Two Guests, One Couch Bed, and Five Days.

Hahaha the funniest thing happened; my French roommate, and her friend who lives in the apartment across the hall, just came in with two guy friends, who will be staying here for 5 days. My other roomie is out (at a random concert thing) and I'm getting ready to go out myself, to my friend's for an overnight stay somewhere by campus, and I hear the front doors open and alors, a flood of francais. I go out to meet them in the semi-dark hallway (god, our apartment STILL needs those 2 missing lamps!!) and so my roomie introduces them to me, and the first thing one guy says to me is, "Bonjour", and I say it too, and then he leans down (very tall guy) towards me, the same time I hear my roomie say "No, no!" frantic-like, immediately halting him from kissing me on the cheek as greeting. I was like, "No, haha it's okay"- I'm guessing she thought I'd be confused/freaked out about what he was doing, but when she freaked it all sort of froze and I was thinking "Oh (insert roomie's name)..! You just made it awkwaaaaaaaaard." Since his lean-down motion ground to a halt mere centimeters away from me. Then we ended up hugging (awkwardly) in greeting instead, lol. It was hilarious though!! I mean, my mind was going, "Oh. He's going to kiss me," when he leaned down. LOL! Oh my, I'd better get going!

Worlddd Cup

... erm, I don't remember if I already said this, but it's Vermont this Sunday for me, for I am going to see the Quiddiitch Worldd Cuuupp! I'll have to get up awful early though (Milton Gates @ 5:00am).... panda-eyes again.

Here are the What Where When Who's for QWC 2009!!
http://www.collegequidditch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=169&Itemid=119

To watch it LIVE, go to www.collegequidditch.com I wonder if they'll flash past me when they film? Haha.
I'm so *excited* right now!!! I have to leave my good ol' Chocolate Factory Rez in 40 minutes to go to a friend's rez (a MORE house, which is a house-like rez with kitchens like mine, but theirs is actually a house-like rez) to stay for the night, because the metro doesn't open until around 6am, and I have to be at the Milton Gates by 5am, because the bus leaves at 5:30am, and they ain't waiting! I shall take pictures!!!

HOUSE Marathon.

My friend had downloaded all the House Season 6 Episodes, up-to-date, and last weekend I did a House marathon with her. Aww.. it made me get excited about House again! WILSONNN!!!!!!!
It was an extremely satisfying night, which ended with my going to bed at around 2am in the morning. Hahaha............ yea.
This is what I looked like the next day: =,=

Of Sushi Cravings and Skipping.

So I had a sushi craving on Wednesday, after my anxiety inducing Anthropology quiz (which is not to be snubbed, because it's worth 15% of my grade) after my Sri Lankan friend brought up her intense desire to go get sushi(which snowballed into this ridiculous, laughter-inducing, fb conversation sitting right next to each other in the computer lab that lasted for an hour). Now, since my sushi craving made itself known, a monster with teeth of forks scraping insistently at my stomach walls, I found myself in a dilemma. Either ignore that sushi craving (monster still going scrape,scrape,scrape) and go to my 12:35 chem lecture, or comply with the wants of my sushi craving and go get sushi with my friend.
Judging by the title, I bet you can guess which one I picked.
My sushi craving was partly to blame!- and the monster was subdued. For now. I ended up meeting another Chocolate Factory Rez person (meeting people is an infinite process at university), and us three went off down the yellow brick road that was neither yellow nor made of brick, but led away from my chem lecture and down through the Roddick Gates and down Rue de College, and up to the front doors of the Sushi Shop. We ate, and had chocolate Pocky to finish.
I missed out on some chem knowledge that I knew I would not have been able to absorb because I was too tired and wipe-out, but I learned from my new aquaintance (who's from Japan) that avocado in sushi is a purely western thing, and that seeing fruit sushi "is an insult to sushi". I supposed I sort of knew avocado wasn't a Japanese thing, but it doesn't taste that bad! I ended up with 6 free pieces of avocado rolls from my two avocado-disliking friends. I shall watch my online Chem Lecture Recordings soon.
On fruit sushi- I've never seen it before! I should've taken a picture! But whatever- it was roll sushi, and in it was strawberry and perhaps peach or something and it was colourful and it blew my mind. My Japanese friend and I spent some time just staring the clear plastic box of what I call fruit sushi.

