today is sun day

i have a headache.

as soon as i took off my cap after swim practice, it felt like something exploded inside my skull.

we had a team meeting today, girls only.

it wasn't as motivational as the last one (the waffle breakfast, goal setting), but that might be beacuse i was confused.

grey said that ous will basically be a dual meet between toronto and us. at least, for the women.
toronto's talent is packaged into a few individuals, while ours is spread over more people.

grey and gaye have already "scored" ouas. i.e.: predicted who will make finals/consols, who will score how many points..

they said that our team's strength is that we are the closest team in all of the oua. and that we support each other and swim for each other, rather than ourselves.

i used to swim for my team, back at home, but then all my peers left. and i found myself training alone. i remember kevin sitting me down, and telling me how when you get older, you have to start training and swimming for yourself. i remember everytime i was scared of losing, they'd tell me to just think about my time, and that was all that matters.

it's just yet another thing that this new team is changing. how can you just start training for other people. i can't believe they said that you can't just swim for your own time.

i don't see how i can force myself to win a race, after seeing how my teammate just won a race. it doesn't make sense to me. how do i "build on everyone else's swims"??

danielle is moving to calgary, to train at the national centre.

i'm looking forward to training with the dolphins again.

after practice, kassie and i were practicing turns together. i somehow brought up how i have more confidence in my coaches from home, than grey and gaye. even though i know that grey was a national breaststroker (ahah still sounds funny to me. after nearly 10 years of swimming) and gaye was his coach, and gaye has coached since the dawn of time..

but i still have more confidence in kevin and mike's advice. i was just swimming for them for too long. the fact that my stroke is being changed bothers me. they point out things i always thought were fine. and ignore things that i had been concentrating on for years.

kassie said the exact same thing happened to her in her rookie year. she said she was really upset about it. she went to her old coach at xmas time, and they managed to work out a happy medium between what she was used to, and what she was being told to do. hopefully i can do that too.

but i see some of the swimmers who have been swimming for grey and gaye for many years. i watch their breaststroke, and i worry that that's what i'm going to end up swimming like. there are so many mistakes and energy being wasted everywhere. but then again, they're not breaststrokers to start with, really.

kassie hasn't hit her best times since swimming at mac. so she's not sure what to say. she said my stroke looks really different from the very first meet. i'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

i don't know.

i have to ask kevin.

i'm not sure what i'm trying to say.

i don't understand what the upper years are talking about, when they describe what we're missing. i can't picture what grey is describing when he's explaining what the only way we'll win is. i don't know how to "pull together as a team". i thought we were.

kassie said it was a good year to be on the team.

i want to delete this post. it's boring, and i don't feel better after writing about it. but then i really would have wasted my time.

my head hurts.

ow.

why am i the only one in the canadian university system who cannot make herself study for more than an hour a day?

i finished the book, laurie.

i don't know what to think about the ending.

it didn't move me (the whole book) as much as the second one in the series (the only other one i read) did.

i definately appreciated your comments though.

"shhhh it's starting!"

i read the archies (some of 'em)
man oh man..

i am the best cook in the world. better than wolfgang puck's mom. i made a delicious spaghetti sauce, with delicious ingredients, with delicious pasta, and not quite as delicious cheese, but when it's melted it becomes delicious.

so good.
i go eat more now.

do you remember
when we used to say
shala la la lala lala lala la deda

love actually: good movie! only one bad line.

i just here.

after looking at all the other dolls, then the playing cards, i thought "how did i just get here?"

i remember reading my bio book..

then i remember thinking i should check my t.a.'s office hours for this week.

then the next thing i know, i'm looking at an ann coulter talking doll.

...

i think about this list whenever i don't want to think about anything else.

it's the guest list to the dinner party that will never happen. if only it could, though. can you imagine the conversations?

- pierre trudeau
- john cusack
- kevin spacey
- adolf hitler. so many things to talk about! i'd like to see him debate with another of my guests.
- the pope. i think he's interesting.
- dave grohl
- michael moore
- nelson mandela
- marie curie
- rosalind franklin
- my calc prof
- mark tewksbury. i'm not sure why him, of all olympic swimmers.
- ed roland. i'd ask why he let collective soul get all weird.
- ernest rutherford
- mike, last year's calc teacher (it's supposed to be celebrities [i guess my calc prof is kind of a celebrity] only, but oh well)
- and if i'm going to say that, i might as well add mr.g
- hmm. if i add mr.g, i have to add janet.
- ohh.. now the list is different. i always thought there'd be more historical figures.
- stuart wilkinson, the guy who helped me (via email) with the mfc project, and who has built a robot that works off sugar. (hm. i still haven't recieved the money from that project! amanda smith says aventis isn't cooperating... that's frustrating ending to a sometimes-great, all-too-frustrating project)
- frederic chopin
- mozart (maybe. i think he might turn out to be too egocentric and annoying)
- beethoven
- vivaldi (i think he'd be fun)
- liszt
- wow, there's a little trend going on here, isn't there..
- richard feynman!
- jason lee (aheh.)
- i've only named three women so far. i wonder what that says about society. (because it can't just be me. har har)
- julia stiles. she goes to the same school as jeff from sci centre. plus this list is lacking women.. i guess i'm just inviting her for the hell of it.
- angelina jolie. i think she's interesting.
- jeanine garofalo
- the olsen twins. but only if they dress EXACTLY alike.
- no, no olsen twins.
- conan o'brien. i'm surprised it took me so long to remember him.
- jon stewart.
- andy richter..
- george w. bush. for many the same reasons as hitler.
- goethe
- yates
- lord byron
- queen elizabeth
- mao.. maybe. i'm not sure why i hesitate inviting him.
- someone who, for some reason, decided to trace my family tree and could tell me all about my ancestors
- pete sampras
- patrick rafter
- all of coldplay
- and a bunch of powerful people who will attend my dinner, be inspired by the other amazing guests (or disgusted by them), then go and change the world for good.

who else could i put on..

(i think) you can tell when i wasn't really trying that hard to think of people to invite. otherwise, it's not bad. i'll keep thinking about it when i think about it.

For once i don't really have too much to blog about.


taken from juicy's no longer secret blog:

[ Current Clothes ] a ribbed orange turtleneck that is new, from joan. i accidentally ripped the armpit while climbing onto my bed monday night. also, an even newer brown/khaki cord knee length skirt that looks like an army-issued poodle skirt. grey underwear and a bra. and something in my hair, i forget what it is. and contacts. and dirt from last night. i haven't showered in a while... gross.. i don't like this survey already..
[ Current Mood ] regular. calm. i should be worried though.
[ Current Music ] the song shannon was talking about in her blog a while ago. just watch the fireworks - jimmy eat world. it's just finished.. now it's brown eyed girl - van morrison.
[ Current Taste ] stuffed tofu (with scallop, green onion, and a really weak black bean sauce), rice, and a bit of light soya sauce. all from dinner with my mom on sunday.
[ Current Make-up ] zippo.
[ Current Hair ] up. because i hate working with it in my face or on my neck. (hah. working.)
[ Current Annoyance ] it's 5pm, but it looks like it's 8pm.
[ Current Smell ] the non-smell of my clothes, mixed with the food beside me.
[ Current Favorite Picture ] many, but the one that springs to my mind is the one of shannon, josie, emma, and i at the locks. probably because i can see it out of the corner of my eye.
[ Current Favorite Group ] i could ramble off a whole bunch. but currently? hm.. foo fighters, i suppose.
[ Current Book you're reading ] campbell and reese's biology, sixth edition. (har har.) if anyone asks (which i guess you just did), it's hemingway's farewell to arms. i read the first few pages. last september.
[ Current CD in CD Player] foo fighters: the colour and shape
[ Current DVD in player] i'll take you literally, and say that back at home i think the big hit is in there because no one put it back in the case.
[ Current Refreshment ] this. it's my "study break".
[ Current Worry ] the number of classes i've been skipping, and how i went to sleep relatively on time (1:30am) but woke up at 2pm today.


