My big mouth

I used to say, loudly and to anyone who would listen, that Krispy Kremes were so delicious that I could eat a dozen of them. A DOZEN! Because they're all sugar and air, right?

WRONG!

Krispy Kremes are made entirely of trans fats and coated in a layer of arsonic.

One day a few years ago, Ben and Caleb took me up on my ridiculous boast, and because Alan's up for anything, the four of us hopped in a car and drove to Surrey, where we each bought a dozen donuts.

By the fourth donut, they had stopped tasting good. After six donuts, I surveyed my stomach and realized that, while it was rebelling, I was only half done, and that I would have to repeat myself. After nine donuts you have to just shut your brain off and keep putting things in your mouth. Your mouth will know what to do.

Ben plowed through his first nine in six minutes flat, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'd caught up to him by donut twelve. Watching him eat those last three was like watching someone eat a baby.

In the end, three of us succceeded (note our Hats of Victory),

And one of us failed horribly (he wanted to wear the Hat of Shame, but it looked suspiciously like our Hats of Victory so we made him take it off).

And that was the day I got diabetes. Not the real kind. The kind where you lie on the floor and moan 'Ohhhhh, my diabetes.' I think they call that Type III.

To balance out my karma

Alright, kids. It's been a five-day break from the haterade, and I hope you're all ready for a tsunami of luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv.

Things that I love:

- the note Joel left for me the other day informing me that if he was not home when I arrived, that he was somewhere else.

- the two Canadian geese that have taken over the UCFV campus, and the knowledge that spring and an onslaught of bunnies can't be far behind.

- all this fake-spring that's been going on, lulling me into the hope that it might segue into real-spring without backlashing into crappy winter

- Advil

- my book blog (you know it and I know it, regular-blog. You haven't been my favorite for months now. Let's just get it all out in the open like adults)

- that my brother found someone to marry him

- that my sister found someone to get old-person ailments with her (Darren has shingles, and boo has had, at various times, kidney stones and the gout)

- my aunt, who knows that I secretly love fantasy novels and I can't resist anything with lords and ladies and clashes of family honor, and that if she buys me the first book in a series, I'll have no choice but to tear through the entire thing. She is my gateway drug.

- string cheese

- my ratty old bathrobe

- my tiny four-cup coffee maker which makes just enough for me and a friend, or for me and for me.

- this girl in my bio class who keeps asking me how long ago things were for me (i.e. 'How long ago was Biology 12 for you?') and then cackling, because get it? I'm old.

- my care group

- my potluck group

- my writer's group

- my Alpha group

- that there are only three more biology labs left in the semester, and then I never have to touch fruit flies or try to figure out their sex under the microscope ever again (I have to explain this part, because it's creepy and hilarious. So, for reasons I don't yet understand, we have to sort our experimental fruit flies into males and females, but we have to knock them out first, which I'd love to tell you that we do with tiny clubs, but we use ether. H'anyvays, getting them from the jar where they live to the jar with the ether involves a certain amount of pinache that none of us seem to have, and the room is always swarming with escaped specimens. You finally get maybe half your flies into the ether and then you leave them in there until they pass out, but not until they die, because you need them to breed later, so you're hesitant to leave them in too long. Once they're under, you dump them onto a sheet of paper and look at them under the microscope, which, creepy, and then you have to sort them into males and females, except that you haven't left them in the ether long enough and so while you're poking them with your sorting stick and looking at them under 400x magnification, they wake up and start crawling!!!! Ack!! Hrack!! Euck!!! I can feel them on my skin).

- the fact that they installed a Tim Hortons on campus just in time for Roll Up The Rim

Hate/Like

Ok, there are tons more things that I hate, among them:

going grocery shopping late at night so that all that's left is the reject-produce,
people who walk slowly (particularly in tight areas such as hallways or anywhere if they're fat),
parents who give their children 'interesting' names,
people with interesting names who get upset when you mispronounce them,
poor tippers,
non-tippers,
dine-and-dashers,
everyone in my Phil 100 class except for the girl who sits on my left,
trans-fats,
light purple,
old coffee,
coming out of a Subway smelling like Subway,
A Million Little Pieces,
high-pitched voices that get even higher when they're upset/excited/talking,
and the Philadelphia Flyers.

I have to catch the greyhound now (which is filed under 'Things that stress me out a little' and gets moved over to 'Things I hate' pretty often), so I don't have time to reel you out of that hate-spiral myself. Instead, go check out this list of stuff that, because I'm white, I like. If you, too, are white, then you, too, will like them. I'm not even joking.

Keepin the streak alive

Alright, Jane, here's another thing I hate.

I have this one prof who has, on a previous occasion, given assignment instructions on the day the assignment is due. By which I mean, as we were going to hand it it, she says, 'Now look yours over and make sure that you did such and such.' And if we didn't? 'Well, then just go ahead and add it in.'

...

This, apparently, is more a teaching style than a one-time mistake. We had a midterm today, part take-home and part in-class (quick aside: worst possible scenario. Not only do I have to put in out-of-class time pulling something together, but I ALSO have to study, and THEN I have to engage my brain during class time as well). She decides she's going to lecture first, and then have us write our in-class part last so that people who finish early can leave early, which is fine. Except that everything she's lecturing on has major ramifications for the take-home part that we all have typed and printed and ready to go on our desks. One girl finally says, 'Are you going to cut us some slack on our take-homes since you didn't lecture on this until today?' to which the prof replies, 'Well, as long as you did such and such and such, you'll be fine.' Another guy (probably speaking for the whole class) pipes up with, 'And if we didn't?'

'Oh, go ahead and add it in now.'

!&#^%$?!?!?!?!

This is a fairly heavily-researched, extensively thought-through and carefully organized report. You aren't just asking me to replace all the 'the's with 'racecar,' or to turn all my semi-colons into smiley faces. I can't restructure my whole argument with a few pen strokes.

And no, I didn't raise a stink because I am, how you say, l'exhausted, but if ANYthing comes back all 'You have made an incorrect assumption here' or whatever, I'm sticking it to the (wo)man. Trust.

Fake gymmers

Ok, I was going to put an end to this 'things I hate' stretch because who needs that kind of negativity when it's raining like it is? But then I went to the gym today, and there was this girl in thick eyeliner, a tight, LOW-cut tank top and these spandy-pants that were a whisper away from showing off her ladybits, and that reminded me of another thing that I hate.

Because, see, I'm a serious gymmer. I go to the gym to work out, and I would happily work out in a t-shirt and sweats but then I overheat and my nose bleeds. So I wear a tank top and shorts, but my goal is comfort and ease of movement and MAN do I look it. I am not trying to catch myself a beefcake. All I want to do is shrink my muffin tops and go home.

And it's fine by me if you come to the gym straight from class or work or whatever in full make-up (which is, incidentally, why you're breaking out so much, because sweating causes your pores to open up and then make-up falls into them), and if you're more comfortable in your spandy shorts or your lululemon pants, that's cool too. I'm not one to judge, and I don't mind that you look good.

But I doubt that those giant hoop earrings are helping your performance, and I doubt that skate shoes are comfortable to run in, and I doubt that your girls feel secure, spilling out of your top like they do. I mean, you look hot. You really do. And that's fine. I just want you to get off my damn treadmill, because I am here for reals.

Sticks and stones

Ok, while we're talking about things that I hate, let me just bring this up. One of my profs last week called us all 'dummies,' and not in a funny, jokey kind of way, but in an aggressive, 'What do the rest of you dummies think' kind of way.

SO not appropriate.

And the reason he called us all 'dummies' was because no one was participating in the discussion, which was totally true, but also totally his fault. Some classes are chatty on their own and all you have to do is throw out a topic and they'll jump on it like hounds on steak. But some classes need to be encouraged to chat, and this guy actively discourages class participation.

I have this other totally amazing prof who kind of looks like a less-rough-living Janitor from Scrubs (sorry, Tim, but you totally do), who will toss out questions and ideas and then say things like 'I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this,' and then when you offer up your thoughts, he'll say things like 'Yes, yes I'm very moved by that' or 'Yes, I think that statement is very helpful,' both of which mean 'You haven't spoken my thoughts verbatim, but thanks for your input and keep trying.' EVERYONE talks in this class. Talking is positively reinforced.

