Grading my year

After making it, I had described my list of 2011 resolutions as "eensy and doable". I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time, because when I read over it now it seems pretty lofty and huge– and this is the second version, which is smaller than the first one.

So let's see how I did:

Get a 9+ average one semester. My second semester, which ended in June (I think) was my best semester in University, so far, with a 9.0 average. So this resolution has been met (never mind that I failed half of my subjects in my third semester, which just ended a few weeks ago. Rough patch).

Talk to people more. Compared to how the year started out, yes. I can talk to people more easily now, and all it took was practice.

Make my own school lunches. Healthier and cheaper! I don't always do it, but I bring food pretty often. I don't like to depend on packaged granola bars (unhealthy) or cafeteria dinners (sometimes tasty, but sometimes... well, not. Also I don't alway have time to choose, line up, buy and eat).

Brush my teeth more often. I did at first, but then I reverted back to twice a day.

Learn to drive. Nope. But I did get my licence, so at least that was a step in the right direction.

Stay reasonably informed about the going-ons of the world. See the teeth-brushing resolution.

Read 100 books. Failed. Read only 53 books in eleven months (started counting in February).

Finish a 5k race (and get a free T-shirt from it or something). Nope, but I did run a 7k race!! This is the only one where I went above and beyond.

Eat 8-9 serving of fruit and veggie a day. Nope. I did go through periods where I ate this much, but there were other times when I'd have 2 or 3. Currently I oscillate between 4 and 7.

All in all, not bad. Not good, but pretty decent. I'd say 7.1 out of 11.3.

Books 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53

• Book 48: Roverandom, by Tolkien

It was by Tolkien, it was tiny, it was about a dog. It's also a children's book, and has a sort of a simple, old-timey feel about it that is reminiscent of The Moomins. Cute, but I didn't enjoy it too that much because it felt a bit tedious at parts.

• Book 49: was The Reptile Room, by Lemony Snicket.

I need fast reads to rack up my numbers before the year ends tomorrow. Pathetic, I know, but this is a good book so it's not as sleazy as it seems. Hopefully.

I read the Unfortunate Events series once before, when I was in secondary school. It was the end of the school year so we were obliged to go to school, but there was nothing to do there except sit around and talk and play. I'm a boring person so I sat on a desk that last week and read all the books (there's 13 of them) except the first one. We don't have it anymore because my eldest sister lent it to her then-boyfriend and he never gave it back.

Actually, we do have the first book, but only in French and I'm too lazy to read in another language (also, my I take this moment to express my admiration for the people I know who do read in English even though it's not their first language? You guys are ballsy and awesome).

• Books 50 and 51 were the first and second Death Note graphic novels.

Yes, they count as books. They're a bunch of papers bound together and there's a story in them, even if it's mostly pictures. Shut up, I'm not cheating!

I watched the anime a few years ago and bought the first four volumes of the manga version because they were cheap, but I never actually read them. I'm making up for it now.

• Book 52: The Gospel According to Larry, by Janet Tashjian

Someone mentioned it in a review of another book and it sounded good, so I asked my mom (holder of the Card of Credit) to buy it online if she saw a good used copy. She did, but it got lost in the mail so she bought it again after a few months.

It was good, but I would have liked it more if it had been written for an older audience (it's for ages 12 and up) because although the story is pretty far-fetched*, the themes it deals with could be developed a little further.

I really liked the idea of having only 75 possessions because I'm a fan of decluttering. Well, sort of– I love the idea but I have too much damn stuff to find a good home for (and I'll be damned if I'm throwing out my Darth Vader spiral-straw cup).

* 17-year-old genius dude writes short lecture/sermon/rants about consumerism, hypocrisy, etc. and posts them on a website under a false name; eventually he becomes an anonymous celebrity and struggles to keep his identity secret. He's also in love with his best friend, so there's a side story about that, too.

If you want it and you promise to LOVE IT FOREVER, give me a shout.

• Book 53 is What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained, by Robert Wolke.

I finished several months ago, but I didn't mention it because I read it in parts. It lived on the breakfast table, so every time I sat down to eat, I'd read a section or three. First the ones about chocolate and desserts, then the ones about kitchen equipment, then the parts about temperature, and so on, until reading the ones dealing with salt. Plus all the recipes. Eventually, I ran out of sections because I'd finished it all up. It was excellent.

Books 45, 46, 47

Book 45: Historias de Diván, by Gabriel Rolón

The only book in Spanish I'll have read this year, it seems. It's made up of eight short, true stories about the patients an Argentinian psychotherapist has treated. Apparently the author is quite famous in Argentina, having shows on television and radio wherein he dispenses advice to the public; sort of like Dr. Phil, but probably less annoying. Hopefully.

I bought this at a book fair last Saturday for a measly 39 MXN (instead, I could have bought 4 liters of bottled water, 19.5 packets of gum or a movie ticket if it were a Wednesday. Fun fact for you.) The book, anyhow, was pretty good although not spectacular. Gave me a few things to think about.

Book 46: Princess in the Spotlight, by Meg Cabot

The second book in the Princess Diaries series. I had a long journey via public transport ahead of me, so I picked this up because it's easy to read and very entertaining. Unlike, I might add, the last few books of this series which are kind of boring.

Book 47: What I Was, by Meg Rosoff

Good up until the last quarter or so of the book, at which point it became very good. I liked that the main character wasn't entirely likable, yet I still sympathized with him. Usually when you don't entirely like a character it's because you hate them. At least, that's true in my case.

Books 42, 43, 44

Book 42 was Away Laughing on a Fast Camel, by Louise Rennison.

This is part of the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series, number five or six, I think (can't be bothered to look it up). I picked it up because I wanted something I could read on the bus during the weekend I spent on a field trip; our copy of this book has relatively large print (good for bus-reading) and is covered in plastic (essential for avoiding cookie crumb impregnations and accidents involving filthy pond water).

Anyway, as for the actual book, I'm pretty sure I've read it before, because it seemed quite familiar. It was very, very silly but also entertaining and a fast read.

Books 43 was Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers, also by Louise Rennison

Next in the series of the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson. I read this because I wanted to know what happened after the last book, but this one didn't answer the big question (does Georgia end up with Masimo, the Italian Stallion Sex God?). Pfff, I thought, have it your way. I'm done with these for now.

It was fun, but I don't think I can read more than two of these in a row. My brain could quite possibly melt.

Book 44 was my comfort book, my favorite book, the one I save for when I really want it. Bellwether, by Connie Willis.

I don't know what to say about this book. I like the format: short chapters (less than 10 pages, in most cases) that start with a short description of a fad. Much like Scott Westerfield's Peeps does, actually. Except Peeps is about parasites, and Bellwether is about fads.

When you see a movie, read a book, listen to a song, look at a picture repeatedly, with enough time between viewings, you notice things that you hadn't seen before. Like in Shaun of the Dead, there's little jokes that hint at the end of the movie but you only catch them when you see the movie for a second time. Or the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets VHS that's sitting on top of a pile of movies in Mean Girls, in the scene where they're watching scary movies on Hallowe'en.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Anyway, repeated readings of this book make me notice things that had previously gone in through one eye and out the other. One of the fads described at the beginning of a chapter was the Dr. Spock books (Spock the childcare expert, not Spock the Science Officer from Star Trek). A few months ago I was in a bookstore sifting through piles of used books from the bargain table with my mom and I found an old edition of Dr. Spock's Baby and Childcare. I was all "Hey, look, Spock!", and my mom looked over and briefly explained that Dr. Spock was really famous back in the day.

It wasn't a hugely important moment to me, and I probably would have forgotten it completely if I hadn't been reminded of it by the mention of Dr. Spock in Bellwether. But I think it's interesting that my brain formed the association immediately and without effort while I was reading what I had repeatedly skimmed over many times before.

Here's a picture of Shaun the Sheep, because sheep are an important part of Bellwether. In a herd of sheep, the bellwether is the leader sheep that the other sheep follow around, sheepishly. And Shaun is obviously the bellwether of his flock.

Books 39, 40, 41

I don't have anything specific I wanted to write about. Actually, I clicked the "New Post" button by accident, but I figure I might as well write. Right?