LAST PERSON...
[ You Talked to ] my mom, on the phone last night. in person, choni, telling her i wasn't going to the movies.
[ You Hugged ] rosie, outside pita pit.
[ You Instant messaged ] laurie and/or tammers
[ You Yelled At ] hmm.. the boy's 4 x 100 free relay on sunday. i was cheering.
[ You Kissed ] this really really hot 54 year old. my mom.


FAVORITE...
[ Food ] steak, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, chocolate, popcorn, chips, hamburgers, chicken drumsticks, auntie's cooking, salmon, pizza, fried noodles, soup noodles, chinese veggies with beef, stirfry, the chinese veggies with tons of garlic, onions, greek salad, fried rice, that rice that comes with the gooey sauce and peas and shrimp and egg bits, shark fin soup, and so on..
[ Drink ] mountain dew, mello yello, or any other kind of unnaturally coloured super-sugared drink. nestea iced tea, sow mei tea, chrisanthymum (wow, spell great!) tea, water, skim milk..
[ Color ] purple.
[ Shoes ] my burgandy new balances.
[ Candy ] wine gums
[ Animal ] rosco
[ TV Show ] scrubs.
[ Movie ] grosse point blank, bandits, princess bride, new waterford girl, clue..
[ Dance ] my favourite dance? charleston (Because then you can chant "charles-ton! charles-ton!") or else my pseudo broad-way dance. which i think is almost the same thing...
[ Song ] off the top of my head, flowers in the window - travis, because it just came on. but to follow the trend of naming multiple favourites: under pressure- queen ft. david bowie, my sharona - knack, polonaise in A major (or is it a flat. i forget) - chopin, boston bruins goal song, the hey song, sincerely, me - better than ezra, at the stars - better than ezra, old collective soul, melt with you - modern english...
[ Vegetable ] guy lan, choy sum, or broccoli. or corn! or onion. or garlic..
[ Fruit ] mango, tangerine, asian pear
[ Cartoon ] x men, the normal spiderman.. basically anything that reminds me of the summers i spent degenerating and watching marvel comic cartoons.


ARE YOU...
[ Understanding ] i like to think so
[ Open-minded ] i try to be
[ Arrogant ] a little. not so much anymore, maybe.
[ Insecure ] not really.
[ Interesting ] i can be if i try
[ Random ] very
[ Hungry ] not anymore.
[ Friendly ] yes, so long as i'm not tired
[ Smart ] relative to who?
[ Moody ] i'm either very moody or very stable.
[ Childish ] if i'm around you for too long
[ Independent ] i kind of have to be
[ Hard working ] not as hard as i could be working
[ Organized ] definately not.
[ Healthy ] yeah, except for this sharp pain in my left armpit, and right shoulder. and for the little stuffed nose.
[ Emotionally Stable ] considering everything.. yes.
[ Shy ] that too. but i like to think i just don't talk when there's nothing to say.
[ Difficult ] only when i really care.
[ Attractive ] everyone is, these days.
[ Bored Easily ] not really
[ Thirsty ] a little.
[ Responsible ] i'm a little below average on the responsibility scale.
[ Angry ] it comes and goes in sharp bursts.
[ Sad ] not really. when i am, i'm really sad, but usually it's just a kind of "that's too bad.." kind of sad.
[ Happy ] i'm content, not happy.
[ Hyper ] i need a helmet when i'm hyper.
[ Trusting ] no. but i'm pretty open, so it doesn't really matter.
[ Talkative ] not really.

WHO DO YOU WANT TO...
[ Kill ] no one. that's a little disturbing.
[ Slap ] people who use words like "sweetie" "hun" "stephie".
[ Get Really Wasted With ] rosie, emma, josie... basically people who won't make me feel guilty for it.
[ Get High With ] someone who i would know would look after me right. i'd rather not risk it though.
[ Look Like ] myself.


-W H O-
[makes u laugh the most?] my brothers
[makes you smile] i'm not feeling too smil-ey right now, so i'll just say people who say/do stupid things.
[gives u a funny feeling when u see them] uh.. heh. a lot of people on the swim team.
[who do you have a crush on?] shannon louise paxton.
[has a crush on u?] laurie totally wants me.
[is easiest to talk to] hm.. different people for different things. generally... hmm.. i think i can talk to anyone about nearly anything, once the ball gets rolling.


-H A V E .Y O U .E V E R-
[fallen for your best friend] kind of
[been rejected] i think so. harsh.
[rejected someone] i have
[been used] maybe.
[been cheated on] not really. it's complicated, and it wasn't really me.
[done something you regret] a few. but i'd probably do them again anyway.



-D O .Y O U / / A R E .Y O U-
[smoke cigarettes] no.
[could u live without the computer?] i think so, but i'm starting to wonder..
[color ur hair] i have. probably will sometime in the future
[ever get off the computer] sadly, no
[habla espanol] que?
[how many peeps are on ur buddylist?] my buddylist? hahaha. i'll take it as my msn list. too many. i collect names and don't talk to 98% of them.
[drink alchohol?] socially.
[like watching sunrises or sunset] but i never get to.
[what hurts the most? physical pain or emotional pain?] it depends on the kind of emotional pain. but emotional, because it can stay with you longer.

-N U M B E R-
of times I have had my heart broken?: i'm not sure. at least once. i don't know if it's in the process of being broken again.
of hearts I have broken?: if they think i broke their hearts, they're lame. i really don't know, but it should be a zero.
of guys I have kissed?: two.
of girls I have kissed?: i don't know. but i have. my first was alyssa b in grade 4 i think. we were both shuffling our bodies while seated at our desks, and accidentally hit each other on the mouths, with our mouths. it was funny at the time.
of continents I have lived in?: one, i guess.
of tight friends?: a good number. they are good people.
of scars on my body?: there's a lot. none too big. my latest ones are two little ones on each foot from my fins, as well as my perpetual bruises on my legs from climbing out of the pool.

