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Sunday, November 8th, 2009
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3:24 pm
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OMGI'MSOEXCITEDFORSKULENITE!!!!!!! We're doing some Lion King and some Backstreet Boys and some Spice Girls and lots of great stuff that's gonna be SO much fun to play! Must clear the dust from my clarinet.. I'm so excited to rehearse with almost exactly the same team as last year, so excited to get wasted during rehearsals, so excited for some awesome fun music and soooo excited to laugh my ASS off!
Can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait!!! Super glad Dave is starting rehearsals months earlier than normal.. he better have writen some good parts for me :)
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| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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7:16 pm
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| Saturday, October 31st, 2009
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4:07 pm
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According to my thesis prof from last year who is one of my grad school references.. even the department's top students are getting rejected from every American school they apply to.. stupid economy.. she says I'll probably have to get my MA here and then reapply to doctoral programs in the states. If she's right, everything I've been going through and the money I'm spending will be a huge waste of time. Please please Lord, let her be wrong.
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| Saturday, October 24th, 2009
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12:12 pm - A Dream Is A Wish..
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Aw man, I always have really awesome, vivid, dreams, and once in a while it occurs to me in the dream: "this would make a kickass novel," so the dream actually becomes a combination of what it was before, and me guiding it in directions I think would be good for a novel, or just me planning where I'd like it to go and how I would write it down. In my dream I'll actually be crafting sentences to describe the characters I envision. When I wake up I start to write down what I remember as fast as I can but it always slips away before much of it is committed to memory. Or else I realize that it was never a good idea for a novel in the first place. Blast! How will I write the next great novel if my dreams won't cooperate! Haha.
Last night's was about pirates. And about a girl being kidnapped by them and put to work taking care of them. Sexay. (Or not lol, but before I woke up it was!) I/She was handing out granola bars. Hahah.
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| Saturday, October 17th, 2009
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3:00 pm - Aww
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Last week I was on the elevator with an asian guy roughly my age and he looked like he'd been crying and it sounded like he sobbed a couple of times so I asked him if he wanted a hug, his reply was "no thanks.. why?" and I said it was because he looked sad but he said no he was just really tired.
On my lunch break today I found a notice taped to the wall between the elevators, it read:
To the kind lady who offered me a hug on Friday afternoon (around 2 pm): Thank you so much for lightening up my mood. I really appreciated it. I was stressed out with a half-functioning brain at that time. I can't even recall if I said "thank you" to you. So here is my thank you note for you. Hope you can see it and take it off the wall :)
Aww yay :D so nice when gestures are appreciated
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| Monday, October 5th, 2009
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2:00 pm - Soul Music
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On Saturday night Tay and I played a gig with my dad's polka band for Oktoberfest (me on Tenor Sax, Tay plays bass.) It was alright. Tay and I didn't have much time to learn the 60 something songs that my dad and the other guys all know from memory so I wasn't hugely confident, especially since I was mic'd and thus if I made a mistake it would be perfectly audible. The ones I felt confident with were pretty good (Diana, Sweet Caroline, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, etc) but I have to write about something that happened at the end of the night. So, I've always been pretty inhibited as a player, teacher after teacher has tried to get me to "play out" more and it was always something I struggled with, probably because every time I went to practice someone would yell "SHUT THE HELL UP" at me haha. Anyways, so I always had trouble playing out and really being able to express myself and I think it's been one of the factors that has led to my declining interest as a musician. There was an open bar at this gig, so like any good saxophone player I was pretty drunk by the end of the night, when pretty much everybody had cleared out, and we were still playing just for the heck of it and for the remaining few people. I asked if we could play Tennesse Waltz because I think it's absolutely beautiful.. so I played lead with the guitar/drums/bass/keys backing me up, and the combination of beer and few people just loosened up something in me and I played confidently with my heart and soul and just opened up my sound and let go of my inhibitions, and it sounds stupid but it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. It made me feel so purely joyful and I cried for about half an hour after we finished because I felt SO good and happy. It was just so beautiful and I felt so beautiful and it felt so beautiful to have that beauty sounding through me. I sound like a loony but.. it was a pretty cathartic experience for me. Tenor sax has so much more soul for me than anything I've ever found with the clarinet or even alto sax. I guess I should stick with it, eh? Heh.
Anyways, glad I did it and glad it's over and glad to play another paid gig ($50/hour + free beer), paid gigs make me feel like a real musician haha
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| Friday, September 18th, 2009
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2:06 pm - Unsuspecting Soul Mates?