The end of the semester is starting. I didn't do too well this time around. I started out motivated and capable, but lost steam about one month into the semester and eventually dropped a class (I can't get home at 11PM, be at school at 7:30 the next morning, and do my homework in between more than a few times, it turns out). It was horrible deciding wether to drop it or not, but when I did I felt much better. And I'm going to fail another course (damn lab), which means that effectively I'm only going to pass four courses out of six. Ironically, I only decided to take six courses to make up for last semester, when I only took four.

So that backfired. Lessons learned.

On the other hand, I feel better in general. Better than I did a month ago (miserable) and much better than five months ago (very miserable). So that's good.

I have no idea where this post is going. Oh, I read some books.

Book 39: This Place has no Atmosphere, by Paula Danziger

I thought this book was pretty bad, but somewhat entertaining nonetheless. Entertaining enough that I finished it, anyway. At the end it gave me a few things to think about, but I'm guessing that's because I was thinking a lot about things when I read this book (I mentioned I've been feeling better; that didn't just happen serendipitously, but rather it is fucking hard work).

Book 40: The Salmon of Doubt, by Douglas Adams

A compilation of letters, essays, interviews, etc. etc. by Douglas Adams, as well as a portion of a book he never finished. Immensely funny and thought-provoking, and also made me feel rather guilty that I don't have strong opinions about some things (namely politics and society, and that sort of thing). I really enjoyed this book, especially so because I was still thinking a lot when I read it. The only bit I didn't quite like is when there are several articles about technology, one after another. I mean, it's fascinating stuff, but after a while I felt like I was reading the same things over and over again. Four stars.

Book 41: A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon

I was feeling miserable one day and spent some time in a bookshop to cheer up (also I bought some lip balm that claims to taste like cookie dough, but really just smells faintly of sugar). I was going to buy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy because I can't find our copy at home and I've wanted to read it for about five years, but then I saw this and got it, instead. Firstly because I've read another book by Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I think about half the English-speaking world has read as well). Secondly, I was sucked in by the description on the back cover (it said that a character "quietly begins to lose his mind". SOLD!). The first half was pretty hard to read and took me about a week and a half to chew through because it's really well-written and I kept getting nervous on behalf of the characters, but it got easier as they became less sane. Liked it a lot.

Wow, I write about the same things over and over. School and books, basically. I don't do much else that I want to write about...

Contact lenses

I skipped the gym today and picked up my contact lenses from the optometrist's instead. Since it's my first time ever wearing them, I needed to have a one-hour session with one of the employees in order to learn the correct eye-poking technique necessary to insert and remove them, before being trusted with two boxes full of them (just in case I were to become hyper, rip the boxes open, and run around in a circle with contact lenses stuffed up my nose. Maybe). And don't think you can just drop by whenever you see fit and demand to be taught– no! You need to go early before the shop fills up, otherwise they'd run short of employees and eye-testing rooms. So the only time you can do it is right after they open, or at six in the evening on weekdays.

Since I have classes all day during the week, it had to be the weekend. Today I was really sleepy and so was delighted when I groggily realized that I could sleep in a little more, skip the gym and get my contact lenses instead: a win/lose/ultra-win situation.

While the optometrist taught me how to pull my eyelashes out of the way and pretend I was in a blinking contest so that I could get the lens in, we chatted about metal. Metal as in the music genre, I mean; we didn't converse about tin cans or remark about how, when you run a piece of metal through the sand on a beach, you come up with a bunch of microscopic magnetic particles. This, by the way, is pretty annoying if you're using a pair of metal tweezers to sift through a sand sample looking for foraminifera.

Anyway, after dropping a contact lens on the floor, exchanging band names and staring at my eyes in a magnifying mirror for about half an hour, I finally left the shop and wandered through the mall, the supermarket, the bazaar, a fabric shop, the street and a home goods store looking at stuff. Everything looks much clearer when you don't see it through a layer of fingerprints and muck accumulated on your glasses.

I had to come home from my wanderings when my sister called me because she was locked out of our house and nobody was home, but that was alright because at that point I was debating whether it's okay to buy a plastic eggplant just because it's funny and on discount (!), despite the fact that you know it will sit around the house looking ugly, gathering dust and generally being clutter-y, until one day several years into the future, someone puts it in the trash.

Logic says no, it'll sit in a landfill until the next ice age, but my heart was saying yes, yes, yes, it's an EGGPLANT!

Now that I have contact lenses I can:

a) See where I'm going in the rain

b) Identify people in the gym

c) Get an infection more easily and lose one or both eyes

d) See things under microscopes normally and not have to fiddle with, sharpening the image to my myopic eyes, and thus leaving it out of focus for everybody else

e) Get hit on the nose a bit less painfully

That last one reminds me of that STUPID F***ING thing people do where they sneak up from behind you and cover your eyes. Half the time the idiots are too busy ham-handedly touching your face (ew) that they don't realize that your glasses are crushing the bridge of your nose.

Ahem. Anyway, I have bionic vision now!! You know, sort of.

Nineteen

What a nineteen-year-old looks like from afar. Actually I was a few days away from being nineteen here, but whatever.

Last Thursday was my birthday. On Thursdays, frozen yogurt is on sale (two for one) and there's a special deal on chicken wings– it's like the planets had lined up. On my birthday, my friends and I would eat frozen yogurt in the afternoon and chicken wings at night (and no vegetables! *hip thrust*)

The frozen yogurt part of the plan was especially for the people who couldn't make it later that night, but everyone was too busy at the last minute (surprise!) and only three of us had assembled by one o'clock. Being lazy, we drank frappés and coffee in the cafeteria and chatted out heads off, instead of going to the mall. It was actually more fun that way, I think. I mean, it sounds lame ("Uuuuhh, we drank coffee. And, um, talked!") but it was really nice because normally nobody has an hour and a half to set aside and devote specifically to nattering.

Ahem.

At night, I skipped my last class (Botany, which I'm not a big fan of, anyway. And I've never skipped it before) and went out with a bunch of my friends to eat chicken wings. There was the obligatory sequence of the three cars losing track of each other, and only one person knowing where the place is, and yelling out the window "No! Don't turn there, it's straight ahead!", and confusing phone calls ("But the OXXO is before the supermarket! We're there, but where are you?").

Anyway, we sat in a kiosk and ate a few batches of fried chicken wings (a whole lot of which were 80% skin) and my friends spelled out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in bones. And then we rolled around and laughed and so on. Really fun.

And when I got home, my mom had made VARENYKY!! I was full of chicken wings and it was around midnight on a Thursday, so I didn't sit down and have my yearly feast, but still: Varenyky and motherly love.

So I actually did something fun on my birthday, for once, other than seeing a movie and eating cake. Although I'll still be having cake, make no mistake!!! Probably the weekend after the next, when I have time… unless I have a field trip that weekend, I don't remember.

Well, whatever. I'M OLD NINETEEN!!!!

Books 35-38

I'm not going to bother saying much about these books. This list is still tiny and it's already October... crap! I still have like sixty books to go before I meet my goal. School is getting in the way.

Book 35 was Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

There's thousands of review of this book already and I don't have anything to add, really. Basically it was really, really good (a bit less so the second time around) and the ending was excellent.

We have a used copy that once belonged to a student, so it's highlighted, annotated, and heavily decorated in marker. I googled the name written in the cover, and it appears that this girl is now a cross country runner. Cool.

Scribbled all over.

Book 36 was Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card

It took me ages to finish this book. About two weeks, I think... I mostly liked it, about 8 out of 10. Since it takes place at the same time as Ender's Game, which was written before it, some parts felt a little forced (since they had to fit in with the other storyline) but there was nothing terrible about it.

Book 37 was Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry

It also took me a while to finish this book. It was good, although it felt a little bit too educational. That's what it's for, though, so that's not really a problem.

Book 38... crap, I forgot what it was. Oh, yeah, POD! Book 38 was POD, by Stephen Wallenfels.

My mom really wanted us to read this book, so she ordered it online. It got lost in the mail (bitch) so she ordered it again. It was reminiscent of the Moon trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer, except POD is faster-paced, and funnier. Also there's less emphasis on things such as hunger and thirst; they're all, "Oh, yeah, we're down to our last can of kidney beans. I'll go to the window and spy on my neighbors now." This has the advantage of not making you want to go to Costco and buy several dozen cases of tinned food just in case.

