Happy Canada Day!


So I attended a party last night. More specifically, an engagement party for my friend Kevin and his fiancée Kim.

This was a lavish affair.

I suppose that it would be an understatement to say that Kim's parents have some money. When my mother saw the invitation, she mentioned that the place had some really nice, expensive houses. One of the richer areas of the city.

I got there and pulled up to the nicest house on the block, and was greeted by Kevin and Kim at the door.

It's a really nice place that Kim's parents have there, although not quite my style. I like houses to be liveable, and the entire main floor doesn't seem that way. Instead you've got collections of artwork and vases (Apparently her father's obsessed with collecting vases), with some really fancy looking and not too comfortable furniture.

Fortunately the basement is a lot more comfy.

But of course, I only knew 5 people there, two of which were the bride and groom to be, so I had to flex my talking to random strangers muscles a bit, which is always fun for someone as introverted as myself.

A quartet of musicians set up at the top of the stairs, a bunch of servers offering people wine, bellinis, crantinis, and various hors d'oeuvres imported from Montreal (Apparently you can't get good Kosher stuff in Calgary). It was the most posh event I had ever been to. I had a good time, and it was good to see Kevin again, since he'd been living in Los Angeles for the past two years, and they're moving to New York next year, which is even more out of the way.

Thankfully it started dying down about 11 PM, and I was able to spend an hour or so just catching up with him.

And, if you're curious, the wedding will be held exactly a year after the engagement party.


And on a side note, my friend Allisha arrives back from Europe today. I really should ask her out.

And as an update, I did, and she said no.

13:14

Looks like the confidence I was talking about a month ago paid off. I did well in the entrance exam for Oulu as expected, but today I found out I've also been accepted into the university of Jyväskylä. Actually, I seem to have made it into every school I applied for.

And now I have to choose between two universities. This wasn't something I had prepared for, and it's turning out to be a somewhat difficult task. While Jyväskylä is much closer to the southern parts of Finland where 99% of my Finnish friends live in, their school has a rather heavy emphasis on math and/or economics, both of which are far from being my favourite subjects. Furthermore, I've got a few friends in Oulu but know nobody in JKL. As cities they both seem to be fine, and I doubt the quality of teaching etc varies that much either.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. In fact my self confidence is at an all time high, knowing that I've successfully passed all those exams I studied so hard for. However, I'm bound to crash back to the ground head first after I exchange my high paying IT job for the stress-filled life of an economically challenged student. Sure, instant ramen seems delicious now...

At least I'll finally have a good enough excuse to move out of my parents' house.
My dad seemed very pleased at the news..


23:16

I guess I've made up my mind: in two months I'll be having my own northern exposure way up in Oulu. 3.5 extra hours in a train per direction isn't that bad, is it? Mom is naturally upset of my choice, because to her it means I won't be visiting my family as often. My dad is ecstatic knowing I'll be out of the house soon. And me? I'm stoked for being the first person (that I know of) in both of my parents' families to enter such a school. Who knows, perhaps I'll even graduate some day...

See, it's strange, because I remember this. Wish that was just a nodeshell, the wu doesn't fit,
but for some reason it seems right that living without running water is softlinked to it.
Living without running water is my heart nowadays. The body aches, it's been too long.
Summertime means hair pulled up in ponytails and I realize that I've been missing the backs of necks.
I might be in a store and there will be one in line in front of me.
The scent from it will start to pull the soul from my body.
Pull back.
Open eyes.
Hollow-eyed.
Money and take the bag.
The disconnect requires that I stare straight through everyone for the rest of the day.
Shuffle out and past it all.
Home I lie on my bed and try and stare through the ceiling.
I want to blame this on someone.
But i'm not broken anymore, and this isn't Elba.
I can move when I choose, and i'm bigger than him.
Don't have to keep a room anymore.
Just will myself to move.
Yeah, you see it every few nodes... Everything2 is a community.

In reality, it is. Hang around long enough, you'll make some interesting friends, perhaps even meet a few folks from this online rag.

Hang around long enough, you'll find someone you admired is gone.

Sometimes it may be a wharfinger, who decided to do other things. Sometimes it's more permanent. Another member of our little community passed away, one gent named ephealy. Visit his homepage for additional information. Then take the time, if you haven't before, to go read some of his work.

Our "/me misses _____" lines are multiplying way too fast. Let's hope that this is the last one for a long while. Rest in peace, Evan.

Last night I bumped into my next-door neighbour Jenny.
She had been gardening all day, and I noticed she had pruned all of her rose bushes. (She has a lot of rose bushes). I said, "Hey, you pruned your roses"
and she said something like, "Yes, if I prune them all at the same time, they should all bloom at the same time".

I thought that made sense, and trying to keep the chit-chat going I asked, "So when will they bloom?"
and she replied "Melbourne Cup Day."