My 'dummies' prof will also toss out questions, but with that tone - you know when you're trying to lead someone down a very obvious path of reasoning, like 'Ok, how many hands do you have? And how many bowling balls can you carry in each hand? So how many bowling balls can you carry?' - that's the tone, all the time, like the answer is right in front of us, only his questions will be so vague and so abstract that there's NO way you could know what he wants to hear. And there's no point in trying, because if your answer isn't his thoughts verbatim he'll shut you down flat. You'll be like, 'Is it...A?' And he'll turn to the class so they and he can share in your idiocy, and say 'Well, it's B, isn't it?' Like, come on guys, how did you not get this? Only this is ENGLISH, not science. There are right-ish answers and wrong-ish answers, but most answers fall somewhere in the middle.

Ok, so in a class full of people who like to hear their own voices anyways, this might not make much of a dent, but my class is full of shy, rabbity people, and for most of them, they don't even need to be shut down personally. They can see someone else being put in their place (usually me, because I just can't take the silence and the gaping stare of disbelief that no one is offering their opinion so that it can be pummelled, and also because I like to hear my own voice), and solemnly vow never to open their own mouths.

Because you're damned if you do, and dummies if you don't.

Because I need to get this off my chest

Dear Malaspina University-College,

Firstly, I didn’t know that there were any other university-colleges. I thought it was something the University College of the Fraser Valley had made up so that they wouldn’t feel quite so bad about not being a real university. And I would feel some sort of solidarity with you over this if I didn’t hate you so much.

Because, see, here’s the thing , I totally do.

I had to hang out with you all weekend, and you know what they say familiarity breeds (hint, because you don’t, because you’re an idiot: it's contempt). There are so many things about you that are terrible. You have the tiniest, darkest cesspool of a gym in all of BC. Granted, it used to be an aircraft hangar, which is historically awesome and kind of aesthetically interesting, but as a gymnasium it’s an impractical mess. And I know you know this. You know that you’re on the lower socio-economic scale of gymnasiums, because you’ve played in other gyms, and you know that they have things like lights, and seats. You can only seat, like, a dozen people, which is fine, really, because that's about the number of people that want to be there.

You know that no one wants to come to your gym anyways, let alone pay you eight dollars (four if they lie by omission and let you believe they’re still in high school) to sit on your hard, splintery bleachers just so they can watch their husband play the last damn volleyball games of his career. Where do you get off, then, cordoning half of your seats and labeling them ‘Mal-U Students Only’? This is like me inviting you to my house (under duress) and then dropping ‘Kruegers only' signs on all my couches, and then making you walk around until you find a seat that isn’t reserved. You think that’s good hosting? Making the first thing I see a giant ‘You Can’t Sit Here’ sign? Since you obviously do have to block off your students due to their douche-baggery (this is, honest, the reason we were given for the designated section), why not put them in the second set of bleachers? You can see from there just fine, and that way the first thing I’ll see when I walk in is a place to sit, and the second thing I’ll see is a sign indicating that I’ll be spared sitting with your reprehensible student body.

Your students are total ass-hats. Again, I know you know this. When we threw down the gauntlet and insisted on sitting in the Mal-U section, because to hell with your signs, we were politely but firmly informed that we should move, because every Mal student worth his or her salt was currently at the pub (it was 2:30 in the afternoon) and would be arriving at 3:00 for the Mal – Douglas game, and that that section would become rather R-rated. And I know that college students have a right, almost an obligation, to get falling-down drunk in the middle of the afternoon and then come out and support their fellow students. Fine. Most schools have a few who go above and beyond the usual call of enthusiasm (read: boozery), but your school has more than their fare share. By which I mean, all of them. And it’s one thing to support your own team, but to relentlessly abuse your opponents and the officials? Do you not have enough faith in your team to win on their own, you have to go pounding your drums every time we hit the ball? You have to yell things I can’t even repeat on my blog, they’re too rude? You should! Your men's and women's teams are both really, really good. Let them win on their own, without making total fools of yourselves. Although, I can’t begin to express the deep psychological pleasure I got from having a guy ask me which school I was from so I could say UCFV so he could say where? So I could say oh, we’re the team that beat you guys out last weekend and took your number-one spot in the league. Yes? Remember us now? Eat it.

And another thing I hate about your gym – it’s too damn hot! Open a wall or something! Every other gym keeps their temperature at a healthy -30° so that the players are comfortable and the fans can all sit huddling in their winter jacket. That’s how we like it. All I brought was sweaters! Who are you to change the heating rules?

And another thing, why is one of your ball-boys nine years old? I’m not even joking, he could not have broken double digits. This is the provincial championships, not some mickey mouse operation. If your event staff can’t drink, they should at least be old enough to drive.

Oh yeah, and your gym is too damn far from the parking lot. What the hell? Why should I have to walk for ten minutes in the pouring rain (alright, it was a beautiful sunny day and I rather enjoyed the walk, but last year when you hosted Nationals [again, what the hell?] it poured rain and I got soaked and had to sit in your hot, dark, stinking hole of a gym with damp jeans).

Oh, and your concession stand sucks. Why would you pop your popcorn and then just let it sit there, getting cold and greasy? Why not leave it in the popper until someone wants some, and then fill a bag and butter it? And also, I’m not paying $4 for a bowl of your crap chili.

Oh, and in the half-dozen games that I watched, play had to be stopped eight times because your score-keepers couldn't get their shit together. And if your announcer can't pronounce a simple name like 'Togeretz' then he should be fired.

In short, everything about you sucks. You are the bottom-feeder of university-colleges. I hope your mom at least thinks you’re cool.

PS: I have spent the entire weekend drenched in college sports. My language will clean itself up directly.

My baby's first trip

Joel has spent approximately half of the weekends between here and last October (excluding Christmas) on volleyball road trips, which is fine. Since we're never home at the same time anyways, I'm used to puttering around by myself, and the only real trouble comes when it's time to go to bed, because I don't know when that is. That's one of those things I can only now decide in a collective.

For the most part, I usually go out with friends when Joel's gone, or go hang out upstairs with my landlords, and then I come home and spend some time with my laptop (whom I love) before picking up a book and a bag of chips and heading to bed, because I can eat in bed, because I'm the only one in it.

This weekend, though, Joel asked if he could borrow my laptop and bring it with him to Provincials, since they'll be gone from the afternoon today until the morning Sunday and he has more than a few things coming up due. I said no.

- You need it to take notes in class?

- ...Actually, no. I don't use it for my afternoon class today nor my evening class tomorrow, and the class I have tomorrow morning where I would usually use it has been cancelled.

- So I can bring it?

- Well, crap. Yes.

But it makes me so nervous, see. I have no problem lending my laptop out to people, and this fact has probably contributed to the overwhelming number of viruses I've contracted over the years, but for it to take the ferry and go all the way over to the Island by itself, without me to look out for it? What if it gets stolen? Or someone spills a Slushee on Joel's duffel bag? Because obviously that sort of thing wouldn't happen if I was there to keep an eye out.

Joel came to kiss be goodbye before he left to meet up with the rest of the team, and after I told him to drive safe and play hard and earn my love, I bent down and whispered 'Godspeed, little laptop. Godspeed.'

B-I-N-G-O

Have you ever been BINGO-ing?

You need to go.

I tell you, there is no better way to spend five dollars and two-and-a-half hours (they just flew by) than with a roomful of old people and their bingo-dabbers. I went last night with a dozen or so friends, and you could tell the regulars were just seething, especially when Dan won the first round. He was the only one of us to win anything, but that detracts nothing from the awesome, soothing/stressful joy of seeking out letter-number combinations and dabbing them.

For me, it was all the fun of competition without any of the bother of trying. For some other people, that's what drove them nuts. You have that same sense of need-to-win but there's nothing you can DO to win. If your card sucks, it sucks, and that's that.

