No house cleaning for this tortuga

After looking at Adele's gorgeous old apartment (which we hill hopefully be moving into in July - hope, hope!) Jenn and i looked around our own and kind of went, ugh. So we've been tidying. It also has something to do with the fact that her dad is stopping by tomorrow and we couldn't have him seeing it in the state that it was in!

However, I loathe cleaning and am procrastinating the kitchen in a big bad way while Jenn is too enthralled with her new fish tank to care.

Guess what else? I have pictures! Check it out:











There's propaganda EVERYWHERE








Yeah, he's anatomically correct...and well-endowed to boot.


This guy, on the other hand...well, he was kinda vandalized.


When you sign up to kiss the dolphins, this is what you get...



Havana: black flags to mark the years of the continuing US embargo


Possibly the former Presidential Palace?

Nerdy girl

Gross early day on campus...I was told that Darrel Dexter might be here at 10am so I showed up...there seems to be something a-brewing at the pub right now, albeit half an hour late, so it might not have all been for naught.

There was a time when I would only get up earlier than necessary for, say, the Backstreet Boys. Now it's provincial politicians. I'm an adult now!

Hopwever, if this whole thing doesn't work out then I'll have plenty of time to work on those wretched LSAT practice tests, maybe read some John Ralston Saul or a newspaper. The nerdiness is becoming harder and harder to shut off.

Anyway dudes, this post is little more than procrastination and wasting time...now you're free to go on with your lives. Peace out!

Update: No Darrel Dexter. The university didn't want to appear partisan. Wankers.

Ew.

According to the Nova Scotia election site, the Tories are currently projected to win a majority this time around, with 31 seats. Now, there's a danger in investing too much confidence in polls and I'm not going to give this prediction too much weight (especially with a month of campaigning ahead of us) but wold we be looking at another four years of the PCs taking credit for Darrel Dexter's ideas? (Oh my, how very partisan of me!)

On a less-partisan note, I've been interested in the discussions of eliminating the provincial tax on home-heating fuel, which of course was on the now-never-to-be-voted-on provincial budget that was recently tabled. As an ecologically-minded left-winger I'm a little iffy on that one - isn't there a more sustainable approach? The provincial Liberals are talking about conservation measures instead of removing the tax. Of course the details of their ideas don't make it into the papers, so I think after I'm done writing this I'll do a little research on how they propose dealing with this issue. I'm also curious to find out exactly what the failings of the "Keep the Heat" program are - targeted spending seems a better idea in this case, get the benefit to the people who most need the relief, rather than encouraging increased fuel consumption across the board.

Anyway, it is a very early 6:30 in the morning and I'm BLOGGING, of all things, but you see I suddenly got really tired yesterday around 5 or 6 and went to bedultra-early because I'm a wanker like that. So, while some of you are just getting to bed I'm awake and (surprisingly) alert.

In other news, I am now a university graduate. How exciting! Now that I have BA and lots of academic awards, I shall be working in the convenience-store industry for the summer (let's hear it for that Arts degree!) and looking for something more, um, MEANINGFUL for the Fall. And by meaningful I also mean better-paying. jenn and I celebrated by eating lots of junk food and watching Buffy when I was supposed to be doing LSAT prep. Clap if you love your roommate! (clap, clap!)

Yesterday I dragged Nocturnal Boy to the Brewery Market and he kindly pretended that it interested him. It was nice to get back there after something like 3 weeks' absence - the spring vegetables are coming out, and - yes! - we got fiddleheads to have for supper tonight. I luuuurrrv fiddleheads! I plan to make a feast out of 2 pounds of steamed fiddleheads, sauteed in olive oil and garlic, and served with herb bread. Oh baby yeah - nothing says lovin' (or spring!) like roughage.

Jenn and I also went and bought some supplies for her fish tank. We also got Rufus, a very hip plecko, and Ivana, a female gourami to replace Isabelle, may she rest in peace. Johnny Money seemes to be leaving Ivana alone for the most part. She is quite young, so maybe he feels like a cradlerobber. Incidentally, Jenn rejected "Jem" as a female rockstar name - she said it was too girly. Now THERE's a switch.

This one's from Julie

Put your music player on shuffle. Press forward for each question. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn't make sense. You'll be surprised though. NO CHEATING

How am I feeling today?
The Crusher - The Ramones
"I'm over my head - I ain't gonna hide under my bed!"

Will I get far in life?
Two Suns in the Sunset - Pink Floyd
"You'll have no recourse to the law anymore" - uh oh, so much for my legal career...

How do my friends see me?
Happy Birthday Mr. Burns - The Ramones
"Go to hell, you old bastard!"

Where will I get married?
We're Not Gonna Take It - Bif Naked
Nope, this one definitely doesn't make sense...

What is my best friend's theme song?
Wild Honey - Us
"I was a monkey..."

What is the story of my life?
Por Mujeres Como Tu - Tito Rojas
Not gonna touch this one - the lyrics indirectly sum up my love life..!

What's high school like?
Peligro - Gilbert Santarosa
Danger. Oh yes.

How can I get ahead in life?
Cheap Transistor Radio - SNFU
Ummm...k.

What is the best thing about me?
Unchained Melody - U2
Hey, I like that.

What is today going to be like?
Malague a Salerosa - Salsa Ley Alejandro
Your guess is as good as mine...

