i no know

Read the first few pages of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy while I was waiting to meet up with Lauren in chapters today. It made me feel really depressed - maybe because of the bleakness, harshness and indifference of the landscape McCarthy describes with such amazing detail. it just me feel so strange, like i was re-reading a book i had already read in a past life. anyways, i should probably just get over it cuz i'd like to read the book and the movie looks intense and awesome.

how do you escape a ghost of influence? the presence of someone who is no longer there to put ideas in my mind, but still does, gently, pushing, nudging in from the past. i feel like i've got a lot of ghosts haunting me lately. people in my life who have come and gone and have left their mark. faint little permanent scars left for me to look at and begrudgingly admit that they really influenced me and will continue to do so forever.

been getting so completely faded all the time lately. i hope it's not going to make me fail math class. last night was fun. it's times like last night that i really miss vancouver. but then i think about those woods near my house, the graveyard when it's foggy, the way the ocean looks at sunrise and i must admit that i've been seduced by the beauty and mystery of the island.

this morning i realized that i'm starting to feel like i'm living in a french new wave movie. it's kind of nice.

here's some more music to enjoy :)

Fuck. I have way too many blog/internet person things going on right now. Here's full list (as far as I can remember, at least...):

1. This thing here, LJ
2. Facebook
3. Myspace (wtf does that even exist anymore?)
4. Blogger about Explorers and Adventurers
5. Wordpress about UVic bunnies
6. Twitter (that i never update)
7. Tumblr (that i just created yesterday)


this is so stressful. i should probably cut back.

I'm volunteering at this Martlet (Uvic newspaper) charity concert tonight. i'm a little bit nervous though because i don't know anyone going to it and my shift is coat check at 12-1am! so do i go and see the whole show and be a loner or show up at like midnight just for my shift? my life is so lame :P

looking for a new place to live, possibly with becca and sarah which would be really, really sweet...but i'm always apartment hunting. i think i've turned into a nomadic, loner, perma-student who's addicted to starting new blogs and never updating them.

I learned about this really cool dude Paul Erdős "nomadic hobo-genius" in my ecology class today. He was basically a vagabond mathematician who was addicted to coffee and amphetamines. He'd show up at friends houses, tell them "my mind is open" and sleep over at their houses or offices as long as they would let him. In return, he would help them solve whatever difficult math problems they were working on at the time. As you would expect, he had a bunch of other idiosyncrasies like saying people who stopped doing math had "died" and he referred to children as "epsilons".

....i called someone i shouldn't have, but everything turned out OK in the end! no harm done. thank you megan for thinking ahead of yourself and anticipating future weakness/stupidity/temptation! thank you long distance charges automated message woman voice for bringing me back down to reality! ya. cool.

and here's my halloween costume inspiration. I started sewing it tonight.



no party invitation for halloween night though. it's nice having so many roommates but i find myself being a little bit socially lazy because i usually have people to hang out with at home. i could make more of an effort with the girls i talk to in class, but i'm not comfortable putting myself out there yet i guess. also - i'm secretly a little scared they might turn out to be like 18 or something :(

I've got readings and assignments to do but I can't seem to concentrate. I'm feeling adrift. There's just too many things on my mind that I have no control over. Sarah said I should just focus on school and be a big keener. Go to the gym, eat healthy, take good care of myself. Do my homework, don't drink and smoke so much. Certainly don't go blaze and lie in bed watching the hills drinking coke zero. That's not the mature thing to do.

There were some things I figured out this weekend:

1. i'm too old for pub crawls
2. people interpret situations through their own lens of experiences/biases/insecurities
3. www.cllct.com
4. wavves and best coast

 yellow trees outside the library, yellow walls inside my room. i woke up this morning and felt alone. did something i know is right even if though it hurt. guess i'm all grown up now.

Arbutus trees are one of my favorite trees so I'm lucky to be living in a place where they grow in relative abundance. You can often find them hanging dramatically over an ocean bluff, or twisted around an exposed, windswept rock face. At Uvic there's a few huge arbutus trees and you can see patches where students have pet them so much that the bark has worn away to the smooth bottom layer. It feels really good to pet the smooth part of an Arbutus tree:) The gnarled trunk and unique burnt-orange peeling bark always makes the Arbutus stand out amongst the other trees which is part of the reason I like them. I learned that another name from the Arbutus is Madrone (the "e" is silent). What a wonderful sounding word! Madrone!