One of the ladies circling the tables was quite adept at dealing with newbies. She'd come over between games and tell us what was going to happen next, what we were expected to do, whether it was a 'special' round (those cards cost an extra 50 cents, but the pots were higher) and how to play. Bingo is hard, people. You're not just getting a line, and then going to see who can get blackout. It'll be, like, any three lines but not counting your free squares, or any blocks of six but they can't overlap, and that's the most stressful part, the taking a second to look around your 9-card square to see if you're even getting close, because you're not sure you'd recognize a 'half-card' when you saw it.

The other most stressful part was the other lady toddling around the tables. She was quite a bit older, and clearly had no experience dealing with non-bingo-savvy guests. She'd come up to my elbow in the middle of the game while I'm frantically searching out all my B-9's and be like 'Do you want a blue card?'

Me: *dab, dab* What's it for?

Her: It's to win a prize.

Me: *dab, dab dab* How do I play?

Her: You have to get it stamped.

Me: *dab* What was that last number? 0-68? Um...how do I get it stamped? *dab dab*

Her: By one of the employees.

Me:...Serious? I have no B-4's on any of my cards? Um...I don't follow. The employees stamp it, and then I win a prize? Do I have to get...I-18 or 19? 19? Do I have to get all the employees to stamp it? Is it like a scavenger hunt?

Her: *shocked* No! You get one stamp every time you come.

Me: *dab DAB dab* Oh, it's like a frequent bingo-er card. No thanks, *dab* I don't bingo that often.

Her: Ok. *moves on to Dan beside me* Do you want a blue card?

Dan: What's it for?

Her: It's to win a prize.

So Dan won $30 and the rest of us spent around $7, which is not a bad deal for an evening's entertainment. I can see how the bingo hall draws in so many people, night after night. It's pretty addictive. Luckily, there are pamphlets for the Time Out Voluntary Self-Exclusion Program strategically placed at all the tables. So you can kick yourself out.

Meal replacements

I've been trying to eat more salads lately, because they're good for you, and because if I eat a salad, I feel more justified in eating a box of Valentine's chocolates later. But I don't like them. They're full of vegetables, and vegetables are gross, and I'm always starving twenty minutes later. But I realized that if you add chick peas to them, they taste better and you're fuller longer. And then I realized that if you add black beans to them, they taste better still, and you're fuller even longer. Eventually, when I go to eat a 'salad' I'll really just be indulging in a sort of cold chili. With dressing.

Return of the Camera, Pt. I

Alright, liebchens, I am back. I have written two midterms, one essay, and several short assignments, AND I fixed my camera. Now I can share with you all those lovely pictures I took of my brother's wedding.

In a recent email, my aunt called Bekah and I 'trouble making shit disturbing 'back of the church' rehearsal rebels,' which is not all true. We started the wedding rehersal (as the pictures will clearly show) at the front of the church, and then were sent to the back because of all the trouble-making and shit-disturbing we were doing. But we couldn't help it, because look how hilarious we are.



I know, hilarious, right? And really, we tried to keep it together and amuse ourselves quietly, but then this happened.




Look at this picture. No, really look at it. Look at Bekah's eyes. They point in opposite directions! Not like this:





Anyone can do that. They point in the other opposite directions! Look closer!!!!!!!!


I know! It was totally worth her coming with me. For both of us.

Return of the Camera, Pt. II

And then I lost camera privileges because I very obviously wasn't taking any candid shots, like I was supposed to be doing, and so my mom went around snapping pictures of people mid-sentence or from far away and the only really good photos are this one (the bridesmaids were practicing their shoes) and this one (so were the groomsmen). (So were me and boo. Boo says I have the feet of a Texas hooker. But I don't.)





H'anyvays, then me and boo stole the camera back and took unflattering shots of ourselves from beneath





and action shots of us blinking



We manually corrected the flaws in our noses (hers is too long and mine is too blobby)


And tried to capture on film just how much shorter Tom is than Nathan (answer: a lot).



AND we took some candid shots. Check it.



Not totally useless after all.

Return of the Camera, Pt. III

And THEN after all this hoo-hah, we still had a wedding to go to. I'm not going to lie, I got one picture of the bride and groom, and it's not even good.





See? That's Matt's surly face. But see how pretty Gillian is? And see what a winning couple boo and Darren are?





And see how endearing my grandparents are?





And see how patiently my dad explains food to my grandma?


And see how handsome my husband is?



And how gorgeous my neighbor?



And how dashing my brother?



And how beautiful my steak?




Ahh, what a steak. Steak, I will never forget you. Mashed potatoes, you weren't half bad either.

Return of the Camera, Pt. IV

H'anyvays, I totally fixed my camera by accident, but the only reason I started fiddling around with it again was because I wanted to show you something. It all started this morning...well...it all started last night, because I had to work on a paper until 2:00 this morning, and then get up at 7:00 to finish it before class. I was sitting in the office this morning typing away, and I heard a noise in the kitchen that sounded very much like Joel pouring my coffee for me.

'That's sweet,' I thought to myself. 'It's Valentines Day and he's bringing me my coffee.' Several minutes went by, and I began to think I'd been mistaken, and that I should probably get up and get my coffee my ownself before it got that burnt taste from sitting too long on the heating coil.

But then the door opened and Joel walked in, mug in hand. It was like nothing so much as when small children make breakfast in bed for their parents, and then carry it to them with tiny, cautious steps because they're afraid of spilling, except that this was a grown man and all he had was a cup of coffee that he'd accidentally filled to the brim. Rather than pour some out or slurp it off, he'd baby-stepped down the hall to bring it to me. Sweetness.

I had totally let him off the hook, Valentines Day-wise because, whatever, it's a long story and who really cares anyways. Bringing me my coffee and taking me to Taco del Mar tomorrow, when we finally have time, is enough lovin' for me. Except that when I finally peeled myself off of the paper-writing chair to bring my coffee cup back to the kitchen, I saw this.

The note says something nice about him loving me forever, or something. The chocolates are extra-cacao, just how I like them.

All quiet...

Hey kids, sorry for the silence on this end. Every semester has that week where everything converges, and sleep and proper nutrition sneak off for a weekend in Vegas. This is 'that week' and I had a midterm yesterday and one this morning, and I have a huge paper and several small assignments due Thursday. I know, all I ever do is harp on how busy I am, so I'll shut it now. Just wanted you to know that you were lost, but not forgotten...

Is there a gene for 'clumsy'?

My dad could cut himself on a cotton ball.

I am his daughter.

Joel and I were chatting with my mom last weekend, and the whole I-got-my-hand-caught-in-a-Kitchen-Aide incident came into play.

'Did you hear about this?' Joel says to my mom.

'Oh, well, she comes by it honestly,' she replies, and then launches into a story of how my dad hurt himself on some seemingly innocuous household tool.

Yesterday, she mentioned in an email that my dad had sprained his ankle, to which I replied, 'How? Chasing Koala? Getting out of bed?' Because he would.

Twenty minutes later, I was reaching into the washing machine to pull out some wet towels, and then nail on my middle finger bent back, about two millimeters below that line where your nail leaves the nail bed. And stayed that way. I had to stare at it and scream a little bit before I could push it flat again. Now there's a dark red line arcing across my nail bed, and a little bit of sub-nail bleeding. I'd take a picture and show you, but again, broken camera.

Papa, I feel your pain. Let us go and live in a down-feather world, safe from all sharp objects and table legs.

Greyhound - We're...On Our Way? Eventually?

Ok, so, the Greyhound.

I live about a 15-minute walk from the Greyhound, and I usually leave the house at 9:45 to get there by 10 to catch the 10:25 bus, because you're supposed to do that and travel stresses me out and so I like to do things the way there supposed to be done, as though that would lessen some of the stress. So, a number of weeks ago I get to the Greyhound station just before 10, buy my ticket, and settle in to read my book and eat my snacks and wait my half-hour. An hour goes by. A handful of people drift in between 10:25 and 11, when the bus actually shows up.

'Uh, sorry folks,' says the mild-mannered if mildly-dull Greyhound driver. 'I only have room for 11 people.' I rapidly counted heads in front of me, and phew, I'm #11, and sucks to everyone behind me but thems the breaks. Except that he'd miscounted the empty seats, and only had room for 9 people. So sucks to me.