I KNOW: piglatin
I WANT: find the recipie for delicious calorie-free chocolate.
I HAVE: to go to swim practice soon.
I WISH: my mom eternal happiness
I HATE: bad breath
I MISS: -ed my classes today, again.
I FEAR: being attacked one day, while walking home through the scary alley beside the hospital.
I HEAR: knocking downstairs. and a version of the beatles let it be that leah downloaded. it sounds strained and i'm not sure if it's even a beatle singing.
I SEARCH: for inner peace. no, for the willpower to study.
I WONDER: if anything is worth it in the end. but to be less introspective, how i can work it so i can take honors physics with biophysics specialization and still get all the prereqs for med school. and also, if THAT would be worth it in the end.
I REGRET: not putting more effort into swimming back home. also, becoming lazy with school and missing the higher entrance scholarship by 0.02%
I LOVE: my family and the people who matter.
I ACHE: in my left armpit and right shoulder. on the bulky part.
I CARE: more when i think i can't do anything about it.
I ALWAYS: eat and spell incorrectly.
I AM NOT: an animal
I DANCE: self-consciously
I SING: in my head, and when i'm in the water.
I CRY: fat, sad tears. or thin, angry tears. or jagged, frustrated tears.
I DO NOT ALWAYS: look out for others.
I FIGHT: insecurity in my fellow females.
I WRITE: to relieve.
I WIN: races
I LOSE: races
I CONFUSE: names. but i'm good with faces.
I LISTEN: to the gentle rumble of the hospital.
I CAN USUALLY BE FOUND: hiding in the bushes. that is, at my desk, in my bed, or in the pool.
I NEED: to either write tonya and the people who helped me most in ttown, or stop caring about how i have yet to write them.
I AM HAPPY: when the weather is windy, the sky is grey, the clouds are overcast, and the day holds potential.
I SHOULD HAVE: cleaned my room today.

chris laughed and said, "probably" after i told him the story of when he replied "something stupid" to my question of what irony was. i had taken him seriously.

although i eventually learned the correct definition, i remember struggling with the meaning and usage of "irony" because no one could explain to me what it meant, but also because chris' "explanation" stuck in my mind.

euphemism is another one.

i can't believe we spent a whole chapter on euphemisms in grade 5.

spelling is one of the dumbest s...

hm.

it is 3:54am.

my stomach hurts.

i'm probably not hungry, but i bet i'm going to have some food anyway.

the fact that nighttime essentially now starts at 5:15pm gives me the feeling that i'm in a different country. everyday is exotic.

i don't like it, but at least it helps me get my work started. for some reason, i've never been able to focus on work until it's dark out.

which isn't saying too much.

i'm on academic cruise control.

had my last phys lab today. last, if you ignore next term's phys labs, as well as the phys labs for the next three years.

stef finally got his come uppin's. he hit on one of the phys t.a's, accidentally called her his bio t.a, tried to explain himself by saying they're both hot but the bio t.a. wasn't nearly as hot as the phys one. she put up her hand and said "that was totally inappropriate. totally inappropriate."

he was quiet the rest of the time and kept repeating how stupid he felt.

nawaaz was having a field day and i was re-thinking my attitude that girls were more immature than guys.

i've told this story once, and i'll most likely tell it many times again..
when i was entering grade nine, i was very nervous of making any kind of social mistake. robyn told me i just wanted to be popular, and i was deeply hurt. but that may have been it, now that i think about it. grade nine wasn't a good year, at least not until i gave up trying/caring, which made it better in some ways, but worse in others (maybe in the way that i realized how high school high school actually was). but i was sitting at the kitchen table, with my bare feet on the table top, squeezing my toes. it was sunny out and yellow light was filtering through our windows. andrew was washing dishes, and we were talking about his soccer team. i was asking who on his team went to st.paul's, and trying to extract some kind of gossip from him (and this was andrew, so you can imagine how successful i was). We came upon the subject of justin r, who at the time, was dating heidi. we stopped talking for a moment, not for any real reason. andrew then said, "Yeah. Don't ever date anyone in St.Paul's. Seriously, they're all the same. They're sick and have one-track-minds". I hadn't ever heard the saying "one-track-minds" and i probably asked him to elaborate. he hesitated and said they "only wanted one thing". I probably asked him what that was. He hesitated again and said, "Just don't date anyone. You hear?!" then threw bubbles at me.

My brothers really affected my upbringing.
they often brought me down-to-earth.

Andrew would always be quick to point out how gossipy or "disloyal" as he called it, to my friends when i got home. I would complain about little annoyances and grave non-offenses they had commited, and he would exclaim, "you know you have no loyalties at all. one day you're complaining about something they did and blowing it up to be a sign that they're plotting against you, then you'll go call them and laugh and giggle with them on the phone".

i probably got really pissed off at him many times. but only because it was true.

Chris and i rarely talked until his last year of high school, but when he did talk to me, it was usually a question like, "why do you care in the first place?" or something like "you know you'll never see these people anymore in a few years?" or, "you know, if it bothers you so much, either change it, or stop complaining".

Mark was either acting like a five-year-old or giving me advice in the form of explaining the meaning of words to me; words like procrastination, irony, and retribution. I remember he'd always be clipping his toenails in the bathroom, and mutter something under his breath. I'd hear him, and ask what a certain word meant.

That day eunice had a crappy stats test, robin and i took her to william's coffee pub down the street. we began talking about boys. robin had bought her dress for the residence formal, eunice was thinking she didn't have a crush on kevin anymore. these two things lead us to talk about dating/going on dates with boys/going to formal with boys. I mentioned how stef had asked me to the rez formal and if i had a boyfriend in the same sentence earlier that week. I told them how i pretended i had a boyfriend instead of saying no then having to face the awkwardness of future physics labs(note: i don't care what anyone says. honesty may be the best policy, but this was easier). Eunice and robin were shocked and voiced their opinions. "you should have said yes!!"

I tried to explain to them stef's behaviour, comments, and how that relates to his view of girls, and how i didn't want to be his new girl to replace the last one, while he's already working on wooing a replacement for me. i described his patterns of flirting and so on. their answer was that all boys are like that, so you might as well accept it. Robin chose this time to disclose how kris (remember him?) who is in her psych class said something like "mmm i'd like a slice of THAT" when she walked by. I'd like to know how truthful this story is, especially since she kept adding/changing aspects of the story everytime she'd tell me, but kris may have said that. Robin also said her boyfriend, Mike, often makes "the most interesting" comments and when she complains he just honestly doesn't know what he did. I don't see how that makes it better, at all. I felt like they were telling me i should have been grateful or felt complimented. I found myself repeating, "but my brothers aren't like that..."

_____________________________________

leah and i went to the mall after school today.
she stayed around in my room a little after.
when i first met her i thought she was a quiet overly-nice girl.
but she's sarcastic, real, honest, and we clash in a complimentary way.

i realized a moment too late that she's uncomfortable talking about the weekend meet and winning the banner, since she was entered as an exhibition swimmer (only 18 male and 18 female swimmers from each team are allowed to score points, and they have to be chosen ahead of time) and felt like she didn't contribute.

carly is athlete of the week, and she deserves it.

but i was hoping malcom would get it. he was the male swimmer of the meet.

i can see the spelling mistakes in this post.

nothingman..