What is in store for this weekend?
Island in the Sun - Weezer
Score.

What song describes my parents?
Dream On - Aerosmith

To describe my grandparents?
Simarik - Tarkan
My grandparents are Turkish pop? That's a new one...

How is my life going?
Bad Reputation - Joan Jett
Hehehehehe

What song will they play at my funeral?
Let Go - FrouFrou

How does the world see me?
Every Other Time - LFO
Now THAT'S embarassing.

Will I have a happy life?
Paper Shoes - Hawksley Workman
"You may think that you may want to try, you may want to try, try, try, try to fence me in, but I don't recommend - I'll blow the roof right off this place."

What do my friends really think of me?
Matrix Theme - Crystal Method

Do people secretly lust after me?
Love Machine - The Miracles
Apparently my reputation isn't so bad after all... ;)

How can I make myself happy?
Molly - Sponge
By watching 16 Candles?

What should I do with my life?
Blue Eyes - Cary Brothers
Sorry, not so into cosmetic surgery.

Will I ever have children?
Mia - Eddie Santiago
At first glance this seems like a yes, but the line "que nunca te hable de fracasos" makes me think differently - with children there are ALWAYS fracasos.

What will you name them?
Common Cold - Hawksley Workman
That's what I'll name my dog.

Who will you marry?
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zepelin

Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?
Solo Con Ella - Puerto Rican Power
Yes, but apprently of the wrong gender...

Gah

Photos still not uploaded - I've been working nearly every day since I got home and I need Jenn to show me how (shame) - so let's talk about politics and ecology and (a few of the reasons) why I'm not so enamoured with Stephen Harper.

To boil it down to the basics: our beloved Prime Minister always went on the record stating that he preferred a "Made-in-Canada" approach to combatting climate change. Well, see, here's the thing. The Kyoto Protocol is basically a target for how much Canada agreed to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, with a few mechanisms available for countries to work together, should they so choose, to reach their targets. Not exactly a fascist system there, Steve. Which led me to believe from the start that "a Made-in-Canada approach" was just a euphemism for "wimpier reductions targets."



Lo and behold, what has the new government done? Apparently, they have given the slice-and-dice treatment to a bunch of Environment Canada climate change programs, including the One-Tonne Challenge, and, in the new budget, replaced previous climate change funding with a tax rebate for public transit users. Unless that comes with increased funding for municipalities to improve their transit systems (ahem, the colossally dysfunctional Metro Transit), then "tax refund for public transit users" is clearly a euphemism for "impotent cop-out." Now, I'm excited to get a tax deduction for my bus passes, but consider this: a large portion of public transit users are university students and low-income workers, people who generally make so little as to be paying paying little if any income taxes in the first place. methinks that this is going to be a cheap program for the federal Conservatives, and one that helps to mask the fact that they're letting the big culprits off the hook for their contribution to our air quality.

Gah!

Fluffy

Well, Matthew blogged about the new Conservative budget, which makes me feel like a very bad poli sci nerd. Oh well, I'm going to talk about my vacation.

My sister chose to get married at the lovely Iberostar Varadero and I commend the choice. It's a five-star all-inclusive, which of course means that my little brother was falling-on-his-ass drunk within about 16 hours of getting there and missed supper on our first actual day there because he was sunburnt, probably had heatsroke and couldn't walk properly or drink water without spilling it all over himself. Amateur. Anyway, once that was over with we had a really great time.

I peronally refrained from drinking anything alcoholic before supper time, and I'm glad I did. I actually remember the week and didn't get all dehydrated and yucky at any point.

The ocean was that gorgeous turquoise colour you see in the brochures, and it looked great against my cancer-bed tan and overpriced swimsuit. (Sorry that was just a momentary lapse into girliness. I'm over it now.) I spent most of my time with the guys in my group and with a few more that I met there...I tend to get along better with dudes because they're so much more fun. Guys in this instance, for example, are like "let's play water basketball and then go drink some beer" whereas girls are more like "I just want to remain immobile by the pool all day to work on my tan...I can't go in the water because it will mess up my hair." Mom was awesome and did lots of water sports and everything with us, so i don't like to stereotype too much. But in general girls pretty much just suck when they're on vacation. I got a great tan and I barely sat still all week.

I drank lots of mojitos in the evenings. My new favourite drink - it's so refreshing, and not too sweet like a lot of tropical drinks. Really sugary alcoholic drinks make this lady gag. Mojitos are PERFECT. I drank so many of them that the bartender in the lobby knew exactly what I was going to order the second I walked up to the bar. It probably also didn't hurt to be young, female and cute, and a decent tipper.

Another vice I picked up - and this is a shame of shames for me - is cigars. I've always been against smoking (cigarettes, at least) but I tried a couple of cigars that the men in our group offered me, and I liked it. I really liked it. I brought back two for Adam and one for myself. It'll be a special-occasion thing.

I also learned that ovo-lacto vegetarians have it SO DAMN EASY. I want to slap every ovo-lacto I know for having it so easy. Okay, maybe I'd slap all the meaters first, but my point is that giving up just meat is pretty much the easiest thing ever. See, I've been gradually moving away from strict veganism, occasionally indulging in stuff that I really really wanted. So when I got to the resort and realized that they offered absolutely no bean-type dishes most days, and no peanut butter, I knew that it was a matter of either eating the occasional egg or piece of cheese, or be constantly hungry and tired from lack of a balanced diet. I mean, I'm not a big person, folks. If I tried to live off salads and fruit (as amazing as the fruit was) and pasta for a week it would be a very scary thing. So I figured hey, I'm on vacation, I'll be as good as I can and not sweat the occasional cheat. My parents said it was the most distracting thing ever the first morning, seeing me eat an egg after six years. P.S. I never really liked eggs, and it turns out that I still don't.