Reporting home

I've started drinking a lot of coffee from the faculty café, which is run mostly by communists. The blend is actually quite good. I've been having one or two large lattes a day, and I look forward to them so much that it's weird. This morning I was nodding off during my first class, and the guy sitting next to me had a flask of coffee which he would periodically sip. It was tortuous. I felt like jumping on him and stealing his drink (I didn't).

Oh, and also today I crammed studied all day for a test, only for the teacher to not show up. It's a bit weird, actually, because he's not the type to just vanish. I suggested that he maybe fell into an open manhole and lost his phone, so he couldn't call us to say he wouldn't be able to make it. Or maybe his mom is still in the hospital. I hope not. I hope it was a manhole with a pile of pillows on the bottom to cushion his fall.

Pardon my terrible writing. I want to get this over with so that I can do my homework before I get too sleepy.

On Saturday it's my first field trip for this term. We're going to some mountain or other to gather mushrooms, so that should be fun. And then, in a few weeks I'm going to... um, I forgot where. Somewhere for Botany, someplace else for Earth Sciences, and then four days at the beach for Zoology.

Going to the beach should be a lot more fun than it was last term, for Algae class. I was in a funk that time, plus I didn't like anyone in my class and spent all my free time being talked at by a really annoying teammate:

"Let me see your iPod! *grab* My ex-boyfriend had an iPod like this. I used to borrow it. But he's an ass because he..."

"[Teammate dude] is making me really angry!! He didn't help carry the algae back up the beach [or something stupid to that effect]!! All men are the same. Like my ex-boyfriend, you know! He..."

"…but he changed, and I changed. It just wasn't the same. We spent some great times together, but then he started to…"

"…and his dog had seven puppies. One of them was called…"

If I hadn't been in such a crappy, apathetic mood back then, I think I might've smacked her over the head with some ever-handy Sargassum and told her to shut the hell up.

Anyway, in my Zoology class I get along pretty well with my team and I don't feel like rolling around in a hamster ball all of the time anymore* so I'm looking forward to it. Also I always hated Algae class anyway, but this time we'll be looking for ugly, slimy, spiky, worm-like invertebrate... things… hanging out under rocks. Much more fun.

* You know? So I don't have to talk to anyone?

Tired + prose

This schedule is cracking me. Last week I had my first baby stress attack ("I thought this assignment was due next Monday! NOOOO!!! World... shrinking...! GAAH!"**).

Actually, that's wrong, now that I think about it. The first stress monster was like two weeks into the term. I think.

Anyway, the point is that my schedule is kind of wearing me out. I don't actually hate it; in fact, I like not having lots of free time between classes, I like constantly having something I need to do, and I don't mind spending so much time at school. The only bad bit is that, in order not to fall back, I have to get a big chunk of my homework done ahead of time, so that I can do another big chunk of my homework ahead of time, and that way I can get the last chunk done in time.

Also, time seems to pass really slowly. Today was Tuesday and it felt like Thursday. When I'm going home at night, I think back to what happened that morning and it seems like it was two or three days ago. The beginning of the semester seems like it was before the summer holidays.

Also, I'm not reading nearly as much as I used to. I used to get through a lot of books while I stood in the bus, during lulls in labs, and when I was procrastinating. Now I sleep even when I'm standing and I don't have time to procrastinate. Basically I read in lab, while waiting for our test tubes to stop bubbling*** or for our turn on the single spectrophotometer (the Molecular Biology 2 lab is sort of under-equipped. The Molecular Biology 3 lab, on the other hand, is REALLY under-equipped).

I did finish two books... in the last month or so. I'll do a post on those sometime later.

Wow, this post is boring. I'll tell you a story to try and salvage something from the wreckage. Your mission is to guess how much of it (if any) is real.

Peanuts

So there I was, walking up the first flight of steps to the library. Some men in blue overalls kneeling on the steps, chatting about videos they'd watched on YouTube. Sawing at a thin, wooden board. Can't they do that somewhere else? This isn't a place to fill with dust. The hostile thoughts come to a halt when I become aware of the crunch underfoot. Glass. The glass that was in the library door lies shattered on the floor.

The men in the overalls are cutting the wood to fit into the doorframe. I continue up the second flight of steps to enter the main part of the library. No shattered glass here, but the door is hanging off its hinges. I pass under it quickly– knowing my luck, it must be waiting for me to get near to finally collapse on top of my body.

What happened here? The books I've so often browsed are lying in tatters on the floor. The library computers are spread out in pieces, the desks have all been knocked over. The bookshelves are leaning at odd angles against each other and against the walls. A loose page flutters down the staircase leading up to the reading room. The place is deserted.

I hesitantly ascend to the reading room. I don't know what to expect. I don't even know if I should be here. I'm alone. Where is everyone? I consider asking the men I saw before, but then realize that the sawing noises have stopped. They've gone, too.

I'm jerked from my thoughts when I see the state the reading room is in. It's even worse than it was below. Feeling uneasy, I turn to leave– and see the peanut shells. They lead around the corner of the room, away from me, away from the stairs, away from the exit. A perfect trail. I can hear my heartbeat, feel it in my throat. Are the rumors true?

I make a decision; despite my misgivings, I get down on my hands and knees. I don't want to be seen before it's inevitable. I slowly crawl forward, painstakingly inching my way towards the photocopy machine. There's a cracking noise now, constant, growing louder as I approach the source. Crunch. Crack. Munch.

Munch?

We catch sight of each other at the same instant. Stiffen in surprise. Hold each other's gaze unblinkingly. I stop breathing.

Then he blinks. The spell is broken, and I exhale in relief. The librarian left her peanuts here when she finished her shift. It was just the library elephant that got loose again.

Oh, come on, it's 1:00 AM. Cut me some slack. Yesterday (or last week? I don't know, I told you about my time distortion) I went into the library, and some guys were boarding up one door, and the second door was on its hinges. As I walked under it I thought, "What, did an elephant run through here?".

** I'm just kidding. When I get stressed I find the nearest corner, put my forehead against the wall, close my eyes, hyperventilate and cry breathe deeply. If there are no corners handy I curl into a little ball. Then I go for a run the next day, or as soon as possible.

*** Which sounds like an odd thing to do, but imagine they're full of strong acid. There you go.

Gym, more detailed than you need to know

This is what my leg looks like now. Yes, it is, shut up.

So I went to the University's gym on Monday for the first time. I went up to a (hot) trainer guy and was all,

"Hey, can you help me out? I don't know what to do."

And he was all (hot),

"You don't have a routine? It's your first day, then? Okay. Warm up on a bike and I'll design a routine for you."

So I went and got bored on a stationary bike (usually when I'm on one, I have my laptop handy to watch sitcoms), and then I went back over to the (hot) trainer guy. He weighed me, asked my age, how much water I drink, my opinion on tuques with pom-poms on them, etc. etc.

"So what's your goal? What do you want to achieve?"

"I want, you know, muscles!"

"Muscle mass? [hot, slightly entertained smile] Okay. Glutes back, hold on to the machine here, five minutes."

After the stair stepper it was lower abs, then leg curls and extensions, and then... squats.

The squats are where three years of LesMills classes proved their worth**. First the (hot) trainer guy had me do twelve squats. Then he gave me a 20-pund dumbbell and told me to do eight more, but stopped me after two. He walked with me over to the barbell (!!) and said,

"I don't usually do this, but you're strong. It usually takes people a month at the gym to get to this level. Think you can do it?"

The barbell looked huge and I was all, "Ummmm, how much does that weigh?", but it was just 20kg, so that was fine. Eventually another (hot) trainer guy came over and they decided together that I could squat with the barbell plus another 15kg. I wasn't sure about the last five, but it was okay.

When I say it was okay, I don't mean it was easy. I mean I went all the way down and got a little bit stuck there after a few reps, and needed a tiny bit of help getting back up. Not a lot of help, but just a smidge, to get past the first bit. Also there was a constant stream of,

"Face up!"

"Glutes all the way back!"

"Face up!"

