Random

I saw this on a wall in a pub in Australia. I have thought about it often since then. I think it might be true.

Out of the Loop

Do you ever have a moment of clairity, when you realise that either something you have done or maybe something you have not done has caused a change you aren't happy with. I have felt this before, and I am feeling it again right this instant (hense the creation of this blog post).

I am sitting at the table reading an incredibly boring paper about something or another when I get this email that basically says, "I don't know if you're busy this date but all of "us" are going to do this...". The email is from a good friend of mine who I love to death, but haven't seen much of lately. I'm not sure how to take it, but I respond say of course I will go, especially since it happens to fall on the date of my other best friend's birthday.

For understanding purposes only I will describe our friendship as a triangle. It is (or at least used to be) the three of us always causing innocent trouble and hanging out every Friday and Saturday, and when something changed (and I mean every little thing!) we all knew about it. It's like a little clique. The kind you don't want to fall apart because there is an understanding that it will just always be that way. And once in a while there came a time or a person that would interrupt it a bit, and things would be a little different for a while, but not much, because really when it came down to it, we all knew that a few beers and a backyard chat would make everything all return to normal again.
But things have been a little different lately. We have all been dating (or prospectivly dating) someone for a long time (months or years) and these people have been taking up bits of our time. School (for me) and work (for them) have taken over our lives to some degree, and we no longer sit around and chat all night like we could back in the day. We are tired and need to go to work the next day, or have just worked all day, and rarely make it past midnight. Plans get in the way. Just life. And I arrive to this time, when now I feel like I've been left out of the loop. Like somewhere along the line (and I'm sure it's my fault to), I have let school, or sleep, or something get in the way of being involved in my friends lives.

And so I get this email, and it makes me a little sad because I can hear the tone in it that is accusing. That says basically "well if you think you can find the time for us...."
And I wonder when things changed. I think it was after a full month of emails four times weekly asking if she was busy, and getting a constant "yeah...". And trying to make plans soo far in advance that it seemed silly to have to plan time to just hang out. I think I stopped making the effort. But the other two corners of the triangle seems to be in tact. But that's just a line, and doesn't seem right.

They are playing sports together (I find out through email), and already have plans for the weekend (which I'm invited to, but it feels like an afterthought and makes me not want to go at all). My friend got her hunting license! and I didn't even know she started the course. So, I'm sad today. And I don't know how to get it back to normal.

And I offer this advice. If you care about someone or something, no matter how regular or busy things get, always make time for it/them, and never take it/them for granted.

End Blog.

Freaky Thursday

First and most importantly, a shout out to my grandma who celebrates her birthday today!! Happy Birthday!!! My grandma is about the awsomest woman you'll ever meet, and I'm glad I'm a lot like her. I can't wait to see you Sunday :)

Also, my little sister celebrated her 17th yesterday. She's growing up faster than I want to think about, but she's a good kid. I think she'll turn out alright...Happy birthday to you!

And now...the blog

Yesterday was a bit of an odd day. Things were just happening, and the day was passing somehow without me noticing the time. It was strange, and strange things were happening.

Take for example, this guy at the train station after work. He was in his truck pulling out of the station while mom and I walked to the parked van, and he gave me this look. Not a look you give to a woman when she's with her mother you know? And I thought it was a bit strange. I waited a minute and told mom, "wow, that guy just gave me a really creepy look..." and so mom turns to check it out and the guy was not only still looking, but he was practically undressing me with his eyes, smiling, and he gave a sort of wave...eek. And I don't think I was dressed provocative or anything. Just a pair of jeans and a tank top (an not the kind with spaghetti straps or that cuts off midway or anything)

So, then we go for dinner at this sushi restaurant. The food is good there, and the atmosphere is really nice. Bonus is that it's close to where we play billiards on Thursdays, so we went. Both of us knew immediately what we were going to eat, so when the server came by we ordered our drinks and meals together. The place was pretty much empty at that point, but as we chatted and laughed and complained about our day, the place slowly filled with people. And the wait staff is going around collecting orders, and slowly we start to notice that every table in the place is being served except for us. Watching the fancy sushi-covered boats pass by was torture and I was starving. I at least expected that my Edamame (soy bean snack) would be there by then! But it turns out they forgot to put in our order. I should have known.

