don't have any structured ones right now):

I worry about my friends. Not constantly, just once in a while. I just hope things are good with them, especially during long periods of silence.

Just as I'm finishing my schooling, my dad is going back. Funny how the world works.

I've been dwelling, specifically on the past, but not in a bad, self-depressing way...more of a reflective, why-am-I-feeling-like-this way. Things that have been sort of gnawing at me have been sorted out, but have also revealed something very reminiscent of past events. I know I'm being "cryptic", as certain people like to call it, but...yeah...I have too much time on my hands right now, and that usually results in me thinking, and when that happens, look out.

I am in a funk, and I don't like being funky (unless it's in a good way). Elements of my life are starting to scare me, although they've been scaring me for a while, but lately it's gotten worse. I shouldn't be trying to deal with forever, I should be taking it one day at a time, right? Right.

Thanks for tuning in to "Freaking Out About Life". Join us next time for an encore presentation of "What It Means To Be A Small Asian Chick Who's Unemployed And Living At Home".

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay"

Something really cosmic just happened.

As you may already know, I'm trying to sublet my house in Waterloo, and it so happens that a guy I know personally is interested. I was kinda waiting for his call, but I had some stuff to do, so I went out. After I returned I waited for the rest of the night and still nothing. Then, 20 minutes ago I checked my e-mail and he has just messaged me, saying that he had called today while I was out and left a message with my dad. "What the...???" I said to myself, and as I look around for messages the phone rings, and it's my father (who had gone out shortly after I came back), calling to ask if the guy had called me back because he had forgotten to tell me he called earlier.

Pretty weird, huh? And I had just finished watching Dogma on TV. I don't know if that means anything, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.

"They say I must be one of the wonders of God's own creation, and as far as they see they can offer no explanation"

It's Friday night...what is Karen up to?

Karen is at home, reassessing her financial situation, realizing that she is at the brink of brokeness, and thereby searching through the internet for a job. Does Karen know how to live it up or what?

I always have this feeling when I'm bored out of my mind at home that everyone else in the world (that I know) is out there having a good time. And I know that I could be out there having a good time too. But it's funny, because the people I could be out there having fun with are currently out there having fun with other people that I don't necessarily know personally. So I'm at home, thinking about the fun that could be had. Then again, to have fun would require having some form of cash flow, and so it all circles back around to my original dilemma. There are some people that I know who simply cannot stand being at home, and are therefore out there all the time. Home life is different for everyone, I admit that, but there is something to be said for just sitting in your basement, watching TV or reading or something.

Lesson of the day: ICQ 2003a does not like me at all.

"And the world keeps spinning round, my world's upside down and I wouldn't change a thing"

Many disappointments were experienced yesterday.

Disappointment #1: Damn, it was cold. And wet. And I really should get some new shoes.

Disappointment #2: Stupid Leafs. Well, whatever.

Disappointment #3: The rock that was promised was not to be had, due to an unfortunate bar closing. On the other hand, I was still able to see Cowan and pick up right where we left off five years ago. However, due to some miscalculated revelations, his sole purpose in life now is to see me debilitated by alcohol.

Kingston is an interesting place. Similar to Waterloo, and yet...not. My vision of it had already been clouded by my former roommate's description of having to slowly crawl behind a tractor every day along the two-laned street that would take her to work. Being there reminded me of being somewhere up north in Small Town Ontario. At the same time, Queen's campus reminded me of being in downtown Toronto at U of T. Was Waterloo the only university that wasn't built using a grid system?

Lesson of the day: Super 8 Motels differ from one place to another. A lot.

"You'll have to excuse me, I'm not at my best"

I have officially become an unemployed, out-of-school bum living in my parents' basement. Cue Bohemian Rhapsody already.

So the subletting thing is rapidly becoming my own personal hell, what with people wanting this and that and the other thing and me having to deal with it in Toronto instead of Waterloo but hey, it's this or I actually stay there longer. Which is not as bad as I make it sound, but like I said before, it's a nice town, I just don't want to live there forever. In this situation I've found that more complications actually make it less complicated. Go figure.

For those of you in the Greater Kingston Area, I will be making an unanticipated stop there this week. Consider this fair warning. =)

Lesson of the day: Rubbing Big Howie's head IS lucky. My mom has the proof.

"Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me..."

And......cut.

Wow, that's it. Five years has come and gone and it all ended with an exam that I think I did better on than any other this term. Amazing. And, miracle of miracles, someone is actually interested in subletting our house. Un-freaking believable. I guess it's hard to understand my disbelief if you haven't been trying desperately and unsuccessfully to unload this death trap for the past two months, competing with people whose houses are two steps away from campus or who are giving people free beer or money to take their lease (yeah, I wasn't too sure about that last one either).