A Worm to Remember.

My first dissection in Bio lab this week. It was the earthworm (Annelida) and I would've done it in grade 11 biology had I not gone off to do something I couldn't remember....... reichiru missed it too... was it some math contest?
I find that I muchly prefer live earthworms than dead ones. I haven't touched a live earthworm in years- I wonder why.. maybe I've started spending less time in the garden?- and so it was nostalgic to watch my worm feel its way around on my palm. I used to pick earthworms up from sidewalks or pavements and search for grass patches to deposit them on, because I was scared they'd get run over, or squished, or dried by the sun, or get so uncomfortable trying to find their way on the gritty concrete.
Anyways, I had to put my earthworm back in the container of dirt because it was time to dissect a dead one. And ugh it was so creepy! I approached a plastic rectangular tub with "Dirty Pipettes" scribbled on it, but inside was a bunch of long, pale, and perfectly straight worms floating in what looked like water, but it smelled so bad! How do they get the worms to be so straight?! Like pipecleaners! And I had to reach into the liquid with gloves on, and pick one out. It felt rubbery and it was still straight (it could bend naturally, like Twizzlers, though)..... anyways, it still smelled bad throughout the whole dissection.\
There're a few more dissections coming up, ending with a rat for the last bio lab of this term. I'm not quite sure what I feel about that right now..... I mean, I've touched and seen many dead rats and mice in various states, and I've even cut them up, along with quails aplenty. Damn, volunteering at OWL really desensitized me to them...

On another note, I'm glad for high school Bio 11 and 12... The first 10 lectures, which was what the midterm was on, was practically Bio 11 all over again. Almost everything on these lectures was covered in high school. Protists, bacteria, fungi, plants (algae, ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms), plant life cycles, transport, and structure, evolution...... What do the people at UBC learn in first year bio, I wonder?

Keep On Swimming, Swimming, Swimming....

The McConnell Engineering has the CUTEST wall murals EVER!!!!!!!

The Power of Chicken Noodle Soup.

Now, remember that basic experiment involving a lightbulb, a beaker, water, and salt? The teacher would stick the wire end or whatever was attached to the lightbulb into a beaker of water. Nothing happens to the lightbulb. Then salt would be dumped in, and the conductivity tester lowered into the beaker again- and voila, the bulb lights up! This is an experiment showing conductivity of ions.

A few days ago, however, my chem prof pulled out a real packet of Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup in lecture. On the lecture slide projected showed the list of ingredients, in order, starting from the top, with the first two being..
Noodles
Salt
...... I don't think the rest matters much at the moment. Because I can feel the burn of salt on my tongue just by thinking about it.
Now, he proceeds to do the lightbulb experiment just like the one I described above. Beaker+water= lightbulb doesn't light up. Okaaay. (unsurprised) Beaker+water+quite a substantial amount of table salt= the lightbulb gives off a weak yellow glow. Okaaay. (not impressed) The chem prof reaches behind the podium and whips out another beaker, filled with LIQUID LIPTON CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP. WHOA. Unexpected!! (fully attentive)
Says he, holding the lightbulb appartus poised over the beaker+chicken noodle soup, "I think you better put on some sunglasses," in his Parisian accent. And promptly sticks it into the beaker.
Dude, it was like someone had turned on the lights! It felt like that blazing lightbulb lit up that darkened auditorium of capacity 700 ppl- comparing this with the beaker+water+salt, it felt as if the former lightbulb barely gave off any light! You might have heard that Chicken Noodle Soup is good for you. I can say with absolute conviction, Not this. You do not want this in your body.
And if chicken soup is good for your soul, I bet Lipton's will shrivel yours up like a prune. Baked and dried, man, baked and dried.
Ahhh, Chemistry lectures are pretty interesting and amusing right now, especially with this professor.

Giraffes or Graphs?

I wrote about my dilemma over choosing Economics or Anthropology:Environment and Culture some time ago. It was late at night, and my friend and I had followed the beautiful sound of a guitar down the hall, and we ended up talking to our floor fellow and her friend. Somehow, and I don't remember how, I got talking about my Anthropology class and my Econ/Anthro decision the day before class Add/Drop period, and my floor fellow's friend suddenly said, "It's either giraffes or graphs!"-- Hahaaa I thought it was the best in-a-nutshell phrase ever!
(the giraffes came from how my first experience of Anthro was watching a continuation of a film in which the Kalahari Sand Peoples of Africa poisoned, tracked, and killed a giraffe. Twas very graphic in the butchering of it.)