______________________________________

even though i brought most of my cds with me to school, i haven't listened to some of them in years.

the foo fighters one is a good example. the last time i played that cd it was grade 9 art class, and it was my turn to play music. unfortunaly josslyn c had forgotten that the day before was her day, and emma got to play her music. or maybe i had forgotten it was my day, and josslyn was playing her music, and so i only got to listen to my cd for a little while. who knows. who cares. either way, it's been a long time.

it's been too long, my boys.

i've thought about starting a secret blog.

but i know that wouldn't work out.

i'm too vain and would need to know that people were reading what i was writing; i would leak it's address sooner or later.

goodnight, moon.

hahah laura's msn name is "booby yerself!"

i love it.


just came back from a trip to the pita pit.

went down to eunice's room, where kevin, dan, and a new guy, rammik (?) was. as well as eunice.

god, kevin and dan had these HUGE 4L jugs of white wine. they didn't look that drunk. i think they've been working through the jugs all year. i didn't see them drink any.

rammik, hadn't been drinking. drove us to pita pit. where i saw kipp and rosie, leaving! it was fun. rosie was being very huggy, and very complimentary, as she always is when drunk. i like her so much.

the psych paper, laurie, has yet to be started.

HAHAGHSIOBHWEOIBH)*Q#@%)@(!*BGE()@&%()!*_%~!&+&%#@)(^_)#@(%

and scene.

so yeah. while kipp, rosie and i were talking, out of the blue comes nick, our sports therapist! he grabs kipp and shakes him. kipp is a little guy compared to nick, and nick is tossing him around. they stop, and kipp asks if they were going to dry-hump some more. so they do. god, is everyone remotely related to the team drunk or something?! it was hilarious though. rosie keeps bear-hugging me, and this girl is tall. my face is buried in her shoulder. then she tells kipp about how great i am. then kipp tells rosie how great i am.

ahh ego. how the hell did i fit you into this room?

just kidding.

oh yes. today on the bus ride home we wrote down recruits for next year. devon, i wrote you, mackenzie, and sean, although i don't know if mack is swimming/graduating, and i don't even think sean is graduating. meh. come to mac!

tomorrow i'm going shopping with leah. hooray! it's going to be fun. then meeting with psych group to plan our presentation. boo. then tuesday movies maybe with the team. yaay!

rosie said they were drinking on tuesday. goddamn you arts students.

haha it was such a random night. lovely pitas, as usual. meeting rassik (yes, now it is rassik), dan and kevin insane as usual (i will post pictures of them from hallowe'en soon.. they are worth the wait), kipp, rosie, and nick.

e'gads.

with the meeting from my mom, nightly story scheming with laurie, email from mike, and everything else that happened today, it was a great weekend.

except now i have to pay for it the rest of the week.

i never knew what a lithograph was. the picture on emma's blog made me curious and i finally looked it up. now i'm more impressed with the picture.

shannon smells.

better than you.

julia is trying to get away from blogger which means she has an actual life, which means she has things to blog, which means YOU SHOULD BE FRIGGIN' GRATEFUL FOR ALL THE POSTS I'M POSTING, YOUU! I KNOW YOU READ EV-ER-IE ONE!

zach IS marcus.

now i feel like i have to comment on everyone.

dayna, i'm sick of seeing that funny looking "november" on your blog.

and so on...

that was no where near everyone.

yep.

if you read all the posts today, i'm quite impressed. celebrate by leaving a comment!

one of the rookie boys is taking a break from swimming.

his brother passed away..

it's very tragic.
his brother's car stalled on train tracks. and i guess he couldn't get away before a train came.

we signed a card sending condolences. i hope it helps him feel a little better, at least temporarily.

I don't know him well. It was difficult to think of an appropriate message. I hope he realizes how genuine we are in what we wrote to him.

___________________________

my mom let herself into my house and into my room. she was holding her baggie of needles and vaccines. she had to give herself her own flu shot. how weird would that be?

i was dreading it. i heard her come up the stairs. she was complaining that the vaccine might not work because it wasn't refrigerated during the car ride down. she asked if i preferred to get a flu shot now, and then another one the next time i was home. i whined and she laughed at me.

i got so antsy, as i usually do. i didn't hide under the desk, however.

i wanted it over with really quickly. "DO IT NOW!" while looking the other way and clenching my blankets.

i could hear her flicking the needle to get rid of air bubbles. "i'm scared!"
she said to give her a kiss, and i thought she was tricking me and was going to jab me when i was distracted.
she came near me and i made a sound like "uuuuuhHHHHH!!!"

at least she seemed amused.

ah mama.

it didn't hurt at all (ahee..)

oh poor christian..
_____________________________

for my own .. records, i guess you can say.

WAY TO GO CHICS!!!
just want to say a big congrats to the entire team. this weekend was incredible. i know everyone was feeling the nerves friday and saturday before the meet but we totally gave it our all and...well...there's no other way to put this...we beat those bitches down!!! the relays were some of the most exciting ones that i have ever seen. congrats to the girls that qualified for ci's this weekend as well. for those who didn't swim as well as they thought they should (that would be me:)) no worries. its still only the beginning of the season. you girls are training your hearts out and it'll show eventually. i know its frustrating at times but just keep training the way you have been and come oua's it'll pay off in a huge way. now for a little sentimental message...i have been swimming for a number of years now and i can't remember when i was ever this proud to be on a team. i truly believe that we have the most amazing group of girls ever brought together. we have had quite a few meets now and each one we have fought and we have won. i don't think that there is anything this team cannot accomplish. each girl contributes heart and spirit and i am honoured to be swimming by the sides of all of you. i've said it before and i will say it a million times...you are the reason i swim. all of you. and i just want to thank you for that. awesome job this weekend and lets keep kicking/licking some asses (that doesn't sound right?!?) love you girls,
kimmy

"lets keep kicking/licking some asses" hahaha

stupid guelph.

oh yes. someone took one of our banners again at this meet. i'm not sure if it was the "mac chics kick" or "mac chics lick" which was hanging over where the guelph team was set up (by the way, i'm sure julia is loving all this "chic" business).

we thought it was guelph, who was rumoured to have a poster that named prizes for mac stuff they could steal (eg: five dollars for a cap. ten dollars for a shirt..). the older girls were taking it seriously and told us to "watch your shit". haha i was going to make some lame joke about taking that literally... but..

so it turns out it was taken by someone on the mens guelph team who used to swim for mac. he thought it'd be funny. supposedly gaye was so pissed off that he took off his glasses to yell in that kid's face.

hahaha.
i'm sure you know i mean yell as in insulted him loudly, not yelled as in "AAGGH!" kind of yell. though that'd be incredible.

i have mixed feelings when people talk about the "reputation and history" we have to uphold.

on saturday the girls team had a huddle where erin, wearing her new suit, told us to look at her tits and look at what we were representing (.. the M with the bird's head on it).

i want to know how we do against toronto. it's a long ways away though.
actually, i think i enjoy not knowing what will happen.

ohh dear.

poor christian.
life is unfair.

let's watch the flowers grow

you said it, travis.

i feel exhausted.

but HAPPY!

i just called my mom. she's a comin' down! aayaya

I feel sad whenever people leave. It seems like whenever people visit me here in the hammer, the goodbyes are always awkward and/or rushed. No matter how pleasent the visit is. It's not ususally like this back home, or wherever (usually it's more of an 'ahh.. that was fufilling' feeling).