"Squeeze your knees!" (Squeeze? My knees?)

"Face up, look up!"

"...five... six, no, I didn't like that one, do it right or don't do it, six, better..."

At that point I fell in love. We want a June wedding.

And as for the knees, apparently I let my them bend inwards when the going gets hard. This is annoying because a BodyPump instructor pointed that out to me like, a year ago. I thought I'd taken care of that. Damn.

Then I did some other painful things, was released from the gym, and flopped over on a near patch of grass to eat my protein jello*** and do my homework before going back to my faculty to tidy up and attend class.

Phew.

** Actually, they pay off all the time. Other people's abs get sore from laughing.

*** I came up with it just this week. I made rum-flavored jello, but added powdered milk, almond extract, vanilla extract and protein powder. The protein powder separated and made a delicious layer on the top and it was AWESOME.

3rd semester, GO!

This is what I spend a lot of my time looking at. Once you've seen the face, you ALWAYS see the face.

I started my third semester at university two weeks ago. It's okay, so far.

Most days I get in pretty early (9:00 or 7:30 AM) and finish sort of late (8:00 or 9:30 PM). I chose this schedule because it's Monday-Friday, so I can still go to the gym on Saturdays. The only thing is, on Saturday I was too tired to go**. I might as well have gone, though, because once I woke up in the morning I couldn't get back to sleep anyway. I employed my time in a half-assed study session instead.

I joined the gym at school, along with a friend. So we can pop off during our free time, do some bench presses while looking at pictures of boob-y models posing on weight machines, and run back to our respective classes, all in the time it takes you to blink! But only if you take a nap between the beginning and end of the blink, obviously. Otherwise we mightn't make it.

So anyway, I had five classes originally, but dropped Math because my teacher was... well, she was quite something:

Teacher: Look at this sequence. It oscillates between increments of ten and seven. Add ten, then add seven, then add ten... okay?

Me: Um, but that goes against the definition you just wrote. That sequence diverges, and the definition is that it doesn't diverge.

Teacher: Huh? Oh, you're right. That's a good observation. Add a little note next to it in your notebook, that it works this way, too, so you don't get confused. It just doesn't say so in the definition.

Me: Ohmygod.

Yep, her examples were always helpful. Like this other one:

Teacher: So what's the general term of this sequence? Let's see. To get the first term we could do this... squared... minus two... but that won't give us the second term... if we divide it... Okay, then. [Wites one board: As we can see here, in some cases it is hard to figure out the general term of a sequence****.] So, on to the next example!

I was left with four classes and days punctuated with long stretches of nothingness in the middle, so I signed up for another class, preforming a complicated e-mail operation in which I arranged to take lectures with one class and lab with another (due to schedule problems). I also signed up for another class thinking I wouldn't get it anyway (five people wanting the one spot left) but SURPRISE, I got into both classes.

Oooooh, I thought, will I be able to take all six classes and pass with proper grades? Or just, you know, pass? Should I drop one? If I drop Earth Sciences I'll have Mondays off... Okay, I'll do it! I'll drop a class!

So on Friday I was all set to drop Earth Sciences, but then I found out that the deadline was the day before. Why not publish that useful little tidbit on the Faculty's website? Gah!

So I have bitten off a lot, and it may prove to be more than I can chew. But it's like that time three weeks ago when I overestimated my hunger and accidentally made too much oatmeal: I buckled down and ate it anyway (okay, I ate most of it and the dog got the rest, but oatmeal is cheap and it's not wasted if it goes to someone furry who really wants it. Shhh!).

**I figured I'd need recovery time from lack of sleep. The day before, Friday, I fell asleep on the bus to school (standing up and constantly jerking awake), in Molecular Biology lab, in Fungi class and on the bus home. I stayed awake during both Plants lab and Animals lab, though! I mean, in Animals lab I fell asleep a few times while I was drawing a sponge, but that was just because the sponge was big and the structure got a bit repetitive. Other than that, I was fit as a fiddle.

**** When she wrote it her grammar was bad, too, but that got lost in translation.

This is really pretty. It's a (thin thin thin) slice of orange peel, dyed with Sudan III, a brownish-reddish, carcinogenic (!) dye. The oil in the peel got stained this here purty shade of orangey yellow that you're got yer eyes on.

Second-hand books (33, 34)

These books were both second-hand. Well, I'm not quite sure about The Daughter of Time, but the copy I read was a bit shabby and quite aged, so I'm guessing it is.

In the case of Fearless, my mom bought it recently at a used book store in the Centro. Those things are crazy. My mom had gone to lunch with some friends nearby, and I had gone elsewhere to buy some concert tickets*, and afterwards we met up to book-hunt. I couldn't call her phone (no service inside bookstores, apparently) so I walked into the first shop I saw, and found her working away at the Used English table. There was already a big pile of goodies already set aside.

So we worked away at opposite ends of the table, dissecting piles and remarking upon the findings ("Hey, another Sweet Valley Twins!" "Mmm"). Well, my mom worked, and I held up books which I thought were cool (an old Hardy Boys mystery, a book from the 1950s about raising babies, etc.). When we payed, there were enough books to fill her backpack.

Anyway, she bough Fearless either on that trip or on a subsequent one to the same store a few days later (she regretted leaving behind a book about Samuel Pepys which she had originally turned down because somewhat expensive).

Anyway.

Book 33: The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey.

This was really good (good characters, historical mystery, et.c etc.) but it was SO HARD to get through. I had to keep flipping back to the genealogical tree at the beginning to see who everybody was. And then there was the business of remembering who had claimed whose children were illegitimate and when, and whose mistress was where in what year, and who is Warwick? And who's Clarence? And Henry VII was the grandson of whose cousin again?

It all got to be too much so I put the book down for two days or so, and when I returned to it I'd forgotten whom most people were. Aagh.

And then it turned out that not only was there a genealogical tree at the front of the book, but a different one at the back. It would have been really helpful if I'd found it before I'd finished the novel.

Fearless, by Francine Pascal

Another Francine book! (number 12 was Hangin' Out with Cici). This was quick, entertaining and the writing style was good (I think the style would have better fit a short story, but it worked fine in the book, too). It's the first part of a series, and out of curiosity I read the plot for the next few books. They get pretty weird.

This one was good, though.

*but apparently they don't sell concert tickets on Sundays. Note to self: buy those soon or they'll run out. And Alestorm will probably never return *sob*

**They really did

1:00 PM - Productivity review

Bit of moss I photographed. See? Productive.

Things I could/should get done today:

• Get medical exam done so I can join the University's gym
• Get driver's license
• Read about sponges (the animals, not the ones for washing dishes)
• Transcribe Earth Sciences course notes and start on homework
• Pay scholarship fee (twenty cents!)
• Brush up on plant biology (vascular plant spores are haploid)
• Go over Biology of the Fungi notes, and start on homework
• Buy 8 freshwater fishes (live) for Animals lab

Things I've done today that could be considered (however remotely) productive:

• Wash my yoga mat
• Do a few bicep curls
• Take photos (Moss: Week One) for Biology of Plants class
• Make walnut butter
• Listen to a CBC podcast about advertising (I'm learning)
• Write for blog (will be greatly valued in future)

"To Do" lists have items of varying priority and urgency. If you spend a while doing the easy, non-urgent, non-essential things first, then you're still getting things done. You're being productive... by procrastinating!

Yeah, it's a stretch. Shut up.

Minute details, my wallet

I've attempted to relate every little bit of one of my last days on summer break. It got really tedious towards the middle. This isn't actually interesting, but I think I might appreciate reading later on, just so I know what I filled my days with (CliffNotes version: not much). I posted a little story at the end to make up for it.

* * *

Last night I stayed up until about one in the morning, eating bowl after bowl of frozen berries mixed with yogurt and topped with bits of walnut. It was one of those nights when I'm not sleepy at all until it hits me, very suddenly and very strongly. Usually I manage to brush my teeth and stumble to my room, but last night I just climbed into the guest bed, still in my clothes and dirty teeth.