When we got to pool, I went to the washroom, and realized that after being back from Australia for 2 weeks, I still check under the toilet seats for spiders that might bite my ass and kill me!

Then I have to play pool, and during the game I was sucking. I couldn't sink the balls the way I planned, and it was frustrating. But the team we were playing was nice, and they joked throughout the night with our team. All in good fun. So while I'm playing, I have to rack the balls for my oponent more times then I would have liked (because it means I was never making the last ball), and on one of these times the guy broke and sunk the 9-ball off the break. In 9-ball, this is equivalent to sinking the 8-ball off the break. So the guy won the rack without trying. And his teammate yells, "Hey Aimee, nice rack!" to which mom responds "I hope you're talking about the game!". These types of jokes continued all night after that. When guys on the other team were doing well, the comments turned to "Nice balls!" and such...it was funny, but strange.
And then I went home to bed, and dreamt all night about waiting. I was waiting for people, and things to happen. I'm not sure what that was about, but I'm glad nothing strange has happened yet today. But it is still only morning, and I've done nothing but sit at my desk.

I think it might be a strange week. It all started when some guy dropped off a bouquet of fruit for the guy across the street.

Bone to Pick

So I got on the express train again this morning, and I tell you, it's a mistake every time. Firstly, there isn't enough time to pull out the laptop and get any substantial work done in twenty five minutes, so I get to work faster but the trip is unproductive. So this morning I was people watching and drinking my extra-super-huge coffee, and listening to my MP3 player.

I took note of several things. There were two people wearing jeans! After thinking "holy crap, I'm not the only one in jeans! wait...is it Friday?...nope...it's still only Monday..." I realized that real people do take the express train, just not many. I also noted the fact that one of the two people in jeans checked the time 6 times on her cell phone, so really she's just one of "them" posing as normal.

The thing that really got me though is in the commuters newspaper, that everyone gets free in the morning to keep them quiet on the train for people who don't sleep enough at night and try to get 4 extra minutes...wow, that is a run-on sentence if I ever wrote one...I've even lost my train of thought....ANYWAYS....in the paper, there is this article that says that Kiera Knightley is twice the size of other actresses auditioning for the parts she does.

Now, I don't know who Kiera Knightley is, but I want to see what "twice the size" means, and I can't get a clear view of the picture rom the guy who's reading the article next to me. Well I could, but I'd look like a total creeper, and he'd probably blink sideways and tell me to get my own free paper. So I did. I grabbed a paper for the first time ever. It didn't have a good picture of her. But I'm still thinking about this at work, and so I look it up.

This is "twice the size";
So, I thought I would blog to make myself feel better about being gigantic!! The world is messed up, and if I had Keira Knightley's address, I would send her a lard sandwich. Actually, I'd pay the extra postage, and send her two. Stupid media.

Why Grad School Sucks

Pretty much the only reason why graduate school sucks is:

I don't get to go school supply shopping in September.

It's that time of year when I got to go into a Staples and spend ridiculous amounts of money on new pens of every shade, and binders that had new and fabulous add-ons, and staples, and sticky notes!

I was thinking about it on the way to school this morning. I have no reason to buy any of that any more. Any notebooks I need are provided (and boring!), and I don't really get to be fancy about colour coding notes or making fun cue cards.

Gemini's little sister had a wicked binder with a built in pencil case and filing system!! Gosh, look what I'm missing out on! I'm a little cranky about it.

But on the bright side, Jen did get me a brand new set of MARKING PENS!! And I labeled them all with colour coded sticky notes with my name. That's as good as it gets this year (and really I didn't need them, but my sister is awsome!)

That's all...

Aussie land :D

First and foremost - a shout out to Gemini (because he asked me to...hi!! I love you!!)

