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Oct 31.03 Hallowe'en A fine day to be ... Woke up this morning and had a cathartic experience. And about time, too. It was a beautiful autumn day. A most exceptional day, let alone hallowe'en, that words just cannot do justice to. Even though things returned to normal in the afternoon when I was lounging around, gazing up into the greying sky in my sanctuary, cheers to nature for seeing things my way. Later on, I had coffee and Chinese food with friends. We picked up a movie and a cake, had a walk through the local neighbourhood, and headed back to someone's house. The inhabitant of the house will not be named, for the sake of privacy regarding what is about to be addressed. There were guests in the house, and a certain odour slapped us in the face as we crossed the threshold. At times, it was a clogged toilet. At others, a soiled diaper bin. A urine soaked animal. We retreated, enjoyed The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and went out on the front porch for some quality time and fresh air. When I returned home, I had forgotten about the holiday harvest. However, there were other reminders of reality awaiting me. --------------- Oct 30.03 Stalked someone in spare time before my second psychology experiment, and it turned out to be just a tame survey. The latter, of course. Wrote the biology test, which turned out to be a much better experience than the physics test. Cheers to Eckenwalder on that one. Four down, one more to go. Things happened today that I don't think I'll ever forget, so why bother recording them? Or am I afraid to? Maybe someday. One fine day. --------------- Oct 29.03 In the aftermath of the previous day's physics test, Harrison was booed several times during his 'one last appearance'. The crowd was vicious. I loved it. My only regret was that I didn't boo as well, after finding out a little bit more about the test. I could list the ten things I hate about physics and Harrison, but that would be childish. My energy would be better put to use in more productive outlets. For example, I hope Harrison gets cancer in the special place -- he smokes. If I ever see him on St. George again, I am going to take those cigarettes of his and put them out. In his eyeballs. I had some time to kill waiting for my ride home, so I took a walk. Saw a familiar face, and some familiar places. Etymologically speaking, of course. --------------- Oct 28.03 The physics test was just a tiny bit extremely horrible. Six multiple choice questions are worth 72% of the test. Incorrect guesses result in the subtraction of 1.5%. Meanwhile, the extended answer section is worth a paltry 28%, and that was split up into some ten odd (and difficult) questions. I also stubbed my toe so hard on the rusty bed post at my grandmother's house that I'm pretty sure I whimpered after the fact. It was only after I woke up from the resulting comfort nap that I discovered the blood on my sock. And how excruciatinly painful it was to walk. So I had the twitching eye and the limp. I'm pretty sure I smell and my hair is a mess, so all I need now is the coffee cup. --------------- Oct 27.03 My best friend from six months ago came back today, and his name is Twitch -- otherwise known as hemifacial spasm localized in the orbicularis occuli. Except he's moved from my left eye to my right eye. Really bothersome during the chemistry lab today, especially with goggles on. I had to pretend that I was trying to read the thermometer especially accurately. Prof. Rowe took the reins from Eckenwalder in biology today. He's fun, but I think I'm the only one that appreciates his jokes. I definitely appreciate how he doesn't care about the names of every species and how he's not a botanist. First epiphany in a while. It was a bit patchy though. Completely unrelated, here are some highlights of the day ... The big bell tolling in not in perfect harmony, but in a very pleasing way, with my jazz music in the UC quad. Leaves fluttered in the wind. The sweeping texture of dried mud and water droplets sprayed across the window on the bus. Thoughts of someone wanting to know what's on your mind. --------------- Oct 26.03 Can't honestly think of anything interesting that happened today. Well I'm sure interesting things happened today, but just not in my life. Am now approaching the second deadly week of tests. The first week wasn't so bad in retrospect. On the bright side, I have a lot of unspent money building up that I don't have time to spend yet. --------------- Oct 25.03 Had a slight outburst, and chatted with some old friends from the North York gang. Turns out Cecilia Zhang goes to Seneca Hill and lives on the same street as two of my friends. Talk about hitting close to home. --------------- Oct 24.03 the summation of arson lee. This is a little introduction to someone who's been on my mind more and more of late. At first I thought he was just an idea. And a bad one, at that. But today I found out that he's real. He's a real person. And I know who he is. I know who you are. Where you are. When you are. I don't know why you are, or how you are. It just