Those of us not lucky enough to board the bus sulk back into the station, and it's only a minute or two before we realize that these are all the faces we'd exchanged courteous smiles with over an hour ago, when we'd bought our tickets. All the johnny-come-lately's, the 10:25-11 drifters who, had the bus been on time, would have missed it entirely - these are the people who grunted and elbowed their way to the front of the line and down to Vancouver. What douches.

And to make matters worse, the next bus isn't until 1:00, and to make matters worse, the lady at the counter is still selling tickets into Vancouver, which means that, should the 1:00 bus be anything but empty, we might miss our boat again. So a dozen or so seniors and I storm the front counter and rant and rail and shake our canes, and the lady phones the Greyhound Big Dogs to tell them that she has a bunch of angry people at her counter.

So they cab us into Vancouver. Which is nice of them, but I still don't get into Burnaby until around 3:00, when I should have been there at 1:00.

One week later, I am again at the Greyhound just before 10:00, waiting in line, buying a ticket, sitting down with my book and snacks. The station is eerily quiet, and I make casual mention of this to the ticket lady.

'Oh yes,' she says, 'the 9:00 bus just came five minutes before you got here, and took everyone.'

Well, rats. So I'm sitting and I'm waiting and I'm snacking and I'm reading, and then I overhear her say quietly into the phone:

'Ok, well, I'm just going to deal with the people in line and then I'll tell them.'

So I check my watch and it's nearly 11:00, so I head to the counter and ask the lady if she's heard from the bus, which is rude because there's still a line-up of people, but I'm a little angry because I know she has and isn't telling us just yet. The bus is stuck out in Hope, the roads are blocked, Chilliwack has no buses to spare, they're not sure when it'll be through, we all just have to wait.

I know, I could go home now, but it's uphill all the way, and then I'd miss the bus for sure, and I have to go to Burnaby because Gillian's shower is that evening, so I hunker down to wait, and the bus finally breaks through and shows up at around noon. I get to Burnaby at around 3:00.

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally managed to beat the Greyhound at their own game, except not really. I always catch the 10:25 bus because I like to go to the gym on Friday mornings, and 9:45 is the earliest I can conceivably finish gymming and showering and packing so I can leave the house on time. Last Friday, however, I managed to catch the 9:00 bus.

Except that I caught it at 10:15!!! I have no idea when the 10:25 bus came (my guess is...about now), but the 9:00 bus was so tardy that I was able to cool my heels for a quarter of an hour, and then climb aboard. Take that, Greyhound. Your inexpressibly bad service moved my arrival up by 10 minutes!

So...about learning to drive...

Mawwige

What's up, kids! I know, it's been ages. But I've been muuy busy. My brother got married, see, and I was making a dress for the wedding because I found this fabulous grey pseudo-wool for super-cheap, on account of it being an 'unknown fiber' and me only guessing about it being pseudo-wool. So I've spent most of my spare seconds of the past week or so plugging away at this dress, leaving fabric shards and thread clippings ALL over the house (Joel, bless his heart, vacuumed yesterday, and then told me I wasn't allowed to do any more sewing, it being hard on both our carpet and my sanity). The dress ended up being lumpy-bumpy all up one side, and in repeated efforts to smooth it out I ended up making it super-mad-tight, and then I affixed the straps a little crooked so that my side-boob spilled all out from the one armpit. I know. You are so horribly crushed that my camera is, how you say, le broke, and I can't get the pictures off of it to show you. You are all dying to see my lumpy grey elephant body, and my side-boob.

Ok, so the dress was made and on Friday morning and I headed off to catch the Greyhound, and I can feel in my bones that this post is going to be a long one so I'll save for later the stories of how the Greyhound's been successively screwing me over, and how I finally beat them at their own game, only sort of. Suffice it to say that I survived the trip to Burnaby, and my sister survived our shoe-shopping adventure even though I'm a picky bitch, and I survived the fact that the world's sassiest pair of shoes only comes in sizes six and eight-and-a-half (for the record, I am a seven).

I made Boo come to the rehearsal with me, because I had to be there because I was reading Scripture in the ceremony (OH my nerves), but I knew I'd be bored silly without her, and we both 'practiced' our heels and then regretted it the next day when we went to slide them on and they fit nicely onto the little grooves and blisters they'd carved the day before. Life and learn.

They made us sit in the back of the church while the rehearsal was going on, because we were being 'disruptive,' and then my mom confiscated my camera because I was supposed to be taking candid pictures of the rehearsal, but all I ended up with was this gem of my sister going wall-eyed. Who knew?

The morning of the wedding dawned horrible and snowy, and so Joel had to bring my grandparents in from Abbotsford, jaws-of-life-ing Irene into the back seat of our little two-door. Joel and I cut quite a dashing figure, he in his well-seasoned wedding suit, and me in my grey wool sausage-casing. My dad's been eating salads for a week to fit back into his wedding suit, and my mom looked like Audrey Hepburn in Breafast at Tiffany's. Bekah wore a dress and heels for the first time since grade school (and the 'heels' she wore then were more what you call 'platforms') and Darren found a suit long enough for his body. As I suppose is appropriate, Matt looked better than any of us, all shiny tux and silver tie.

Again, as is probably appropriate, everyone else's carefully-curled hair and hastily-shined shoes faded into the background when Gillian swept into the room on her father's arm. Oh mercy, I'm getting all misty-eyed just writing this. Looking suddenly very grown-up instead of like my brother's adorable girlfriend, she strode up to take her place by his side. Luckily for her, she and her maid of honor and my brother all had kleenex secreted about their persons. Luckily for me and every woman within a fifty-foot radius, we had our hankies and our sleeves and whatever, it isn't our wedding anyways so go ahead and use your scarf.

So, highlights of the night...my crazy Catholic neighbor called my uncle's fiancee by his ex-wife's name TO HER FACE! Shocking! My mom introduced her mother-of-the-groom speech as 'being brought to you courtesy of the alcohol,' and then went on to admit that, being Mennonite through and through, she struggled between abstinance and a good deal (i.e. the free booze). HA! Tipsy-mom is hilarious-mom. My crazy Catholic neighbor's gorgeous daughter showed up in a flowy 70's muumuu, my cousin and her stunt-man-dentist boyfriend escaped the clutches of their needy dog-child to make an appearance, and the steak was amazing.

And then, as the night was drawing to a close, the crowd clinked their glasses for one last kiss. Instead of sucking faces like they'd been doing, Matt kissed Gillian quickly and sweetly on the lips before pulling her to him, hugging her and grinning like the lucky idiot he knows he is.

Hippoetry

Ok, you know how sometimes someone tells a story, and you know by the end that the only reason they told that story was because they thought they'd said something clever, and they wanted you to know how clever they were, even though you couldn't be present at the actual moment of said cleverness?

The blogging equivalent of that is to post an IM conversation you've had with someone in which you think you've been very funny. I know a couple of bloggers that do this, and I hate it. It reeks of desperation and insecurity. (For those of you who post IM's for other reason, and you know who you are, I'm totally not talking about you.) I don't mean recreating conversations you've had with people, because that takes a certain amount of framing and some memory and a good dose of creativity, because no one walks around taping their conversations. I mean the complete unwillingness to try and be a different funny, to have to cling to this morning's funny.

However, in the interest of seeing how the other half lives, and because really, this was too funny to keep between the two of us, I bring to you a Facebook conversation I had with my sister this morning. (Sorry about the formatting. I thought it would be hilarious and fun to put a photo at the bottom, but you know how blogger is with photos [hint: neither hilarious nor fun].)


Boo: we are doing grids at school (such as the grid of a magazine or a book or something) and to make it interesting, I am making my titles and sub-heads about hippopotamus's. So I've put for one subhead "God save thee, Hippopotamus, from the fiends that plague thee thus!" and also "do not ask for whom the Hippopotamu Tolls" which is less clever, but relevant, I'm sure...


Raych: Ah ha ha ha ha! I love a good 'hippopotamus/ancient mariner' reference.
This is just to say, I have eaten the hippopotamus that was in the ice box...



B: Once upon a marshland dreary
hippos wandered sleek and weary
over many quaint and curious
flowers on a marshy floor

Ah, distinctly one remembers
hippos revving heavy blenders
blending bows of blood red flowers
showered petals on the floor.



