"That's too much, Bob!"

My first two exams are on Saturday, and as usual I’d rather be procrastinating than studying. Surprisingly I did study today for a good three-four hours on campus. The couches in the Concourse started putting my ass to sleep though so I gave up. The good news is I set everything up so I can easily finish my notes for the religion course tomorrow, then have Thursday and Friday to prepare the answers to the essay questions on the philosophy exam.

Then I have all of next week to re-learn basic accounting. For something that I loved, it’s not really all that appealing anymore. I’ve changed.

Considering I am so bloody sick of school right now, I’m surprised that I haven’t quite given up on it. It’s close though. I don’t feel into it anymore. I kinda wish that I could risk applying for September for grad school, so that for once I can have a summer to myself without having to worry about school. I should feel better after having a month off. It’s just been non-stop school for the last 10 months and it’s getting to be too much.

What do people do to de-stress and get school out of their system?


To London We Have Gone

We went to London last weekend so I could tour Western and learn where things are both at school and in the city. I apologise for needing a week to recover, but finals are next week and things have been busy.

I like London and Western’s campus. It’s nowhere near as big as people make it out to be. If I get to live in the graduate student residences like I want, it will take me the same amount of time to get to class as it does now.

We arrived on Thursday night and wandered around downtown a bit. I was having fun being lost, Dean not so much. We weren’t very far from Richmond Street though, so I figured we couldn’t get too lost. We found our way back just in time to get the bus to the school, since we were staying in their Bed and Breakfast for the weekend.

It was a little weird, since they were using the apartment-style Elgin Hall, but were renting out the rooms in singles. There was an older couple staying in the other two rooms, but I only saw them a couple times the whole weekend so I have no clue why they were in London. They were sticking around for a while anyway, since they had a lot of food and stuff in the fridge and dishes and pans and such.

We had a campus tour on Friday morning, which was also a lot of fun. We got up early and wandered, and eventually found the Observatory where the tours start. They let us leave early since we didn’t really need to see the undergrad residences (seeing as were were living in one already), so we went to the North Campus building so I could bug the department secretary about the graduate applications and see if they knew if the electives I want will be offered.

I weirded them out asking so many questions almost a year in advance, but some of the electives are offered once every two years, and I wanted to know if the philosophy class shows up more often than that since they are offering it in January. I don’t get any electives until next September, but knowing if that class gets offered more often would have helped. I couldn’t find anything out about that one. Apparently only one person teaches it, so it’s up to that person if they want to teach it in a given term. I guess I’ll just have to suck up a lot my first term and see if they’ll offer it again. The other two electives I want are offered pretty much every-other term, so I’m good for them.

After I was done being a nuisance, we hopped on the bus across town to go to the Mandarin for lunch. Mandarin is my new favourite food place, since they had pretty much everything and it was buffet. Yummy! A lot of people seem to think that way though, since it was standing-room only waiting for seats, even with a reservation. We were early though or we probably wouldn’t have had to wait that long.

One of the classrooms turns into a movie theatre at night and has really cheap movies, so Friday night we went and saw X-men again. I really like that movie. It was better the second time around. The other movie playing was The Lake House. Icky. We were going to see it on Saturday since it was hot and we didn’t want to be out fighting the bugs at night, but we went back to the apartment and bummed around instead.

We spent Saturday playing on the busses some more, checking out the malls to see where I should get groceries and such. The mall nearest campus is nice, I really like it. There is a better, larger one across town, but it’s only better if you want to shop for clothes so I don’t really care. It’s the same reason I never shop at Fairview, when Conestoga has all the stuff I need. So I’ll probably never go in there again, unless I need to switch busses there. There’s another mall on the west side of town. We took the bus there but didn’t go in, there didn’t seem to be much there. The place looked pretty run-down and not as popular as the other two places.

The busses are weird in London, because they don’t have terminals and just rely on transfers between the main busses when you’re downtown. It’s a little tricky figuring out which stops are the ones that will switch to the bus you need, but once that’s figured out it’s all good.

I found the craft store downtown. It was a lot closer to Richmond St. than I’d thought, but it’s easy to get to, and I can walk to it from school when I’m not in the mood for the bus since there’s a path along the river a block away from the store. They’ve got lots of really nice sock yarn, and the hand-painted Koigu that I have to get shipped here. It means rather than buying a bunch of the sock yarns I like, I’ll be saving up for a few of the nicer shades of Koigu instead. It’s probably better that way, since I learned from buying all that stuff from Knitpicks. You can only look at one self-patterning yarn for so long, even if you have it in like 12 different colours.

I didn’t go in the store since the owner was out on a break, instead we took the path back to school. It was a little too hot for walking that much, but for most of it there was a lot of shade. It was only the part near campus that moves away from the river that had a lot of sun.

We left very early Sunday morning even though we were originally going to stay all day, because check-out was at noon and we didn’t want to carry all our stuff around for 7 hours straight. We’d pretty much seen where stuff was at that point anyway. Like most places, it would take more than a weekend to find the more personal places. I feel good about the city and the school and am looking forward to being there.

It’s going to be plenty lonely at first, but I’m sure there will be lots of visiting going on since London is pretty easy to get to for both Dean and my parents. So I’ll see them more than I do now, but I won’t get to see Dean as much.

It’s strange, but I kinda like the idea of setting out somewhere new again. When I moved here I stayed on campus or within a few blocks of it for the entire first year, and I had no clue where anything else was or that there were so many neat places around the area. Now that I’m used to living on my own I’ll get out and about more, and can make the most of my time in London.

Thanks go to Tudor and Laura for the pointers on places to go and things to do. Sorry for asking you on such short notice. Though we didn’t get to do everything we found where a lot of the stuff is and will be checking it out on future visits.