Josie's goodbye was pretty good. a little rushed, but that may have been attributed to the tour guide who was watching us. make out. in the dumpster.

i don't know.

aw. Josie, check your blog comments.

I will go over the visit now, as i wait for my mom, my flu shot, and my cheque for acapulco.

i like that. i'm waiting for my mama.

i feel so good!

okay.

well fran (who is my man), who is on university tour, visited mcmaster saturday, along with the parental units (first and last time i'll ever use that term. it's something emma would say. extra points for saying "the" instead of "her"), and juicy, who did not fail to bring along her uncanny ability to create hilarious situations (i.e. walking into the darkened classroom loudly asking "what's in here?" and being shocked to find a single seated student staring at her).

I biked my yellow ass over to the student centre as fast as i could. I was pleased to see they had lit the fireplaces (what atmosphere!). It wasn't weird to see josie at all, like i thought it would. i thought it would because josie is really familiar, but i thought she would look out of place because i've obviously never seen her at mac. but it was as if she was here the whole time (pause for 'aww..'). i think we started skipping arm in arm after greeting each other. we're in sync, us kids. haha i remember seeing our reflections in the doors, of us skipping. we're super-awesome-cool.

um.. so then what.

the engineers have written 'hog' all over the place. i didn' think it was too much of a thing. but it was there. good for the engineers, i suppose.

i showed them the AMAZING new interior of the math building. i love everything about that building, inside and out. they have chalkboard-walls for math discussions. and it's open, modern, yet the outside of the building is gothic and very old looking. i think it was one of the original six buildings. i love love love how the interior was designed as a math building, and it suits the subject so well. the benches, the walls covered in calculations.. it's great.

but it was locked.

so we looked for a few seconds, then left.

to go to.. somewhere. i think to show them the new chemistry labs.

then it was.. back towards the football field, but a turn to look at edward's hall, one of the residences, and also an original six building. a nice place.

then it was to the student centre again. and then goodbye.

i shook jo's dad's hand, like the real man i am. kristine once said that people often complimented her on her handshake. so i shook her hand to see what it was about. and it was pretty good. it was the best i've ever had.

i remember back in grade school how we had to sign our names on the small chalkboard hanging on the classroom door whenever we wanted to go to the bathroom. i have a vivid memory of josie (this was around the time we started calling her "jo") moving through the doorway, signing "joe" on the chalkboard with her left hand, and leaving. i remember she'd always sign with her left hand, because it looked as if she had written with her right hand. we often complimented her on how well she signed with her left hand. i would try to do it, but my 'S''s would come out backwards. i also remember wanting to erase the "e" from "joe" because i thought that since she was a girl, she MUST spell it "jo". she does now, i think. except that she always adds a star to the O. anyway, the memory sticks i think because it looked like she was dancing, like she didn't stop moving out the doorway, but she signed with the wrong hand and then kind of twirled out of sight.

i have memories like that for all of you.
it's all up here.

yep, i'm pointing to my stomach.

man, i'm full too. that makes it official. right now, at this moment, i am content and life is treating me well.

i remember those days when i would worry that someone was mad at me. and i'd always wonder if my actions changed how they thought about me. it's completely different now, but it's strange (but neat at the same time) that it's different, but different with the same people it's always been.

i downloaded a bunch of songs to help 'pump me up' for the meet.
jock jams is where it's at.
haha some of the songs are pretty funny.
i am not ashamed.

SO YES.
after leaving the mancusos in front of the campus tours office (They really should put that office somewhere more impressive, not in an ugly building built in the 30s) i was off to bike home, shave down, then meet the team bus before the bus left.

on my bike home i was heading towards a group of people on the sidewalk. they were walking towards me. i didn't look at their faces, so i was pretty surprised when one of them leapt out at me and shoved my bag. "steph!"
it was leah! the other group of people were some swimmers going off to the bus. i guess i wouldn't have time to shave at home. so i got home, by now i'm really panting, not because i'm tired, but because i'm nervous that the bus will leave without me (gaye's attitude on punctuality is something like this: if you're on time, you're late. if you're early, you're late. you're not on time until you're redicuously early). i grab a few things, then head out.

i make it to the bus.

on saturday, i swam

3rd leg in the 4 x 50 free relay (on the B team.. we came in 5th, which is pretty good. but it was tense because the A team and two other teams were really really close. but they ended up winning the whole thing.)

50 free..

100 br.

i think i was 15th in 50 free. with a pb time!

in 100br i 'pb'd kind of. it was the best i've swam this year, but not the best i've ever done. i came in 2nd. the first place girl qualified for CIs in it last year, but didn't beat her pb.
it was pretty good. i wish i could see what i look like when i race. kassie was in my heat and we were in outer lanes. i'm tooting my own horn (haha), but it must have looked really good for us to beat the other girls in the heat from the outside. kassie came in 3rd, and looking at our times, we were quite close (less than half a second apart?).

my splits for the 100br were: 36.07 (!!), 42 (hehe.. um..)
yep, that's right. a difference of 6 seconds. pretty impressive, no?
i'm happy with it though, it turned out alright.

someone false started in the 100 br. actually wait. someone was wavering on the blocks after they told us to take our marks. i was SO prepared for this race, it was near rediculous. I had done everything, the perfect warm-up, the visualization, the music...
so someone wavered on the blocks, and they told us to step down. but i dove off when the voice came on the speaker. except that halfway through my dive, i realized what had happened, and my dive kind of turned into a jump, i went in feet first and all limp. i was about to climb out beside my block, but i remembered the time i did that before a 200IM or something, and kevin told me afterwards that when he saw me get out there he could just see all the energy being sucked from my arms. so i got out the side and everyone had to wait. people from my team were saying things like "shake it off, steph" and so on, and i think a timer who i didn't know and didn't know me, said "it's alright, steph" as i walked back to my block. pretty funny. he just wants to fit in.

i'm almost glad i wasn't recruited. because i wasn't, no one was expecting much from me, and no one (save allison) heard of me before.

i'm so glad i'm swimming again.

don't worry, i won't become obsessed like last time.

i've told you about how u of t and mac are rivals. i guess we are with guelph as well. at least, the women's team. i told you about the stealing of sign and changing of words with duct tape and so on. well the guelph guy's team has really improved and the points were really close with them and our guys' team. they were winning sometimes, even! as one of the captains said on the bus sunday morning, "everyone and their brother thinks they can beat us at ou's, and i'm sick of it"

they're always having 'team meetings' in the middle of the meets. which is really just a lot of swearing, yelling, that is meant to inspire and make them go faster.

it's really different, being on a team that depends on everyone, rather than one really great swimmer, like dolphins was. it's also really different being the favourite to win.

haah by the way, these were the divisional champs. the past two years we've won it. it's different because at this one, the points from the men and women are combined. usually the two teams are considered.. well.. as two teams.