sort of dawned on me, the being that is arson lee, on the way home today. And that was a result of two situations in which I witnessed him. The first was on the subway. He was scribbling in a notebook -- it was probably something work-related and trivial. A large group came in at one stop and started talking about family matters and their destination. One of them counted stops for the benefit of the rest. Some time later, someone sat down next to arson, and immediately burst out in comments about some war, and condos, and social work, and different ethnicities. From what I could tell, the strange passenger was also muttering very fast under his breath in between sentences aloud, but all of it was difficult to hear. At this point, a silence befell the large group. A few of the girls giggled. A baby wailed. But arson, he didn't flinch. No perking up of the ears or arch of the brow or sideways glance of the eye. As far as I could tell, he hadn't missed a beat, scribbling in the notebook. I wasn't sure how I would react in the situation -- I was far enough removed from it myself -- but what arson did just didn't feel right to me. It stuck with me, and I didn't connect it with the second situation, which occurred after class had finished. I was walking down the sidewalk. It was cold. And as I'm looking around, I see a little thing. Tiny, miniscule, barely noticeable. A field mouse, probably smaller than the "O" you can make with your thumb and forefinger, shivering and wandered out on the walk. I stop to process what's going on, and arson, he just comes out of nowhere and starts pushing the mouse with his shoe, trying to move him back into the bushes. I'm sort of freaked out because the mouse doesn't seem to get it, and it looks like arson's shoe is just going to smear the mouse across the pavement like any car or bicycle zooming by three feet away. Before I can think to do anything, arson stoops down, picks up a leaf, and tries to scoop the mouse on to it. When that doesn't work, he takes a stick and tries to push the mouse with that. It seems to work, and in a little while the mouse is shivering, among leaves under the bushes, maybe a few more feet away from the sidewalk. It doesn't look like it helped much. There's a garden just a little further back behind the bush, a courtyard for some apartment building. That looks like a safer place to put the mouse. But arson, he just pauses, stands up, stares for a little longer, takes a breath and walks away. And like I said, it wasn't until some time later that I put one and one together and got two. One. I don't know. I worry about arson. arson acts ... I think. --------------- Oct 23.03 Took the GO train again. We went alongside another train, and I watched out the window as it passed us, until we gained on it, were neck and neck, and then overtook the other. For a while, it actually seemed as if the rest of the world was moving and the two trains, with me in one, were stationary. I had my first physics lab today. Our TA, Amy, was kinda cool. We actually did introductions, and I met a guy who's also going into neurosci! For the rest of the time I worked with wires and meters and lightbulbs and batteries on circuitry with my lab partner. It wasn't overstimulating, but it the work atmosphere was a welcome change from the hell that is chemistry. Got a rather funny phone call on the way home. Well the (brief) exchange wasn't funny or anything, but the nature of the call itself was. And it though it may not seem that way, it was noted and appreciated. --------------- Oct 22.03 Spent the night downtown. There's nothing like a brisk walk in the morning to walk a guy up, that's for certain. The psychology test was today. This was pretty good -- if there's one thing I learned in high school, it's how to write a "short answer" (essay) question on a test. The multiple choice was actually challenging, but, as our professor says: the best way to do well on multiple choice questions is to *know the answers*. It works, I tell ya! Dinner tonight at the Green Mango Thai restaurant was like eating Chinese food at home, for all of its snazzy worth. In contrast to the first dinner outing, the waiter not only gave us plenty of time to eat and chat, but he just about ignored us and avoided eye contact. As a result, we left at about 11:00pm, thankfully, before the old man next to us finished his tea. It wasn't a race, but imagine. He ordered it around the same time as we did. --------------- Oct 21.03 They checked tickets on the GO train today, and I saw someone get fined. How humiliating. Listened to jazz music today in the hopes that the Mozart effect would occur and help me on tonight's chemistry test. If anything, my bigass headphones provided warmth from the bitter cold. The test turned out to be OK ... kind of short and unrepresentative of the things that we learned. But at least it's 1 down: 4 more to go. By the way -- enthusiasm for chemistry is one thing, but wearing cyclohexane crowns during a chemistry term test is just wrong. --------------- Oct 20.03 Took the GO train by myself today, and stopped at a spot where there's this graffiti