Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Airport. Yeah. Again.

Got delayed as usual. Only 15 minutes this time (so far).
It's raining a lot in Seattle, juuust like Vancouver. So that's very, very, very familiar. It's also really foggy here, but they're still flying; they should teach that skill to all the airlines that deal with SFO. I'm sooo tired of hearing "delayed because of fog in San Francisco." That's like saying "delayed because there's air. And we just can't deal with that." There's ALWAYS fog in San Francisco! That's what San Francisco does! It fogs! Or fogifies. Or whatever.

What they should do is say something interesting. I mean, we all know it'll be fog, right? (for the record, I have no idea why we're delayed right now. I'm just thinking about the fog thing). But they should say something interesting. Like, "delayed due to the giant lizard monster sitting on the runway."
Yeah. That'd be cool.



Here's a video featuring a giant lizard monster, coincidentally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVl8vfev4L8

Happy lizard-fearing.

we're gonna party like it's the end of the semester

If you couldn't tell, I've got 2012 (It Ain't The End) on a loop. That song's funny, says "we're gonna party like it's the end of the world, like it's 2012"

Aaaanyways.
Had my very last final today! It was geobio and it was okay. Not awesome or anything. Some surprise stuff like, "which line on the graph is which?" and I'd thought all we had to do was understand how to read it, not memorize the mirror-image lines and which was on which side. Because I think they're interchangeable.

Moved out of my dorm yesterday, watched the Canucks game (Not one word, Sharks fans. I swear, if we'd lost, I'd have stayed in Van to sulk with the rest of the nucks fans), got my skates sharpened for the last time (free, because I'm his favourite- I kid you not. I get a lot of special treatment in the hockey world, being a girl and all. It's awesome). Got a storage locker thing- it's called a "skylocker," which is a fancy word for "storage thing that's closer to the ceiling than the floor, have fun with that ladder and your heavy suitcases."
Ended up coming home with only four bags, but only two count. One's got a comforter and the other's a hockey bag, so there's only two bags with actual clothes and stuff. I'm impressed with myself (as usual).

So now we're hanging out at the airport. And the gate is waaaay out, too. Even farther than I usually have to go.
Oh, and I hate horizon/alaska air. Because apparently, hockey sticks aren't included with a hockey bag. What do they want me to do, play without a stick..?

Also, it's raining. Last lovely weather send-off.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

"If he'd just pay me what he's paying them to stop me from robbing him, I'd stop robbing him!"

There's a real western vibe around here, given the fact that the campus is like a ghost town.
Ghost campus?
By the way, you can get married in a ghost town. And it's actually super cool. Or, on a cruise ship. Maybe then the Captain can do the marrying stuff. That'd be cool too.

Anyways. This here's a ghost town, y'all.
Actually, that was more southern than western.

This here campus, it's a ghost town. Ain't nothing 'round but these here stragglers.
There we go. Western-y.

Anyhow, it's super empty. There were a lot of cars around this weekend, people packing up and stuff. Real quiet in the dorms especially. Ain't no one in this here ghost town.
(I'll stop now. Really).

The internet's been down in my room since Friday. I thought I was bored before- and now the internet's gone. I've already read all the non-textbook books in my room (two) and boxed up everything for storage, and unpacked it because I kept boxing up stuff I needed and then repacking it again.
(I've used up lots of packing tape).

Also, everything on campus was closed, as it's the Easter long weekend. Which is Friday. and Sunday. And Monday. So it's sort of inconvenient.

I get to go home Wednesday :)

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Did you notice the page revamp? and a quick test

(Seriously, you'd better have noticed the page revamp)

just want to take a second to point out all the new and super exciting features:

1. The background. That's a picture I took on Cypress, and I'm super proud of myself for getting it to work on the template. I had to compress it and resize it and everything. All by myself. (Maybe I did inherit some of my dad's engineering genius after all). Title's redone too- but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to get that tagline out of Arial. Well, consider it a stylistic choice.

2. You can now get RSS feed updates by email! So enter your email into that white bar on the right, and you'll get updates sent straight to your email.