I also found out that Madrone is a Spanish word for Strawberry Tree, which it resembles. Isn't that weird? I'd never heard of a Strawberry Tree before today - so I looked it up...

life is like a dream lately. i got so mad today and then so happy and then annoyed and then numb. feeling, for the most part, mighty independent. everything is OK. is this life? is this where i wanted to get to? now what? it's funny when things are just ALRIGHT. not perfect, but not bad -livable -there's nothing to strive for. well that's a lie, there's plenty to strive for and i really should be doing some math homework right now and making my resume look better...but....mmmm my head is deliciously in the clouds. or maybe floating along near the ocean listening to the waves at night. if you walk down moss street near my house it takes you right to the ocean. i love the feeling of walking walking walking not paying attention and then all of a sudden! there it is! there's always a light fog even on sunny days that blends sky and moutains and water together making everything shades of blue-grey and lit from within.

- free burger & avoided frosh crap
- first copy editing for the newspaper!
- found best/cheapest coffee on campus (munchie bar!? what.)
- lost in the rain/can't find my classroom/feeling like a newbornbabygirl
- cutest bunnies ever can't stop trying to pet them
- gym situation is baaad
- my computer is broken. spending too much time in the biblio lab
- random on campus roommate encounter that made me feel good about life
- short commute and double decker buses omg!
- still trying to get a job...

privateparts

I think it's funny when old people try to use the internet. The usually look at the Walmart website or fwd terrible emails from the 90's. Some jackass invented a search engine called cRANKy that's specifically for people over 50. WTF does that even mean? Looks like a shitty search engine with big font to moi. The grossest thing about it is that when I last looked, "SEX" was included in the top 10 searches of the day (along with "rachel ray recipes" and "jobs after retirement"). Ew. Old people want sex. Searching for "sex" on cRANKy will get you nowhere, except maybe wikipedia or a tame pbs documentary. OMG are old people children now? Do we have to give them a special search engine that will filter out the AMAZING VARIETY of PORN that the internet was INVENTED FOR? either way, cRANKy is stupid and old people looking for sex on the internet is gross (don't their genitals just disapear?) and sad (when they aren't allowed to see the good stuff).

dreamt of a crazy old man violently striking young boys in the head with a wooden mallet. blood splatter, clouded red eyes. and a washroom with so many windows and no curtains except for a curtain over the mirror.


I can't even bring myself to watch the whole Natalie portman interview on Between two ferns. he starts asking about her dog and...ah just too awkward.

what happened to the lolcats? sure, i still look at them sometimes because it's in my reader but i don't lol anymore. has icanhascheezburger gone sour? or maybe it's me who's changed?

seriously though. it can't be me. NOT FUNNY! NO LOLZ!!!

amazing, well-written, creepyasfuck book. please go and read it now. even if you don't like true crime novels you will not be able to put it down. i talked to mom about it and she said she read it as a teenager and it CHANGED HER LIFE! wtf?? it's that good. i mean, sure ok it makes you feel like the world is a scary, dangerous place full of pyschopathic criminals who just want to slit your throat for a few bucks...i'm gunna go watch the movie Capote asap!!

on an unrelated note- i'm going to try and make tie-dyed tights kind of like this: http://www.burdastyle.com/howtos/show/885#

but without the fade part. i just want tie-dyed tights.

neat!

matt and i used our air canada credit from last summer on plan tickets for the end of april. vegas baby vegas! but mostly just driving out into the desert. i want to shoot a gun and hear it echo against the desolate mohave hills. and i want to go to there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyolite,_Nevada

I never read the book or watched the movie. Maybe that's why Watership Down has always been so mysterious to me.

A chance to go to the unknown is probably really risky, but there is that desire in most people to take big risks. You race back in time toward the edge of eternity, the beginning of the entire universe. You achieve an elastic weightlessness, and a sense of complete peace and calm. There is no sound, no light. But no darkness either. You race back to the very beginning, to the pulsating, exciting start. You return to the big bang that started the whole thing. You are and have been a part of everything, always. The beginning is the end.

The End.

THE AIRPORT IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE GROCERY STORE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
PETSMART IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE THAI PLACE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

MY OWN BED IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
INSIDE MY CAR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
ALL THESE STREETS, THIS CITY, THIS STATE
THIS COUNTRY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

IN FRONT OF THIS TV IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS BODY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS AIR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

I'M THINKING ABOUT EVOLUTION AND THE WAY WE CHANGE
AND HOW LONG IT WILL BE BEFORE I HAVE A TAIL AGAIN
AND I CAN FORGET ALL THAT'S HAPPENED





oh and there's more...