under a bridge. I couldn't read all of it, but I'm sure it had some extremely profound meaning because it appeared to be a quote from the bible. In physics, I had a buffer zone of about three empty rows for some reason. But I got to stretch out and relax, so that was nice. Boring classes + lots of space = sleepy eyes. I participated in my first psychology experiment today. The room was hard to find, and I had to ring the doorbell to be let in, where I found out that most of these experiments are individually done. Alone. After some contract signing, I was led into a room where shapes on a black computer screen provided the only light. I stuck my head in a chin rest and started the experiment. As the door closed, and shut all the other light out, I thought to myself: "hmmm, should have took my bag and my wallet in here too." In case it was a UT ripoff scam of some sort. At first, I didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing. Shapes flashed and eventually I caught on to the game. I had to hit the spacebar in response to the third flash in every sequence, so it was like a reflex game. Though, I didn't figure out that the loud "BEEP" coming from the computer was a "wrong move" warning until later. I came to fear that sound. In all, it was a very fun experiment, though my eyes were quite strained afterward. I can almost still see the white spots when I close my eyes ... In other news, I cut my own hair again, but this time I actually did the back as well. Maybe if I get really good at this, I won't have to go to a barber ever again! Anyway I think the reason why I'm so proud of cutting my own hair is that it's a way for me to change the way I look, and in such a basic way. And if I may say so myself, I think this cut was really good. --------------- Oct 19.03 The upcoming three weeks are going to be a bloody murder of tests and assignments. We'll see how I'll fare after one and a half months of low stress going into a crunch time. In the meantime, I think it's time to put up the the new page. On the first day of November, the index will have a new look -- a lot of the stuff won't work but I haven't updated the non-journal pages for a long time anyway. --------------- Oct 18.03 Watched Kill Bill, using ID without a date of birth on it. The movie was a blast - bloody, visually stimulating, action-packed, tense, quirky and hilarious at just the right times (and completely self-aware of it too). The second half of the movie slid into too deep a groove, I think, and lost a lot of punch, but that might possibly be attributed to the desensitization of all the violence. Several people walked out. Pansies! Anyway - if you think you can handle it, see Kill Bill. "It's better than the Matrix!" --------------- Oct 17.03 Today's biology lab was fun -- in my opinion, it should've been the icebreaker or something. We had to go around 'mating' through several generations in a bunch of different situations to see the effects on the gene pool. Here's a quote from the lab manual: > "Choose any student in the class to mate with. Mates need not be of the opposite sex (our class has 4 males and 16 females anyway). You are *completely promiscuous* and *cannot reject* any suitor." Cool, huh? (Like Cameron Diaz said to Keanu Reeves upon their first meeting: "Hi, I'm Cameron. Let's f*ck.") Note: Having numerous one-time flings all day isn't as easy as it sounds, since we were supposed to have two kids every time. Introduce lethal genotypes, and you've got yourself a 5th miscarriage (come ONNNNN, tails! Wait -- tails is death! Come ONNNNN, heads!). Watched some good new-fashioned teenaged tv. It goes to show how drama-free my life was in high school. That's a good thing, but it'd be nice to have some high-energy moments to look back on and laugh about. Or slap your forehead over. --------------- Oct 16.03 Saw someone waving a flag in the middle of the street. I'm not sure if it's a certain quality I'm thinking of, but that would be the first word that comes to mind. There was a detour in my path through Queen's Park, where a gigantic tree was felled by the previous day's wrath. I realized then how painful it would be if a tree fell on you. That reminds me of the so-called "western philosophy" question: "if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to here it, does it make a sound?" Maybe we can get the answer if we wonder what happens when someone gets hit by a car in a busy street ... --------------- Oct 15.03 Today there was a 'special presentation' during our biology lecture, which involved a speaker from the ROM talking about the Burgess Shale. It was still kind of boring, but at least we didn't have to take notes. The proposed fossils were dubious, yet cool. And I ate some rockin' chocolate cookies! Most of the day there was this rather unpleasant smell following me around, which led me to believe that I had stepped in something, or sat on something, or dropped my scarf in the wrong spot. *Shrug*. Greg's Blustery Day. Today was remarkably windy. Sitting around outside, I think I figured out why I love windy days so much now. One of my favourite sounds is wind passing through