So I'm back to my usual eating habits again, but holy crap - regular vegetarians have it so easy! Anyone who thinks it would be hard to be a vegetarian is pretty much just a pussy. So easy.

Anyway, I'll give a more detailed account of my trip once I get my pictures downloaded. Good night everybody!

Who Should Paint You: Andy Warhol

You've got an interested edge that would be reflected in any portrait You don't need any fancy paint techniques to stand out from the crowd!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

The drunken post you've all been waiting for

Apologizing in advance for any typos or stupid comments made by the author of this blog in the near future, I really have to provide the disclaimer that I just came home from partying with my poli-sci nerd friends and that there was some...um...alcohol consumed and some conspiracy theories exchanged and I might have driven Roddy's roommate's cat a little nuts and I might be doing the same to KC...

Sometimes after a tough four years you just have to let loose a little and abandon all cares about your inventory responsibilities that are coming up in the next...oh...5 1/2 hours from now. How often do I really party? And more importantly, how often do I fall asleep in a tanning bed? Because it's highly likely that I may do so after work. Fortunately I tan with a responsible company and the bed will shut off after 12 minutes whether I fall asleep or not...

I should go to bed. All of my loyal readers are probably now laughing on the inside at the inanity and self-importance of this post. Comment at will, dear loyal readers. I'll be off eating toast and sleeping off a bunch of free beer.

Easter-y goodness

My peronal Easter bunny delivers gifts in a Supahstore bag rather than a basket, but that's just his style...besides, he's cute and has a GREAT new haircut...

I'm excited about teh Just Us bars (got 2) because they're the most deliciousest chocolate bars I've ever tasted, all mascobado sugar-y and dark chocolate-y. MMMM-MMM!

Edjamacated

Yes...Nagel and Nozick can kiss my bootay because I am DONE folks! It was oh so anticlimactic but that's okay. I had some delectable seitan at the Wooden Monkey and then perused anti-communist books about Soviet pornography at JWD. I then came home and rearranged my bookshelf to make room for the now-useless textbooks that were lying around. Next I think I'll make some banana bread and paint my nails just because I can.

Oh the freedom...how long until it gets old?

Your Famous Movie Kiss is from Spiderman

"I have always been standing in your doorway. Isn't it about time somebody saved your life?"

What Famous Movie Kiss Are You?

So close!

Something pretty for everyone to look out while i sort out my feelings for the two gentlemen currently occupying my thoughts - namely, Robert Nozick and Thomas Nagel.

philosphy exams

= a slow and painful death.

Things that scare me

1) economic policy

Last class of my degree and I got very little of it. A discussion on the IMF's gold policy, based on a group presentation from earlier this week, very heavy on the macroeconomic theories and whoa. I felt really left out of the discussion because overall I just. don't. get. it. I did, however, contribute more to the discussion than half of the group that was presenting. 98% of the questions posed to the grop were answered by one dude and he was clearly loving it. Which leads me to:

2) yuppies

Actually, they fascinate me more than anything. He was so excited about discussing monetary policy and he was getting up and drawing charts and talking in this very confident, even overbearing way. A total CEO in the making.

3) 4am

Which is when the cat woke me up this morning. Apparently my door slammed shut last night and he was trapped in my bedroom...however, it took 2 hours of being harassed before I was finally lucid enough to comprehend why he was on my case two hours early.

4) deadlines

Wednesday: one paper, one exam and two take-home exams. Eeesh. See you then.

Um... what?

You Are Machiavelli's Spawn

You're going to get what you want, and no one's going stand in your way. (Even if it's just knocking out your roomie to get the last ice cream sandwich!) People who slow you down, simply need to be taken out - by any means possible. You are the master of charming, wooing, manipulating, and intimidating.

How Machiavellian Are You?

I mean, uh, yeah...You heard the quizzy thing...bow down to me before I charm, woo, manipulate and intimidate you.

(Not an actual rock star)

I've always wished for musical talent - to be able to play an instrument adeptly, to sing powerfully, hey even to be able to carry a tune. I would form a rock band and write songs about stickin it to the man; timeless ballads called "Hazel-Eyed Nerd" and "You Make Me Feel (Like a Teeny-Bopper)"; tragic tunes like "Oops, Scotsburn Screwed Up Again." When my record went platinum I'd donate my profits to environmental causes and adopt lots of babies from developing countries.

If I were queen of the world all this would be reality.

Ahhh

A slight lull in the end-of-term madness and it feels really good. I caught up on my sleep last night and am (almost) ready to jump back into all the things on my to-do list.

Wednesday was Awards Night - the Poli-Sci Society won Society of the Year and I got the C-Store Manager's Award. That was really nice because I've felt a lot of frustration lately over things that have been happening in the store and it's caused me to worry that maybe I'm becoming one of those nutso type-A personalities and will die of a heart attack at 35 from self-induced stressed.

