Just a quick update while I have a few minutes alone:

Today I volunteered at school with something called the Verse City Project, which was organized by Vinita Srivastava, who is one of the profs at Ryerson whom I've had a few times over the past few years. It's basically an outreach project to encourage young people, specifically "visible minorities," to get into journalism and introduce them to Ryerson's School of Journalism. Sixteen kids were registered but only four actually showed up -- that actually turned out to be a good thing, though, because there were four of us to help them out with interviewing and writing. (Technically way more than four including co-ordinators and faculty, actually.)

It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I spent the time there. I met a bunch of new J-Skool kids I had never met before and got to help some high school kids accomplish something they're interested in but maybe wouldn't know how to do on their own. Plus I got a bunch of free stuff! Movie passes, a festival pass for next year's ReelWorld Film Festival, about six different kinds of lipstick/lipgloss, nailpolish, conditioner, jewelry, etc.

I think they're still working on the website, but you can see parts of what we worked on at VerseCity.com.

I can't believe I haven't written anything in here since February! That's kind of nuts. I've been thinking about putting my livejournal as my Facebook notes...but I'm not sure yet. There's something so therapeutic about writing here that I think Facebook will probably ruin. We'll see.

Updates: I did move in with Ron over Easter weekend in April, and I'm staying for good. Obviously. There have been a lot of ups and downs and learning things about each other that maybe nobody else really knows, but that's all part of being in a relationship. And being committed enough to live together every single day.

I spent the summer working at Old Navy. Again! It was terrible. I hated it. Somehow I managed to get three weeks off to go on vacation. We spent the first week in Toronto running errands and laying about. The other two weeks were spent on the road in the east. We drove from Toronto to just north of Montreal to my cousins' cottage and spent a few days there staying up late, drinking, playing Risk, swimming, drinking, sun bathing, drinking... you get the idea. From there we drove about 1000 km straight to the east coast of New Brunswick and then made our way round the Maritimes (excluding Newfoundland & Labrador...too far).

I quit Old Navy in the first week of school and just stopped going in for my shifts when they didn't give me less hours for the last two weeks. It's immature and I burned a bridge, but I really don't want to work there ever again. Plus they don't give references. Meh.

School is going well so far. Even better since I don't have a job. I'm really trying hard to keep friends around more than I have in the past, and actually make an effort to hang out with them. Talvi, from work, and Alyssa, from school, are the most awesome so far. Anyone else?

Tonight Ron and I are heading out to Nuit Blanche. I went last year with Nick and Ron was supposed to come, but he was still with his ex at the time and she didn't want to go. I'm just waiting for the Leafs game to be over and then we're gonna go. I'm excited! A lot of people don't really seem to get it (or want to get it) but I don't understand what's to get. You just wander around and check out a lot of cool stuff that you wouldn't normally find on the streets of Toronto. C'est tout.

P.S. Does anyone even come here anymore???

February is almost over. Thanks god. February is the month that I tend to become most depressed in. It's so dreary, and it's not as fun as December and January can be. By February, winter has lost its charm.

I froze my ass off Sunday night walking to and from Kool Haus for the Jack's Mannequin concert. For some reason Nick's ride couldn't fathom picking me up at Union and dropping me off, even though it's a two minute drive. But at least a fifteen minute walk. The concert was good but, as usual, I was annoyed by the fans. Mostly girls who bitched about it being too crowded or about any moshing or jumping that occurred. I lost Nick and Kessie in the crowd within the first two Jack's songs so I was by myself for most of the show. Since I am without a camera I didn't get any pictures, but I found these videos (one and two) on YouTube. They're not that great but they're memories.

Reading week has been boring. I kind of wish I hadn't looked forward to doing nothing because now that I am I'm going nuts! I work tonight but not until 5:15.

Yesterday was really nice and almost all of the snow melted, but we got it all back this morning. The forecast called for rain but I guess it was too cold. Ron didn't go to work yesterday because we got drunk Tuesday night and stayed up til 4 a.m. when he's supposed to get up for work at 5:30. He said he turned the alarm off, sat up in bed, and realized he couldn't go when he fell asleep sitting up.

We slept in til around noon and then spent most of the afternoon at Kensington Market. We got some burritos for lunch, bought some groceries, and wandered around Queen Street for a while. I bought one of those Bath Bombs from Lush, but for almost $7 I don't really think they're worth it. It fizzes for a few minutes then it's done. I would be more impressed if they released themselves more slowly and then you could enjoy it throughout the whole bath.