3. Flickr photostream. Surprisingly difficult to set up. Anyways, that's all my pictures.

4. My favourite online places- yeah, they're still the same. But look how cool they are!

That's about it for the updates, really. Awesome, though, isn't it?

Also- here are ten random things. Prize for the person who already knew all of them. (Honour system, and also, I can read your mind, so I know if you're lying).
1. I tan really easily
2. I'm super picky when it comes to clothes
3. I cannot cut peaches well. Seriously, I'm incapable of it.
4. Speaking of peaches, at one point, I was in love with white peaches.
5. I'm bad at painting my nails, and always ruin them within five seconds because I can't wait for them to dry
6. I like swingsets
7. I think my elbows are double-jointed
8. I wear a lot of blue, and my room at home has a lot of blue, and I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it's cool.
9. I'm a total trekkie.
10. I love reading anything medical.

Anyone know all of those things?



(if you couldn't tell already, i'm bored out of my mind, still a week and a half until i go home, and all my exciting plans for this week don't start until tuesday night).

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Pics from today

New pictures are up on flikr :) I took a bunch when I went to get that book.

Easily reached through
http://flavors.me/sunshine0024

the plan for today

Still studying econ for the final next week (on part one of chapter eight, twelve chapters total).
Woke up at noon (again), and studied for a bit.
Then decided I'm sick of studying and that I want to go get the book I'm dying to read that came out two days ago. (Two kisses for maddy- kind of a memoir. Super adorable and sad. Story of the blog writer at mattlogelin.com)
Also, I'm wearing these killer awesome heels today, because I want to see if I'll be able to wear them for a whole night next week. (Nightclub on the 19th, Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange on the 21st !!!)

They're pretty:




Weather's doing that thing where it's bright, but not sunny and definitely not warm. This still, after all this time, confuses me.

And look how cute this is! Found it online somewhere or other:
Solves for i <3 u! (The <3 is a heart, btw)

Anyways. Off to get my book and break in my pretty shoes!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

also, here's a few reasons why my phone is annoying

Everyone I know has an iphone. (Actually, all my Canadian friends have Blackberries, and the Americans have iphones, but that's just getting specific). They say they're the coolest things ever, and I have an itouch, so I do get it-but no. I will never, ever get an iphone.
I have a few very simple reasons.
1- texting with a touchscreen= lame
2- It's sorta bulky
3- I cannot be trusted with nice phones. My last phone was a super cool Nokia, with a 5 megapixel (correct terminology?) camera. Very cool. Until I dropped it. Multiple times. Then it liked to turn off by itself and shut down screens and generally not work. Replacing that would've been, y'know, expensive.

So. I've decided to stick to phones that won't be horribly expensive if/let's-be-honest-WHEN I break them. You all saw my phone in a previous post- tentatively named Vladdie, and quite adorable, with a full keyboard and such.
I love it and all, but sometimes, I really hate it. Let's see why. (Flashback to those old chemistry class videos, 'let's see why such and such does this and this'. Unless it was explosions, the class didn't seem to care much).
1- the multimedia text thing. If I send a too-long message, instead of splitting it into two, (which would be logical), my phone turns it into a multimedia message. Nice magic show, but not everyone can receive those. So, y'know. Thanks a lot. Brat.
2- You can't block numbers. And that is inconvenient. (Am I the only person who always runs into this problem? I feel like I may be).
3- Can't get custom ringtones. So while I'd love to have a song, I get stuck with a pre-done melody, which brings me to one of the worst things about my phone:
4- The ringtones give me panic attacks, basically. I made the mistake of using each and every one of them as an alarm for when I had to get up at 5:30 for hockey. And now, hearing any of them makes me panic and want to shut the stupid thing off as soon as possible, and then hide from it. Not a good reaction for incoming calls. Right now, my ring is this obnoxious ring- not a melody, not a song, not a heartrate-arresting ringtone. It just rings. Obnoxiously and like an old phone, but it doesn't make me want to throw it out the window and go to sleep.

I feel like that list was a lot weirder than most people's would have been.