R: Hilarious AND gross!

Twas brillig, and the hippopos
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the hippos outgrabe


B: Some say the world will end in hippos
some say in snakes
from what i taste of zats and zippos
I hold with those who favour hippos
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of snakes
for suffocation is also great
and would suffice.





R: Whose woods these are, I think I know
He lives with the village hippo
They will not see me stopping here
To watch their woods fill up with snow

My own hippo must think it queer
To stop without a watering hole near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year

He gives his hippo ears a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the ease
Of sweepy wind and downy flake

The woods are lovely, if you please
But I am holding back a sneeze
And hippos that stand too long, freeze
And hippos that stand too long, freeze


B: Hippo's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her breakfast is a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then belly subsides to belly.
So Eden sank to grief,
So the hippo goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


R:Hippo is the thing with wrinkly skin
That perches on the soul
And snorts and blows the bubbles round
And never stops at all

And loudest on the plains is heard
And starved must be the lion
That could devour the fat hippo
That...kept so many warm

I've heard it in the wettest bog
And in the deepest swamp
And never did it pass a weed
Without stopping to chomp


B: I'm a hippo! Who are you?
Are you a hippo, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't squeal!
They'd taxidermic us, you know.

How dreary to be human!
How public, like your stain
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring plain!


R: I do not like hip'potamus
I do not like them on a bus
I do not like them in a bog
I do not like them wrapped in fog

I do not like them soaked in marsh
I do not like them, yes, that's harsh
But now my yard is all a muss
I do not like hip'potamus


B:if i love You
(thick skin means
savannahs inhabited by roamingly
stern bright birds

if you love
me, hippo) distance is mind carefully
luminous with innumerable marshflowers
Of complete dream

if we love each (shyly)
other, what clouds do or Silently
Flowers resembles beauty
less than our snogging




R: O, my luv is like a grey, grey hippo
That's newly birthed in June
My luv is like the snorting and blowing
That's done oddly in tune

So fair art thou, my potamus
So deep in love am I
That I will love thy wrinkly face
Till all the marsh goes dry

Till all the marsh goes dry, my dear
And plains bake in the sun
And I will love thee still, my dear
While antelope shall run

And fare thee well, my only luv
And fare thee well a while
But I will come again for thee
In true potamus style




B: Hippo! Hippo! burning bright
In the marshes of the night,
What immortal hand or hoof
Could frame thy girthy simplicity?

In what distant swamps or seas
Swam you Hippo as thy please?
On your staunchy haunch aspire?
Birds on thy snout dare retire?

And what shoulder, and what rump.
Could twist the sinews of thy hump?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hoof? and what dread feet?





R: When I am dead, my hippo
Sing no sad songs for me
Plant thou no marsh plants at my head
Nor wide savannah tree

Be the ground dry above me
And sometimes soaking wet
And if thou wilt, remember
And if thou wilt, forget

I shall not hear your chomping
I shall not see your hide
I shall not see you march through bogs
As long as you are wide

And floating in the mud
That is never wet nor dry
A thousand thousand hippo things
Lived on, and so did I





B: I’ve heard there was a river horse
That often played, and would cavort
But you don’t really care for romping, do you?
It goes like this
Hippos and fish
The river dance, the swampy mix
The baffled hippotomus, it knew ya
potty knew ya
potty knew ya
potty knew ya
potty knew ya

Your skin was strong but you needed proof
You saw the hippo on the roof
It’s beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
You tied it to a whale crane
Air lifted it to Africain
And from its lips it blew a farewell to ya
farewell to ya
farewell to ya
farewell to ya
farewell to ya



R: I have to get to class
Alas
Hippos in the grass
Alas
Too wide for me to pass
Alas
I will be late for class
Alas

Lingua franca for a reason

Because I totally condone the use of thesaurases as long as you know what the word you're slotting in actually means (and also because I have romantic fantasies of Joel reading the dictionary to me while I eat bruschetta), I spend a lot of time on dictionary.com. Usually it's all business, but sometimes dict.com and I have some fun.

Like today, when I was looking up a synonym for 'sickness' and got: affection, affliction, ailment, backdoor trots...'

Backdoor trots. BACKDOOR TROTS!!! Who even cares what other synonyms there are? Why would you say 'malady' when 'backdoor trots' is at your disposal? Why waste your time on 'diseasedness' when 'backdoor trots' waits to spill from your lips (both literally and figuratively speaking)? What a glorious language we speak, when it contains such phrases as 'the backdoor trots.'

From left field

It snowed two days ago, so obviously the school is closed today. Joel and I are in the office, working on our homework. He goes to make us some tea. I have this way of looping the string from the tea bag around the handle of the mug and back under itself that I picked up working at Reds, because that way when you poured hot water into it really quickly, the string and little paper tab didn't slip into the mug with the water. It also throws people a little bit when they go to pull their tea bag out of their mug, and it catches on the handle, and they have to stop talking to figure out what's happening. Funny every time.

Anyways, so Joel brings the tea in, and he has the little strings looped around the handles and back under themselves.

Me: I like how you've picked up my string-looping trick.

Joel: I'm like the zombies.

Me:...

Joel: In that I learn things.


Obviously.

Bring on the Clarences

21

...you?

Crafty McNafty

Ok, so, I'm only taking four classes this semester, right? So, theoretically, I should have a ton more free time, right? Except that when you think you're going to have more free time, you totally over-load yourself, and taking one less class doesn't actually clear up my schedule as much as I think it does.

So, since I clearly haven't been blogging in all that spare time, what have I been up to?

Crafting.

I love crafting. I love how faddish it is. When I was in Austria, all the girls suddenly felt the call to learn knitting. Every class, we'd all have our knitting in our laps and be purling away. Even two of the guys learned to wield the needles (one of them quit after twenty minutes, the other insisted that he'd meant to knit Australia, and presented the saddle-shaped lump of wool to his girlfriend as a symbol of his devotion). Within weeks, everyone had hand-knitted toques and scarves.

Then there was the brief crocheting madness that swept CBC, followed by the year or so that Robyn and I compusively cross-stitched. She stitched The Last Supper, and Jesus had total shifty eyes.

The latest craft to sweep the Rachel-nation is....

...assless chaps!! No, I joke. We're making denium quilts, but to make denium quilts, you have to cut out endless squares of denium from cheap, gross, thift-store jeans (the fatter the ass, the more denium for your buck)

And then you have to sew those squares into twosies...

...and then you have to press those twosies, and then sew two twosieses together into a foursie, and then sew two foursies together into an eightsie, and so on down the line...

Then you have to let the dog sit on it for a while to season it.

Then, when you've made three huge squares of denium patches, and you think you're almost done, you have to attach them to the backing...

which is more back-breaking and angrifying than you want it to be...

But in the end, wheee!Denium quilts for everyone! Cuddly and soft on one side, heavy and durable on the other! I am a crafting genius, AND now Joel has a second blanket to bring to bed with him, so he can stop complaining about how I hog the blanket. See? Everone wins!!

Tranquility fountain

Well...shit.

So, a few days ago I was invited to the Facebook group 'Farewell Brandon McCoy, We'll Miss You' and I thought 'Oh good, Brandon finally quit. He's been working at Red Robin for way too long.' Today I actually joined that Facebook group.

Brandon isn't quitting, he's dead.

The car that he was in was backing out of Lou's Bar and was hit by another vehicle. Brandon was in the back seat, and he died on the scene. He was my age. I don't even know what to say. I was at Reds on New Years Day with some friends, and I thought of running to the back to see if he was there, because he always had a hug for me. I didn't, though, because I didn't know the new management and I didn't want to get yelled at. I wish I had.

The day after we drew Secret Santa names one year I came to work to hear 'Rachel! I'm your Secret Santa!'

'Brandon,' I said, 'it's a secret Santa.' Then I resigned myself to a crappy gift because, to tell you the truth, he was kind of an idiot. I was out of town that Christmas, and on my first day back Brandon met me at the door and dragged me to the office so I could open my gift. It was a small black fountain, just big enough for my windowsill.

'It's a tranquility fountain. It will give you tranquility so you won't be so stressed out all the time. Put it in your house somewhere and think tranquil thoughts.'