there were seven teams there all together. the guy's team would be in second place to guelph by something like five points, but the women's team would be leading by 40 points. it was like that for pretty much most of saturday.

so then..

i go home saturday, seems kinda late. so tired. it's a different tired. it's the exhausted kind of tired. the kind that you feel in every part of you, but not anywhere in particular. you feel limp, but heavy.

i went to bed later than i should have.

woke up this morn', got to the bus.

they got a coach bus for this meet. pretty nice! even though guelph isn't that far, really. but they also gave each of us $20 for supper. which they gave to us this morning. meh. it was neat, kind of like being a professional athlete, but .. not. at all, really. so i guess.. yeah forget it.

i didn't see krystian or lisa. pity. but i did see their residence buildings. so that's pretty good... haw..

the new suits look SO GOOD. there's the M with the marauder bird icon on the chest, (on the bum for the gentlemen) with white stitching on the black suits, and "mac" on the leg, if your suit has legs (i.e. a jammer). it's very "team-y" as leah put it. mine hasn't come in, and won't for a while, but our next meet isn't until next year, so that's fine.

today i swam..

breaststroke leg in 4 x 50 medley relay, A team!

we came in first.. i think? yeah, we did. or maybe it was second. no no, it was first.

apparently, my stroke is good. but my start sucked, and i didn't start swinging my arms until sam had touched the wall.

the funny thing with swimming under new coaches (or maybe it's me) is that a lot of things you thought you were really good at, are the things that are being pointed out to you.

i always thought i had a good relay start, and a good dive in general. gaye says i look up with my head before i start moving my body. i thought my turns were good too. but grey said that's my weak spot (one of many) where i kept getting behind during my races, and had to catch up. he said my arms were good and strong, which is something they've never been before. my timing is off, which is true. it feels a little different from last year. i used to loll my head around, which was proven to me via videotape. now i just have a twitch.

so yep. wow, the sky has changed suddenly. it's a nice grey-blue, but the clouds are lit up a bright red from underneath, but the tops of them are shaded mauve. the red is getting brighter, but the mauve is moving in.

200 br.
i wasn't sure what to think of this race. right now, i'm definately a br sprinter. i think i proved that to everyone today. they were being SO supportive, gathering at the end of my lane, and screaming in my face as i turned and all. it's pretty funny how many of them came up (actually maybe only 3 or so) and said, "yeah, we were all gathered there and after your first 100, we were all like '...oh.. she's dying!' you're definately a br sprinter, aren't you?"

splits (Because you care): 38.18, 42, 43, 43
wait.. that doesn't add up to my time (2:49 something).. oh well.
maybe it's because i don't know what the tenths/hundredths were for the last three 50s.
so they said that i was first to the wall after the first 50, then kind of up in the top three in the second 50.. then it went downhill from there.

i'm actually pretty happy with it though. kassie swam in my heat, and she did a second better, i think. but that's really close to my best time, and this year i've been swimming slower than 2:53s!

i got my best time when i was racing in a heat with julie mazmanian way back when. i was very scared of having her beat me, as i always am when i race breaststroke against teammates. perhaps in the trenton pool. i remember feeling my legs prickle, then gel, but i kept thinking all i had to do was keep swinging them. it really was like i was swinging them from the hip. i couldn't control my leg muscles anymore, they had quit and gone to lunch. i kept thinking, "i'm never going to complain about pain at practice ever again."

it's crazy. you feel amazing during your second 50, but as soon as you turn and about 12m into your third 50...

i'm not sure what place i came in.

then it was 50br, which i was seeded first in.
this may or may not sound pretentious, but i remember walking up towards my lane, before my race. i was looking at the numbers on the blocks, and when it came to number 4 i thought, "it's about damn time..."

i haven't raced in the fast lane in so long..

and this time i had a good chance of winning it.

it was a packed heat. i knew that kassie was swimming in it. right beside me in lane 3 was the girl who had beat me in 100br, placed first in 200br, but who i had beat in the br leg of the relay. in lane 5 was Dee, a mac swimmer who is great at br, but hasn't been training it because of an injured leg. she's still been getting amazing times in it though. she's really competitive and really wanted to win. she's a racer who races, which is something i can only do occasionally. we were the last heat, and i was placed first, hence being in lane 4. i felt nervous. i'm used to being the underdog, and i used to motivate myself by thinking of all the people who didn't think i could pull off a pb, or didn't think i had been training enough. but i have been training more than ever before, and training well (not the usual: uh oh.. feeling tired. maybe it's a good time to have a stomach ache...). people knew i was a breaststroker now, and i guess i had something to defend (against Dee and kassie) and live up to (getting close to my pb. which i have been actually getting farther from, at other meets). The mac team is amazing when they want to be. so supportive and loud. they were chanting ("M--A--C") before the race, and i knew people were curious to see how this race between Dee and I would turn out. Dee sometimes seems a lot tougher mentally than me. She can swim almost any stroke, and swim it well, whereas i'm best at breaststroke, mediocre at sprint free (ahem. 50s only), a last resort in backstroke, and just plain entertaining in butterfly. Dee wanted me to race her at the last meet (the one at mac, against waterloo) in 50br, which would involve me switching heats. i used the excuse that i didn't know if i was allowed, but really, i was too fucking scared of losing a heat to her, which would be worse than having her get a faster time, because if we're in the same heat everyone can see. sad? maybe, but it's the truth.

So. (haha i love this post. i'm self-obsessed, what can i say?)
I wanted to win the heat, the race, the event, so badly. The cheers were making me breathe heavily, and by the time they called us up onto the blocks my heart was beating in my throat. i think i was sneering. haha oh the testosterone (yep).

we lept off, and i find out later that i was last off the blocks. boo that.

i was really sensitive to where everyone else in the pool was. at least, the two swimmers in the lanes beside me. You're looking straight ahead (or.. at the line on the bottom of the pool. whatever) but you are actually focused on the side of your eye. you can swear you're seeing a shape moving there, but chances are it's your imagination. it's more like you can feel them there, and you know they're there, and it pisses you off, freaks you out, and will either make you extremely tired, or give you a burst of energy. so i was going.. i wanted to win so badly, it was different. usually i just want to get a better time, or beat a certain time, but here i didn't care what my time was, only that no one else won.

so we do the turn. people yell in my face. aw you guys are great.

something changed after my pullout. it was as if during the first length, i was really scared of losing, but in the second length, it was like i was mad at the other swimmers for trying to beat me. grey told me my last 20m looked really good, so maybe that's it.

i won it, my time was 35.7, which i'm really happy with. it's the closest i've been to my pb (35.65?) since i made the pb.

this was the first meet this year where there was an electronic scoreboard that showed the results of all the lanes (not just one lane at a time). it was .. i don't know.. not quite heartwarming, but i felt nostalgic, looking up at the board searching for my lane and what my place was, where everyone else was, matching up lanes and swimmers.

i was so glad i beat my heat i kicked the wall (of the pool. in the water). hahaa yeah, i know. i'm a neanderthal.
afterwards a lot of people asked if me if it was a good time for me or not. i think they thought i'd be happy, but when they saw me kick the touchpad they probably wondered.