Oh, about the death trap remark...by first looks, this house is actually quite nice, except that the landlady turned the awesome living room into two rat-hole sized rooms and is charging the same rent as the real rooms. But the roof is not holding back the water like it should, and who knows what's going on in the attic, so any day now the whole thing could come crashing down, which would be good for us since we'd get our rent back but bad for anyone who's living here. Here's to hoping that it'll hold until the new people come in September.

So all that's left is to collect my junk together and get the hell out of here. But not tonight.

"Cause I'm free, I'm free-fallin'..."

Only one more exam stands between me and the rest of my life. Well, assuming that I actually scraped together enough marks to pass yesterday's fiasco of a final. Surprises, like having 20% of the exam closed book without telling us beforehand, are not what I need right now. Ah well, too late. Just gotta keep going...

In other personal and slightly more uplifting news, my summer hair is in full swing. Instead of studying on Monday I was actually entrusting my hair to a student hairstylist. Hey, if I can get my highlights done for $25 anywhere else, I would, but since I can't, I just have to make do with what's available. Fortunately, the girl was super nice and competent, and so the red actually shows up without the use of special lighting. I would recommend going to a salon school if your financial situation prevents you from going elsewhere, but beware of the heads. They're kinda creepy.

One of my roommates has departed. *sniff*

Lesson of the day: Mother Nature is a tease.

"I get knocked down, but I get up again, they're never gonna keep me down..."

Another perfect day, another day spent indoors cramming my brain with knowledge so that I can spew it out tonight and make room for new stuff tomorrow. No wonder my head hurts right now.

So, what did I do yesterday on the 24th anniversary of my birth? Wrote an exam, got some of my hair chopped off, received a "surprise" from friends and well-wishers which included a gift that required some emergency corrective surgery (don't ask...or at least ask later), and attempted to study but gave up due to health reasons. Exciting stuff, huh? Well, serves me right for being born during exam season. On the other hand, tonight will be a little more fun, as we participate in an exercise of public humilation in the form of good old-fashioned karaoke. My last chance to be able to see some of my friends live out their dream of being the next Noel Gallagher or Tina Turner. Can't wait.

"Fly away on my zephyr, I feel it more than ever, and in this perfect weather, we'll find a place together"

I've found that whenever the weather is amazingly beautiful (like today), I always think of Mr. Rogers. As a child I would sit and watch him talk to puppets and tell us about how sharing is good. Now, I just start humming the tune and say to myself, yes, it is a beautiful day in the neighbourhood. And I think about how we had it good back then, only worrying about colouring inside the lines and wishing that I could ride the trolley to the neighbourhood of Make-Believe.

But now they're all gone...Mr. Rogers, Mr. Dressup, the Friendly Giant...pieces of childhood television fading away, relived only through specials and syndicated reruns, replaced with purple dinosaurs and talking sponges. It's a good thing I can still tell you how to get to Sesame Street.

"Won't you be my neighbour?"

Today, a friend of mine posed an interesting question: what is the one thing you've learned at university? Suddenly, all kinds of answers were flooding my brain. I could give him a lame answer, a predictable answer, a funny answer, a cynical answer, a relevant answer, a relevant-but-not-as-obvious answer...but I think what he's looking for is a real answer (of course, I could be wrong about that, so I have a few back-ups, as you can see). None of those other answers really truly summed it up for me. But in the process of forming all the other answers, I did come up with a very real answer for me. I hope I remember it the next time I see him.


What, you think I'm going to write it out here? Sorry, you're going to have to ask me when you see me. But I'm going to ask you too, so you'd better be ready.

"I'm not aware of too many things, I know what I know, if you know what I mean"

Break time!

Funny story, just in time for Easter:
My roommate Karen (yeah, it's just a ball of confusion at my place when someone yells "Karen" without any specification; we also have to differentiate between Allans, but I digress...) came home from school on Sunday night and found a fluffy brown bunny sitting on our front lawn, which had very recently been transformed into a glacier due to various meteorological phenomena (our lawn, not the rabbit). "Hey there, Mr. Rabbit, what are you doing there?" she asks politely. Mr. Rabbit promptly hops away, and Karen looks at the lawn and realizes what Mr. Rabbit was doing there. The next morning when I left the house, there were two very distinct areas on the lawn where there were high concentrations of what looked like chocolate covered raisins. Suddenly, this whole idea of associating rabbits and chocolate at this festive time of year became much clearer. And I guess Karen interrupted Mr. Rabbit at an inconvenient time.

Break over.

"Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail..."

One down, four to go.

When we emerged from the process control nightmare, we were met with what Environment Canada calls a "flurry", but is what I call a "horizontal blizzard". Let's just say that I'm glad that it wasn't like this when we left this morning, or I would have been even more depressed. Why struggle through blinding snow to go and write an exam that I'm not going to pass anyway? Yeah, I'm a regular Little Miss Sunshine today. The only plus side to this is that it inspired us to grab some cheap grub at Mel's (hooray for the $3 all-day breakfast!).

Lesson of the day: definition of recursive - of, relating to, or constituting a procedure that can repeat itself indefinitely; real definition of recursive - to curse repeatedly at a question on the exam that was never even remotely discussed in class.

"From the time I walked in, to the point that we're both arguing, this is how I live, this is where I start screaming"

Stupid daylight savings. I woke up this morning and realized it was 9:30 an hour ago. Dammit, so much for studying in the morning.

I should be studying right now.

The only good thing about this weather is that it keeps me from venturing any farther than the kitchen. And while I have a general grasp of process control, something tells me that this exam is not going to be a cake walk like the midterm (Hmmm...could it be because everyone in the class did well on the midterm and so he's going to rape us on the final? Could be....).

I should be studying right now.

What have I been doing today in between actual bursts of studying? Looking for CDs that I may want to purchase in the near future (tomorrow), checking out my friends' blogs, making sure that I still don't have any new (legitimate) e-mail, taking a romance test (apparently I am a "borderline romantic"...what do they know?), and losing my life savings in Solitaire (and subsequently winning it back).

I am studying....right....now....

"I am what I am, I'll do what I want, but I can't hide"

Fork me. I AM DONE.

My final lecture ended tonight. Granted, it was Children's Lit, so I'm not sure how much that counts. So technically, my final Engineering lecture was yesterday. And so that's it. Finito. Barring any major catastrophes, my official school career is over. It's hard to say what I feel right now, since I have been awake for 36 of the past 38 consecutive hours, and so anything I say may only be a side effect of sleep deprivation. It'll sink in more in a couple of weeks, when I'm sitting in my final final. I've been saying final a lot. It's a little surreal, I guess. I've been doing this for 20 years. It's the only thing I really know how to do.

"School's out for summer...school's out forever..."

So it's been sporatically snowing the past couple of days, which is a sure sign that it's almost my birthday. Ah yes, the past two out of three years I've celebrated with snowpeople. And in one case snowanimals as well. Hooray for freak weather.

Today was my presentation on molecular "pharming". Pharming is all about genetically modifying plants to produce pharmaceutical proteins, vaccines, antibodies, and the like. Not as nerve wracking as the last one, which is funny because I had never been less prepared for anything in my life than I was for this presentation. It went pretty well, and for our final slide (the obligatory "Questions?" slide), we decided to be funny and put an animated gif that I had found on the internet last night that was the funniest and most appropiate thing I had ever seen. It starts as a stump and grows into a tree, which then shakes back and forth until a stick man falls out and lands on the ground. Most people were a little shocked and wondering why we were showing a graphic where someone falls to their death out of a tree. First of all, it's a stick man. Secondly, he's not dead, he's just lying on the ground and whoever made it didn't animate it any further than that. Third and most importantly, it illustrates how plants are eventually going to be producing human products...including humans. Why doesn't anyone get it?

I am currently addicted to this dessert that my roommate made the other night for a small dinner party we hosted (when I say "small", I mean "for one other person"). I know she's told me the name of it, but I still can't call it anything other than "the green stuff". It's like a square, and it has a graham cracker crumb base, but the main ingredients are a combination of products that you wouldn't normally think to put together in a bowl, namely pineapple chunks, lemon juice, marshmellows, and lime Jello, heated throughly and then left to gel, and finally topped with whipped cream and kiwi slices. It has a sort of fluorescence to it, but it's really really good. The lesson here: give lime Jello a chance. Take that Martha.

"Go shawty, it's your birthday, we gon' party like it's yo birthday..."

Screwed.

I think that's the best way of expressing my current state.

Or maybe utterly screwed.

I'm sure none of you really want to hear about what I need to do, and when I need to do it by, and how I pretty much haven't done any of it yet, so I'll skip those details. I just wanted to set the scene for you before I begin my diatribe about how my father has chosen this exact moment to pressure me about my career. Yes Daddy, I know it's important to get a job. No Daddy, I haven't found one yet. Yes Daddy, I am still looking, but I kind of have other things to do right now. Like graduate.

I know that I am already a disappointment to him for not going to grad school, but I didn't say that I'm NEVER going to grad school I'm just not going RIGHT NOW.