I also downloaded the new Hanson CD yesterday, The Walk. Katie sent me the link, but I would have stumbled across it later on that day had I been more patient. It was released in Japan this week but doesn't come out in Canada until May (of course). I haven't listened to every track the whole way through yet. Like a lot of Hanson's music, it's going to take me a few listens before I can really get into it. So far, Fire on the Mountain is my favorite track but other than that there isn't anything that really stands out for me.

I gave my two months notice to my landlord last week, and she's already planning on showing the apartment this weekend. I'm going to have to spend a lot of tomorrow cleaning up. Not just cleaning up but cleaning, like scrubbing and mopping and sweeping. The one thing that really sucks is that my vacuum is here at Ron's. Oh well.

Ron and I basically decided last night that I will move in here instead of finding a room. For the summer, anyway. I'm really hesitant to say that it's indefinitely because if we discover we don't like living together then I'd like to leave things open ... but we're pretty much living together now. I'm here every day. The biggest challenge is going to be finding room for the stuff I need to bring. Like my clothes. We'll have to purge some of his stuff and I know he's going to hate it. Or at least invest in some organizational stuff. We shall see how things go. Now I just have to tell my dad. Le sigh.

Oh well. Off to take a shower and then do dishes. Maybe in the reverse order.

Right now I should be studying for my Philosophy of Punishment mid-term that is in an hour and a half ... but I'm not. I haven't even attended most of the lectures or done most of the readings, which don't make much sense to me anyway. I'm pretty much going to rely on my well-honed bullshitting skillz.

Apparently yesterday was Valentine's Day, but it really didn't feel like it. Ron and I did spend the entire day together since his car couldn't make it to work (or, more likely, he didn't feel like going to work) but I spent most of it on the computer and on the phone doing interviews like I had the day before. It was nice but I felt like a bad girlfriend. I called in sick to work for my shift tonight and I'm not working tomorrow or Saturday at least, so maybe we can have some gushy couple time then. But, honestly, most days feel like Valentine's Day. (I know, even I want to throw up when I re-read that.) At least he said he was thinking of getting me a Dick In A Box. That's gotta count for something, right?

( We got a shitload of snow. For Toronto, anyway. )

I think I'm going to pop into the Stag Shop tomorrow and pick up a few things. I have no idea what yet, though. I was looking at some stuff online but it's kind of awkward since I'm at school and surrounded by over-worked male students with wandering eyes.

The "first draft" of my feature in Feature Writing was due today and I did most of the interviews and all of the writing in less than two days. I stayed up until about 2 a.m. writing and then woke up at around 5:30 when Ron's alarm went off; finally got out of bed at 6 and kept writing until 8:30. I'm a champ!

I was surprised to find that most of the class didn't even show up to hand their first drafts in because it's worth 30% of our final grade and Bruce has pretty strict late penalties compared to a lot of profs. Every day you hand it in late you lose one marginal letter grade on your final draft. So, if you hand it in a day late and you would have originally gotten a B then you'll end up with a B-. That kind of thing. But that adds up and who knows what your grade will be. I didn't hand in a piece of garbage but I know it would have been much better had I actually spent the whole three months working on it. The final draft is due March 22 so I think I'll try and work on it continuously until then.

Almost all of my interviews were amazing; none were bad. It was really great to speak with so many women about childbirth. Even though I still have no idea whether I want to have kids or not, I always feel like I have no one to ask questions to when I am curious about certain things because my mom is gone. I never really thought to ask her anything when I was younger. I think that's the best part about journalism: that you can learn so much about yourself while doing research and learning about other people. I'm pretty confident about the kind of care I'd want if and/or when it comes time for me to have children, and I have less fear about it since it's all less of a mystery.

But, if anything, talking to so many alternative health practitioners, especially doulas, has made me even more critical of doctors and our health care system, and I think it's going to empower me to advocate for myself as I get older and have more personal encounters with doctors. I think we forget that they work for us and we are allowed to ask questions and we are allowed to refuse their recommendations, and they don't always know what's best. The other thing I've learned is that they have no consideration whatsoever for people's mental or emotional well-being. Everything is medical.

( Anyway, here's the first draft of my article. Please read it and pick it apart. Edit it. Do your worst! )

Yesterday my group members and I went to Queen's Park to cover the college & university students protesting tuition fees (article & video) for our first field report and it was ridiculous.