HAHA. okay, I just realized I wrote "graphic". Graphically Graphed by Giraffes. XD

En Francais..

Studying in my neighbour's flat across the hall yesterday was pretty awesome... I think the way university is for me right now is a pile of homework and assignment bricks piled up as time goes by, but there are always cracks in between, stuffed with chocolate chips, marshmallows, and random tufts of pink cotton candy that make it really fun. It's a good mix (although I'd prefer that they lay off the bricks for a while), and there's always something to be discovered, to laugh about, to explore. I haven't laughed as much during normal times than during my "study evenings" ..

So yesterday we were speaking bits of French 'cause my friend had a French exam coming up, which reminded me of J'Explore last summer =( My Torontoian friend was telling me about something that happened during Nuit Blanche in Toronto last year, and the friend we were having teach us French to told me that "J'ai fait nuit blanche" means to pull an all-nighter!
Revelation!!!! It totally makes sense now, because Nuit Blanche goes till really really late (supposedly some kind of art exhibition festival) and also I suppose that the translation "white night" is like treating the "night" as if it's the (white) day-time = all-nighter!

Randoms.
Je suis bouleversée= really really confused
Je suis perdu(e)= I'm lost (physically, or as in "I'm lost in the conversation")
chaussures= used in France French
souliers= muchly a Quebecois word, as with "char" for car rather than "auto"

Wait, WHO?!

I was told this morning, while walking to school, that Bill Clinton was going to be here today. I was like, "huh?!" O.O

"Former U.S. president Bill Clinton is applauded after giving an adress, during a ceremony where he recieved an honorary doctorate for a lifetime of outstanding leadership from McGill university, at Centre Mont-Royal in Montreal, Friday Oct. 16, 2009."

Guess it's true. This feels like that time when a few of us were volunteering at the Vancouver Children's Festival, and Kenneth Oppel (Silverwing Trilogy, etc.) was there too, in one of the tents, to talk about his book and give autographs. Ahh... WHYYY?!?!

...and George W. Bush is coming to Montreal Oct 22.... seems like he's been giving lots of speeches (gets paid $$$$$$) in Canada. Lots of booos to be heard about that. Perhaps he's trying to escape from some angry people back home?

Tidbit Discoveries........

So I didn't really know anyone in my Anthropology class when I transferred in, but I met someone the very first day! Haha, I had gotten lost trying to find the room it was in, and when I thought I found it, I asked this girl just to be sure. And so boom- une nouvelle amie! Anyways, it was one of the moments when I realized I am really lacking in world geography...... I need to memorize the world map poster I bought for that very purpose, soon! Anyways, I sort of drew a blank when I asked her where she was from, and she replied, "Mauritius."
Now I know! I was having her tell me about Creole, and I asked my friend roomie about Creole and Quebecois French, and she affirmed that she can't understand either.
Creole was interesting to hear about though- she gave me a demo..
English: We're in the SSMU building.
French: Nous sommes dans le bâtiment SSMU.
Creole: Nous dans bâtiment SSMU.

Creole's missing so many words! It's like jargon, as she described it.
I had an earlier convo about Quebecois French though, and my roomie said it was so archaic.. such as they say "le char" for the word "car", instead of "l'auto" (this is in her experience, so of course I bet "auto" is used often too).... I didn't know that! "Char" would mean something like a "chariot"-- thus, the archaism.

Btw, the SSMU building is of the Students Society of McGill University, and it's quite a popular building- there's a Tiki-Ming and Culture on the second flour, where I go eat sometimes (a mini- foodcourt), and there's a Cafe Supreme and Liquid Nutrition on the first floor, and SSMU houses all the clubs and organization offices (thus, the HQ)... Many club meetings, or presentations and gatherings make use of this building so it's quite awesome! The best ever was were mon nouvelle amie and I were talking, the SSMU lounge by the entrance.. more people are asleep in there than awake! It's a room of couches. Big, squashy, jumbo, heavenly couches that'll melt your bones when you sink down in them, where single couches can fit 2 people and people dream, sprawled lengthwise upon the bouncy cushions....... It's so nice for the peace and the atmosphere's reallll relaxed. *sigh* I love that place =)

It maybe interesting to note that none of the people I've met so far, who watches/reads anime/manga are Asian. I've got Kenyan, Sri Lankan, and Mauritian .......