One down, two to go

But more accurately, easy one done, the worst two to go.

Now, I've been waking up at noon-ish every day for the past week. (most amusing thing in the universe? Mentioning this to my friends who have school/work/etc and have been doing that for five hours by the time I wake up. Ha!) But at midnight last night, I realized my final wasn't at noon, like I'd thought, it was at eight thirty. In the morning. Seriously. They actually thought about this, and decided that 8:30 AM would be a smart choice.
Needless to say, I was in bed within the next ten minutes.
Woke up at seven, went to find breakfast, like actual decent food for once. The caf was totally empty. I saw one person, maybe, hanging around upstairs, and maybe seven studying/sleeping in the commonsblock. Clearly, we are not morning people. We're all afternoon people.
By the way, that spiteful streak of the caf's continues. Maple oatmeal is the greatest thing ever. Now that I've had it once from there, it has disappeared forever. Awesome.
Anyways, went to my final. It was at the gym, upstairs and supposed to be 2.5 hours long.

French final overview:
Instructions: the prof's there literally do not like to speak English to us. We've all sworn off it, apparently.
First section: Grammar.
1-Write the question to the given answer. Stupidest idea ever. The line says "Chicoine's most noticeable trait was that HE WAS ALWAYS ABSENT", write the question pertaining to the stressed part. Okay, on lines like "the books were taken by John BY TRUCK to Montreal."
Awkward question ends up being some weird hybrid of "where are the books" and "what did John do with them" and a lot of other things you'd like to say to this person but don't write down.
How exactly would this be useful to anyone but a psychic studying French?
2- Negate the phrase. Except don't use "ne...pas" unless you have to. You have to get all creaaaativeee. So if it says "He will go anywhere" you can't just say "he will not go anywhere," you have to say, "he will go nowhere". (It sounds less awkward in French, but way more hoity-toity). Seriously? I want to speak like a normal person, not the queen. Formality is unnecessary.
3- join the two phrases. So "my mother made a tart" and "everyone liked the tart" must now become one. Except you have to rewrite the whole entire thing. Every time. Gets tiring. Also, some are just weird. "the boy didn't say anything in the moment" "The guy sold him the book." Uh, what? I ended up with a weird "the boy didn't say anything in the moment in which the guy sold him the book" which I know is wrong. "auquel" had no place in that awkward phrase.
4- Fun with the subjunctive, future, and conditional. I'm sure the teachers laugh hysterically at the weird word mutants we come up with for this one.
The second section- the essay. Because destroying us with grammar isn't enough, we have to also write an essay about the book that we read. And discussed. And discussed again. And just can't stop discussing. My prompt was about 'does the character's behaviour reflect his personality, or a reaction to the Quebecois society at the time?" And because I passionately hate this guy, I wrote about how he's too self-centered and spiteful to be socially aware at all. I refuse to like this character.

And because it was conveniently at the gym, when I finished early, I could just head downstairs and spend an hour at the gym! Very convenient.

(my new idea to wear myself out at the gym literally every single day this week still hasn't worked as far as letting me sleep more. I just suck at sleeping. Seriously! Maybe I don't need as much sleep as other people, but I want it!)

I've got an econ final in a week, and a geobio final the week after that. Both of which I'll actually have to study for this time. You really can't study for French- I did give it a go for an hour last week, while at the gym- it's one of those subjects where if you don't know it by now, you won't learn in the next couple days. You just have to hope your "this sounds right" instinct isn't totally crazy, or actually keyed in to another language.

Speaking of other languages, I've always wanted to learn Russian.
Я тебя люблю is one of the very few things I can say.
That means I love you. I can also say "no."

I've actually got a weird, weird accumulation of other-languages vocabulary.

Russian:
Я тебя люблю - I love you
Нет- No

Swedish:
pojke- boy
gull bit- gold coin
Min-my
lilla/liten- little

Finnish:
rakas- love
Jokerit- jokers
Nej- no
Fånge- prisoner

Czech:
Miluji tě- I love you

That's a good summary for now. I won't go into like, Italian and German, because there's quite a handful.
And y'know. French.