trees. One of my favourite sights is wind passing through a field. Why? Well if this isn't spiritual, it's because I feel like I can actually perceive a higher being. Everywhere, in everything. Perceiving the unseen, on a windy day, I feel like something's with me. And I get this reverent feeling for nature, and there's just this feeling of peace, happiness. That probably wasn't very easy to understand at all. It isn't, really. --------------- Oct 14.03 The briefly warm weather has come and gone. I thought I had waken up too early, because I couldn't see much through the darkness of the fog. As I waited blindly at the bus stop, I thought to myself: "I can't believe I turned down the frickin' GO train today." Though the nippy temperature persisted through the day, the sky did clear up quite nicely. Oh, what a false sense of hope that was. It began to pour during enrichment band. At one point I had to go to Mr.Horner's car to fetch his wallet. Unfortunately, there were four similar looking cars in the parking lot, so I had to try the key in each keyhole while getting soaked. While some people got into their cars parked next to me (please let this one not be theirs). Later, I got to ride in a (younger) friend's BMW to pick up timbits. Tres cool ride, though a shameful reminder of my neophyte driver status. --------------- Oct 13.03 Surprisingly, the before/after stretching paid off, and I wasn't that sore from the previous night's treadmillathon. Nothing much happening today except for the real deal Thanksgiving dinner, which was, as always, a meal fit for kings. Also, watched Seven Years in Tibet which was pretty cool. And started Waking Life, but coudln't finish it because of the talktalkiness of the movie and the presence of my family. The movie *looks* really good though. --------------- Oct 12.03 Did the turkey dinner at my grandparents' house, and ate as normal. When I got home though, I felt more than normally pepped up, insomuch as following regular exercise, I jumped on the treadmill and stayed on for about an hour. I don't remember ever sweating that much in my life, but it was one of those "once you reach a certain point, you can go on forever" kind of things. Anyway, I'm sure I won't regret this tomorrow morning. --------------- Oct 11.03 Went to East Side Mario's for a late lunch, then to Starbuck's for drinks. There we stayed for the good part of the afternoon, which was something on the order of four hours. We entertained ourselves by ripping tiny pieces off our recycled napkins, twisting them into little micro spears. We then made patterns on the table, built towers and played jenga-like games. This sort of thing must be what kids in the golden olden days did to entertain themselves. --------------- Oct 10.03 I had planned for a while to go somewhere tonight, but after much vascillation, I changed my mind and decided not to go. So instead I ended up riding my bicycle all around town, pre through to post sunset. It was quite a road less travelled moment. The one possibly-redeeming factor of the night was going to Timothy's for late night hot chocolate and catching up. That was warm and fuzzy enough, but in the spirit of being me, I didn't let myself get away without wondering what the night would have been like if I had taken the road less travelled. Hmmm. --------------- Oct 09.03 Note: when I got home from the previous night, I discovered that Mr.Horner's gift to me for the music award was an 850 page biography of Albert Einstein. Looks like I have some reading to do. Nothing doing today, aside from a chatstorm at night. --------------- Oct 08.03 On the subway today, there was a woman who was doing her eyeliner in her seat. And every time we made a stop, I stared as the long, thin pencil traced slowly around her eye. The car shook and people crowded in but she kept at it. What the point of this story is, I'm not sure. Maybe that the risk of getting something stuck in your eyeball is worth looking good? Which has nothing to do with the main event of tonight, which is Bayview's forty-third annual commencement (for grade twelve students only). It was chaotic, and I spent most of the pre-show time being bitter, but seeing a lot of my high school buddies was great. And eventually, when it came time to walk the processional walk, the harsh feelings just faded away (well for the most part). The band was great as well, I need to mention that. I always wondered how it would sound to the graduate's ears, and it sounded phenomenal. The proceedings and awards and stuff were kind of lacklustre and still disorganized, but it was as much as I could ever ask for. I guess in the end, I'm just addicted to love. By the time of the reception, I was sweating into my ears (literally). Why does commencement always fall on unnaturally hot days? By all accounts, we should have been shivering our suits off. At any rate, we were all dehydrated, so the carbonated juice and cold water was to us a blood transfusion. I didn't eat much of the other goodies, except for the raspberry tart things, which I was more than partial to. I got stuffy so I did the sloppy tie and shirt thing, which