The night was Greek-themed, although they didn't serve Briam like Matt told me they were going to. Unless the caterers thought that that unusual steamed julienne-vegetable thing was briam. It was good, but definitely not Greek food as I know it. Then they brought out the desserts and there was baklava. I cheated and had 3 pieces - justified it because not many people had any, they ate the strawberry shortcake and chocolate mousse instead. Uncultured, tell ya. Most didn't know what it was...and I couldn't let it go to waste...baklava is my kryptonite, my favorte food ever. It tastes like sex - there's just no other way to describe it! Yummy.

I had to leave the awards ceremony early to finish my Social Policy paper - it ended up taking until 4 in the morning. I got 3 hours of sleep because I had to open the store at 8 yesterday. And it was a long day - not least because somebody dug through the staff food in the back of the bottom shelf of the milk fridge and took my soy milk and some staff member foolishly sold it to them even though we don't sell that brand at the store. Annoyed is an understatement. So after work I finished up some last-minute assignments, went to class from 3-7 then had a group meeting that went way longer than it should have. I finally left campus around 8:30 and headed over to Adam's where I promptly fell asleep while he played his silly computer game (Thursday night is WoW raid night).

Finally well-rested, I have lots of cooking and cleaning and other domestic-goddess-like things to do. Anything's better than more research papers at this point...

I'm not procrastinating

There are dishes to be done and a research paper to work on - and not much time left in which to do it. But I've been going pretty steady for most of the day. Finished my philosophy essay wit plenty of time to spare, which impressed me because usually these things end up being utterly last-minute no matter how early I start them - something about being a perfectionist. But at this point I'm just ready to be done. And that attitude has actually encouraged me to skip a lot of my usual procrastination.

Jenn's off at a movie with some of her friends...just before she left she decided to describe some of her favorite scary-movie scenes to me and then proceeded to leave me alone in the apartment. My big secret: I'm a total wimp. Let me qualify that. I can jump off sketchy bridges in Central America but I'm a total movie wimp. 28 Days Later freaked me out so much that I'm still working up to watching Sean of the Dead. Yeah. That much of a weiner. So now I'm all nervous, sitting around the apartment alone with the cat. And we all know that cats are sketchy. I turned on some Hawksley to soothe my nerves.

Bootlegger has, sadly, decided to stop selling Jones Soda. Sad. That was the only place nearby where it was available to the best of my knowledge. Oh well, I could do without all the sugar anyway.

Hell week is upon me. I'll let you know how it goes.

You are Dark Chocolate

You live your life with intensity, always going full force. You push yourself (and others) to the limit... you want more than you can handle. An extreme person, you challenge and inspire the world!

What Kind of Chocolate Are You?

Mmm chocolate. Long day.

This message was brought to you by your dentist

Somehow she always knows just how I'm feeling...

I had a filling done yesterday and for soem reason my dentist (who is normally awesome) put three needles in one side of my little face...I was frozen up to my eyeball on the right side and it didn't wear off for about 4 hours. Then once it did my jaw hurt where the needles went in and it still des - it's hard to opne my mouth far enough to eat. I have now sworn off chewy foods even though I am so in love with strawberry mentos.

What made it all worth it was knowing what the evening held...Jenny and Jennalle and I went to Dio Mio for veggie burgers and sorbetto, then arrived alte at the Cohn - turns out Hawksley didn't have an opening act so we missed the first two songs but they were from the new CD, which I bought at Sam's and am listening to as we speak.

The show was fabulous - the setting was well-suited to the more subdied nature of Treeful of Starling, and he performed a bunch of his earlier works as well. It was different than the show in October at the Marquee, which was more of a straightforward perform-the-songs-and-make-the-audience-all-want-to-touch-themselves kind of rock show. This one was more stripped-down, just him on a variety of guitars, a banjo and a xylophone, plus Mr. Lonely on the piano. So he played with what was available - a lot more vocal manipulation and theatrics. And as always, intensely sexy lyrics delivered in that passionate voice. *LOVE*

I bought a hat. It's really cute.

After the show we went across the street to the Dal SUB because the Cohn bathrooms had huge lineups. They were having '80s Night at the Grawood so we couldn't resist stopping by for a couple of hours and dancing to Cyndi Lauper and the Beastie Boys while drunk students in neon spandex stumbled around us.

"I was dropped, and I'm okay"

Andrea Dorfman = damn cool.

I've been getting up extra early lately because I've had all these professional-y events to go to lately - the Women in House reception Tuesday, my shadowing placement Wednesday, then the Tri-Mentoring dinner tonight. And I just invested in a flatiron so my hair looks super hot. On Tuesday at school I would occasionally be talking to somebody about something completely unrelated, then they would suddenly tell me how much they liked my hair. I felt a little like...Belinda Stronach, in a way.

So yesterday I job shadowed Dave Wilson, MLA for Sackvile-Cobequid (my former riding) as part of the Women in House events. It was soooo totally wicked...I got to sit in on the Public Accounts meeting while they questioned Ernie Fage, former minister of Economic Development, over the issue that journalists have affectionately named "potatogate." It was absolutely fascinating, at least for a Poli-Sci nerd like me, to see this guy who had voluntarily agreed to sit before the committee (of course, the optics would have been pretty bad if he hadn't) and then refused to answer any relevant questions, hiding behind a very broad interpretation of cabinet confidentiality. What was interesting was that he eventually slipped up during the media scrum afterwards and blurted out one of the things that he had refused to answer at the meeting itself. Even more interesting is that the Herald journalist, at least, didn't comment on that fact in the paper today. I mean, I'm just a lowly poli-sci student and hearing that admission made my head spin around immediately but apaprently a trained journalist didn't pick up on it or something.