it's kind of embarassing: when i kicked it i thought, "fucking right!"
because (at least, i think) it's out of character for me.


oh my. what swimming can do.

god.

i'm so glad i won that race.

we won the meet and brought home a banner, for the 3rd year in a row. i never thought about what it would feel like to see gaye stand in the front of the bus and unfurl the banner, then hold it up for us. we knew we had won, but it felt different when you see the banner there. it looks so much better than all the banners that are already up on display at the pool, even though it's the exact same design. my year's first banner!

gaye did a backflip on the bus on saturday. on the way home.

jim tried to do one, many times, on the way home sunday. he was unsuccessful.

the song of the women's team is that hey song. you know. the one that goes 'hey!' do... do-do... do. do. do... do-do.. do-do...

doo do. hey! do do do do do..

yeah, that's it.

haha that was lame (literally, disabled).

the montreal canadiens goal song, i guess i could have said. and that all would have been much less painful.

aiight. my mom's here.

maybe more later. i have more to add, i'm sure.

[the more i was promising you: the final score of the meet..

marauder women won with a lead of about 400 points over the second place team, guelph.
marauder men won with a lead of about 23 points over the second place team, guelph. i don't know what order the other teams came in..

by the way, guelph has a really good backstroker whose name is jackie chan. enjoy that, you jerks with normal names.]

big meet tomorrow.

i get to shave tomorrow.

even my arms, as i told laurie.

i wonder if i still know how..

the tiny scabs on my leg from when i fell up the stairs at swimming might prove a challenge.

get to see jo again tomorrow

i'm nervous

also because i really want fran to like mac

i wasn't sure what to think after my first .. and second .. campus tours.

kinda hungry

really really REALLY shouldn't still be awake when meet is tomorrow.

got lots to do

looked at pictures with laurie and gave our characters faces.

they're awesome.

our characters will have dimensions.

and deaths!

hooray.

arm's sore. uh oh..

excited for tomorrow..

hope i do well..

first real meet in a long while..

woo..

i hear guelph doesn't like us..

last OUAs, they stole our banner that says "mac chics kick" and used duct tape to make it say "mac chics lick"? how vulgar. except that it was found to be funny, and left that way.

okay. i got to get going.

stomach hurt.

bad day for school today.

explain later, but probably won't.

today i met with the first year science academic advisor, as well as the two professors who are developping the biophysics stream of the honors physics programme. it was a little intimidating. i thought i really wanted to go into honors physics with biophysics but it's not going to go.

One of the professors is working in what i thought i would be most interested in; molecular biophysics. But it doesn't seem like it can work out. Some of the med school prereqs wouldn't fit. it's disappointing..

i need to figure out what i'll go into next year.
I really want to stay with biology, chem, and physics. i can't choose and i don't see myself not taking any of those subjects. it just makes sense that i'll keep learning all of them.

Honors Biochemistry with Computational and Physical Biochemistry Specialization is a new addition to my list of maybes.

it's all pretty scary.
maybe i should just take a core honors programme, so that way i'll have tons of electives to work with. but if medical school doesn't work out, it'll be hard to get into grad school without a specialization.

but if i'm in a specialization, when am i going to have time to take humanities and/or social science courses with essay components!?!

i can't decide..
i don't like the "computational" part of that title, though looking at the courses it's not totally computer based ..

this feels like a bigger decision than last year's big decision, which was which university to go to.

if i did the honors biophysics, i'd graduate from the physics and astronomy department. but if i don't like it partway through, i'd feel like i'd be stuck, because i wouldn't be able to move into biology or so on.. but the academic advisor said you're never really totally stuck, and i guess she'd know more about it than me.

i wouldn't be worried about this right now, except that i have to decide which programme to go into so i know which maths to take next term.

i want to take all the maths. i guess there's no real point to taking the linear algebra if i'm not going into physics, but i kind of want to.

undergrad should be 5 years. it would thereby be 1/5th less heavy.

or i can work a fifth harder and save thousands of dollars.

...

i can't decide!

laurie were up the whole freaking night writing the outline for the best time-travelling romance mystery novel you're ever going to read.

hahah we made ourselves characters in it.


it's awesome.

(we're going to forget the whole thing by tomorrow)

the ending is complicated though..

there's a lesson.

about history.
and patterns.

it's great.

i found that email that had a bunch of those university light bulb jokes. and since i know dayna likes them too...

how many queen's students does it take to change a lightbulb?

one. but it never gets done. he'll just stand there with the bulb in the socket, and wait for the world to revolve around him.

ahee.

i miss rosco a lot..

ever since laurie changed her display picture to the one of her screaming rosco's headfeathers down, while holding my remote.

ahh i feel great.

for a few reasons.

one being the comments on my hateful post! or hate-filled. thanks guys. and i wipe a tear from my cheek..

another is that today was the last bio lab. which makes me a bit sad at the same time. it was dna umm. what's the word.. dna restriction and electrophoresis. we did it at sci centre, but it was fun today too. we got to do a lot more ourselves. like handle the suspected carcinogenic substances without gloves. hooray!

we didn't, really. but i wasn't taking as many precautions as we were supposed to.

my group was pretty fun. we were just being stupid and laughing a lot. like the time when we were removing a comb from the gel. the comb was supposed to be carefully removed so that the little pockets in the gel it made weren't ripped. the pockets were where the dna was going to go. irene, who was taking it out, got scared halfway through and started saying she couldn't do it. she kept repeating it, and in the end, she was yelling it really loudly, and calling for help. i think she actually couldn't lift it out.

there were a few other things, but that story wasn't too funny, so i think i'll leave it at that.

i suspect i may be one of those people who either swarm in and take over the whole project/assignment, or sits back and contributes nothing.

for example, the physics presentation. it was planned out to be presented evenly between emma d and myself, but afterward she confessed that she felt like she didn't get to say anything. which might explain why she kept interrupting my sample calculations to do the demo. that was annoying, and i didn't understand why she couldn't see that she was totally switching subjects on the class, while i was trying to explain something different. i think it was because she admitted before hand that she didn't actually understand the subject, and kept saying that she was nervous. I think i thought i was doing her a favour by explaining everything, but i guess she thought it made her look like she didn't do anything.

i hope my spatula is still in the physics room.

yesterday, i only left the house to go to swimming. today, it was for the bio lab and swimming.

i don't know what's wrong with me, and why i'm suddenly slacking off so, but i'm just glad it's happening now, and not earlier in the year. I started out so gung-ho, and fizzled out as i went along.

so yep.

i finally did well on a chem quiz! right now, my quiz marks are below the class average for quizzes. but if i drop my lowest one, which you do get to do, i'll be higher! that's only because of my latest quiz mark. i'm so glad the labs are worth more than the quizzes..

my bio test #2 mark is better than i thought it would be as well.
just in time for bio test #3, which is this friday.

bleh. but it's the last test before exams. at least it's not chem.

one of the non-varsity swimmers, but who still swims with us, complimented me on my breaststroke. it made my day!