There was a vicious mosquito in the room, and she bit me about several times (arm, other arm, under my chin, and two foiled attacks on my nose) until I took refuge under the covers. A normal mosquito might give up and gone away, but this mosquito kept buzzing around and trying to get at my nose while I was hiding. When I was almost out of oxygen I threw the covers aside, took a big breath and… the mosquito was gone. I think she died smothered by the bedclothes.

Ah, well, eye for eye. Life for bite, rather.

At eight in the morning I woke up to the sound of doggie nails clicking on the porch outside (love that). Then I picked up my laptop and tried to register for my classes next semester, but apparently all the other biology students were doing the same thing and all I got was "Error 503! Server overload! Hahaha on you!".

My throat hurt a bit when I swallowed, like there was still a walnut stuck in there. My stomach felt like the berries from last night had partied with the yogurt and trasmogrified into a brick. My breath stank. I wanted a mug of tea but went back to sleep instead.

The next time I woke up it was past three in the afternoon. I tried to register again ("Okay, I'll let you log in. Type in the class that you want to take… now press enter… now wait for it… wait for it… oh, sorry, the server timed out. Go on, try again. Oops, error 503! Server overload!").

Anyway, I got up and went to the kitchen and made my tea, read british gossip websites (Britney Spears lost weight while on tour, some celebrity couple I don't know had lunch at a fancy restaurant, another celebrity I don't know was photographed walking her dog). I made a sad substitute for Jaffa cakes to have with my tea: graham crackers spread with jam and topped with a few chocolate chips, then microwaved. Not really the same at all, but still tasty.

I scratched Maxie the Dog and gave her a dog cookie. I ate some cottage cheese with swiss chard. I drank more tea. I made and ate popcorn with parmesan cheese sprinkled over it. I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother (Marshall and Lily got married). I read. Did a bit of exercise. Swept the floor of my room. Managed to finally register for my classes.

Now I'm lying on the carpet, the iPod is on random, my head is itchy.

One of those times when you don't seize the day, on purpose.

* * *

Here's something more entertaining as a reward for scrolling down the page (good on you!).

My wallet., featuring $20 and a Metrobús card.

I made my wallet out of playing cards because it folds up tiny and I can carry it in my pocket. People seems to get a real kick out of it, for some reason. They go "Ooooh, is that your wallet? Can I see it? Did you make it? That's so cool!" which is flattering but also disconcerting. I mean, I guess I think my wallet is cool, but not that cool.

Yet it's always the object of much adulation when people first see it. So much that I was in Wal-Mart a few weeks ago and pulled it out to pay for some socks and a caramel-scented sachet, and the dudes ahead of me in the queue started poking each other and going, "Look at her wallet! Look at her wallet! Look look look look!". I handed it over for closer inspection* and we exchanged 5 words or so, I got my wallet back and then I got on with my life.

So there I was getting on with my life, standing at the corner outside of the store, waiting to cross the street, when who should run up to me but one of the guys from Wal-Mart. He explained pantingly that I was "different" (gee, thanks. My goal in life is to fit in and be comfortably normal**, but that's okay, you didn't know) and he would have regretted it all day if he hadn't said anything. So now we've added each other on Facebook and nothing at all has become of it.

I mean, it's just a wallet, after all. Come on.

* That sounds like a stupid thing to do. Trust me, they weren't the types to bolt off with a wallet that's worth not much at all. I mean, they were with their mom and until they noticed my wallet, they had been playfully slapping each other.

** Well, it is. Being original is tiring, from what I gather. Artists and the like are always lopping off their ears because they just can't take it.

Books 29, 30, 31, 32

I think from now on, I'll just post the title and author of the books, say what I liked about them, and then move straight into the nitpicking. YAY!

• Book 29 was Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer.

Much like the other books of his I've read:

1. Gets lots of points for originality, interesting themes, explaining science/technology without making the reader feel talked down to.

2. His characters, sadly, were only meh-ish, which brought the overall score down a notch or two. I mean, the people had interesting traits, but I didn't feel like they were developed much.

3. The main character is blind, and it's interesting to read about her adaptations to life in a seeing world. Last summer I read a bok with a deaf character, so a year ago I was walking around with my hands clasped over my ears, toying with sign language (I can say "milk" *) and reading forums for deaf people**. This time I was walking around with my eyes closed, bumping into things. Fascinating stuff.

3. The main story happens in Canada (go beavers!) but there's a secondary story taking place in China at the same time. It's interesting, but then halfway through the book it just... stops. It doesn't really get connected to the main part, and it doesn't get properly resolved. Huh?

5. My nittiest, pickiest nitpick: One character is overweight, and the author constantly makes little comments about his heavy breathing, furniture creaking under his weight, etc., or makes little snide comments, like how he was so eager to get to work that he only had 2 helpings of dinner, or whatever. Like, really? Does Robert J. Sawyer have some sort of weird grudge? Was his pet chihuahua crushed by an chubby person or something? HUH?? IS THERE A PROBLEM HERE?? And is said problem just me, being paranoid?

6. Other than that, good up until the ending. I know this is the first part of a trilogy, so it has to have a somewhat open ending, just not that open.

• Book 30: Bet Me, by Jennifer Crusie

Chick lit. Entertaining, light, good characters. Like watching a romantic comedy, only more explicit (side note: if someone fed me six donuts I would probably feel like throwing up, not like ravaging them and having an all-night sex marathon, but that's just me).

My only complaint is that roughly 90% the dialogue consists of witty one-liners. It gets a bit old.

• Book 31: Anyone But You, by Jennifer Crusie

Chick lit again! Yep, I spent half a week reading Jennifer Crusie. After the previous one, I didn't feel like reading anything serious. Again, it's entertaining, light, with good characters.

My stupid, catty nitpick: everyone is glaring at each other all the time. Someone will make a small joke and the other person will glare in response. I mean, a glare here and there is a healthy things, but it gets used constantly and seems like a bit of a strong response to a clever quip made by your romantic interest. It was bugging me so much at one point that I started counting (yes, I'm petty), and it was used once on each page for three consecutive pages. Finally it was replaced with "an icy stare". Agh.

Maybe "glare" doesn't mean what I think it does. Maybe it's a look of annoyance: a short, playful squint of the eyes accompanied by a pursing of the lips. Maybe it's not a death stare, like I've always thought it was. VOCABULARY POLICE!!

Anyway, all that aside, I'm noticing a few patterns in Jennifer Crusie's books:

1. There's no real doubt that the main character will pair off with Prince Charming (or in this case, Hot Doctor From Downstairs Who's Ten Years Younger Than The Main Character), which is refreshing. It's the how and when that's interesting.

2. The off-beat best friend(s).

3. The fixation with some sort of junk food. In one book it was donuts, in this one it was Oreo cookies and ice cream milkshakes.

4. Main character has an average body, but her friend(s) are thin and beautiful.

• Book 32: Home From the Vinyl Cafe, by Stuart McLean.

I read this book once before, a few years ago, and was careful not to read it again until sufficient time had passed. I didn't want to wear it out, like when you watch a sitcom episode too many times and it stops being so funny. Or like eating varenyky too often so it stops being quite so special (varenyky only happens on my birthday).

Anyway, I love the Vinyl Cafe podcast, and I love this book. No complaints here.

* I learned other words, but promptly forgot them. To say "milk" in Mexican sign language, you mimic milking a cow. No, really!

** Apparently some deaf people only date other deaf people, and feel very strongly about it. Who knew?

Whipped cream? Nope.

My sister Reenie's birthday was last Friday, but we didn't celebrate (read: eat birthday pie) until today. That's because on the day after her birthday she was scheduled to stand up in front of 100 or so people in some pants and a tiny, midriff-exposing top, and when you're a fitness instructor, you want people to see your muscly abs and not a fleshy sack of half-digested cake. YUM!

So today we had our aunts, uncles and cousins over and ate birthday pie. It was chocolate tofu pie, which sounds weird but is reeeeal tasty. I went out to buy whipping cream to top said pie with, only apparently whipping cream does not exist south of our local Costco. I didn't have time to go to Costco (ages away on the bus), so I looked in the nearby grocery stores and cremerías (shops that sell dairy products, ham, and related stuff) and NOBODY HAD ANY. Sheez.

I bought some vanilla-mint gum instead. Mmm.