It started around 10 a.m. for Ryerson students at Lake Devo and then everyone marched up to Queen's Park for 1 p.m., but we couldn't get there till about 2 p.m. It honestly took us 10 or 15 minutes just to get the camera on the tripod before we could even start filming. The white balancing wouldn't work because it was too bright, and within minutes our hands were freezing because it was absolutely freezing and really windy.

We didn't get a lot of footage, but considering our technical difficulties and the fact that we have no idea what we're doing ... it should be okay. We'll try and get some interviews on Monday before we edit and put it all together.

For real, though, broadcast sucks. My prof is incompetent and I feel like we're just thrown in there to figure things out on our own.

I can't wait until this year is over!

( The randomness that is my life behind the cut. )

I am lost.

I finally have time to waste on the computer! Yay! I should be doing research for my feature ... but I think the Internet is more important at this point in time. Right? Right.

All of these pictures are from Jess and Leanne; I stole them off Facebook. I'm just posting my favorites, which is a lot. They're not necessarily in order, but I tried to separate them into three sections: At Ron's apartment before going out, at the Madison, and at Ron's apartment after.

( New Year's Eve 2006 )

Just a quick update to let everyone know I'm alive.

I'm sort of alive. I'm getting sick so I feel like I'm dying.

School started Monday; yay and nay at the same time. I don't feel like doing anything. If I just had to do readings and attend class I could handle it but three journalism classes where you actually have to do assignments and interview people is pretty much the opposite of what I want to do.

My schedule looks like this:

Monday
1-6 p.m.
JRN 200 Introduction to Broadcasting

Tuesday
9-10 a.m.
POG 110 Canadian Politics (tutorial)

Wednesday
4-6 p.m.
JRN 112 Introduction to Online Journalism

Thursday
10 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
JRN 62B Feature Writing

2-5 p.m.
PHL 449 Philosophy of Punishment

Friday
8-10 a.m.
POG 110 Canadian Politics

12:30-2 p.m.
JRN 112 Introduction to Online Journalism


At least Alyssa and Heather are in my Broadcast class. That prof is whack. As for the rest, I don't know yet. Vinita is my Online Journalism prof and I had her last year for the labs of one class; she's alright. I didn't go to tutorial yesterday because there's never tutorial before the lecture. If there was, who the hell cares because that goes against everything I've seen thus far.

I'm hanging out with Ron tonight (how is that different from most nights?) but I'm not sure how it will be because he's at the dentist right now actually getting his problematic tooth looked at. So either he'll be dreading the next appointment when they actually take it out, or I'll be wiping up his drool because they took it out today. Who really knows. At least I got him the Comedy Thesaurus from Urban Outfitters. That'll keep him occupied.

I've been slowly uploading pictures from Jess and Leanne from New Year's Eve to post on here but there are a lot, so it's taking a while. It might help if I was able to go online for more than half an hour at a time. Later this week, maybe, between classes.

At least I got some stuff accomplished this week.
Metropass: Check! (Ignore the fact that it's the 10th.)
Health card renewed: Check!
Tuition paid: Check!

To do:
Make doctor's appointment to get birth control and see gyno.
Work on Feature story.
Get OSAP.
Mail survivor's benefits form.
Mail tax stuff.

In ten minutes I have Intro to Online so I'd better run. Lates!

P.S. It's colder than balls today!

I haven't made a picture post in ages because someone stole my camera and my cell phone takes shitty pictures. But I'll post some of those anyway as well.

( Photos under here. )

I'm waiting for my aunt to phone back because I mentioned in an e-mail to her yesterday that I have a boyfriend and she called me like literally four seconds later and wanted to know all the juicy details but I was with Ron so I told her I'd talk to her today. She called, then I called her back, but she was on "a walk" so I chatted with Michelle for a while. I need to go home soon, though, because I work at 2.

I'm really hating working right now. Yesterday the mall was a sea of people. And people are assholes.

I felt bad this morning because Ron usually wakes me up for a few seconds before he leaves for work to kiss me goodbye, but apparently it took forever to wake me up at all and even then I could barely move because I was so sleepy still. He kissed me and I definitely didn't kiss him back. Haha. When he called this morning he was like, "You were really out of it this morning. I kissed you like five times to try and wake you up." Sucka.

I'm not dead I'm just busy. I need this term to be over so I can stop killing myself over work I won't get done on time anyway.

This weekend I'll be in Cambridge/Kitchener from Friday through Sunday for Mandy's birthday night out on Friday, hopefully being hung over and doing nothing on Saturday, and then going to Mississauga with the fam for my aunt and uncle's Christmas open house on Sunday. I'm so happy I don't have to work at all this weekend!