So much for sleeping this afternoon. Also, did I mention it's overcast again? Unfair.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

shocking revelations of the week

Self-explanatory. Onwards.

1. I've gone to the gym all but two days this week. One of those days was spent snowshoeing. Awesome? Yeah. It is.

2. People who didn't watch the original Star Trek series really missed a lot in the movie. I plan to blog that someday eventually. But every time I start, I find a million other things they missed.

3. It can rain in April. It can be sunny, and then rain, all for the universe's evil enjoyment.

4. The commerce minor is the unloved minor. Neither the arts or business department will call it their own. So sad. And highly inconvenient.

5. It actually IS possible to have an assignment due after school is over. Seriously. The last day of econ was Thursday, and I have an assignment due today. How can he do that..?

6. I'm really not very good at waking up before 10/noon.

7. There is a switch somewhere in the hallway that can turn the lights off in my room. And probably the lights in all the other rooms as well.

8. Couple pictures my friend took:




9. Somehow, I've got Twitter followers. Odd.

10. That's about it. I have homework to do. Weird. Weird. Weird.

Friday, April 8, 2011

procrastinating is for losers. I "redirect my energy elsewhere". Success.

School's finally over, and here's the rundown of the last few days and stuff like that:

1. I've gone to the gym a bunch of times. Too bad they don't always feel like showing the baseball game, opting instead for daytime hockey (such a canadian thing. watched a special about 'aggressors in hockey' and saw 'matinee hockey'. Only in canada, man). or even soccer. SOCCER! There's a sport I just can't focus on. I don't actively dislike it (like, say, basketball or golf), but it's just mind-numbingly boring to me. Something about the huuuuge field, and the way the camera is pulled way back so it's a bunch of specks on a green field, and all they do is run and do that lookit- ball flipping, and it's like... wow. No intense skating, no dramatic breakaways, nothing. (imho. If you like soccer, like 90% of my friends do, feel free to passionately disagree. It's okay. We all know hockey's better, anyways).

2. Spent quite a lot of time talking to counselors/convincing them I'm not totally insane and that I don't live in my own little world. Nothing like being told "I have NEVER EVER heard of doing that, and that is IMPOSSIBLE" to really up your confidence in your plan. (I could just feel my mental cheerleaders slinking away when he said that, pom-poms all sad and everything). However, that dude was wrong. (He was like one of those guys that was super awkward in school and makes up for it now by being smug and thinking he's funny. And he's just not.) (Don't take it out on the beautiful people, man! It's not my fault no one likes you because you're mean and snarky!) (+10 to narcissism).
Anyways.

3. Pretty well cleared for what I have called The Kirk Track, which is, getting my degrees in 3 years. Got told "you're doing all the right things" and that is just lovely to hear.

4. It's SO SO SUNNY! Like, 45 degrees! It was 31 Mondayish though.

5. Went out with a friend to celebrate the end of classes yesterday, and got this:
Yes. That is actually a caramel apple with rainbow and chocolate sprinkles. I like to live uniquely.

6. Working on converting one of my friends to trekkie-ism. So far so good.

7. These are blooming now, too:

Except it's more like eight bajllion of them, and not just like, five trees.

There's more stuff, but I should probably do work now.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Hi, i'm a link dump and a star trek rant. nice to meet you

One more day of classes- and then my freshman year is over! And then I'll begin JUNIOR YEAR!
Yeah, you heard that right. I'm awesome like that. Because although degrees are supposed to be four years, I said "four years? I'll do it in three."
You can quote that. (I just did).
(anyone catch that?)

anyhow.
Been spending some time embracing my inner trekkie geek. As in, not new-wave "oh, lookit me, I'm such a fan because I know Kirk's middle name because they said it in the 2009 trailer!" way, and not the "I'm such a fan because that movie was so cool, and I loved the Enterprise, even though I don't know what those funny numbers and letters written on it are!" either. Those are the kinds of people who didn't find it HILARIOUS that the engineer that went to the drill with Kirk and Sulu was wearing a red shirt.
Those people are failures.
But I love them anyways.
Point was
("Do you have a point, Mr. Spock?" "Always, doctor." HAHAHAHA)
that I've been watching the original series. (And JUST the original series. No sissy Picard for me. Kirk's where it's at, and always will be).
I especially loved the one where Kirk and Spock chase Mccoy into the past, circa 1930's. And Kirk's oh-so-eloquent explanation of Spock's ears to the angry policeman.