My trip to Australia is over, and I'm back home now. Back to work and school, and the normal grind of daily life. But I thought I might fill you all in a little bit on what happened when I was in the land down under.
Firstly, the plane ride is horrible! Unless you are really intent on going there and making the most of it (which requires longer than 10 days I might add...) then I wouldn't suggest it. It's long and cramped and if you are lucky, you'll get there without killing someone or yourself on the way. And that's assuming no plane delays and/or missed flights!

So we got there after 30 some-odd hours of airports and planes, and settled into our hotel rooms which had wonderful views of the township (I laugh that they call it a city) of Cairns. We spent night one walking the town and checking out the Esplanade (ie boardwalk) and the shops. We went to bed early and exhasuted. I slept from about 9:30 pm until midnight, not a very successful sleep, but conducive to calling home at 3am (1 in the afternoon Toronto time).

Friday we walked the town again, found some nice places to eat and shop, and hang out and relax. Nothing too exciting, but enough to tire me out again, and keep us busy. Then we found out that our trip to the rainforest wasn't going to happen, because the lady who was supposed to book us in, sent in the reuqest late, and it was full. So we booked a train ride up to a town called Kurunda on the top of a huge hill/mountain, and the skyrail down. The skyrail is carts that travel along a cable over the rainforest.

The trip was amazing. This was the view;
I also got to hold a koala bear;
And pet a kangaroo and some wallabees;

Sunday I started conference (ie. work) time. I attended several workshops in research, and the opening cerimonies. All in all I was there 14 hours, and have no exciting pictures to show. Monday through Wednesday are about the same. I have a picture of my poster, but that's about it. At night we ate and shopped a bit, and went to bed early for the most part. There was some food experiences. I ate Kangaroo, and emu, and crocidile, and bay bugs (lobster-like), and lamb (which was new to me). The food was expensive!! Even an appetizer was about $25. I tried to keep it cheap, but there weren't many cheap options unfortunatly.

I found a store with crocs, so I bought these beauties to save using a box of Bandaids per day;
Thursday we went to the Great barrier Reef, which was amazing. Unfortunatly I don't have a ton of pictures because the water cameras were expensive (and I haven't developed mine yet). But we went scuba diving (8m down for 30 min) and snorkelling (which was amazing!).

We saw tons of fishes, and I touched a few. including this huge fish!! that was about the size of my torso;
and I found Nemo!! although you can't really tell because the camera didn't pick up colours very well...the fish is actually brilliant orange and white;
I think the most amazing thing we saw was a beautiful sea turtle. It was about as big as the hole if you make a circle with your fingertips touching. It scared me at first actually, but it was harmless and I followed it around for quite a while;
Though the pictures don't do it justice;
The last day we were there we went to the Rainforest (originally booked for a week earlier). I'm glad we got to do this too. Everything we saw was amazing. And we got to stop at a gorge with tons of rocks, clear waters, and little waterfalls. It was also beautiful.

On this day trip we also got to go on a trip down the river to hunt crocidiles, and we found a few just chilling out on the edge of the river. Some were huge like this one;
And we went to a beach that was gorgeous. The sand was shiny, and the water was clear and blue;

The day was great. The trip was great. I talked to some important people, and saw things I'll prbably never get to see again in my life! All-in-all, it was fantastic, but I'm glad to be home, even if it means back to work!

Aussie Land

Saying hello from Ausratlia! It's beautiful here. I know some people feel neglected because I can't seem to get a hold of them on the phone when I'm in the hotel, but I love you!! It's just expensive to call and keep getting an answering machine :)

I'm on my way out to take a walk and sit by the outdoor public pool, so I wont go into details now, but I spent the last half hour getting three pictures to post, so here it is folks;
Above is the view from the esplanade I walk every morning to get to the conference center. It looks like a nice beach, but it's actually inhabited by crocidiles, so you cant swim in it. It's beautiful to look at though!
This is the view from the skyrail tour I took above the rainforest. Again, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen!
And this is a kangaroo I pet at an animal place in Karunga village at the top of a mountain. This picture is not zoomed. I was actually this close to a real live Kanga :)

Anyways, I will go into detail when I get home, but for now I am going to enjoy it while it lasts instead of sitting on the computer.

I love you and miss you all!!

xoxoxoxo