Brandon, I'm sorry for all those times I yelled at you. You were a slacker, and you had a smart mouth, and some days you drove me up the wall. But I really, really cared about you and I'm glad that I told you that all the time. I'm sorry that we lost touch after I quit Reds, and I'll never look at that fountain without thinking of you. I hope you're somewhere tranquil.

Pee story

So I was at school, on my way into the bathroom but also checking my phone messages, and my sister had phoned!! And she always leaves these loooooooooooong messages so full of story and chatter that sometimes I forget it's a message and I start talking back to it. H'anyways, so I'm listening to this long message, and also trying to pull down my pants because I really have to pee but I only have the one hand to do it because my other hand has to hold the phone because I'm wearing these big hoop earrings that don't allow me to wedge the phone between ear and shoulder, and also I'm wearing this huge belt that is difficult to undo with one hand, and this is the part where you want me to say that I dropped the phone in the toilet and the automatic flusher flushed it down, but I didn't!! I just had an awkward pee!!! Anti-climactic!!!!

Enjoy your wednesday.

Open letters to my bitchez

Dear Rachel of a Month or So Ago,
If you had cleaned up the chili that exploded all over the inside of the microwave as soon as it happened, yes, it would have been a horrid, crappy mess, but it would have been a fresh horrid, crappy mess instead of the baked on coat of chili-paint it is now.

Dear Rachel of a Few Days Ago,
I don't know if you did it on purpose or what, but when you put the intense grease-fighting cleaner away last, you...unscrewed the top? Caused the top to become unscrewed? Allowed the top to unscrew itself? Whatever you did, all the intense grease-fighting cleaner leaked out into the recycling, which now stinks, and I had no intense grease-fighting action to help me clean up the mess that Rachel of a Month or So Ago made.

Dear Rachel of About Ten Minutes Ago,
If you had put water into the coffee maker instead of just replacing the grounds and turning it on, we'd be smelling sweet java right now, and not burning machine.

I'm just sayin'.

Good news

I would like to point out that it is 4:30 p.m. and still light outside.

All hail the coming of the spring.

Time for a grocery shop

Joel and I have a joint bank account, but separate cupboards for our snacks. Joel goes through snacks like air, and I have taken to buying chips for him in the same way that I buy milk or tomatoes.

I, on the other hand, am a hoarder. This stems from a childhood with very little pocket money, so I would have to hoard everything that came into my hands for free in case I needed it later. Like, I might need some candy corn in, oh, say, February. And the last thing I want is Joel eating my carefully-hoarded tasties. Like, what if I need some cheddar-flavored mini rice cakes (dusted carefully with cocaine) and he's eaten them, and I have to wait until we go grocery shopping again, or I have to walk down to the Walmart? So he doesn't eat them, and they are there for when I need them.

Today I needed some cheddar-flavored mini rice cakes (with cocaine), but when I went to my cupboard, the non-descript yellow bag that I'd thought was cheddar-flavored mini rice cakes (with cocaine) was actually all-dressed mini rice cakes (which lack that certain addictive punch). Apparently the last time we were in the store, I wanted to try something new, forgetting that by the time I got around to eating the mini rice cakes, my desire for novelty would be in the trash with the couscous, and I'd want my cheddar-flavored mini rice cakes (with cocaine).

Alas. I wept. I gnashed my teeth. I rended my garments. And then I did the unthinkable.

I went into Joel's cupboard, looking for cheddar-flavored mini rice cakes (with cocaine). There were none. There was only a half-full bag of dill chips (ick) and a bag of ketchup-flavored mini rice cakes (uckers).

I am bereft.

Stinkity

So...onions, hey?

Joel and I have been on this 'Giant Salad' kick, where I chop up a bunch of peppers and onions and such, and open a can of chick peas and a can of black beans and a can of corn, and then I make Giant Salads and then throw the rest into tupperware containers in the fridge, so that the next day I can make a Giant Salad in half a second, because I'm waaaaaaaaaay more likely to eat a salad if it doesn't involve half an hour of chopping.

So, about three salads ago, I overdid the red onions. I always think that delicious = put more in but this is not always the case. By the time I was done the salad, I was also done with red onions for a while. You know how it is. So this little tupperware container of red onions sat in our fridge for a few days more, gathering stench like they do.

Monday morning, I opened the fridge door to get my milk, and the onion stench reached out and slapped me in the face. Cheeky bugger. So I dumped out the little container into the trash, but I was running late for school so I couldn't take the trash out to the outside-trash. Whatever.

Except that Joel woke up that morning with the most severe nausea, and when he stumbled out into the kitchen, the whole front of the house reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeked of angry onions. He took the trash to the outside-trash immediately, but that's like killing a mosquito and thinking you've solved West Nile. Mosquitoes have spawn, and onions have scent-spawn.

The tupperware container was in the sink when I came home, so even though all the windows were open and the house was frEEzing, it still reeked. I rinsed the container and put it in the dishwasher, but it was another full day of indominatable stink before the dishwasher filled enough that I could run it. Problem solved?

No.

That was Tuesday night I ran the dishes. It is now Thursday afternoon. This morning, I stuck my face into the dishwasher (for science) and sniffed. Onions.

I put my head under the sink where the trash is and sniffed (again, for science). Onions.

In that whole front room, there is a very faint trace of onion, as though someone stepped in it and is walking around with onion on their shoe. What do I do? Febreeze the hell out of the kitchen? Scrub the living room with stainless steel? Burn it down and buy a new house?

In conclusion, onions are insidious. Beware.

Once again, it is time for you to read my homework while I DO my homework

What's up, Chicklets? So, erm, I seem to have misplaced my time-management skills, and now I have two assignments due tomorrow. So instead of a post, hows about you read this paper I wrote on how, if you're ugly, people will be mean to you and that will make you a bad person? Wheee! No, you'll like it. Go make yourself a cup of coffee first, though, because it's a long'n.