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So.. I'm writing this here because if I ever said it to a person's face, they would think I was absolutely bonkers.
Every once in a while people enter my life for whom I feel a connection that goes beyond affection. I'm not talking about love. To be frank, I get the impression sometimes that there are certain people who I've had a connection with in past lives, and furthermore, who I think my soul has a connection with that surpasses lifetimes. Perhaps these people have played a significant part in many or even all of my past lives. I have this intuitive sense of connection with them that draws me to them. Right now there are 2 of them, both male, I don't see either of them on a regular basis or speak to them because our lives are on different paths, but I think about them very often and I dream about them very often.
They're people who probably don't think of me at all, one sees me through mutual activities relatively often but the other doesn't live in Toronto anymore and I only felt close to him for a brief time. I felt like he was the window that I could look through to see the world in an entirely different and beautiful way. Strange and different but exhiliarating. The other is a more normal but exceptional human being. He makes me want to be a better person, a more energetic person.
If I could live in a house with these two people, I would feel a large step closer to fulfilled. If something terrible happened to either I would be heartbroken. I'm heartbroken at the thought of either of these two exiting my life for evermore. The pull is very strong, not to be romantic or sexual or in a relationship or any of that, just to be near them, to have their presence in my life. I feel like I need them to be with me in my life.
If I told either of them any of this, the first would probably understand because his mind is so open to the universe though it would accomplish nothing I think, the other would probably thing I was completely off my rocker, put on a smile, and probably avoid me.
It's weird, I know. But sometimes I perceive things that I believe transcend the life I'm currently living.
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| Saturday, September 5th, 2009
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12:09 am - Aren't These People Supposed To Be Smart?
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I recently transferred my bank account from TD to Scotia. As in, I went into Scotia, sat down with someone, opened an account and arranged to have my money transferred into that account from TD. They said it would take a while for that to be processed, fine. So I tried to use my TD card tonight and it declined. I went to the website and the account was closed. Fine. Went to my Scotia account... and there was nothing there. Called Scotia. They said to call TD. Called TD. They said.. sorry, but it will take 5-10 days for that transfer to be completed.
Ummm.... so wait.... that means I have NO money for up to two weeks? WHAT THE FUCK? Um.. what if I had to pay rent? Bill? What if I had no credit card? How do I pay off my credit card?!?
I just think that's absolutely fucking ridiculous. How can they just deprive me of my (MY) money for up to 2 weeks? Ridiculous. Stupid. Angry.
Now here are some random fun pictures I feel like posting.
( Picatoors )
Know what's weird? Professional figure skating. Humans have not only put blades on their feet to move across the ice, but some of them make a living by being really good at it. Weird.
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| Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
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6:48 pm - Ideas?
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Next week I'm babysitting a 6 year old girl (the one from up the street) for 3 days, and I've been trying to think of things to do with her. I'm not great at thinking of household games so I want to take her places. I've already scoped out the nearest public outdoor swimming pool, and Cherry Beach, and will hopefully take her to Centre Island one of the days.
Do any of you kid oriented people (Jessica, Joanna, etc?) have any suggestions of things to do in Toronto that would be suitable? I always pass by some sort of indoor jungle gym on Bathurst but I have no clue what it's called.
Any suggestions of things to do even in general?
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| Friday, June 26th, 2009
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3:17 pm - More MOORREE
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Alright, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) loathias is my fricken hero for endowing me with the sacred knowledge of "Book Ends" at the TRL. It was pants-peeingly awesome. I've been on the lookout for cheap books that will be useful to me in my studies.. I wasn't really expecting to find much, but..
For a mere $13...
1. The Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories
2. Reader's Guide to Great 19th-Century English Novels
3. Major British Writers (it's huge!)
4. The Rise of the Woman Novelist (by an author who's also written about Gaskell!!!)
5. Canadian Literature: Two Centuries in Prose
6. The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)
7. The Red Pony (Steinbeck)
8. The Spinoza of Market Street (this actually got in the pile by accident somehow *shrug)
9. The Mill on the Floss (Eliot)
10. Candide (Voltaire- I've played the Candide suite, can't wait to read that which it's based upon!)
11. Treasure Island (Stevenson)
12. The Norton Anthology of English Literature I
13. The Norton Anthology of English Literature II (huuuggggeee!!!)
Must go back soon. Or to the one in North York. *Salivates*
Also recently from Value Village and from a street sale:
For ~$15
-The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse
-Ayn Rand's The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
-Latin Selections (Anthology of Prose and Poetry in dual-language)
-Classical Literary Criticism (Aristotle, Horus, Longinus)
-Collected Works of Oscar Wilde (hhhuuuggee!!)