P.S. Nick and/or Kessie: if you read this, because I've tried to call you and I keep getting voice mail, it would cost $104 for two Brand New/Dashboard tickets. Do you still want me to get them? That's $52 each.

Now I need to get some school work done before I go to work. My computer at home is somehow broken again even though it hasn't been hooked up to the Internet at all and I've barely used it since I got it back. It seems like it's overheating or something and just shuts itself off and the fan gets really loud. That sucks because I have to do EVERYTHING at school. Motherfucker.

Jack's Mannequin and Panic! at the Disco tonight with Jess and Nick. Nuff said. So excited! But it's raining like a motherfucker.

Now I have to go track down Justin. Apparently you had to register for this Discover Ryerson day so I don't know if I can get in. Elite bastards!

Oh well. Now I can have some breakfast.

I tried to post an entry last week ... but a document that was supposed open in RAMSS opened here and erased it. Stupid French teacher! Learn how to target your documents!

Nothing too exciting has happened lately. I got my J-Skool award on Monday night and that was very, very boring. Fall-asleep boring. It started at 6 p.m. and we didn't get out until amost 9. I'm pretty sure over 60 awards were handed out, and the profs and department heads liked to drone on and on and pretend they are comedians (ahem, Don Gibb). When I got the letter telling me about the award, Adrian Wang, the journalism secretary, told me that since one person from each News Reporting class was chosen, we'd be sharing the prize money leaving us each $60. So I was kind of disappointed. But then in the programme for the evening it said the five of us were splittling $1500, which is $300 each. Apparently a cheque is coming in the mail so I shall have to wait and see.

I was kind of hoping Shelley would be there, but her and her's husband's retirement thing was the night before and I forgot to go. Her husband was there, though, handing out some awards. Man that guy is old. Each winner had to say something, another reason why the ceremony dragged on and on, so I just thanked Shelley. Cuz she rocks. I'm sad she's retired and that I won't have her for copy editing if I end up in the print stream.

This week two people were taken into custody at work for shoplifting. One was a crackhead with a knife who has warrants in almost every province but Ontario, and yesterday a little tiny semi-young mom was tackled down by our Loss Prevention guy for taking a lambswool sweater right out the door. Very exciting!

I'm trying to talk to Jess on MSN but she keeps disappearing because her Internet is fucked. Where did she go?

I have class in about 20 minutes. I'm presenting. Well, it's not really a presentation. It's more that my group has to lead discussion about a text. I really wanted to skip this class today to finish my history essay that was due on Monday, but that's a no-go. So far I have 600 out of 2000-2500 words. I'll never finish. And it's 2% taken off per day. Not too bad, but I don't want to let it go too long. I also have to come up with three feature ideas for class tomorrow, one of which I will be researching and interviewing for and writing until April. Knowing me I'll probably end up with the least fun one of the three and be completely fucked.

My goal for next week is to go to all my classes. I don't think I have anything due next week so hopefully that will be easier than it usually is. Haha. I'm an awesome student.

P.S. I'm seeing Borat on Thursday! I don't know if I should be horrified or excited. Alyssa, are you working on Thursday? Cuz we're going to Varsity. Not VIP, though, just the regular ones.

Okay. I'm giving myself half an hour maximum to write this entry. GO!

This past weekend was a little bit of insanity.

Friday morning I had my French mid-term. I have no idea how well or not I did on that. You know how sometimes you can tell either way? I have no idea. I wasn't feeling like I for sure knew the answer to every question without a doubt but I didn't feel like I had no clue either. We'll see.

When I was done class I hung out with Ron for a while. We went to the ROM. Don't ask me why, it was extremely random. We happened to be walking by. I was quite sad, though, because the areas of the museum dedicated to Greek and Egyptian stuff were closed until the next day. One day! Oh well. I'll go back, dammit.

Then I had to go home, pack all my stuff to go to the K-Dub, clean my apartment and figure out what time I'd take the bus. It didn't take me too long but I ended up missing the 4:30 p.m. bus by only a few minutes and had to wait for the five o'clock. What a mistake. The bus left at five and I didn't arrive in Cambridge until 7:20. It was rush hour traffic, first of all, and second, a tractor-trailer had flipped on the other side of the highway and they had closed a lane on the westbound side as well. What a nightmare. I had set up an interview with Jeff Vasey and his wife -- they own the music school that Nick takes guitar lessons at -- for 7:30 because that was the only time Jeff wasn't in a lesson, until eight. I was pretty much shitting on the bus because I thought I was going to miss it for sure. But I made it. I pulled out some cash, hopped in a cab and arrived by 7:25.

