Archive for August 2006
Mini Complaints
That being said, I have a couple of mini-rants at the moment:
While I was changing in the locker room this older woman who had the locker right next to mine started some idle chitchat. I don’t really mind talking at the gym while I’m in the locker room, as long as you don’t bother me while I’m actually on a machine. Don’t talk to me when I’m on a machine – especially if I have my earphones in – I’m off in my own little world and don’t want to be distracted. But anyway, she asks how I am and seeing that it was about 7:30 in the morning I said I was a little tired but ok, I’m here at the gym. She retorts with a scoff and sneer and says, “Hmph, your generation is always ‘tired,’ you’re all so lazy.” Whoa. Excuse me? Thanks for the random generalisation from me just saying I’m tired. Geez. I just turned around and didn’t say anything else. Great way to start the day, but the workout made up for it. Ouch, my arms hurt too.
On my way to campus just now I decided to stop by one of the three, trois, tres – 3 – bookstores to pick up my books for my classes this semester. I usually wait ’til the second week of classes to buy books for a couple of reasons: one, I don’t like standing in line for two hours only to sign my entire life’s savings as well as my first born child over for books that I’ll be lucky if they buy back at the end of the semester – if I even sell them back. Two, I sometimes don’t even need the books for the classes; take Cognition for example: the professor TOLD us we don’t need the book. What good would it have done me to buy the book before the semester started only to have to return to said bookstore to stand in line for another two hours to get my money back? Time is money, peoples, and I like to save it. So back to this morning: I really need my Psychology of Language book for a bunch of different reasons – one, I want it for my own sheer pleasure of reading – the uber nerd in me WANTS it and what the uber nerd wants, it gets. Two, I really need it for the class, a secondary reason really. haha.
So I stop by the first bookstore (two of them are just off campus and run independently of the uni). First bookstore doesn’t have any copies. Are they getting any in? No. Lovely. Off to the next bookstore just down the road, surely they’ll have some, correct? No. Are they going to order more? No. Could they, please? No, they’re sooooo backlogged and won’t be placing any more orders for books until they get the lists for the spring semester. Okkkk … right. Lots of help that is. Off to the university’s bookstore where there is at least a two hour line. Why, oh why are the freshmen stealing my idea of waiting ’til the second week of class to buy their books? THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THAT SMART. I was never a freshman, I entered uni with enough credits from high school to be a sophmore – this explains why I was never considered stupid. haha. Kidding. Anyway, I decide that I’ll at least LOOK to see if they have my book and if they do, I’ll put it on hold and pick it up this afternoon. Or I could pay for it online and just run in to pick it up, but whatever, I need to determine if they have it AT ALL first. And do they … hmm? NO. Fuckers. Are they getting it in? Is it on order? I’ll give you three guesses as to the answer and the first two don’t count.
Ugh.
Anyway … I have my super awesome Personality class today that’s taught by one of my favourite professors – even if he is completely wrong as a behaviourist. Despite the bad start to the morning, I’m feelin’ fine and am actually pretty happy. I love school. Really, I do – if I’m learning and things are going well academically, AlieMalie is assured to be deliriously happy. Yay!
Bleh
I suppose one good thing about where I live is the fact that during the summers I have almost no migraines ever because we have one high pressure system after another for nearly eight straight months. Which is fantastic because at my migraines’ worst, I spend a couple of days in bed with the air conditioning set to about 13C/55F because the heat makes them worse and I can barely open my eyes to see anything. Oh, and sound sucks too. My migraines just sharpen absolutely every sense to a knife point and they all hurt. Have you ever had your tongue feel like it’s getting shocked when you drink or eat something for the first time in hours? That’s what happens with my tongue each and every time I put anything in my mouth whenever I have one of these stupid headaches. And the drugs they give me to make them go away make me feel like I’m drunk.
Anyway, I guess we’re now entering into migraine season. This should be fun. Oh, joy.
edit: Note to self – even if your migraine drugs make you feel drunk, they might be better than taking aspirin laced with caffeine chased with a shot of espresso. At least I’m awake now. Oh yes, most definitely awake. And jittery. And jumpy.
Rush
In addition to all THAT, we have all the sororities, fraternities, clubs and organisations setting up booths all through the student center and quad. It’s loud, it’s annoying and since none of the freshman know where their classes are to begin with and just stand around milling about talking in REALLY HIGH SQUEAKY voices that sound like nails on a chalkboard to me – they’re now getting really excited because they can RUSH. Joy. What makes it mildly entertaining is that all the girls get dressed up like they’re getting ready to go out on a Friday night. Watching them toddle through the halls in 3 or 4 inch heels while carrying their books, trying to find their classrooms, and talking with their friends while trying to also talk on their cells and stay upright is rather hilarious. I mean really, they can’t manage and I can’t help but laugh. Out loud. And to be a little sexist here, I don’t mind the boys. They don’t really seem to have a care in the world, they just get up, put on whatever’s clean – hopefully – and go to class … and they never carry their books – they just have one little notebook they supposedly take notes in. Plus they don’t speak in really squeaky voices and constantly use the words like and oh my god all the time.