-The Princess Bride (been wanted to read the book the movie was based upon)
-Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native
-Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
-Cervantes' Don Quixote
Hopefully the presence of this glory will motivate me to study... I pretty much haven't started yet. Must. Get. Hardcore. Gah. And must exercise. Varsity track is only open for recreational jogging 7am-9am *cries*
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| Friday, June 12th, 2009
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1:02 pm - I Should Write More
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The GRE course was REALLY good and I'm extremely happy that I took it, I now know very explicitly what to expect and how to succeed. It's really comforting to me to know what they're looking for and stuff and some facts I otherwise wouldn't have been able to find.
For example:
-They can ONLY test you on Gr 9 and Gr 10 level math.
-Your score will be WAY worse for leaving blanks if you run out of time (say 5 seconds left to answer 4 questions) than if you make random guesses.
-Your essays are marked twice: by a person and a computer, but both use the same criteria.. a computer cannot detect style, therefore you are NOT marked by either on things like style, flow, literary devices, tone, humour.. and may even be deducted marks if these things confuse the computer.
Anyways, I took the course through Oxford Seminars and I would recommend it to anybody GRE-bound, it was worth every penny.
Now if only there was a prep course for the subject-test... or if I could even find a damn prep-book (I can't find any through amazon or chapters except pre-sales for the one that comes out in Feb.) So um.. best preparation... read EVERYTHING EVERY WRITTEN IN ENGLISH, OR TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, INCLUDING THE BIBLE, AND REMEMBER IT ALL.
Oh dear.
Unrelated: ventured into Whole Foods for the first time ever... it is a magical, magical place!... everything is so clean and aesthetically appealing.. and.. wholesome! And the staff were so helpful... I asked a random guy stocking shelves if he happened to know anything about maple syrup grades, and he went and printed off pages from Google for me! So awesome! Just unfortunate how expensive it is to be wholesome.
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| Thursday, May 28th, 2009
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2:59 pm - "U oF T peer Q & A"
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Please join my group on Facebook and more importantly, please pass it along to anybody you know who is planning to attend U of T or new to U of T OOORRRRR who may have children or children with friends, or siblings, etc, who may be planning to attend U of T.
I really want this group to be successful (I had so many questions that I couldn't find answers to when I was in first or second year) and it's going to be difficult to get the word around that it exists to people who would use it! Thankee!
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| Thursday, May 21st, 2009
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2:20 pm - So Many Tings To Tink Aboot
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I've gone on a small booking spree this afternoon.
Booked my G test for July 8. My license expires on the 27th of that month so let's hope I actually pass this time :S I'll take it a little more seriously and go home a week in advance and get lessons and use the instructor's car since I'm not particularly comfortable in our big van with cracked mirrors OR my dad's fancy-pants work vehicle.
Booked my GRE general test for August 26th. Apparently I'm not allowed to book my Literature in English GRE subject test until July and can only take it in October or November.
I want to take a prep course because.. I want to do the absolute best I can (yeah I do want to apply to Berkeley and the like, not gonna lie) and it'll be slightly less stressful than relying entirely on self-study.... especially considering I didn't even TAKE math in Gr 12.. and didn't do terribly well in my u/c Gr. 11 math.. sigh. Though they're hella expensive.. and a little confusing.. more than one company run out of U of T.. one of which is like 10 hours and other which is like 30 hours.. but both cost the same.. huh? I'm hoping some people have taken one or the other and can give me feedback; if you know anyone who's taken a prep course, please let me know.
Then again, maybe before I get ahead of myself I should get some advice from professors on whether my cumulative GPA is even good enough to merit applying to the higher end places.. as of the end of this year it's 3.61. I could try for high marks again next year and then re-apply... but I really don't want to have to go through applications and letters and stuff two years in a row.. I'd rather take one of my credits next year as a "pass/fail" and not worry hugely about marks in general.. though if I end up needing a higher GPA I couldn't take a pass/fail. Bah.
Do I stand a chance with 3.61?
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| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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11:30 pm - Peas Please
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Um "Snapeas"... made by a company called Calbee, in a line called "Snack Salad".. best thing ever. Really random snack food I discovered, a company has somehow taken green peas and turned them into something that tastes an awful like lot cheesies with no cheese.. corn twists? Whatever. All that's in the ingredients is green peas, corn oil, rice, salt, ascorbic acid (vit C)... so simple! So delicious! And healthy? w00t!