The interview went really well; I dare say it was my best interview to date. Jeff wasn't hesitant at all, and I barely had to ask any questions. If you've ever conducted as many strained, pointless interviews as I have (Alyssa, you know what I'm talking about) then you know that if the person just keeps talking without you having to probe, that is ideal. In a few minutes he answered most of the questions I had prepared without me having to ask them and even then kept on talking and elaborating. I didn't write down a lot, just recorded it. So tonight my job will be to transcribe the interview into manageable text. His four-year-old daughter, Cadence, decided to be part of the interview and she was absolutely adorable and also gave me a lot of good material. He gave me a tour of the new space he just bought attached to the current space that he's renovating, and was really open about money and everything he's gone through. It was excellent.

Then Nick and I walked home in the freezing cold, pouring rain because my dad had to work late in Milton. Nick had to dry his clothes before we could go to Mandy's. I was kind of shocked to find that everything at home was basically in the exact same place as when I left two months ago: magazines, movies, mail, junk, crap ... everything! The only thing that is different is that my dad installed his hideous cupboards and countertops in the one side of the kitchen, along with the dishwasher. The kitchen feels tiny now because he still hasn't gotten rid of the hutch that used to be there.

We got to Mandy's by cab by about 9:15 p.m. and I still had to get dressed into my fabulous 1920's flapper costume. There wasn't many people there yet, but it filled up as the night went on. I didn't know a lot of people, but that's cool. They were Ashley's friends. It was awesome to see people from Old Navy Cambridge again, especially Lindsay and Justin. Except that I see Justin all the time. Ha! I didn't drink that much, but Nick was doing shots with Andrew (a.k.a. Pocket Homo, according to Jess) whilst Andrew was also hitting on him. Until he found out he was only 15. Andrew got wasted and actually fell down the entire flight of stairs and possibly de-virginized supposedly straight Justin. But I'm still not sure what the latter events consisted of. I shall find out eventually, dammit!

We didn't go to bed till 5:30 a.m. and only slept for a few hours. When we got up we basically just had to clean up, get showered and dressed, and then head off to Waterloo for a night with Jess. We got there by four and were supposed to go see Saw III but instead we sat around until six, when we went for dinner at Wilf's. Mandy and I hadn't eaten all day so we were starving and between Leanne and Hannah being late and the service being slow I was ready to chew my own arm off. The food was good when it did come, though.

The three of us and Leanne went back to Jess' to get our costumes on and pre-drink. Due to previous experiences with margaritas, Jess and Mandy passed on theirs. So really Leanne and I just pre-drank. We sat around and watched TV in our costumes for a while and I was pretty much ready to bed and not looking forward to going to Phil's at all. I was exhausted. I kept almost falling asleep on the couch.

Luckily, once at Phil's I perked up and was fine for the rest of the night. It's not as dirty and disgusting as a lot of people said it was. I mean, it's not the cleanest place I've ever been to but it wasn't the hellhole I was expecting. Every time we went to the bar we did a shot of Blue Balls and got at least one if not two drinks. Drinks are deliciously cheap, especially compared to Toronto prices, so I spent less than $30 on booze at the bar and got very drunk. Not falling down drunk or anything, but good and drunk.

The music was good, and it was awesome to be around my friends again for longer than a few minutes or hours. You don't really realise how much you miss your friends until you're around them again back in the good times routine. We all wore our costumes to the bar, obviously, and so did a lot of other people, though not everyone. I danced with a firefighter/stripper dressed as a firefighter after Jess grabbed my hand and made me feel his stomach. He was really drunk and slutty though, and I couldn't stop laughing because I was drunk. Though not slutty. A more slutty girl took over and I made my way back to my friends. A lot of the same people from Mandy's party the night before were there, and we all had a good old time.

I think we left just before two, and the cold kept us from standing around outside the bar for two long. We went into a place that makes gyros to get food and there was a guy dressed as Shaun of the Dead! You obviously don't know me if you don't know how excited that makes me. It felt like we were there forver and it was after three by the time we finally left and went back to Jess'. After we finished eating we just crashed and somewhat slept in compared to the night before.

Yesterday I was supposed to take Nick and Ariel to Screemers here in Toronto. I asked Ariel to be at our house in Cambridge by two, but she wasn't. And Nick was still getting ready when I got back home at 2:15. I had wanted to take the 2:45 bus but Ariel didn't even show up to our house until 2:45, so we had to wait until the next bus, which was at 5:15. It sucked and I was pretty pissed. I didn't want to be up all night going to Screemers and then getting them home. But whatevs. I slept on the bus.