Seriously though, there was a 45-minute media scrum after the meeting, between them interviewing Fage, Michel Sampson (Liberal - I'm not sure if I spelled his last name right) and Graham Steele, the NDPer who did the questioning at that meeting. It was pointed out to me that for politicians, dealing with the media like that is a total mind game, because out of a 15-minute interview, when you're having questions hurled at you from all directions, they'll probably pick one or two sentences to quote so you need to amke sure that every sentence you say is something that you wouldn't regret if it were taken out of context and printed. And that's exhausting.

Then I went to the NDP caucus office and got to sit in on a little strategizing session of the 3 members of the Public Accounts committee (Dave Wilson, Graham Steele and Maureen MacDonald) and it was just sooo neat to see how you have to kind of guess what the other parties are going to do and then swing with the punches when they do something different. Before I was thinking that I might eventually want to go into politics. Now I'm thinking that I definitely want to eventually go into politics! And if I can get a job working for the NDP or the Advisory Council or some other related organization next Fall, holy crap I will just die. So awesome. And I don't care if that makes me a total nerd. I am keen and proud. (haha keen and...keenan. never mind.)

So Adam took me to dinner at Mexico Lindo last night and then actually agreed to go to the Advisory Council (on the Status of Women, in case you're all wondering who I'm talking about) movie night for International Women's Day. How lucky am I? It was a bunch of shorts by female Nova Scotian filmmakers and they were quite good despite the array of technical difficulties involved.

Today I had a sort-of debate in Policy Analysis...we had to defend the recommendations we made in our group project on the African Union. I think we did pretty well...although it's pretty hard to make suggestions for African development that everybody hasn't heard a million times before and aren't utterly disillusioned about. oh well, the prof isn't a tough marker and we're practically done that class for the year as of Tuesday when we pass in our final report.

The Tri-Mentoring closing dinner was tonight (overcooked pasta, although it was a vast improvement over the plate of raw vegetables that Aramark fed me at the last scholars' luncheon) and I somehow found myself sitting at the VIP table with the president of the University etc, as well as Diana Whalen's husband, although I didn't find that out until after dinner when he had left. Diana is a fantastic lady and a huge supporter of Women in House.

So my mentor Andrea and I made plans to go out for drinks sometime in the next couple of months and she's still trying to arrange an interesting day when I'm available so that I can kind of follow her around and get a feel for the job. She is so awesome.

Sorry for the long rambling post...it's just been a crazy couple of days. I'm sure you all understand.

P.S. Wednesday after I got home, Hipster-in-Training and I sat around online looking up anagrams of our own names. The best one for mine was "anal rad ex." Mt full name proffered ups ome pretty nonsensical ones, but Adam's was a veritable gold mine. The best was "a laid mauve rug" although "a veda mail guru," "a guava deli rum" and "a miraged uvula" are also fairly awesome. So nerdy but so very, very wicked cool.

It's only been a week?

Holy Crap.

Last Sunday I went to visit my sister Bee (nickname)after a too-long absence. It's funny how three-year-olds develop fixations...first we watched Finding Nemo. Then we pretended to be characters from Finding Nemo. Then we played with her LeapPad (a phenomenal toy for kids) - using the Finding Nemo book. Then she came over to my place to see the fish and harass the cat, and left a very happy girl.

Other than that I've been obscenely busy...didn't get nearly as much done over Spring Break as I had planned to, and with Women in House coming up this coming Tuesday and the post-midterms shoot-me-now part of thes emester upon us, there hasn't been much time to breathe. Or to post, which apparently has led certain readers (who you'd never suspect!) to aimlessly playing with my site's pet hedgehog Stevie. So cute.

But yeah, Women in House has pretty much come together but it was a stressful process for me because we had to change the date - and delay the sending-out of the invitations as a result - to accommodate the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. However, it was apparently her departmental secretary who was handling her commitments for that day, and when the new Premier shuffled the cabinet she ceased to be respnsible of the SOW and there wasn't enough communication with her assistant so nobody contacted me. And the Legislature was called on Friday and she now has a bunch of ministers' meetings and can't make it on the day that we specifically chose because it was convenient for her. But because of the miscommunications, I didn't find this out until Friday afternoon when I called three numbers trying to finalize some details and her assistant informed me of it. So it's a little frustrating but it'll just magically work somehow, like it did last year.

Friday I went to lunch at The Wooden Monkey with my mentor, a really wonderful lawyer who the Mount matched me up with. We talked about things like resolving the ethical/moral conflicts that can come up in practicing law...it was really helpful because she's coming from a similar place to where I'm coming from - she went to alw school "to become a better activist" and now works for a big law firm where she's learning how to balance her beliefs with the legal code of ethics (which is different from the average person's, to be sure) and how to influence clients, as their legal counsel, to do the right thing. So it was a great conversation. And I had a seitan sandwich which was absolutely phenomenal.