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| Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
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11:58 am
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The cat has taken to sleeping beside me ON Taylor's pillow whenever he's not here. He has the top of his head pressed up against my shoulder and his paws in the air right now haha so cute! What a perfect little companion he is. :)
I'm quite liking seeing "regulars" when I'm working, there are a handful of older people who tell me how much I've improved since I started whenever they see me, and isn't my mom proud of me? lol And since some inevitably live in my building, I get some lovely elevator conversation too "uh oh, do I need my optimum card to get on this elevator?" haha old people are so cute! I even like the ones who are a bit kooky, like the women who waited for like half an hour until I had a pause in the flow of customers so that she could give me muffins? Haha.
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| Thursday, May 14th, 2009
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5:08 pm - eeeeexcellent..
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In early June the Varsity Centre (Bloor/Devonshire) will be open to U of T students.. I have long waited to jog on this big beautiful outdoor track.. apparently we also have free access to a driving range and recreational ice skating in the winter!
Can't wait!!
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| Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
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12:29 pm - Phew
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My thesis paper got an A and received quite warm praise!!!
(82 [A-] in the seminar course as a whole; would have been an A if it weren't for the class participation aspect that always gets me lol sigh)
It's SO nice to look back on how terrifed I was at the beginning of the year, and that it turned out to be a successful experience!
I now anxiously await my marks and the resulting affect on my cumulative GPA, fingers crossed it will be a number satisfactory to graduate admissions..
p.s. I did get a picture with Brandon and I did giggle like a silly teenager :)
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| Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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10:55 pm - The Canadian Brass. Yowza.
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We rehearsed with The Canadian Brass this evening (we are performing with them tomorrow) and it was a couple kinds of awesome. I especially love hearing virtuostic french horn playing because I hear it so rarely (and Jeff is adorable.) But let me tell you about Brandon.... their new trumpet players is 23 YEARS OLD! AH! That blows my fecking mind. 23! With the CanBrass! And he's not some cocky young ass like you'd expect.. he's all shy and geeky and was wearing glasses and jeans and stuff.. (well he might be a cocky ass on the inside, I don't know).. if you put him in our trumpet section you'd never have known he was out of place.. (until you heard him, holy smokes.) I want to squeeze him and then put him in a little glass jar and take him home with me and keep him on my shelf. Luff.
Anywhoz.. hope my last tywo concert is a good one :-) And hope I get autographs. (not gonna lie though, if I do it'll be a birthday present for a brass player though I haven't decided which one yet) and if I was going to be there in the afternoon (I can't be, I'll be writing an exam!) I'd totally chase B. for a picture with me and then giggle like a silly teenager.. oh well.
BTW.. www.ytvretro.com ...
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| Friday, April 17th, 2009
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2:57 pm - Schtuff 1
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Wow graduate school application process = overwhelming... 3 academic letters of references?! I don't know if I've ever even spoken to 3 professors lol. GREs... you probably haven't heard of the GRE Literature in English subject test... but it is the ultimate rapeage of standardized testing.. based on very very specific knowledge of the English canon and literary theory. Not to mention the fact that prep courses and test taking are FRIGGIN EXPENSIVE. Gruh. Not looking forward to re-learning high school math for the math section.Any advice/comments from those who've been through the process?
I'd LOOOVVE to go to Berkeley (California) for Graduate school... but a 3.85 GPA and GRE general/subject test scores in the 99th percentile?!?!?!?! Not a fucking chance in hell. I might try anyway though haha but I don't know if my GPA will be enough to get me into any good American schools despite that all of my marks this year are in the 80s and nearly all of my university essay marks have been in the 80s. Standards are always just too high for me grahhhhhh. Though I haven't started researching yet which professors at which universities are doing researching similar to mine.
Raise your hand if you're running away and leaving me next year for a school somewhere else... (note: Chelsea you're excluded since I know where you're going already)
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| Monday, March 30th, 2009
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12:48 pm
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I HAVE 2 TICKETS TO THE AGO- THEY EXPIRE TOMORROW- IF YOU WANT THEM (*FREE*) CONTACT ME ASAP!!!!!
My aunt gave them to me and I thought I could go tomorrow night.. but the AGO closes at 5:30 pm and I'm working until 6... I don't want them to go to waste though.. the new AGO is wicked.. if you're free tomorrow afternoon, you should go.
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