Screemers was good, but not as scary as last year. It was like the hour before they closed when we were doing most of the events so the actors were being silly and not staying in character. For example, yelling: "I masturbate to Jerry Springer!" instead of something scary. I also had a few ask me to pretend to be scared. What the hell? I'll act scared if I'm scared.

I put those two on the 11:30 bus and was home and in bed by 12:30, thank god. Le sigh.

And that is the end of my weekend. Now I need to go buy a shirt because I spilled coffee on the one I'm wearing, headphones because mine are broken, and then work at five. Bleh.

I am sick.
And not in a fun, shameful, killing people kind of way.
In a runny-nose, coughing, sneezing kind of way.
It sucks.

I'm also stressed, which sucks on top of the sickness. Too much work! I can barely think straight and I have so much reading to do. And so much figuring out of who I'm interviewing to do. And I have to find a Halloween costume. And figure out what's happening this weekend. And clean my apartment. And eat because I haven't eaten yet today. And sleep because although I got a full night's sleep last night I'm still exhausted.

Crap. Please let this semester be over.

Hmph. I finally have a Friday and Saturday off together and most of my friends are either going away or going home for the weekend.

Alyssa! What are you doing? I shall talk to you tomorrow in English, hopefully. I read your stuff on digitaljournal.com, very excellent. I've been thinking about signing up there for a while and never did, but today I got an account. I haven't posted anything yet, though. I saw you've earned like $4.48 or something. Sweet! Haha.

If I have Sunday off too then I'm going home, but I probably don't. Maybe I'll just use it to catch up on homework and sleep, and possibly finding an idea for my profile in Feature Writing. And maybe reading some of David Copperfield because it is one fucking huge book. It hurts my hand.

I have English in 20 minutes, and we're going to be talking about The Bell Jar again. After two hours yesterday. Le sigh. I loved the book but it's getting destroyed by my prof's analysing.

Then I work 5:15-10. I don't wanna! Don't make me! Oh well. Then at least I have two days off. I get my schedule tonight as well. I must be working Sunday, though, because I booked Friday and Saturday of next week off. Crap.

My personal mantra for tomorrow needs to be:
I will wake up in time to make it to French. I will wake up in time to make it to French. I will wake up in time to go to French.

We'll see.

Just for continuity's sake, my landlord is not dead. I found out she's not dead because I called her on Friday because the power went out in the house, and after two hours I was getting pretty pissed off because I live in a basement and there's not much natural light. I was right in the middle of cleaning my bathroom so I couldn't scrub anything I just had to rinse the cleaner off everything in the pitch black and then I did my dishes with what little light comes in through the kitchen window. It went off around 2:30 and at 4:30 I was leaving to go out, so I called her cell phone and just thought I'd leave a message... but she answered and basically said, "I'm in Edmonton, I don't know what you want me to do about it from here."

Later on she told me that she just was literally just going through customs at the airport and her phone was in the little tray when it rang, and she was talking to me while they were searching her stuff. Moh well. Apparently she was on a business trip.

But now my windows are covered up with planks of wood because the neighbours are doing their roof and keep tossing stuff into the alleyway between our houses, and she's afraid that they'll break the brand new windows that were just installed the weekend before last. So no sunlight for me.

I got tickets for me and Nick to the Alexisonfire show at Kool Haus on December 17, so I'm pretty excited. I like their newer stuff and they were excellent when we saw them at Edgefest a few years ago. I wanted to go to the Billy Talent show in February as well but the only tickets I can find are ones that are at the other end of the Air Canada Centre from the stage, and I'm not shelling out like $50 for a ticket to see ants on a huge stage in a huge stadium. Uh-uh.

Saturday at work Justin from the Old Navy in Cambridge came to visit me with some of his friends; they were going to get fake IDs. Hilarious. I love that kid. It's the second time he's come to visit me and he always makes my day 100 times better with big hugs. Because Saturday was insane at work and I wanted to kill everyone.

On Saturday night I went to a party of a friend of a friend and although I was really afraid of it being awkward and boring because I didn't know hardly anyone, it was a lot of fun and everyone was really nice. I spent like $40 on drinks and then people just kept bringing rounds of shots for everyone so I think I did three different kinds of shots as well. I was pretty drunk by the end and took the last subway home at like 1:45 a.m. I had to work at 10 a.m. yesterday morning and when I woke up I was still a little drunk. I almost called in sick but I sucked it up and went in.