Needle Affair

I started yet another pair of socks. I had to frog one of the ones I did before, since the socks were supposed to be hand-washed and accidentally went through full wash/dry cycle. Since I’m not quite ready to redo that pair, I started some with KnitPicks’ Sock Memories in Easter. I bought this yarn at the end of last month when they came out with their circular needles, since I was buying a couple pairs of those and I didn’t want to waste all the shipping costs on just two needles.

Those needles are amazing, by the way. I like them better than the Addi Turbos, and I’ve been in love with those for months. The most notable difference is that the points on the KnitPicks needles are sharper, and the needles themselves have slightly more weight to them. This makes them the perfect needles for me, since those were my two main problems with the Addis. I was having trouble with stitches splitting because of the blunt points, and the needles were getting bent because of the death-grip I have when I’m stressed. Because of the added weight I don’t hold these needles as tightly, and they are holding up much better as a result.

The current pair of socks I’m doing two at a time on one circular, from the toe-up. When winding the yarn into balls I noticed that the colourway was going in the same direction and the ends almost started in the same spot, so I’m making these socks to match, as well. Both methods are new for me. I’ve tried two socks at once on two circulars before, but I couldn’t stand all the needle ends hanging around everywhere. This way is working out nicely. I’m using the same length needle I always do – 32″ – and it seems to work well for both one sock and two. I know most people seem to like 40″ needles, but they bother me with all the extra cable floating around. It’s possible that when I get to the heel and such I’ll miss the extra length, but I think for the most part I’m fine doing things this way.


Butterflies…just not the fun and pretty kind

I’m feeling all anxious now. The applications for my grad school program have been updated to include a May start date, so I need to come up with a statement of intent and letters of recommendation ASAP, and get that submitted. I knew it would happen soon, I just never expected this soon. At least the OSAP is easy, since it’s the same application I just filled out for September I won’t need to bug my parents for info this time. I think I’m going add that to the lists of things for me to do in August, since I’ve got essays and finals to get through right now.
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On the personal front, I spent all day yesterday on the phone with my mom because Bones has finally gone and hit rock bottom. He was in some pretty bad shape, crying and unable to walk, lots of shaking, not really in control of his body. He made my aunt call because he’s done and wants to come home and get better. This I couldn’t be more happy about, because it’s been killing me these last few years seeing what he’s been doing to himself. I’m anxious for him, because I watched my mom go through this and I know how hard not drinking will be. Not to mention the withdrawals. That’s going to be fun. On the other hand though, I know my mom. This is it. He gets one chance and he better make it last. If he starts drinking again now, anything at all, that’s it. She won’t have sympathy if he doesn’t stick with it.

For now, he’s moved back in and is being baby-sat to make sure he’s okay. He’s been hanging out at the Legion for months, and apparently they’ve been giving him (and anyone else that wants it) as much alcohol as they can afford no matter how drunk they are or whether it may be unhealthy. My mom went in there to find out how much he drank, and they said two and a half pitchers. To top it all off, when he couldn’t sleep after that my stupid aunt gave him some of her sleeping pills. I’m very pissed off at her right now for that. How stupid can you get?! I swear, she’s trying to kill him. She’s still meddling and not being very helpful. She won’t give his keys back, so he can get the rest of his stuff, and she keeps calling the rest of my aunts and uncles and trying to make them come down. I’m glad I’m here and not at home, because I really want to flip out on her. Her blatant disregard for her family just drives me up a wall. I don’t understand it. I love Bones so much, I can’t see how she would be dumb enough to give her brother an assortment of pills when he very probably has alcohol poisoning.

I got to talk to him on the phone for a bit yesterday. I told him about our attempt at boating on the river and got a few laughs out of him. He still sounded really slurred and a bit out of it, but definitely much improved from what he must have been like the night before. I’m proud of him for wanting to get better, but I’m worried that he’s not doing it for the right reasons. He keeps saying he can’t take care of anyone, but I don’t think he realizes that he needs to want this for himself, and not for his mooching siblings/mother. They can take care of their goddamn selves for a change.


Ouch!

I keep getting these weird sharp pains in random places lately. A few times last week it was in my arms, today it’s right where my right leg meets my butt. And unlike last week, it just won’t quit. I’m just sitting here and not doing anything, though it was happening before when I was working in the library.

I guess I should make an appointment with Health Services.


The froggie is dead

He got his leg stuck in one of the plants right under the filter and couldn’t get away. Poor froggie. 🙁 No more for me for a while, until I can be around more to watch out for things like that.

On a better note, the weekend was fun. We tried going out on the river in an inflatible raft that we bought. It turned out not to be worth keeping, since it was supposed to be able to seat four but could really only seat two, plus the oarlocks were in a really bad spot. You couldn’t oar without hitting your knees, or you had to practically be laying down.

We docked at the Cambridge Rowing Club. It was kinda funny seeing all these accomplished rowers doing laps around us when we could barely make it near the hospital. Still, fun while it lasted. There were lots of baby duckies, which was very cute to see.

We went swimming yesterday, not for very long, but that was fun and nice. Hopefully we’ll get to do that a bunch more times before the children get back. The pool is so much nicer without all the kicking and splashing that goes on when they are home.

Kitty is determined to make friends with Trixie. She keeps “hiding” in the corner behind the plant and hissing like mad whenever he comes in the room. For the first few days Kitty would get scared and hiss back (while running away to make sure she can’t hurt him), but now he’s realized she’s more afraid of him than he is of her and keeps getting ever closer trying to give her a smell. Yesterday he was rubbing his head on the plant right in front of her trying to prove how nice he is. It was cute.