Face Value – How Appearance Shapes Character in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
For many years, the study of physiognomy was held to be a legitimate science. The idea that ‘fixed aspects of physical appearance are indicative of the qualities of a person’ was widespread and heatedly debated in the years leading up to and following the writing of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Collins 1). The characters of this novel seem to take it as proven that ‘the mark of class can be read on physiognomy and complexion’ (Vlasopolos 126). Though this idea might be laughed down today, people still attribute positive characteristics to others who are pleasant to look at, creating what Alan Feingold calls the ‘”beautiful-is-good” halo effect of attractiveness’ (par. 5). Mary Shelley puts these ideas to shame, creating a being who becomes monstrous due to his ugliness, but in whom evil is not inherent. The flaw lies in the social response to the appearance, not in the appearance itself.
There is no doubt that Frankenstein’s creature is originally of a kind and benevolent disposition. Being comparable to a very young child, he displays all the casual generosity and wonder characteristic of children, with none of their innate selfishness. He is thrilled by the sight of the moon and the voice of the songbird. He secretly collects firewood for the De Laceys in an effort to alleviate their toil. He weeps over the ‘hapless fate’ of indigenous Americans, people with whom he has not even geographical connections (Shelley 139). Even after a series of violent rejections, he does not hesitate to, with ‘extreme labor’ and no small danger to himself, rescue a young girl from drowning (Shelley 167). These are not the actions of a monster; most legitimate humans cannot boast such a selfless soul. As far as internal characteristics are concerned, it seems that ‘he really is the fulfillment of Frankenstein’s desire to build a new, better race of men – at least, until his isolation and frustration turn him into a murderer’ (Rieder 3).
In order to highlight the effect of the creature’s wretched appearance, Mary Shelley provides four contrasting beauties. While the monster could quite properly be considered Victor Frankenstein’s ‘son,’ neither Elizabeth, Justine, Caroline or Safie approaches closer relationship than ‘cousin’ to the family that takes her in, yet each of them is treated with far more kindness. Elizabeth is the picture of physiognomial accuracy; ‘her person [is] the image of her mind’ (Shelley 30). She is welcomed sight-unseen into her uncle’s family, as befits a close relative, but it is not until Victor’s mother views this ‘most beautiful child’ that she selects the young Elizabeth for her son’s mate (Shelley 30). Upon returning home, Victor Frankenstein displays his clear physiognomial bias, describing how her ‘open and capacious forehead [give] indications of a good understanding joined to great frankness of disposition’ (Shelley 85). Her kindness and decency are described in many flowery terms, but her admirers give no thought to how such a solicitous upbringing may have inspired such goodness. The charming Justine is similarly rescued, as Elizabeth is, from an unpleasant home life. Not being of equal rank with the Frankensteins, she is never considered a candidate for marriage and is put to work as a servant. Elizabeth belabors the point, however, that young Justine is treated well. She, too, is ‘extremely pretty’ (Shelley 68), thus securing her place in the household, but she is clearly not as attractive as Elizabeth. When Justine is accused of a crime against the Frankenstein family and Elizabeth takes the stand, it is a face-off of faces. Though Elizabeth speaks in Justine’s defense, ‘all the kindness which [Justine’s] beauty might otherwise have excited’ is drowned in the presence of this still-more-lovely woman against whom the crime is committed (Shelley 88), and Justine is sentenced to death. Though her end (and, ultimately, Elizabeth’s) is tragic, her life is blessed, and she receives much more affection than does the monster in his brief existence.
Caroline enjoys the least face time of Shelley’s ‘beauties,’ but provides one of the most striking parallel images. Daughter of the senior Mr. Frankenstein’s good friend, she is taken in without hesitation upon that friend’s death, and soon made a wife. Her husband preserves her likeness in a painting where she kneels weeping at her father’s coffin. This touching image is one of ‘dignity’ and ‘beauty,’ moving the viewer to compassion (Shelley 82). It’s correlating image, however, of the stricken creature hanging over Victor’s coffin, in no less agony of grief, inspires such horror in the viewer that he becomes ‘dizzy’ and must shut his eyes in order to block out the scene and regain his wits (Shelley 269-70). Both are visual impressions of similar scenes, but they inspire wildly different reactions. Safie also provokes a dialectical response when she arrives at the De Lacey house. With nothing but a lovely face to recommend herself to Felix De Lacey, this ‘angelic beauty’ (Shelley 136) is nevertheless taken immediately into his heart. She has no family ties which connect her to the De Laceys; she has severed her own ties with family and wealth; she does not even speak the same language. And yet, when she throws herself at the feet of Mr. De Lacey, he ‘raise[s] her and embrace[s] her affectionately’ (Shelley 136). One cannot help but compare this to the old man’s horrified gasp, ‘Great God! Who are you?’ (Shelley 160) and Felix’s violent beating when the monster exposes himself to this same family. Though the monster holds several advantages over Safie, in that he speaks the De Lacey’s language and can reference a number of services he has rendered them, he is spurned. These four women receive affection over and above that required by human compassion because of their great beauty. The monster, on the other hand, lacks that crucial element, that physical acceptability upon which first impressions are made.
The monster stands almost no chance in persuading others to see past his hideous bearing. Beauty may only be skin deep, but it is on the basis of this fragile outer layer that many of our assumptions are made. Stephen Jay Gould posits that part of our ‘biological inheritance’ is an ‘aversion to seriously malformed individuals’ (par. 42), but he also suggests that this aversion can be conquered through education. Unfortunately for the monster, no one is taught to overcome their revulsion. When Victor abandons him at the moment of creation, he deprives him of the social framework necessary for one such as him to survive. As Virginia Blum points out, it is those without status, wealth, or family to recommend them that are more dependent on their appearance to speak for them. After all, she reminds us, Prince Charles has never seemed ‘unduly stressed’ by his prominent ears (132). But the monster is no Prince of Wales. Nor is he a beloved cousin, or a treasured servant, or a dear friend’s son. He is socially adrift, lacking language and manners (which can be acquired) but retaining all natural human desires for love and companionship, with no hope of ever fulfilling them. Just as he ‘thrust[s his] hand into the live embers’ of a fire in a misguided effort to get warm, so he rushes into villages and huts in an attempt to socialize (Shelley 119, 122). Both endeavors bring only pain. Much has been made of Victor’s Promethean attempt to make life from inanimate matter, but the true sin is that ‘no provision has been made for [the creature] to fit into the community into which he is “born”’ (Nocks, par. 3). His only option, it seems, is to haunt the fringes of society, growing monstrous at heart as he is in appearance.
That the creature is made mostly-human seems to be the cruelest trick of all. If he were all-human, he probably would have sailed through life with no more troubles than his neighbor. If he were completely un-human, he would have lived the life of a beast, cared as little what man thought of him as the beast does, and likely been as little reviled as a stray dog. Instead, he is a ‘filthy type’ of Victor, ‘more horrid for [his] very resemblance’ (Shelley 154). There seems to be some truth to the idea that man can love what is exactly like, or exactly unlike him, but is suspicious of that which straddles the line. Children born with craniofacial deficiencies need to be operated on quickly to make them ‘look human enough to love’ (Blum 120), but puppies need no such alteration. As the children in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are told (by a talking beaver, no less), ‘when you meet anything that’s going to be human and isn’t yet, or used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet’ (82). The creature has the stark misfortune to fall into each of these categories, and the world responds by tossing hatchets and stones, curses and hate. It is of little wonder, then, that he develops the worst of man’s tendencies.
One is forced to ask of Victor, along with the creature, ‘why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from [it] in disgust?’ (Shelley 154). Why did a man bent on creating a superior race instead produce a fiend? He does not become ugly upon receiving life; Victor admits that he is ugly while unfinished, but he makes no attempt to fix the matter. Instead, he brings his product to fruition and then immediately pronounces it a ‘catastrophe,’ a ‘wretch,’ and a ‘miserable monster,’ all before the creature says an unfriendly word. Laura Claridge insists that Frankenstein ‘deliberately chose the form for his creature that was sure to provoke the most horror and dread in other mortals’ (par. 12), and he is certainly successful. Perhaps it feeds his desire for power. Perhaps it gives him an excuse not to care for the creature once it is ‘born.’ Perhaps it is merely a byproduct of the isolated and unhealthy atmosphere in which the creature is created. Regardless of the ‘why,’ Victor Frankenstein is as responsible for his creature’s lack of beauty as a seamstress would be for a coat’s lack of buttons and, as a result, responsible for his vile actions as well.
The monster is made hideous by Victor’s hands, and he is made cruel by that hideousness. Though Victor forms his very features, it is ostensibly because of his appearance that Victor shuns him. As a child’s view of himself is formed by his parents’ opinion, Victor’s rejection is the beginning of the creature’s disintegration. In his time with the De Laceys, the creature becomes used to gazing on attractive human forms and absorbs something of their ‘aesthetic prejudices’ (Vlasopolos 127). He recognizes that the face he sees reflected in the pond does not uphold those same aesthetic principles, but this, while filling him with ‘the bitterest sense of despondence and mortification’ (Shelley 132), seems also to spur him to develop his faculties of speech, his sharpness of mind, and his compassionate heart. It is only later, when he is forcefully rejected by the family he has come to care for, that he develops feelings of ‘rage and revenge’ (Shelley 161). He acquires what Blum aptly calls the ‘Frankenstein perspective,’ where ‘you become how the world sees you’ (128). The world sees him as monstrous, though he has yet committed no crime, and monstrous he becomes. He ‘was benevolent and good,’ he insists, but ‘misery made [him] a fiend’ (Shelley 114). His misery only grows in the ensuing months as he skulks around the borders of Victor’s life. Though he has been violently mistreated, even yet goodness lingers in him and he offers an olive branch if only Victor will create for him a mate. When Victor eventually refuses this reasonable request and destroys ‘the creature on whose future existence [the monster] depend[s] for happiness’ (Shelley 205), is it any wonder that the monster responds with a killing spree? Many fair people have committed worse crimes under less provocation.
It becomes clear that the monster’s violent and cruel disposition are the result, not the partner, of his atrocious face. His ‘watery eyes,’ ‘shrivelled [sic] complexion, and straight black lips’ (Shelley 55-6) are not indicative of a rotten character. Shelley takes great pains to demonstrate the monster’s initial goodness, as well as to parallel his situation with that of those who have greater physical attractiveness. It is through society’s failure to recognize goodness residing in an ugly package that this bizarrely kind character becomes the sort of monster to haunt children’s dreams.