And right now, I'm here, doing something other than what I should be doing, panicking about the stuff I should be doing, and still not doing what I should.

"Every day is a winding road"

Has anyone else been receiving e-mails from (apparently) several bank auditor generals in South Africa, acting on behalf of some dead foreign industrialist who left $26 Million in a bank account, and wants you to pose as this dead guy's beneficiary so that the auditor general can transfer the money to your account to basically smuggle it out of the country, so that he can get a 60% cut of the booty while you get 35% (with 5% for expenses)?

Just wondering...

You would think that, by now, I would be okay with making presentations. At the very least, that I would not feel like I was going to pass out, throw up, or spastically hyperventilate in the few minutes leading up to it. But no. Still got those damned butterflies. And yet the second I get up there, it's just me and the powerpoint (well, and my partner(s), depending on the situation). And then I stare at people without seeing them, and the whole thing just presents itself. And then it's over, and I'm left standing there like the doof that I am wondering what the hell I was so worried about in the first place. Until the next presentation (which, by the way, is on Monday).

For those of you just joining us, welcome! Come on in, take a peek at my brain. Or a glance...or a gaze...whatever you prefer.

Would you believe me if I told you that I had completely forgotten about current world events for a brief moment? It's true! It just totally slipped my mind. How could this possibly have happened, you ask? I haven't the first clue. All I know is, for about a day or two, I was considering going to visit a friend in the States. And it never occurred to me that this could be a problem. After all, I'm just going to visit a friend, I'm not smuggling a weapon of mass destruction. And to Ann Arbor, of all places. But, as my mother pointed out, someone else could be, so why put myself in that kind of position? But it's fascinating how this war affects me in such an insignificant way that I could just forget that it's happening. Or maybe it really is senility setting in. Either way, sorry Ada, can't make it right now. I guess I'll just have to visit you in T.O.

Lesson for the day: be wary of grey meat.

"Come out upon my seas/cursed missed opportunites/am I a part of the cure/or am I part of the disease"

The post-party-mellow-out phase. Here's a numerical recap of last night's events:

6 - number of people I knew who showed up to the same salon to get their hair done at the same time (5 girls + 1 prof getting his hair cut)
1 - number of times we had to turn around because we forgot something
620 - approximate number of people who came to this shindig
zillion - approximate number of photos I was directly or indirectly involved in
3 - number of times I was hit on the head with a balloon by a drunken classmate (actually, it was the same person each time)
2 - number of glasses of wine that I had
5 - number of really good songs played in a row that I had to dance to, despite the fact that my feet were numb
1 - number of muscles I pulled while dancing a little too vigorously
0 - number of door prizes I won (boo...)
42 - number of bobby pins I pulled out of my skull at the end of the night ("ouch" doesn't exactly cover it)
7 - number of hours of sleep I managed (not too shabby)
2 - number of extra people living at my house right now

From the sporatic reports I had received throughout the night and today, people seemed to have enjoyed themselves, which is always nice to hear when you spent the last 8 months getting this thing ready for them. And as far as I know, nobody destroyed any toilets this year, which is also nice to hear. But someone did have a confrontation with a door. Unfortunately, he lost.

"See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen"

I really miss Toronto. Well, I was there last weekend, but it was really surreal. I was cruising into the city towards Union Station, and I was looking at the skyline and suddenly I realized that this is it...this is home. I will never ever feel the same way about any other place on Earth. Even though I've been in Waterloo for the better part of the past 5 years, and it's not a bad place to be stranded in, it doesn't compare to this overwhelming feeling of belonging that I felt as the bus took me home. Don't get me wrong, I love travelling and experiencing the world (my last major journey was to France...that was absolutely amazing). I think everyone should feel that they belong somewhere. I've found my spot.

So, several hours from now, I'll be attending my Gradball (which, contrary to what certain other people think, is not a new kind of sporting event). It's one of those rare occasions where I can attempt to get pretty and wear dainty shoes that would cripple most men. But before I go and hide beneath a stratum of foundation and hairspray, a funny story to tell.

While watching TV, my roommate Marie and I encountered one of those great car commercials that try to generate that warm fuzzy feeling that only comes from cheesy nostalgia. These people are driving through a town that is populated by teenage prom-goers while Forever Young is playing in the background. As the commercial continues, they drive past girls in pastel gowns standing by the wall, guys dancing, mirror balls everywhere, and Marie's face takes on a look of confusion, and she asks me, "Why is everyone in high school so fat?"

Okay, it was funny to me, and if you see the commercial again, take a look. Especially at the girls by the wall.

"Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, are you going to drop the bomb or not?"