I was intrigued, as this was fairly specific information. So I said "Really? Can you really be sure about that?" And here's what she said - "I was listening to the radio one time, and the gardeners from Flemington Racecourse were on, and they said that if you prune your roses on July the 1st, they'll bloom on Melbourne Cup Day. So I tried it last year, and sure enough! They bloomed on the first Tuesday in November". Well, I was amazed. How do the roses know it's when it's Tuesday?

Written after a maddeningly long period of reflection.

We were in Ottawa this weekend, for the Canada Day celebrations. Spent the weekend cruising the museums, parks and other sights that make the capital region just so damned special. Andrea and I decided once again that once we're settled, we're moving up there.

This year, the week before the holiday weekend co-incided with the G8 Summit out in Alberta. Due to the government's crafty wisdom, they held the summit in an area completely surrounded by absolutely nothing, limiting the possibility of violent protest. Maybe not the most democratic move, but clever nonetheless. So, the protesters focused on the capital (Ottawa, for those of you not paying attention), waving their banners and chanting their slogans, etc. By the time we made it to the region Saturday, however, most had wrapped up their larger scale protests, and had decided on staying in the area to celebrate what is arguably the best country on the planet.

Andrea and I were strolling the streets around noon just east of the parliament buildings. The heat was extreme - a heat wave has descended onto most of Ontario, giving us temperatures exceeding 36 degrees Celsius, and with the humidity, it feels more like 43 or 44 degrees (hence the more than frequent visits to museums with AC!). Andrea decides that she needs more cash, so we duck into a CIBC building to raid the automatic teller.

Inside: an assortment of tourists. Three elderly women were trying to figure out just what exactly a PIN was, and how they should enter it into the little slot marked deposits. Impatiently waiting behind them was a woman with her young daughter (probably 9 years old, blonde with ribbons) who obviously was disliking the crowds only slightly less than she was disliking the heat. A man, slightly overweight, fanned himself with a guide from the adjacent Museum of Contemporary Photography. Two teenaged girls were also in line, adjusting their skin-tight clothing and fawning over a "People Teen" magazine, giggling about the "How to Kiss" article. Then, the addition of Andrea and I completed the small room.

Enter: a dark-skinned man (probably about 30 years of age), wearing ripped jeans, dirty white T-shirt sporting the tour dates of an unknown band, sporting the most ragged set of dreads I've ever come across. The three elderly women had just given up on trying to produce cash from the futuristic machines, and the impatient woman, with her daughter, and the man with the guide moved up to the two available machines. Behind them came the man with the dreads.

He immediately approached the woman and her daughter and stood behind them, off to the right, about 2 feet away.

Now, ATM etiquette states that you must give enough room to the person infront of you so as to ensure you don't happen to glance at any of their particulars. Also, you need to follow the simple procedure of queuing up for a chance to use the machines. This man had done neither. He instead stood behind the woman, and peered over the little girl's shoulder with a great, white smile.

The woman, rather horrified by the experience being presented to her, said "Excuse me?" as if it mattered, and then with a growing air of both anger and fear, stammered "Get, get away! Go! Get away you n-". She stopped on the last word, glancing down for a split second at her daughter, looking with wide eyes at the "nigger" smiling down at her.

The man, now taking three steps back, was only mere inches from Andrea and I. He then contorted his body and changed the entire weekend for me.

He had one hand covering his eye, another behind his back, and (I swear) it seemed a third pointed at the woman with the daughter and the (cut-off) racial slur. He leaned both backwards and forward, all the time with the smile on his face. His feet turned inward, back on his heels, outward... seemingly all at once. He was turned, straight. His one free eye was pointed up at the security camera. All without moving once his pose was struck.

He struck an impossible pose. For the last 2 days I've been trying to imagine the pose over and over in my mind, and I can't figure it out. It's as if he grew an extra arm, dislocated his legs, stretched into another room. I actually called the bank this morning, to see what their policy on allowing customers to review their security tapes (they politely said "Say what again?"). I feel I need to see it again, to see how he pulled it all off.

The woman hurriedly grabbed her cash and escorted her daughter out of the building. The slightly overweight man finished his transaction and stood waiting for the black man to move. Andrea and I stood in the same frozen state, waiting for what was to come next.

The man with the dreads pulled himself to a standing state, smiled at Andrea and I with a slight bow of the head, and skipped out of the room. The whole stunt took perhaps a dozen seconds.

Andrea summed it up as just another protester, probably making a statement about the bank's corporate greed, or the treatment of black people by silly white women with young daughters. "Everyone has to have a statement; why can't they just enjoy Canada Day like the normal people do?"

After witnessing an impossible pose with a smile, I think I'd enjoy my Canada Day just fine, thank you. We definately need to move there when we're able to!
I sat next to her in physics class today. The power in our lecture hall was out, so we were made to rely on the emergency lighting. My eyesight has been going down the chute lately, so I had an excuse to move up to the front row. Coindicentally, she, too, had moved to the front due to the poor lighting. The seat to her left was vacant.

I knew I had to do it.

Anxiety!

Should I?

I did.

I sat down, calmed my racing aorta, and began to scribble a TriForce on my paper.

She knew what the TriForce was!

This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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