***

I started running more frequently when I got my SEXY NEW SHOES!!! and now my feet have baby blisters in several places, and the skin on the back of my heels is all tough and manly. I'd forgotten that happens. Ugh. Now I'm always paranoid being barefoot during Body Balance class, like the person behind me will glimpse my roughed-up tootsies during the swan poses and get grossed out or something. Ridiculous (?), but still true.

Book 27, 28

My posts keep getting longer and longer. Back in the day, it was a few paragraphs tops. So I'm publishing just the books in this post so that it's easier to skip over when I'm going through the archives, reading old posts.

Eee hee hee.

Book 27: Nation, by Terry Pratchett

Plot: A giant wave swallows up a bunch of islands from an archipelago, and kills almost everybody who lives on them. Mau, a native guy, survives and befriends Daphne, an English girl who was shipwrecked on his island. Eventually survivors from other islands join them, and they form a small community. Human nature, loss, religion and so on are common themes.

I realize I make books sound unexciting at best. I'm sorry about that. There's a much better review here, anyway. Basically, I really like it because: It gives you a lot to think about, it's mostly serious with just the right amount of funny, the plot is good, the narration is good, it seems pretty well-researched, and the characters are absolutely marvelous (not like the Airborn ones, as I'd mentioned before. Ugh).

I picked up this book because it was lying discarded on the kitchen table after my mom read it. I nearly finished it but didn't want to read the last chapters, because (spoiler!) it was pretty obvious by then that Daphne was going to sail off ad probably never return to the island. Nooooo! Mau and Daphne would have made such a great couple. Sigh. After bracing myself and finishing the last chapter, I was ready to toss the book down and throw a tantrum, but the epilogue stopped me. Now that was a good epilogue! (Pay attention, Scott Westerfeld. The Peeps epilogue was the only bad part of your book, IMO).

On a related note: There were so many passages of Nation that I liked and should have bookmarked to think about later. I didn't, because it was too good to put down in favor of a Post-It hunt, but I really should keep a little notebook with me to copy down phrases. I'll try to, from now on (and will probably fail. Shush!).

Book 28: Kitchen Chinese, by Ann Mah.

We got this book from my sister, who picked it up at a discount shop and passed it on to my mom when she visited her. Thanks, Izzy!

I didn't expect much from this book, to be honest, but it was better than I expected. 3.5 out of 5, I'd say. Nice bit of light reading, and adequately entertaining.

Pros:

1. Some interesting characters (the main girl, her sister, her friend, her boss).

2. Takes place in China, which was interesting.

3. The workplace and job-related scenes were good. Nice dynamic going on with the coworkers.

4. Features food. I like food!

Cons:

1. The romantic conflict was annoying: it is OBVIOUS from the start that she'll dump the macho-guy (whom she repeatedly says she doesn't like anyway) and end up with the charming, successful upstairs neighbor. It felt forced, could have done without it.

2. Some characters were under-developed (mainly the romantic interest).

3. She uses "e.g." instead of "i.e." twice (yes, I'm lame and care about this). But that's an editing thing.

4. Sometimes the descriptions get a bit... er, boring. Going on about the lovely pillars which draw the eye up to the nice thatched roof and whatnot.

5. The timeline was a bit weird. She doesn't really say how much time passes between scenes, so I was surprised when it was mentioned that nearly a year had passed.

Sushi, dad, shoes, book 26

Huh. I'd started to write another post and then abandoned and forgot it. I'll go back and finish it when I'm done this one.

My dad came back from a business trip to Spain two days ago. I woke up the exact moment he arrived home, because despite the fact that it was early in the morning (by summer vacation standards: sometime around dawn) the dog* went ballistic and started yapping because she was so happy. The dog loves my dad. Loves him. The first time in her life that he left on a trip she sank into a deep doggie depression and refused to eat ("Well, maybe a piece of grilled chicken stuffed with caviar. If it's been marinated in white wine. And served with truffle oil. No, leave the bottle.").

Anyway, Dad was in a good mood so we went out for mexican sushi (you can tell it's mexican because it has cream cheese in it, for some reason) and a bit of mall roaming. Several times during the meal he would fill lulls in the conversation with a micro-speech that always starts with "Now, I just want everybody to be happy and enjoy this outing, now that we're together…". That's just a thing my dad does. Like he wants to nip bad vibes in the bud, even when there are no buds to nip (this sometimes has the effect of creating bad vibes. Imagine you were having a regular old conversation with someone, and they kept going "Whoa, stay cool, man, stay cool!").

Stores are having summer sales now. And sports stores have sneakers at affordable prices now. Shoes that my sister and I would lust after cost less than half of what they normally do. So when you've got a happy dad with money to burn who's smiling at you and asking what it is that you want, and there's beautiful, beautiful sneakers in the same building, you can guess what happened.

My old sneakers are over a year old, anyway. So, you know, it was time.

Photo from www.runpals.com

I own and love pair of these now. Nike Air Max Turbulence+ 16, in pink (pink is cute). They're really great! It's like wearing pillows on your feet. Pillows that do all the running. All you have to do is swing your arms and let them do all the work.

When I wore them for our first run together, the first four miles were great, but the last two were a bit uncomfy because the arches are a little bit too far in front. So it was like running on aggressive pillows. And today, the day after, my hip hurt a bit in the morning but it's fine now. I'll see how this develops.

But I still love them. And they were cheap(ish).

I don't suppose anyone is much interested in the placement of the arches of my feet, so please enjoy this photograph of one of my sisters and me, circa 1996. Or 1995. Or 1997. Er, of my sister and me in the 90s.

I'm the one that doesn't look ecstatic, just generally content (i.e., I'm the one with short hair).

Book time! Book 26 was Mexican High, by Liza Monroy.

It's about Mila (shortened from "Milagro"), a teenage girl who moves to Mexico City in the eighties. She starts out relatively innocent, but since she goes to a school for über rich kids she picks up a few habits: a lot of smoking, a lot of drinking, a ton of drugs and some sex here and there. Seriously, she's high or drunk or both about half the time. The rest she spends hung over.

The book itself was just okay. None of the characters are developed much, save for Mila and her mom (some people are introduced and talked about for short while and then just disappear forever. Poof!), and the climax wasn't really much of a climax. The timeline was a little odd. But none of that really matters, though, because I read it to pick on it! For example, she mentions the "sweet smell of the bougainvilleas". Directly after typing that sentence, I went outside into the garden and literally stuck my nose inside three different bougainvillea flowers. Those things do not smell at all.

Oh, and in another part of the book she mentions that none of her mexican classmates had ever heard of or eaten string cheese. Um, hello, Oaxaca cheese?

Of course I'm being nitpicky just for the fun of it. Being mean brings me an odd sense of satisfaction that has a lot to do with my lack of friends unique personality.

* When I say "the dog", I mean Maxie. We have another dog (Reyna), too, but she's like a permanent house guest or something. Which is to say, my mother accidentally called me "Maxie" once or twice, but would neve confuse me with Reyna… I think.

Happiness, that elusive bastard

I suspect I'm not quite well. But then, nobody is really happy, right? I mean, whatever "problems" I might have, or fancy I have, well! That's just small potatoes! There's people around me getting kicked out of their homes, and people who are scared to come out of the closet because their family is freaky religious, and people who have depression, and eating disorders, and are living in a strange city and feel like they don't fit in, and people whose dad died out of nowhere. I mean, I didn't just make those all up.

But just now I've realized that I've been... I don't know. I'd repeat the previous paragraph to myself every time I felt bad, small, insignificant, uninteresting and lonely. I haven't felt too happy since my last year of high school. In fact, I don't remember all that much of my last year of high school, except that I felt miserable a lot. They made us take like 5 different psychological tests (those horrible ones that take hours to complete and are hundreds of questions long) and the psychologist called me in to discuss my results because I came out unhappy.

I'm wondering if I plan to publish this post. I meant to at first, but now it's getting a bit embarrassing. I have a whole bunch of private-ish posts that sit unpublished.

Anyway, she held up the results of one test that evaluated... I forget, but there were five or six things, and one of them was sociality. I still remember that she held up my chart and said, "Look! Your social bar isn't there! It's a zero!". We talked for about an hour (well, she talked and asked questions and I went through her Kleenex), and she said she'd like me to go back but I never did.