CARbustrainslowlyfast
they say: it's MADNESS
i found the closest dirt road and walked over it over and overandover

dreaming up stories about finding a train track body and being lost in the desert

"...there is the terrible moment when the parent realizes what he or she has done...This is followed by a frantic sprint to the car. What awaits there is the worst thing in the world."

from this article.

I guess I don't really need another blog, but I wanted a break from studying for a math midterm and writing my geography paper. I think it will mostly be just pictures of explorers that I enjoy and perhaps the occasional anecdote.

http://exploreadventures.blogspot.com/

wonderful poems, music and people
sound advice

GET NAKED BY ACCIDENT

not too hard but a little drunk on apple cider

rejected by the streets

bedcalls

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

"I suggest to audiences that they say, "I'm going 'outstairs' and 'instairs.'" At first that sounds strange to them; They all laugh about it. But if they try saying in and out for a few days in fun, they find themselves beginning to realize that they are indeed going inward and outward in respect to the center of Earth, which is our Spaceship Earth. And for the first time they begin to feel real "reality."

it's reading break and I'm going to try and stay awake for as long as I possibly can.

happy & optimistic
art gallery
coffee and girl talk
sexuality dress
two carrot cakes, beer, wine, white bread & spaghetti
charlton heston?
ex street encounter & start of the spiral of depression
newfie girl kicked out of the pub
resisting balentines
nurse advice: Get "D.N.R." tattooed on your chest
Kev's "west coast deanna"
more beer/beer in the face
wasted wasted wasted
strathcona swing in the moonlight
home alone

sleep in, surprise poem, sunny day, long walk, cook yummy food, rad friends, read interesting things

today was really great! i didn't even have to drink a ton of coffee to feel happy,

I cut myself really bad and almost passed out...we don't have any bandaids so i have a wad of tissue wrapped with electrical tape on my thumb.

(east hastings street is about 63 feet wide by the way!)

i'm going out to measure the width of east hastings in a little bit.

certain people make me feel tongue tied. well i guess just one person in particular right now. why? why do i feel competent and great one minute and suddenly stupid, vapid and bumbling the next?

tony (english accent): "i shot a fox...and then i just...threw it away..."

haiku from last night that:

ring around the moon
despite her beauty, i know
a storm is coming

kevin took a funny picture of julia, deanna and I: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinlionais/3253895119/

I feel like I talked to more people on the phone yesterday than I did in all of last month!  i'm making the effort to put myself out there and connect with people that i like and it feels really, really good.

(that's the name of the breakfast place me and my friends are going to open)


i feel so amazing right now! everything is great! I found out that I got 44/45 on my math midterm! Plus...other things! It's been beautiful outside and I have a crush and I learned how to make a book yesterday and fun things are planned for this weekend...

Now i'm drinking tea and listening to music while I wait for deanna to come home so that we can walk over to habour centre to see a talk on sustainability.

there she is...

bye lj land

i feel so alone
making the bed by myself
it's better this way

*

arm on my shoulder
i feign solidarity
bring me some more beer

*

i'm a happy mess
running down the east van streets
pink ribbons trailing

*

the brickhouse



yup.
that's it?

evil ghost doll thing attacking me from inside an armoire woke me up at 5:30 and i felt like something small and hot was sitting on my feet at the end on the bed....freaky...

giant shopping cart made of other smaller shopping carts is falling in the sky and turns into two men, they land on the ground together and start making out.

sorry no party pictures :(

here's some highlights of the night:

-pat and brent met each other!! the twins were united!
- the costume closet...and all the outfit options!
- beer
- seeing laur and felicity
- getting ready with julia and deanna
- weird bike man making out with alex in the costume closet
- more party plans, schemes and invites
- secret exclusive group hugs
- unicorn/pegasus tshirt
- control the 80's!!
- spooning
- remembering to take my makeup off before going to bed!!
- sleeping/passing out and then going for breakfast the next morning for eggs in the hole!!!


lows:

- surprise naked bums
- weird bike man making out with alex in the costume closet
- spilling drinks/soggy socks
- spooning
- no leanna/becca
- taking out the recycling


feeling long and strong today! only a little bit hungover now!

i just thought that i'd write to say that i am happy :)  party tonight will be awesome! i will write about it! promise :)

smooth stone. warm, dull
heavy in my chest
i'm weighed down
my limbs filled with stones
my head filled with stones
in a deep river
pulled by the current
standing still

A TRUE STORY!!!!*




When I was a kid, I won a scholarship to math camp. The days were challenging and exhilarating but the nights were terrible.










*did not happen to me.