Coucou!

I keep hearing my French roommate say, "Coucou!" to her friend (who lives in the flat across the hall from us), and it's so cuteeee!!!! and I kept wondering what it meant, so one day when I knocked on the flat door, and my roomie's friend opened it, I said, "Coucou!" and my roomie, who was also there heard me and she said it was so cute that I said it- and it sounds so fun, right? So I finally found out (altho that's what my guess was) that "Coucou" is a informal, more friendly way of saying "Hi"...

Oh and "À tout à l'heure", or "Tout alors", means "See you later" too....

Sleeeeeepoverrrrr

So my friend`s b-day was last Saturday, and I went up to her rez for a sleepover and movie night... we saw Pirates of the Caribbean 1, and then The Ring, which I`ve never seen before. OMGGGGGGGG...... I was so excited to see people I haven`t seen since frosh there too! I found an awesome frosh groupie, and I missed some of them.. so that just made my day! And we all brought good, and settled in the tv room, which apparently you could rent at McConnell (the rez).. it was so nice! there were couches lined up, making it like the movies with an aisle in the middle, and the tv was huge! So much (junk) food too.. yum! XD
The Ring was soooo freaky though, I was already so scared in the beginning, I had my blanket and my white paper plate in front of my face hahhaaa.. And in the middle of the movie, I thought I heard my cellphone ring, and I went to check it, and the text message said `U have 7 days`, and it scared the AJSDK:LJWEIPODJWA:LDJ outta me! We weren`t even done the movie! Jeez, I finally found out who in that room had sent it, and for every day after that, I got a `You have # days`, and I see it and it reminds me of the movie and then my vivid imagination sends me an image...... aaaaaaargh. I hate it that I get images in my head so easily..... if I can stop myself from imagining everything I wouldn`t have problems with bursting out laughing spontaneously or receiving a sudden freaky image from a scene at random moments days or weeks after I`ve seen a scary movie... Longlegs, that *movie* we saw remains seriously the most scariest movie I`ve ever seen in my life. I still have remnant images, dammit!

Happy B-day McGill

Hahahaa.. so in the morning I`m going to class and I pass by that statue of James McGill, where he looks like he`s leaning against the wind? And tied to his hands are a bunch of red and white balloons! It was only in Chemistry class that the prof, with his clicker question (Who was born on October 6?), made me realize that it was Jame McGill`s birthday! And that coincidentally, appearing like a birthday present, 2 McGill graduates (Jack Szostak & Willard Boyle) was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics, and Biology, respectively, in two consecutive days! I think the Physics one was October 6. Good timing, hahhahaaa. Funny I clicked `Ariel Fenster`, my prof, as my answer. There was a big percentage of the class that voted on him too, but funny that he revealed his b-day, April 18, which turns out to be the same as my dad`s.

Recordings and Clickers

For my Chem and Bio classes, the lectures are recorded, and we use clickers (which are like little number pads, and you click the button corresponding to the multiple choice questions they pose to you during class). Do any of you have clickers or lecture recordings? Just wonderin`..............

"Don't know function..."

My math teacher's hilarious. But hilarious in the unintentional way. It's just I find his mannerisms and speech as quirky- and it's not just me. Guess what? His name's Shahab Shahabi. I had so much fun saying his name hahaa... Anyways, he has this Middle Eastern accent (similar to Indian, I guess, but I know it's not Indian), and omg, the things he says! He says "x squared" like "ex-ah-squared", and he says things short, to the point, and some of what he says reaches the point of hilarity.
We were doing arctan functions.. He's telling us we have to know and memorize what the functions look like, basically so we can do the problem. And he adds-
Prof: Don't know function, you're dead.
Class: *laughter of the "what?!" o.0 variety*
Prof: *waits for laughter to subside* O-kay, not dead, but you lose.

Haha, w/ his accent, he says it all fast and no-nonsense-like.