The rest of the weekend was bascially work work and more work, and today I'm going for a late lunch with my family, although right now it's 11am and I'm finishing off my brunch of a fried tofu sandwich. I was looking at those picturesfromt eh Attic and in the last one my arm looks so skinny and gross. I'm not one for criticizing my own body - I generally don't see the point of anything besides body love - but it's GROSS!!! So I've decided that I need to eat even more and put on some weight before I fade away. It's touch being a skinny bitch...lots of other women get jealous (even though they lookk fabulous) and accuse us of having eating disorders. So this is me defending the skinny bitches: we have body issues, too! And how do you think it feels when your jeans size (0) implies that you don't even exist?! Thinka bout it!

Attic-y goodness

I went to the Attic for the Wide Mouth Mason concert at some point in the apst week...probably last weekend, but my sense of time is gone. We didn't relaly pay attention to the band, we just kind of sat around and relaxed which was even better. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure:

I'm there.

March 10th at the Cohn.

I'm having a bit of a *blah* day and spent much of the latter part of it feeling cranky.

I slept in, then headed out for a mildly successful group meeting for my Policy Analysis project about the African Union. Then off towards Bagtown for a haircut, stopping along the way in Bedford to use the HBC gift card I got for Christmas to buy a lint brush - which every aspiring political actor needs. Turns out that this particular gift card had actually been purchased in 2003 (GAH!) and is now useless. So I had to cough up the money myself. Then I killed about an hour in Sackville, only to show up for my hair appointment at 5:15 and find out that is was not,in fact, today but rather tomorrow. So I had to reschedule because Adam and I are making dinner for my parents tomorrow...

And then I was cranky. So Adam and I went and got groceries and made some sambar with basmati and chickpeas and watched some Smallville (I am hopelessly addicted). So that part cheered me up and so did looking at my Montreal pictures:











"Canadian Political Science Students Ass."

You Should Date A Japanese Guy!

You're an interesting blend of traditonal and modern And a Japanese guy is likely to be on your wavelength Maybe you'll show your love by dying your hair the same color Or get married in a traditional white kimono!

Which Foreign Guy Should You Date?

Speaking of things that are Japanese, my shiitake log finally has mushroom buds on it! Woohoo we've got fungus baby!

You Are Basic Panties

You are a laid back chick with a real natural beauty. You can make unwashed hair and minimal make-up super sexy. Men tend to notice you show the "real you" - and they appreciate it. And while basic makes boring for some, it looks classic on you.

What Kind of Panties Are You?

I officially have a Quizilla addiction. It's quite sad.

Anyway my new Threadless t-shirt arrived today. I got the adorable "She Doesn't Even Realize" which was FINALLY reprinted. So cute.

I also find myself more and more linking to everything that I reference and it's amking me feel a little like Wikipedia and then I feel silly but I just. can't stop.

Heading into Sackville today...I've been taking time since Spring Break started to catch up with people I don't see that often so I'm spending the day with Becky and Amanda, who were my best friends in high school but who I never see anymore.

Guilty pleasure: eavesdropping on strangers' conversations in public

A dude on the bus with a guitar case and afro: "The room where we rehearse is so, like, Gestapo."

Anyway forgive me for being crude, but this week has been assraping me sideways. Jonathan couldn't work his Wednesday morning shift that I traded him for Tuesday nights, so the last three days have gone something like this:

Tuesday:
-work 7:45am - 2:00pm, work on take-home midterm for tomorrow
-class 3-4:40
-work 5-9:15, work on take-home midterm
-10-midnight, finish take-home midterm

Wednesday:
-work 7:45am - 10:30am
-class 11am - prof acts us to actually think and discuss in groups. Philosophy. Nobody's actually read the chapter because we were doing the midterm.
-12:30 - 4pm nap at Adam's. Sleep through Spanish class.
-5-7pm Tri-mentoring

Today:
-work 7:45-noon. Try to accomplish the 300-some pages of reading for today's midterm.
-noon-3 more reading.
-3-4:30 skip class for last-ditch study group
-4:30-7 midterm - it involves a bunch of case studies i didn't read. Fortunately she has a photocopy of them and I just have to read it really really fast.

Spring break is upon us at last. Which means more work and less socializing. But I get to sleep in.

As the snow piles up i'm debating whether having another snow day would be a good thing or a bad thing. I could use the extra time to work on a few assignments and maybe bake some tofu and do some laundry...but then again, I could also use the money that would be a result of my shift in the morning. Even more so with Spring Break looming and the store being closed next week.

My political philosophy midterm requires me to reflect on this whole Danish cartoon controversy. It's an interesting dilemna. I can certainly appreciate the principle of refraining from displays that will offend deeply-held beliefs such as this is for certain groups within Islam, and I know enough about Islam to realize that it's a much bigger deal than it would be for, say, the majority of Christians. I also recognize that Muslims have been the subject of unacceptable racism in the West in recent years...and the argument that the newspaper editor was originally trying to make in the article accompanying the cartoons - that censoring religious criticisms is inconsistent with freedom of speech - could easily have been made without including the drawings. It was an irresponsible bit of journalism, especially in a time of such conflict and sensitivity.

That said, I have a problem with people forcing their religious rules on others, and the issue originally stemmed from an author who couldn't get his book illustrated because the artists he approached were scared off by ACTUAL VIOLENCE AND MURDER committed against others who had depicted Mohammad in their work.