It was insane yesterday too and we also had this big crew of mostly tiny Asian women to do inventory on our merchandise. We weren't allowed to touch anything in the stock room or in upstock to get things for customers, so that was weird and pissed customers off big time. It's like, "Yes, we probably have that size somewhere but we can't get it for you until later this week." That's not what any customer wants to hear. I was on cash all day, though, so I didn't have to tell anyone that.

I think I'm getting sick. Or I'm just crashing from lack of sleep. I don't work till 3 p.m. tomorrow so I can sleep in. Huzzah! But I have a mid-term on Wednesday so I guess I'll be studying for that. Crap.

Okay. I need to go to my American history class soon. I skipped English and French to finish writing my French composition that was due today, but I just e-mailed it to her and said I was sick. I am awesome.

FUCKING TICKETMASTER WON'T LET ME BUY TICKETS TO ANYTHING I WANT TO GO TO!

/end rant.

I have class soon. I just came in early to print my Jane Eyre essay, which surprisingly didn't take me too long. I was only awake till midnight, and technically I went to bed early because I had to come into school two hours earlier than usual.

I think my landlord may be dead or missing or something. She hasn't come home in three days and I can hear water running somewhere in her part of the house all the time, although it may just be a fish tank. The light above her stove has also been on continuously, day and night, since Tuesday. Her cat is also gone. It's very bizarre. Please don't be dead. I like my apartment too much.

And even though I haven't worked since Tuesday, my apartment is a disaster area. I bypassed cleaning for writing essays and doing readings. I've run out of dishes and although I got some laundry done last night while working on my essay, I need to vacuum up the sawdust from when I "borrowed" a saw I found in my landlord's work area to cut off the base of my bookcase so I could finally unpack all my books. Clearly my dad was never going to actually do it and I was getting sick of tripping over boxes and the bookcase itself, which had to be on its side all the time. But now it's up and full and pretty.

Gotta run to French. I think I may have a presentation but I'm not exactly sure because I didn't write the date down. But I remember writing "le 13 octobre" on the sign-up sheet for some reason. I'm prepared anyway. I hope it wasn't last Friday...because I definitely did not go to French last Friday.

P.S. Fuck it's cold outside!

OMFG I GOT MY COMPUTER BACK!!!

That's right. Well, I'm not on it right now because I haven't had time to get the Internet yet. But it is sitting in my bedroom as I write this, and it is on, and it is working. I've been staying up too late to load my CDs onto it so I can listen to music again, but that's pretty much all that's on it so far. Today I'm going to see about getting a wireless key for cheap and just seeing if I can pick up someone's wireless signal instead of paying for Internet. *shrug* If I can't, I'll try to return it and then sign up for Internet from Bell.

I'm getting so much done today! I'm very proud of myself. I:
- woke up semi-on time
- walked to school from Yonge & Bloor
- went to both my tutorials (didn't finish all the reading, but that's OK)
- conducted some interviews for my feature assignment due tomorrow and discovered that hardly anyone actually knows the hard science behind emergency contraceptives
- submitted my declaration of attendance for survivor's benefits, which I can't get back for 10 business days because apparently it takes that long to sign and stamp a piece of paper
- checked on my tuition fees to make sure everything was OK
- strolled past the financial assistance office and couldn't even see the end of the line-up ... that's not really getting anything done but, you know, it's a start

Yesterday I finally submitted a new availability that is exactly the same with a note at the top saying, DON'T SCHEDULE ME FOR MORE THAN 25 HOURS PER WEEK, BITCHES! Or something along those lines. Carlos told me he was waiting for that note and he didn't know how I was doing it all this time. I don't really know either, but I'm glad that's out of the way and now I'll have at least 10 more hours per week to myself to actually get things done. It's not a lot but it's a lot more than I've been getting. I'm really hoping that they'll only schedule me for like 3 8-hour shifts, on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday or something like that. I'd rather work on the weekend because working or not I don't feel like doing school work from Friday through Sunday.

Momentarily I'm going to renew my OneCard so I can finally get my October Metropass. I've been using tokens the past few days and those suckers are expensive. If you put a $10 bill in the machine, it gives you four tokens and $1.60 in change. That's only two days' worth of tokens!

My landlord left a note saying that the new windows are being installed in my apartment on Sunday, and the people are getting there at 9 a.m. I really hope I'm not working on Sunday or Monday so I can go home and see my family and friends, but I should probably keep dreaming. On Saturday night I'll have to move everything away from the windows, including my bed, and futon, and pretty much anything that's against a wall.