My self-esteem remained pretty low until... Well, let's see. There was a little spike where I felt a bit better around December before last, while I was on a trip with a group of students. We were in Europe, and I could let loose a bit there. We were in sort of forced cohabitation, so it was easy to hang out with other people, get to know each other, and so on. Then the trip ended and I don't remember anything much after that, except that I became really irritable. Like, I though everyone else was being annoying and stupid. And then I realized it was me (and started crying in the library. Luckily my friends are not asses like I am, and patted me).

I'm just going to briefly mention again that I feel really stupid writing this. Wait for the end.

Anyway, I finished high school feeling sick of everyone (and feeling guilty and mean for it). Oh, and I felt fat because I'd gained like 5 kilos during the last year and especially in Europe, where they force-fed us pasta, pizza and fast food. My jeans did not fit. Also I had a brief stint with a dude who was an ass (he wasn't mean to me or anything, he was just dumb and had some weird sort of god complex. I mostly hung out with him because we hadn't known each other very long. Then I got sick of him, too, and sort of stopped talking to him).

Then I got into university. Yay! I was determined not to fuck this one up! I wanted to make friends! Be proactive! Hurray!

So I sort of sat by myself until one very talkative girl in my class spoke to me one day and I got very slowly sucked into her social circle. It took me ages to actually be comfortable talking to the other people. Like, months. Like, pretty much the whole semester. Even now I still don't know what they're talking about half the time because I'm out of the loop so much. But! I'm there. And the talkative girl is basically my best friend at university.

Then what? Oh, yes, holidays after my first semester. We all hung out once, just as the semester was ending, and then I lost contact with everyone. I stopped charging my cell phone because nobody was texting or calling anyway. I mostly hung out by myself and didn't do much.

Don't get me wrong, every now and then I'd do something with my cousins or my sisters (one came to visit. We sat on the couch and talked a bit). But mostly everyone was busy and I, um, wasn't.

Then I started my second semester at university. Oh gosh. My second semester. Well. I wasn't in any of the same classes as my crowd from first semester (except for one girl whose name I barely knew –I told you I was out of the loop– and whom I've since gotten to know much better). Luckily after a few weeks we realized that a lot of us (the crowd, I mean) finished our classes at roughly the same time several days a week, and we'd meet up at the end. I got rides home with my friend, and eventually befriended another guy in my Biochemistry lab team who'd give me rides home when my other friend couldn't.

That guy is awesome. My friends were all disappointed because he's both gay and good-looking ("But why?! Are you sure he's gay??"). He's just one of those people who you sort of click with, even if you're quite different, sappy as that may sound. I've come to associate the feeling of being in a cigarette smoke-impregnated car full of garbage with being in some sort of safe little cocoon. And when I had a bit of an eensy panic attack once and was hyperventilating manically into a corner, he showed up out of nowhere and hugged me and suddenly I felt so much better. I mean, that won't work coming from just anyone.

I'm going to take another moment to remind you that this is really embarrassing for me to write.

Anyway, meeting my friends at night and riding home with my friends were about the only decent times I had for a good chunk of the semester. The rest of the time I felt like a piece of shit, pardon my french. I couldn't concentrate in class, no matter how hard I tried. I walked around aimlessly in my free time with nobody to talk to and nothing to do. I'd randomly burst into tears (in the library, in the lab, sitting on the grass, in class...). I lost my appetite (and, thus, some weight!). For the field trip for Algae class we went to the beach. Everyone else ran around all happy in the sand and went swimming an, you know, had fun. I was just sort of on automatic. The only pictures I have of me are the ones I took on the last day because I realized I wouldn't have any to show my parents, otherwise.

It got worse, until I wasn't just feeling crappy at school. I was feeling crappy at home, too. And then I started to feel crappy at home and not care much if my parents saw me feeling crappy. And then I started to feel crappy at the gym. The gym! The gym is where I was always happy! My mom said I'd get over it, and my dad –oddly enough– sat down with me and we talked a bit. Also he bought me stuff.

It sounds awful, but that made me start to feel somewhat better.

For the first four or so months of the semester I didn't want to go see the faculty's psychologists because I was afraid of making them bored. I was convinced that if I showed up and said that I wasn't feeling well, they'd think "Oh, geez, another bored, whiny kid who thinks they've got problems." When I finally decided to go for at least one appointment, I figured it wasn't worth it anymore, because I was able to concentrate in class and was feeling pretty much okay.

So why was I feeling so bad in the first place? I have no idea. I know that way back in high school it was because I felt that there were so many things that I couldn't control, first and foremost that trip to Europe. It was done on the terms of some egomaniac bossy ladies. The psychologist I mentioned figured that one out, that I felt bad because I couldn't control any of it. And then, built on that, I felt so, so, SO stupid and guilty, because come on!!! I'm unhappy because I'm going on a fucking trip to another continent? Um, hello, how many people would love to have that, on whatever terms? And that's sort of a theme throughout the last two years. I felt stupid and guilty for feeling sad. But I have so many things going for me! My family is complete, we've got money, I'm in university studying something I love, my grades are okay. Or what's more, there's clothes on my back, food in my stomach and a roof over my head.

How could I be so selfish? Why on earth would anyone feel unhappy, having all that? God, I don't know. This is all messed up. Anyway, on to the epilogue.

I made conscious decisions to be more open, to talk to people more, to adress things that bugged me. I learned corny, useful things, one of which I remind myself about often: Happiness is not a destination, but a journey. As in, you don't wake up and say "Finally! I'm happy!". It's a process. And I'm working on it.

Oh god oh god oh god, am I going to publish this? Aaagh. Okay, must not chicken out. Nobody reads this blog anyway, it'll be like saying it out loud... to my pillow.

Summer Holidays, Book 25

My summer vacations started about a month ago, and there's still another month to go. That's actually a lot of vacation time, a fact that my Biochemistry teacher quickly noted and whined about. He likes to complain about the school administration, not without reason. Anyway, the weeks scheduled for final exams were free time for me, since I only wrote one final (and did okay).

My grades this semester were the best I've had since middle school, and while I'm not really sure how I managed to scrap a 9 in Algae & Protists, I'm not questioning it. I'm terrible at algae (nasty, slimy, stinky things) but am just fine with protists as it turned out. Anyway, my overall average is like 8.6 or 8.7 now, which is not mediocre. Hurray!

***

I spent the first few weeks of my holidays socializing, but then stopped answering text messages, e-mail and Facebook inbox thingies. See, I like other people and all, but get tired of them very quickly. And then I get all sad because I'm all alone (yeah, I know, it's my fault. Whatevs).

Some friends from my first semester and I held a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. We tried to do one last semester, too, but ended up watching Disney movies because half of the attendees strongly objected to reading subtitles. Instead of watching Aladdin with the others, I helped the host cook dinner by repeatedly flinging pasta onto his ceiling until it stuck there and I had to ask him to unstick it (this guy is really tall). See, I don't care for kids' movies*.

Anyway, we planned a LotR marathon with the extended DVDs, but decided that this time non-subtitle-lovers would remain uninformed of the event so as to avoid Disney-hijacking. So it was just me, two friends, a guy that tagged along because he had a crush on me (let's call him Crush Dude for now), the host and his girlfriend who came over later in the day.

Funny side story, Crush Dude poked me awake in the wee hours of the morning before leaving and asked if I wanted to go out later.

Crush Dude: So... you want to go out later today?

Me, bleary-eyed and wanting to go back to sleep: No.

[Pause]

Crush Dude: Oh. You sure?

Me: Yes.

[Crush Dude stands there for several seconds. Goes away.]

I mean, who thinks it's acceptable to poke people awake unless it's necessary? That's rude, right? Blah.

Back to the movie marathon, though: history repeated itself, and we ended up watching only the special features for the second movie and Disney's UP. I don't mind UP because I like the dog and the kid. And the bird.

I'm not sure I'm being totally coherent here. I think I'm just skipping around subjects randomly. I just hope that when I read this in 40 years I'll be able to know what I meant at the time.