It's also interesting that the most offensive images in the dossier given to Islamic world leaders were not in fact published in the newspaper in question, and one of them was taken completely out of context - it was some French dude in a pig-squealing competition or something. So does anybody even know where these came from? Somebody intentionally trying to escalate the furor? Because I seriously doubt that the original 12 drawings, although a few of them are highly questionable, would have led to embassies being torched. Some Islamic groups strongly oppose the depiction of Mohammad, but it's been done before plenty of times - on South Park, for crying out loud - and that failed to arouse anger on this scale.

There was an interesting comment in a letter to the editor of the Globe last week: why is it that the reaction of Muslims to to those who use their religion to justify unspeakable acts, so much weaker than the reaction to a set of cartoons? I would argue that it's not so much that the reaction against extremists distorting their religion is necesarily WEAKER, it's that it's more PEACEFUL...and unfortunately peaceful doesn't sell newspapers.

Anyway sorry for the disjointed and possibly incoherent post. I'm just trying to work through a compliated issue and, well, I'm simple. I really think that this needs to be discussed openly and the media have shrunk into a very guarded discussion of it so as to avoid further controversy. Comments?

My roommate has the funniest cat alive. I think we gave him too much nip and turned him into one of those crazy permafried cats.

Noramlly KC will meow at you until you pay atention to him, then promptly ignore you once you have; even more so if you pick him up and talk to him in a high-pitched come-here-and-give-grandma-a-kiss kind of voice. This evening, however, he was not to be ignored for a second. I picked him up, expecting him to put up with it for 30 seconds before struggling to get away...but instead he looked at me. Purred. batted at my had. Purred louder. So I had to do that thing that you do with babies, where you wlk around with them and bounce them a little and show them furniture and decorations and pictures and tell them all about whatever you're showing them and they looka t you with total awe even though they have no idea what you're saying and you're just telling them about how a lamp works.

Then I went to do laundry and as I was emptying out my hamper he boldly crawled inside while I was still pulling stuff out. I tipped it over on its side and partially closed the lid and he sat inside and purred so louldy I could hear him halfway across the room. Funny cat.


Not KC. But it made me giggle.

I'm on a Natalie Dee kick lately...I have arbitrarily decided that C.I.L.F. stands for "corn is le fabulous."

Just a note on state support for the arts: the hazards of doing an essay on things that sort of interest you is that by the end of it you generally no longer care to think or speak of them ever again.

Hahahahahaha

My life is at once obscenely busy and boring, thus my recent sntries are silly and insubstantial.

Adam is mad as hell over this, so just for him, I'm putting the issue up here for everybody to see:

Save the Hoodie

Now go make a hoodie-wearer happy.

You're a rabbit fur flogger! You're so soft and

fluffy and cute - but if wielded with

sufficient force, you can still make an

impact that will be remembered.


What Type of Flogger Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

And in other news:
People in Russia are dying because of our amazing spell of warm weather. What a way to steal somebody's sunshine.



I blame the giant hot sauce bottle.

Rules
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"Because it was usually paid via the wage packet, employer groups opposed the WFTC as an administrative burden that, in the words of a leading Conservative, turned private sector firms into 'unpaid benefit offices.'"
-Welfare Hot Buttons by Sylvia Bashevkin, University of Toronto Press 2002.

The magickal freezer of awesomeness

Everyone should have one like this...it's always full of soy ice cream without even the necessity of going to the grocery store or paying for it.

That happy reality is numbing the AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the back of my head: a week's worth of school to catch up on, a high GPA to maintain, a mentoring program to prepare for, a media-fodder job-shadowing event to coordinate, a family with which to communicate, a job to attend to, ocular health to take care of, grad photos to get done, bills to pay, a life to lead and two other people to feed.

And I can't find my green hi-liter. I really am so obsessive-compulsive sometimes that I can't concentrate if I'm using any other colour of hi-liter aside from green. Purple least of all. This is one of those times, and purple is the only one I can find. Must. Buy. Green. Hi-liter.

Sleep? I did that once.

"The Holy(er than thou) Bible of Vegetarianism"

16 hours to Montreal. 16 hours back. 4 days in between, with a small group in a big city. It's nice to be home and back in my own space - not to say that I didn't have fun, of course. Among the memorable moments from the conference (besides this post's title, which I got from Ryan):

Ryan (again): The glass is half-empty for you, isn't it, Justine?

McGill Bloc hack: I'm from Nova Scotia, I'm an anglophone.

McGill NDP hack (quoting somebody else): Canada is like a cow: fed by the West, milked by the Centre, and just imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes.

Bailey (Lethbridge): You see, my fish has a black belt and it beat up the Yeti. But it has never beaten up a unicorn. Thus, unicorns do not exist."

Jonathan (MSVU) and cab driver: Haha! Kak!

Doug (UVic): So what you're saying is, I should get you in on this game of Beirut...

Bruno (MSVU Greenpeace hack): I don't careabout the rainforest. That's not here, it's in South America!

Notwithstanding the 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's blogosphere," as well as the 12th, "Thou shalt not use the word 'blogosphere' for it is cheesy," I'm totally jealous of the sheer number of comments made on Mark's site. I need a bunch of geeky (meant in the best way possible) friends to post lots of geeky comments on here!

Off to Montreal tonight for nerdarific poli-sci madness - I'll be back on Sunday night if all goes well with the drivingness.