The more I watch that show, the more impressed I am by how brilliant it is.

Anyways, I have real, actual news to share, I'm sure, besides my Star Trek obsession.


oh, wait, no I don't. Star Trek it is.

This person made the funniest collection of ST2009 Bones quotes ever:
http://community.livejournal.com/riffed/4896.html
Best picture is the first one: "Dr. Leonard Mccoy is grumpy. (Must be a day that ends in Y)."


In other unrelated news, this is funny:
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Marty-Turco-bets-fan-during-Blackhawks-Habs-game?urn=nhl-wp1867

this isn't funny because it's true:
http://xkcd.com/773/

this is funny and super adorable:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cat_vs_internet

this blog post is kinda funny:
http://www.dutchblitz.net/how-my-kids-have-ruined-my-life/
Excerpt: "They want to sit on my lap and smother me with hugs and kisses all of the time. We all know that is just part of their grand master plan to infect us with germs and to achieve world domination."

and these are just awesome:
http://www.onemoregadget.com/the-greatest-list-of-the-coolest-ice-cubes-around/


***I am not held responsible for the maturity/appropriate-ness of the rest of any of the sites I link you to. I can't be held accountable for whatever random stuff the site may also contain. You've been warned.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Mountain Report

I went snowshoeing on Grouse Mountain yesterday, and it was awesome.
Posting pictures here is a drag, so I link you to- not my flickr page, but, ta-dah!
MY OWN HOMEPAGE!
http://flavors.me/sunshine0024
Check that outtt :D you can get all my feeds directly there.

Awesome.

Also, I'm now a card-carrying member of Grouse Mountain. Some part of me has ALWAYS wanted to do that.
(I have no idea why. I don't pretend like I make any more sense to myself than I make to anyone else. But I've always thought mountain snow sports people are just the coolest).

Anyways, it's the last week of classes! This, of course, couldn't possibly go by without some hitches.
First and foremost, I finished a 12 page project on Saturday. And then downloaded the screenwriting program, wrote up the 5 page portion, and deleted the copy. Saved the project, came back a while later- and all five script pages were gone.
Needless to say, I had a meltdown, couldn't figure out what happened, and then rewrote the five pages from memory.
Got a 69% on the group project in New Media. Not exactly much of a shock- the TA grades, gives very little guidance on what she wants, gives everyone bad grades, and besides, we spent that whole project arguing venomously. Not much of a shocker there.
Other creative writing class project got extended to Thursday- of course, I'd already finished it, thinking it was due Tuesday. My psychic powers need some fine tuning, I believe.

And now, some good stuff:
1. Shortly after said hysterics-inducing project deletion, got messaged by a friend with suddenly impeccably good timing, and thus ended my miserable mood.
2. That homepage up there makes my life. I'm proud of it. That picture in the background, by the way, was taken with my old phone (amazing camera on that thing!) at one of Bobby's little league games. I was just thinking about those the other day. I miss them. (And yeah, I also miss being able to go "oh, my brother's that one. Yeah, the one that just made that be-au-ti-ful save. Yupp).
3. 23 days until I come home!
4. I'm no longer irritated by the fact that both google and yahoo redirect to their Canadian pages (.ca instead of .com). However, typing ".ca" is gonna become a habit.
5. Did you SEE that homepage? I feel brilliant.

Anyways. I have to work on that recently-deleted project. It's due at midnight tonight.
(How dramatic is that for a duedate? Feels like whatshername, the princess with the midnight- whatever. What it really feels like is Persephone having to return to the Underworld at the end of summer. That's a much better deadline-y story).
(Greek myths are better than fairytales).