The next morning it was just me, the host and one of the aforementioned friends, because everyone else jumped ship. So the three of us had breakfast (well, I had tea and they had Corn Pops with crushed Oreos mixed in. I'm not sure if any of that is a real breakfast) and then vegged out playing video games. I managed not to lose all of the time– I was competent! Even when we were joined by the hosts 15-year-old brother I managed to mostly not lose. I consider my video game abilities to have reached their peak.

* About kids' movies: They bore me and I don't like the humour (it's all crass and slapstick-y). The exception is Brother Bear, with the commentary by the comedian dudes who did the moose's voices. I watch that... every two or three years.

Book time! Yay!

Book 25 was Bill Richardson's Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast

Lovely book. It went perfectly with this summer, which is RAINY AND MISERABLE. I don't mean to say that the book is miserable –it's really good–, but rather that it made me go on walks out in the rain and appreciate the crap weather instead of staying in bed and being mopey.

Seriously though, what up with the weather? It's s'posed to be SUMMER, for f*ck's sake!

Books 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Okay, I've been very lazy about blogging. If I don't get it over with now, I'll forget what I did this summer and spiral down into desperation, filled with regret for wasting my life.

Which is only half-true, so let's start with the books.

Book 20: The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

Well, this was excellent, OBVIOUSLY. The introduction was a bit boring, but perhaps necessary. Anyway, our copy has a cover picture of Buttercup (in a white dress and wreath of flowers) and Westley (in sexy pirate-clothes) with their arms around each other and gazing bravely off into the horizon. I was reading this as the semester ended to help me not go mental, and everybody just had to remark on the cover. They said it looked like some sort of swash-buckling, corset-ripping romance novel. I tried to explain it was a comedy, but I could see in their eyes (and great, big smirk) that nobody really believed me. Gah.

Book 21: Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel

I re-read this because the third book in the series was delivered a few weeks ago, and I wanted to refresh my memory before digging in. I remembered basically nothing from Airborn except that I really, really liked it when I first read it.

See, the thing is I guess I was 14 or so when I read it the first time, which fits into the target audience for the book. I'm 18 now and the story was cool, but the narration wasn't stellar and the main characters annoyed me because they were immature (which is to be expected, seeing as they're 15). The redeeming bit is that it has PIRATES! in it, but I don't think I'll finish the series for now.

Book 22: The Opposite of Invisible, by Liz Gallagher

It's one of those girl-enters-adolescence novels (that sounds gross, sorry. It's not). It was predictable, and the characters were typical, and overall it was pretty similar to the other books of this genre. This was on the better end of the spectrum, though.

Book 23: Peeps, by Scott Westerfeld

This was really, really, REALLY good! It's well-written, well-researched, has vampires and has parasites! It talks about the biology of several parasites and now I want to be a parasitologist (predictably).

Book 24: Good In Bed, by Jennifer Weiner

This started out as a nice, normal chick-lit book and progressed rather in the usual fashion until the end, at which point it got weird. Very weird. But it was still good.

I got a medal, anyway

When I was in my first year of high school a few years ago (SHUT UP that makes me sound so old!), I had a Math teacher who doled out extra points to help his students pass the subject. He'd give you +1 if you built a kite and entered a contest. +1 if you participated in the class ofrenda. +1 on your birthday. +1 if you ran in a certain race.

I ended up with a grade of 11 out of 10 that year.

That's not the point of my story, though. I entered the race, a 10K run, with my fitness-nut sister. We started out jogging together at an easy pace, which my sister kept for the rest of the race**. I, however, wheezed out after two minutes that she should go ahead, and then I walked the rest of the race. I might add that at one point, a bastard man on the street called out sarcastically after me "Oh, yeah, you're running justgreat."

So that was my entire experience with races. But at the end of last year I started jogging/running and really, really liked it. Also it wasn't very hard anymore because I've been doing exercise regularly for about three years now. And since I liked it so much, I'd been meaning to enter a race, except that involves actually going somewhere and handing over money and doing stuff. Lazy people like me don't like to do stuff. No, I'm kidding, I did look up a few races but they were expensive or not at a good time or place for me (yeah, I'm not really hardcore about this). And THEN! The Science Faculty's yearly 7K race rolled around and I registered as soon as I found the sports office (which took me three days because it's tucked away at the bottom of some steps, next to the taco stands behind the parking lot).

On Friday I remembered that it was the last day I could pick up my race number. I also remembered I'd forgotten my proof of payment, but that was okay because they didn't make me beg for it or anything at the sports office, they just SIGHED at me. Phew! Only then today I woke up late (actually my dad woke me up with a charming "Are you going or not?!?". I hate it when he does that. He could just say, "Hey, it's a bit late" instead). Never fear, though, I got there on time anyway.

What is it with people that run races? They were all wearing baggy shorts and drab t-shirts. I almost felt out of place in my bright pink shirt and little purple shorts. But that was actually a good thing, because during the race I just picked out the people ahead of me that were wearing the same colour as me and concentrated on passing them. And I only passed three pink shirts, so that should tell you how slow I am how few people were not wearing boring clothes.

Oh, oh, and there was this one guy in a green shirt and black leggings (yes, I know) whom I passed around the second kilometer, only he was one of those people who don't like it when you pass them, so he sped up and passed me. Only then I passed him again, and the cycle repeated a few times until I was a few meters behind him about 1 kilometer from the end... at which point I ran past him very quietly while he looked the other way. He saw me– I felt the indignation aimed at me– but he didn't try to catch up. I beat him by... I don't know, a minute or so. We did smile at each other when he crossed the finish line, though, so it as all friendly and sportsmanship-like.

I'm not gloating, I'm just telling you about a specific thing. 'Cause if I just say, "I ran a 7K!! There were lots of hills! Lots of hills!!! LOTS of HIIILLS!!!", well, that's not fun to read.

Something like this, the guy's leggings. Now imagine them with a baggy green shirt and a human inside, and there you go! That's the guy I'm talking about. (Photo from www.sportsshoes.com)

And now I have a baggy race T-shirt and a medal (the kind that they give everyone at the end. I didn't win, obviously). As for my time, I'm not sure, but I asked a girl what time it was after I'd been hanging around the finish line for a little while, and she said it was 9:42, so I'm guessing I did about 40 minutes. The absolute winner finished in 24 min., 40-something seconds OHMYGODCRAZY.

**Little anecdote about my sister here; she thought it was a 5K race and concluded that she wasn't as fit as she had previously thought, because it was taking her longer than anticipated. Then she crossed the finish line, and was all "Oooooh..." DUH. These people are all muscle and no brain! (Just kidding, Reenie. I love you, smartie).

Bad science, book #19

I baked some big chocolate-chocolate-chocolate cookies last night (or technically, early this morning). They're cake-y, with two types of chocolate chip (or three, I don't remember. I made the dough earlier this month and froze it, so I'm not really sure what I put in anymore). They're huge, because I made them to celebrate the fact that I fixed a giant ice cream scoop we have. Because, you know, I'm so handy and all. And I used the scoop to portion out the dough.

Huge!

It's exam season! Final exams! Departmental tests!! Aaaah!

Litle story about my Algae team: we lost our results (shhhh!!) from the field work we did in Veracruz, so we're just flying with what we can remember (pH in the pond was like... 6?**) and whatever is in samples we brought back, which means mostly diatoms. And there's about four species of diatoms, so they don't even look that cool what with the lack of variety.

I just spent about ten minutes trying to remember what book I read last week. "Not science fiction, not chick lit, not popular science... Oh, yeah!"

Book #19: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, except the books I've read aren't quite so bleak and depressing as this one is. It was really good; I kept waiting for something to happen, thinking "Eh, it'll get better when it picks up a bit", except then I was halfway through and I figured out that the whole book was like that; sort of slow, dare I say lethargic? I don't know. That makes it sound boring, but it wasn't boring. It was good. Especially the ending, which I thought might be disappointing, but it was totally cool.

The only thing that annoyed me was the selective use of apostrophes. This Cormac guy doesn't use apostrophes in his dialogs most of the time, which is fine, except that while he has no problem saying youre, dont and cant, he does leave the apostrophe in I'm. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT??

**Im kidding here, obviously. We're not going to guess the pH, that's just bad science. I mean, so is losing your results... but, uh.... huh.