I can’t wait ’til half of them decide to start skipping class so things can return to some semblance of normal again. Oh, and so I can also get a freaking parking space without having to arrive on campus 27 hours early.
In other news, I’m SO enjoying my classes so far. The uber nerd in me is feeling like a kid in a candy shop in my Psych of Language class because we get to deconstruct and then reconstruct words, sentences, grammar – just language in general … blah blah blah. It’s so much FUN! And my History of Psych class is taught by this little man who looks like he would’ve fit in so much better with the ancient Greeks or Romans, but he’s very smart and teaches the class from more of a philosophical perspective which I have really enjoyed in the two classes we’ve had so far. Yay!
Perfect School
Maybe I’ll apply here for graduate school.
Canadian school knocked for mocking Yale grad Bush
Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:36 PM ET
By Lynne Olver
TORONTO (Reuters) – Posters and a Web site mocking President Bush have put the spotlight on a small Ontario university that thought a bold and edgy recruiting campaign was just the ticket to attract potential students.
The Web site, http://www.yaleshmale.com, has a black and white picture of Bush, with the caption: “Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart.”
Bush graduated from Yale in 1968.
A link takes viewers to a site for Lakehead University, in rugged Thunder Bay, Ontario, some 1,375 km (850 miles) northwest of Toronto.
“It was literally a tongue-in-cheek way of getting attention,” Frederick Gilbert, president and vice-chancellor of Lakehead University, said on Monday.
“The young people picked it up that way,” he added. “I must say that older generations, well even some of our students, have looked at it as not appropriate.”
Gilbert said there have been more than 7,000 hits on the Web site, and online comments were about 95 percent positive. But e-mail messages to him and the university’s communications staff are “running in the opposite direction” and that is a concern, he said.
Isabelle Poniatowski, president of the Lakehead University Student Union, called the marketing campaign low-brow and lacking in class.
“It still strikes me as being very repugnant,” Poniatowski said. “Lakehead has so many positive attributes that you could really sell to people that live down south.”
In a weekend editorial called “Jughead University,” the right-wing National Post newspaper wrote: “It is a serious mistake for Lakehead to try to inflate its own appeal by attacking other, far more prestigious institutions.”
Lakehead has some 7,600 students in professional, arts and science programs.
Gilbert said Lakehead plans to ride out the public relations storm without removing the posters or taking down the Web site.
“You don’t undo the damage that has been done, if there’s damage, by simply retracting,” he said, adding the school will try to respond individually to people who expressed concerns.
Monday Stories: Leaking Beds
My grandparents also had a waterbed in their bedroom that they absolutely love. One afternoon my grandfather was lamenting the fact that it had sprung a leak and he was going to have to fix it which apparently wasn’t the easiest of tasks – glue and water don’t necessarily mix well. But whatever, I sat around and watched him patch up their bed that afternoon, just taking things in like I did a lot of the time. Or you could say I was inspecting – either way, I was of absolutely no help.
Anyway, a few days had passed, maybe it was a week – I dunno – but however long it was, someone had pissed me off between the time I learned that waterbeds could leak and me getting pissed off. It was probably something trivial, me not being allowed to watch my ONE show on tv – either Sesame Street or Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, great choices, eh? – or me not being allowed to go over to Amanda’s house; like I said, I don’t remember what it was, but I was really mad. Then I remembered that I had plenty of tools at my disposal to make my grandparents just as mad as I was. So I went upstairs, retrieved one of the thousands of pins my grandmother had in her quilting room and went back downstairs to my grandparents’ bedroom.
There’s obviously no need for me to explain exactly what I did … I’m pretty transparent in that respect, at least here, I suppose. I will admit that I DID go a little overboard – I probably poked ten or fifteen holes in my grandparents’ bed to extract my revenge. What I didn’t know – and what made this even better – was that the bed didn’t start leaking ’til my grandparents actually went to bed later that night and put pressure on it. Stupendous! Another great example of my genius. I don’t know what the initial reaction was to slowly realise that you had yet another leak in your bed just days after you’d patched one up and then to further realise that there wasn’t just one this time around but multiple ones – after all, I was sleeping soundly upstairs. And anyway, why would they suspect me initially? Eventually I WAS found out, but it took ‘em a couple of days of thinking about it. I do remember getting a long lecture about how I was to never do this again, the bed cost a lot of money and I was singlehandedly destroying it, and blah blah blah. I don’t remember much of what my grandmother said right then; what I do remember thinking is that I needed to remember this because it was a great way to get back at my grandparents. Yea, and I did do it a couple more times – but the next few times I made sure to only poke one hole thereby drawing out my revenge over an even longer period of time and to space the occurrences out far and few between so that it wouldn’t always look like it was deliberate. The best thing about it? I never got caught again.