Cutest picture ever

Looks like somebody's moving in on my man...

Having fulfilled my civic duty for another election, I am now indulging in some neapolitan frozen soy ("Soy Delicious frozen soy dessert" to be exact). I'm too busy to go to the gym and yet somehow have plenty of time for sitting on mny ass, eating junk food and blogging.

Rock the Vote was...well, it was kind of a bust. To my knowledge no media showed up, there was a decent number of people there but half of them talked through the candidates' speeches, and the two Conservative candidates didn't even get up to give speeches. And most of the candidates left pretty early. Blarg.

However, I did talk to Elizabeth Perry, a wonderfully energetic Green Party candidate from Dartmouth, whose speech was along the lines of "Our platform is about everything your parents told you about the world when you were a kid, before you found out that the world isn't really like that." I thought it was a really neat spin on things that you don't usually hear coming out of the mouths of political candidates.

I'm an NDP supporter, and of course there is a widepread perception that the Green Party is taking votes away from the NDP - which i imagine has some truth to it, although in my experience those who vote for the Greens are already pretty sure that the conclusion in their riding is forgone and they can support the Greens without jeopardizing the results. Under a proportional electoral system they would have won about 12 seats or more in the last election (I think - they got something like 4% of the vote, didn't they?) but their support is currently too diffuse to win a seat under the system we have.

Anyway, I think that running a full slate of candidates and making a fuss about being shut out of the debates and most of the election brouhaha is a way of making a powerful statement about the issues that SHOULD have a prominent place in politics but are consistently sidelined. I mean, what have we heard about the environment this campaign? Canada just hosted the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and the federal election campaign, at least on the part of the major parties, completely ignored the issue of our failure to make progress on our Kyoto commitments - we've got what, 6 years left to achieve them and our emissions are still going up, up, up.

I also really appreciated how NDP candidate for Halifax West (the Mount's riding!) Alan Hill reminded everybody that they could vote either in their home ridings or in Halifax. I think that for students, voting is extra complicated because not only do they have to fit learning about the parties, candidates and issues into their busy schedules, their transitive lifestyles make it difficult to know where they belong in electoral terms. And this contributes to the monstrous proportion of young people who don't vote. And this mass abstention doesn't go unnoticed by those who write the party platforms - they focus on the concerns of the people wo do vote and we're left with dysfunctional post-secondary funding schemes and student loan repayment conditions, not to mention ballooning tuition rates. So to all those in the 18-30 age group who don't vote: thanks a lot. I hope you all get splinters in your hands and then they get infected and then it's painful to wash your hair so you get all greasy and nobody invites you out anywhere so you have to stay home every night watching annoying movies like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.

Bad poli-sci nerd that I am, I missed yet another leaders' debate last night, but I'm not lamenting that loss as apparently it was just another occasion for the leaders to attack each other - although this time the victim was Stephen Harper, whose party is now leading in the polls.

And to my credit, I did spend the evening teaching Jenn about the parties and candidates so that she can make a more informed choice. So in that sense I am a good little poli-sci nerd. ANYWAY, a friend sent her a link to this blog which, although I'm sure the real Rick Mercer would have enough star power to convince the CBC to give him his own domain or at least part of theirs rather than making him settle for a silly little Blogger account, contains the kind of quirky, cynical, Canadianesque kind of humour that we all know and love. And a description of Stephen Harper's dream Cabinet.

So Adam took me out for dinner at Opa last Thursday and then to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Chronicles of Narnia were such a memorable part of my childhood that it was wonderful to see that the creators did the book justice. No humans in beaver suits here, as in the old BBC version of yore.

There was, however, a small problem with watching that movie with my lovah rather than my girlfriends. Let me put it this way...had I been sitting in my living room, watching the movie with Jenn, one of my first comments would have been, "wow, put 5 more years on Edmund, eh?" and then I probably would have howled. Though currently only 14, Skandar Keynes is a definite hottie-in-the-making. Other feature hotties: James McAvoy as Mr Tumnus and the baby-faced William Moseley as Peter Pevensie. But of course the Boy doesn't want to hear about that so I had to wait until I got home to talk about it with Jenn.

I really hope they make more of the books into movies...I'm dying to see Prince CCaspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as movies.

In other Things That Make Me Smile, Julie was apparently so inspired by our Mupet-watching night last Friday that she went and found a video of Manamana for your viewing pleasure (see sidebar). hey-are those subtitles in Russion?

Rock the Vote NS (that last bit so that they don't get sued fro copyright infringement or something) is tomorrow and I've been asked to greet the candidates or other such fanciness.

I found something nestled among my bookmarks this evening - Hipster in Training sent it to me ages ago. This girl has almost the same name as me.

technicolor.org

New Year's madness

So the whole Joel Plaskett thing enver happened...I wasn't feeling too hot so i pulled out of the party plans and was glad that I did. Today we cleaned and de-Christmas-ized the apartment (although we contemplated leaving the tree up and just decorating it for Valentines' Day).

My grandparents had their annual shindig filled with distant relatives who I can never identify, and Adam braved the family once again, and was rewarded handsomely with free food. My neice was adorable, she kept coming and sitting between us. So it appears I've got competition - and she's really cute, too. Damn.

Anyway I've gotten a start on my New Year's resolutions - my credit card is safely encased in a fauxgurt container full of ice. It's a start.