I'm exhausted (as usual) but I can tell it's going to be a long day. I still have to do a few more interviews at random and hope I get some useable quotes, and then I have to write the thing because it's due tomorrow at 10 a.m. Why do I do this to myself?

Okay, not that hung-over. But headache and rumbly-tummy and booze-taste even though I've brushed my teeth and used mouthwash hung-over. Maybe I need to drink more often and then, a) I won't be such a cheap drunk, and b) maybe I won't be hung-over.

Right after I posted that entry on Monday, I started feeling really sick. At first I thought it was just normal cramps but it wasn't really in the right spot and it was more of a stabbing, jabbing pain than a general cramping. I got something small to eat thinking it was because I hadn't eaten since breakfast, but that just made it worse. I started getting hot flashes and dizzy, and I couldn't even make it across Yonge without feeling like I was going to pass out. I had to run into the World's Biggest Bookstore to throw up ... and if you know anything about me you know I'll do anything to not throw up. This was at like 4:30 and I was supposed to start work at 5, but I just went in, found Carlos and told him how sick I was. I've never called in sick to work before so he was actually scared that something was seriously wrong with me. I just went home, took some Tylenol, and went to bed for the night. It was fucked up. The next day I was still feeling kind of crappy but I was supposed to work 10-7 so I didn't want to call in sick again. By yesterday I was fine. I've never felt that kind of pain before and I'm glad it didn't continue. I can handle all kinds of shit but stabbing pain that's coming from the inside of my body that almost makes me cry, I can't deal.

About the garbage incident that I mentioned, Lee left a full-page letter outlining everything I'm supposed to do with garbage and recycle so she won't end up having to clean it up. Like bungee-cording the garbage bins and rinsing out cans and bottles. Bitch still hasn't come down to turn on the furnace, though. She keeps pushing it back every few days ... like how long am I supposed to keep my apartment spotless just in case she shows up?

Does anyone else think that House has been pretty lame and tame so far this season? I'll keep watching in the hope that it gets more interesting ... but for serious, the autistic boy was boring this week. Also, if Friday Night Lights is in House's spot from now on, what time is House on? Not that I'm complaining. Taylor Kitsch and I have a date every Tuesday from now on.

We got our Descriptive Detail Scene assignment back in Feature Writing today, and I got a B. It's only worth 5% of our mark, so I guess that's okay. I don't think Bruce is the kind of prof who hands out many, if any, A's. But I can hope. When I saw the B, I missed Shelley. She gave me A's out the wazoo. I think I deserved them, though. That's right, I'm cocky. My worst enemy this year in Feature Writing is going to be laziness, apparently. None of the work is done in class so I actually have to schedule my free time, my work time, my class time around not only researching and conducting interviews for these assignments, but editing them to give him the "high polish" (he says those words about forty times each class) he's looking for. The only thing I got "Needs Improvement" on for this assignment was spelling, when I only got one spelling error. And it wasn't even technically a spelling error: I spelled BlackBerry Blackberry because I didn't have my CP book with me. Those books are still in boxes because my bookcase can't be stood up.

I was planning on running around conducting interviews today, but I look and feel like shit because I slept in and am hung-over, like I said earlier, so that's a no-go. The reason I'm hung-over is because Ron and I went to the bar last night to watch the Leaf's game, but we ended up staying way past the game. I only had three Smirnoff Ice and a beer but I hadn't eaten anything pretty much all day, I didn't have time, and I was planning on going grocery shopping until he invited me out ... so yeah. Booze on empty stomach plus no sleep = druh-unk Cassandra. He had some news that I think he just wanted to tell someone and talk about it. I'm sort of afraid of the kind of position that puts me in now. But we'll see if it actually happens. I just found it sort of strange that he wouldn't get one of his buddies to go to the bar with him because we don't really hang out together just the two of us. It was fun, though, and we closed one section of the bar. It's kind of strange when last call is at 10:30. We didn't end up leaving till like 12:30, though, because other parts were still open.

They were filming a commercial/TV show/movie at a house a few doors down, so I sort of spied on that until Ron got there. I didn't recognize anyone, though. I couldn't even tell what was going on, it was mostly a lot of young-ish guys standing around in flannel shirts yelling at each other, and some other guys constantly adjusting the lighting because, obviously, it was dark.

I should get to doing some serious research for my assignment now. I have class again in less than two hours and I still need to get something to eat. My tummy is grumbling.