Mobile parties

Things that are exhausting: hosting a party in a house that is not your own.

Tomorrow is Joel's birthday, but it's also a Monday, and that sucks. So to fix the problem, and also because Sunday = football, we celebrated today. I wanted to throw him a little football-watching party, but we don't have cable and our living space is tiny, so I borrowed our friends Steve and Amber's place, because they live just up the way and because they have several couches and a huge TV. And a deep fryer.

When you're hosting a party at your own house, all you have to do is make sure that the things you need, food-wise, are IN YOUR HOUSE!! You don't have to pack a cooler full of perishables (cheese and sour cream for the nachos, ice cream for the pie, ranch for the wings, etc.), chips, beverages, a giang bag of potatoes, et al, into your car and haul them somewhere, hoping that you haven't forgotten something basic, like the beer. You don't have to think of a clever way around not having a vegetable peeler, because you either have one in the second drawer down, or you aren't a peeler. You don't have to cut potatoes on a nasty glass cutting board that squeeks, because you'd have your own Le Cutty plastic one shaped like a yellow fish. Oh yes, and you don't have to learn how to use a deep-fryer, because you don't have one, because they make your house smell like ass.

All that being said, Joel had a happy birthday and I must have lost three pounds what with all the sweating over fryer and oven and cutting board, and there were wings and fries and yam-fries (is there a trick to cutting yams that I don't know about? Because it is hella hard) and nachos and chips and cookies and juice and beers and at the end, an apple pie with ice cream and caramel sauce. And I'm not the one with the smelly-house, for which I am eternally grateful (thanks, Stamber), and now I don't have to think of anything nice to do for Joel for a whole n'other year, and we have half a jar of caramel sauce in the fridge, and I am still in my mid-twenties (Joel has now entered his mid-late twenties, the geezer).

I need to go wash my face.

Show-stopper

What's up, kids? So, it looks like you're going to be seeing a lot of me between 2:30 and 4:00 on Thursdays, because I have class from 11:30-2:30, and then from 4:00-7:00, and it's POuring out, so it isn't worth my while to walk all the way home, and all the way back, and all the way home again. Instead, I will sit here in the lounge and studiously ignore that girl over there who was in a class with me last semester but who I don't really like, and who tried to get my attention a few minutes ago by calling me 'Dawn.' That's not my name.

So today, in my Philosophy class, we had to go around give an example of a time in which we demonstrated a higher level of thinking, or something. Going around the class and saying ANYthing that isn't your favorite ice cream is super-stressful, because who can think that quickly? And you don't want to say something douchey like 'I've saved two lives' (which I have, internets, and I will tell you about it sometime*) but you also don't want to throw out something flip because it's the first day of class, and your prof will say to herself, ah, this girl does not take me seriously. I will give her a D. And I don't want a D.

Generally, your best bet is for the person just preceeding you to be a stutterer, or to say something really ghey, like 'The other day I pulled over and made a nice path for the ambulance to pass by' (no joke, this is someone's higher level of thinking), so that whatever you string together by comparison sounds awesome. The guy before me? 'One time I successfully talked myself out of committing suicide.'

???

How am I supposed to follow that? That is heavy. That is a seriously ballsy and/or attention-seeking thing to say in front of thirty people you don't know. No jokes. So I threw out something about making my roommates agree on something, it was probably how we were going to kill the rat, but I think I left that part out. Lamez.

Happy Thursday, folken.

*Speaking of saving lives, Robyn the Bishop is currently doing so on a daily basis, and recently delivered a baby OVER THE PHONE. Now that's worth sharing in class.

My twelfth post-secondary semester begins!!!

First day of school! New faces, new topics, new textbooks! For reals, I love it.

What I don't love is finding my classes. Even in this, my third semester at UCFV, I still find locating my classes stressful. I'm always afraid (and rightly so) that I'll have read the schedule wrong, or walk into the wrong classroom, and that some cute boy will see me do it, and my life will be over. Hmmm? No, I'm twenty-five.

So today, I head off to my 8:30 class, and I've written the classroom number down in my organizer, but I like to check things once more beforehand because I'm paranoid, but the myUCFV online schedule is down. So I take it in faith that I'm not an idiot, and that I wrote down the correct number the first time. This is, as you may have guessed, a fallacy. Since room A317 is very clearly an office, and not my classroom, I have to dart back down to the library to check the myUCFV online schedule to find my correct classroom, except oh yes, it's down. So I have to trek to the B-building to find the archaic (but cheerfully un-crashable) paper schedule, locate my classroom (let's just say that a 2 can look awfully like a 7) and rush back to the A-building to my class for which I am now late. Worst fear realized again.

I managed to make it to my second class with no mishaps (thank merciful goodness), only to find it packed with people. People sitting on desks, people standing in the back, loads of people. If you're waitlisted, see, you have to show up on the first day to even stand a chance of getting into the class. I had been sixteenth on the waitlist when I registered, but the prof shares an office with a prof who taught me last semester, and she convinced him to let me in. So the prof walked in at 2:30, and you could tell he was a little bit startled by all the shiny faces. 'Oh wow,' he says, 'Uh...hi.' Then he does this little shuffle and says 'I hate to do this, but, um, I've already accepted ten people into this class over and above the limit of twenty-five. So, unless you're registered, or I've contacted you directly...um...sorry.' There was a pause while he waited for people to leave. No one moved. 'Um...so I guess you can go? I don't really know how to...hmm. No one's going? Really?' Long awkward silence. 'Uh...there isn't...I won't be accepting any more people into this class, so it's just a waste of your time to...hmm. Well, whatever.' It was awkward.

Almost as awkward as two minutes after the mid-class break ended, while I was finishing up my apple and a good-sized bit fell down my shirt. Now, the break had just ended, and you can't get up and go to the bathroom just after the break ends (at least, not if you're sitting at the very front of the class, which I was) because it's rude. And these people aren't my friends yet, so I couldn't announce in a stage whisper that I'd dropped apple down my shirt, and then remove it. So I sat there, with a cold, sticky bit of fruit wedged between my top stomach roll and my sweater for over an hour. Gross and uncomfortable.

So far a promising start.

In lieu of wasting time

Anyone feel like telling Joel what he should do next summer? Be my guest (I will give you a donut if you throw in things like 'Be your wife's doting servant' or 'Become a trained masseuse').

What's this?

My sister and I used to work in a church nursery, and there was this little girl named Emma. She was a total doll, but she would play a game with us called 'What's this?' where she would point at things, and say 'what's this?' and then we would answer her. We would play this for hours, even thouhg it usually went along these lines:

- What's this?

- That's a Glowworm, Emma.

- What's this?

- That's Lincoln.

- What's this?

- That's the worm again, Emma.

- What's this?

- That's...that's Lincoln.

I'm going to play that game with you now.

What's this?

That's us getting ready to 'jump into the New Year.'

What's this?

That's us just after we 'jumped into the New Year,' investigating the damage done to the couch. Apparently, a. Joel is fat, and b. I have no sense of the self-timer on my camera.

What's this?

That's us feeding champagne to the landlords' dog. She didn't like it.

What's this?

That's a...peacock (?) that was loitering outside the Abbotsford library when I went to drop off some books. I stepped in shit and got it all in the treads of my moonboots because I was so intent on taking this picture.

What's this?

That's me and Boo in the matching jackets we bought...except that she bought hers first, and I made her take me to the mall so I could buy one just like it, because I secretly want to be her. But I started dating tall guys first, so she also wants to be me. Parallel lives! It's ok, we live in separate towns.

What's this?

That's me, right now, blogging on my 'new' laptop. Hurrah! Now I can lounge here on my easy chair, like a thinner, less slimy Jabba the Hut (except that my thighs look huge...I will have to fire my photographer) instead of sitting ergonomically upright, correcting my damn posture. Awesome.

So, that's my past week or so in a nut. Once school starts on Monday, I'll be back to my regularly-scheduled blogging, along with my going-to-the-gym, and my eating-things-that-aren't-cake.

Happy end of holidays, everyone.