actually turned out to look more snazzy with the carnation buttonhole. After pictures and chatting (most of my favourite teachers weren't present anyway), a bunch of us headed for McDonald's, which was fitting. After all, we started high school there -- I saw no better place to end our era than there. We chatted until they locked the doors, at which time we retreated to Adam's house for lame late night talk shows and more pictures and chat. Finally, after some length of time in the dark, we called it quits. And that was that. --------------- Oct 07.03 Took the GO train again. In psychology today, the ever charismatic Prof. Wall upped the ante of his presentations by permitting himself to be electrically shocked on stage. I think a sense of anxiety filled the hall as we watched him flinch and his arm jerk with every shock -- and admittedly, not only out of fear for Prof. Wall's health, but also knowing that participation in graduate students' psychology experiments is a part of our course mark. Eek. --------------- Oct 06.03 The good thing about having rotating professors is that you can look at the one you're not particularily fond of and know that he'll be gone soon. Prof. Dicks took the place of Winnik as our lecturer in chemistry today, and cheers to that. His ultra-neat notes (butane drawn with a ruler), excellent pacing (something that Winnik sorely lacked), and of course, the lovable mixed British accent. Who could ask for more? Went out for dinner again, this time at a more trendy looking place called Spring Rolls on Yonge (right next to the Brass Rail). We weren't expecting much because of the all-Asian menu and the patronage in our area, but the service was good and fast, and the food was excellent! We even spent less money than at that Thai/Malaysian place from last week. Supposedly the bathrooms were exquisite as well, with flower vases in each stall, but unfortunately I forgot to check them out. Also supposedly, the real Asian people were all upstairs in the quality spots, but me being me, I didn't take it very personally. Anyway, I'd definitely go back again -- but not too often, since hip is so not in. By the way, we did get the spring rolls, which were kind of expensive, but very good. --------------- Oct 05.03 Went down to Camp Wahanowin to watch the Regional Music Camp 2003 concert. Great memories there from grade 9 Zenith and especially last year's band camp exploits. The concert itself was pretty good, but it's definitely much more fun to be playing than listening. Afterwards, got around to some chatting with camp buddies and eating sweet sweets in the dining hall and took a peek in our old and luxurious cabin. All traces of our existence are still there, from our names and messages left in various places right up to the stickers that I put on the wall for playing darts. And got an earful of this year's stories. The Screaming Muskrats live on! --------------- Oct 04.03 Spent most of the day working on a humongous site overhaul. The pace is glacial trying to figure out how to get around all this java and dhtml stuff, but so far my cheap tricks seem to be working. I'll probably be putting up some sort of temp page to see how it works in some time, so if you see the new page, and out of curiosity or some devil's will, you try clicking links and stuff, don't be surprised if things get *really* screwed up. --------------- Oct 03.03 In my biology lab today, I accidentally crippled an isopod (sort of potato bug type deal), probably mortally. At least, it seemed to have lost the use of its lower appendages. Oh, the things we'll do in the name of science. My sincere regret goes out to that isopod whose life I ruined. I just wonder now -- what's next? --------------- Oct 02.03 The math tutorial today was kind of lame. I think most of my classmates agreed. Our TA, David, was OK though. If anything, we're learning lots of interesting math notation and language conventions. For the first time in months, I actually got to sit down and enjoy a night of television. It felt great to actually be able to laugh until it hurts, or to even have a good reason to. Kudos to NBC for actually bringing back a worthy Thursday sitcom lineup. In other news, Dalton McGuinty is our new premier. Here's my view: when you're at the cashier and you're looking for change, you don't get on your hands and knees and scrounge around on the floor for it, do you? --------------- Oct 01.03 Nothing much interesting happened today either, aside from my staying downtown again for the night. So, to fill today's post, let me remark on how suddenly cold it's gotten. It's been autumn officially for a week and a bit, but I think we sort of missed that nice transition from summer. For some reason whenever I picture university, I picture it in autumn, with the red , orange, yellow, brown leaves and chilly winds in student's jackets and scarves. Well, that sort of went out the window. It looks like we're also starting to get our share of the rain from the summer as well. Anyway, as long as the weather continues to be so dreary, I'll secretly wish for the snow to fall. I think that's fair. --------------- |