And then there're some moments I just have my own little one-person laughing party. I supposed the prof meant "Put the argument on solid grounds/foundations", but what he actually said was "Put argument on solid feet."
Oh mannnn... I couldn`t help it! hahahhahahaaaaaaaaa

Scientifique

I have such contradictory feelings towards labs. I have bio labs once a week, for 3 hours, and chem labs about once every 2 weeks, for 2.5 hours.
On one hand, they totally blow away the labs in high school. For bio labs, I saw actual living paramecium and oedogonium, zooming around under the microscope! I use my microscope so much in bio. And they take us to demo rooms to see the stuff we're learning about, and for one lab, we climbed Mont Royal to count and gather data about an invasive plant species! However, I'm always so dead tired and thirsty after 3 hours straight of bio lab, but it nice that there's no pressure to do a write-up by the end of class that needs to be handed in and marked.
CHEM labs, however, are just ugh. Just thinking about it makes me wanna cry. I've had 2 so far, and I'm hating it SO much. First, there's the pressure of time; data has to be gathered during the lab and handed in for marks. No extra time given, so if the experiment isn't done (so data won't be completed), then I'm screwed. Because there's also a chem lab write-up that's due 24 hours after the lab, and that's for marks too- and it requires the data gathered during lab, so if that data is missing or misplaced or significantly wrong, the lab write-up is in BIG TROUBLE.
Oh, and did I mention the FIRE ALARM went off during my 2nd chem lab? With no extra time given, I was in a very panicked/stressed/angry mood. Man. And the 1st lab, which is supposed to be easy-peasy, was just uninteresting, and stressful because I kept falling below the time limit (thank goodness I always manage to finish, but barely) and oh man, the flask incident! I had to put all the stuff back where I found it in the beginning, and so these Erlenmeyer flasks, which are fat at the bottom and a thin tube on top, was wet and I had to put it upside down the way I found it, for it to drain. There were 3. I balanced them, and then I knocked it over, leading to a resounding crash of glass on wood. Then I tried to balance them again. Crash. And again. Domino effect. Crash. I kept knocking them over and on to each other and it was stupid and I was clumsy and it happened about 4 times in less than 1 minute. Aargh!

Anthropology, I choose YOU!

So I chose Anthropology Environment & Culture over Microeconomics, and got a sweet deal in the process- $Econ textbook return - $Anthro textbook= $70+
I got a SURPLUS of $$ .. =P
First class of Anthro, which is THE class I will compare to Econ and thus influence my decision, the prof says...
"So today we are going to continue the movie."
I'm thinking, "What movie?!" .......
And for the rest of the class, I watch the Kalahari Sand People of Africa track, hunt, poison, kill, and cut into hunks and strips, a giraffe. I could feel the flinches rippling through parts of the class during the weakened giraffe's last stand, as the hunters tried to finish it off by aiming for its eyes and nose with a spear. I'd never seen the insides and organs of a giraffe before, nor had I wanted to know what it would look like if someone were to amputate its foot. Oh, I saw.

I'm finding this course interesting.. I'm learning about different cultures and peoples, and
However, the readings and the course in general makes me feel stupid sometimes =(
Guess I should be expanding my vocabulary.. the first time I opened my Anthro book (textbook, but it's 3 times thinner than the first Harry Potter book) I was thinking what the hell are they talking about? Actually, I still feel like that. Long, twisty sentences chock full of terms....... Why can't the information be presented in a shorter, simpler way? Okay, that was a rhetorical question. See, I'm sitting here with pages and pages of readings about things like,
"The important question concerning cognized models in this view is not the extent to which they are identical with what the analyst takes to be reality but the extent to which they direct behavior in ways that are appropriate to the biological well-being of the actors and of the ecosystems in which they participate."
I can't think of a better example right now, as this one isn't bad.

But on to something I really like about this class- films! I'm counting the films listed in the syllabus, and it turns out to be about 13! That's about 1 film/3 classes! And they're really interesting too. I was effected by Part 4 of Millennium: tribal Wisdom and the Modern World, a series. It featured the Makuna of Columbia, and it was titled "An Ecology of Mind". This man left his home to go live in the 'modern world' for a while, got education, etc. and returned home again. He wanted to go back and learn the culture and values of the Makuna, and the difficulties he has with this was accompanied by a lot of profound lines in the narration. It really effectived me, probably because it was just so personal, and the narration, the film, the music...
"I went to school for knowledge, but did I lose wisdom?"
"Will I always see like a white man?"
If you can find this Part 4, or any other part of this series, watch! I can't find it anywhere....