i emailed a professor about the new Honors Physics with Biophysics Specialization programme, which i'm thinking about. sounds incredibly fancy, hmm? (take THAT for prestige, tammy-boy. jk)

he said to drop by his office and he'll tell me all about it! he was "pleased to hear" i was thinking about entering it. it's strange seeing and/or meeting the professors. they're all very young looking, and seem uncomfortable, almost, when you call them dr. so and so. well, at least, they always introduce themselves with their first names. i guess that's normal.

it's a new programme, going through it's maiden year this year. that might be bad.

so other than that, i'm thinking about Honors Molecular Biology. I think that's the part of Bio that I was most interested in this year. But they say first year courses are never a good gauge of what upper year courses are like in the same subject. I just know I get confused easily in genetics. I think i've been confused ever since the start. I keep forgetting what's a homologous chromosome, what's a sister chromatid..
i think my problem was that i couldn't tell if a chromosome had to have the four arms, or if the stick ones could be a chromosome too. i'm still not sure about the answer.. i should go look, seeing as how that's what Bio test #3 is about.. and that's pretty basic information..
hm.

but instead i blog.
always the better choice.

so yeaah. Honors Mol Bio. it seems like the better choice because a lot, if not all, of the prereqs for other med schools would be mandatory courses for that programme.

Kat, from swimming, the girl who is doing a Math and Bio double major (Which is actually it's own programme. so is it still a double major? she said it was, so meh. she takes computational biology courses. and LIKES them.) and also aiming for med school said that Biophysics will be really heavy and be hard on swimming. but i'm sure molecular bio is too.

Molecular bio is a limited enrollment course. Nearly everyone in there will be going for medicine, i'd imagine. I think it'll be a little more competitive than i may prefer. i guess that's okay though..

The physics and Astronomy department are always trying to attract people to their programmes. I think a lot of people go into science thinking they're going to medicine, so think it's a bad idea to go into that faculty. So they say that if you decide to go into a second year Phys and A programme, they'll give you $500 (ehh.), find you a summer job (in research? physics research? that'd be kind of cool..), and something else, which i can't remember.

To be honest, a part of me wants to do the Biophysics programme just because it's different and I think it'd be a smaller class. Plus who the hell has ever done Biophysics before? it's not like kinesiology, i hear it's the physics of say.. ion-channels and such. how the protein folds and.. ohh.. i hope it's more exciting than how i'm making it out to be...

I wouldn't have any electives in second year. ah vell..

wait.. would i not have any chem in second year??!
that'd be interesting..
i have mixed feelings about that.

I don't really want to specialize.

Aiko and Herpreet saw a MASSIVE centipede downstairs on the counter. they just started screaming and banging on things. it went on for a while. i thought it was because they saw the ladybug again. there was a ladybug in the kitchen while i was cooking, and they gasped at the sight of it. aiko thinks it's one of "those viscious yellow ones that bite. they're not cute!"

aiko, herpreet, and amoy all have cornrows suddenly.

it was pretty funny to see aiko and herpreet renact the centipede's movements.

eunice just came home. she had a really bad stats test. off to cheer her up (i.e. excuse to eat cake).

Big-ish meet this weekend.

i reread some of my old posts. i noticed funny mistakes. too for two and such.

yeah, funny. like i said.

gotta pee.

g'BA!

p.s. the girl julia was describing in her blog, stephanie, sounds like a stephanie. although i like my name, i have to admit, it's a good name for a ditz. i remember at one of my queen's mini-enrichment things, it was a short-story writing one. one girl was describing her character, which was a valley girl. when asked to describe what a valley girl was, she said, "you know.. an airhead.. probably named stephanie". the group leader found this pretty amusing and wanted to know what a valley girl's name would be. she asked me, and i said courtney would be a pretty good valley girl name. it turned out the girl who said steph was a ditzy name was named courtney. how 'bout that.

stef asked why i wasn't in rez if i had the right average. i told him about deciding between u of t and mac, and choosing mac at the last possible moment. well no. the last possible moment had passed. lost the spot in rez.

"whoa, so you could have been in mckay! we could have been roomates [uh, something tells me no. and that's the fact that you don't have a vagina]! you could have woken up beside me after a floor party one day!"



yeah, it's been for the best.

stef is a good guy. but he's SUCH a guy (shut up.)

i wonder how different my life would be right now if i were in rez.

i think i'd be going through extremes of emotion a lot more often. really happy, then really annoyed.

i enjoy hearing about people who don't like their rez situation.

my two knuckles on my right hand have become so calloused that the skin is splitting. calloused from chlorine, wind, cold..
i'm not too sure why it's just those too.

so now i wear mitts everywhere. it won't be too cold, but those cuts really hurt.

feel free to ask me a question.

but don't just walk in, put a paper on my books, and point at the question, like a fucking dog nosing at an empty bowl. you have a voice. use it, you jackass.

just because i say "come in", i'm not saying "of course i'll stop whatever i'm working on and help -- no. spoonfeed -- you with a question of your choosing."

If I don't understand the question myself, don't act huff and sigh. I'm doing YOU the favour, asshole.

I'll help you with your question, but that doesn't mean I'll sit and hear you bitch about all your attempts to solve it. I did what you wanted me to do, now leave, and quickly.

Stop checking yourself out in my fucking mirror, you self-absorbed bag of shit!

No, i do not want to take a break. Yes, i realize all my friends are swimmers. No, that doesn't mean we are drunk whenever we aren't swimming.

Just because you spent all this time defining yourself by your marks, doesn't mean I do. It's none of my business if you've developed an inferiority complex, but don't try to make yourself feel better by implying that I have an unbalanced life.

If i'm messy, it's because I want to be. If i'm organized, it's because i chose to be. Fuck off, it's none of your concern anyway.

One second you're trying to convince me how good you are in a subject. the next you're telling me how it's a "stupid" subject, because it's "useless". which explains why you can't understand it, and why it's mandatory. way to go.

If you want to compare our fucking marks, then come out and say "i want to compare our marks", or "let's pace each other". If you want a competition, than we'll have one. Otherwise, you are only being obvious, petty, and tiring.

Don't expect me to take part in any compliment fishing of any kind. Go ahead and be offended, but frankly, you are pathetic anyway. It's best you figured that out sooner than later.

Don't act like you know me, don't interrupt me, and don't use my fucking calculator without asking if you can touch it first.

Get out of my room as soon as I stop talking to you, and don't come back.

a little tact would be nice.

sometimes i can't fucking believe how plainly stupid they can be.
not intellectually. i mean they simply lack common sense.

i would wish a curse on them, but their insecurities take care of that.

more to the hypothesis that insecurity, not money, is the root of all evil.

the best waste of time is spent with krystian. or maybe laurie.

i miss him (him being laurie), and everyone, a lot.

about 5000 tonnes worth.

it's a lot.
enough to squish a bus.

i told eunice all about my gassiness.
she laughed and laughed.

we're getting along better and better.

i'm just being honest

i feel superior when i notice the spelling and/or grammar mistakes of others.

and coming from me, the girl who visits dictionary.com more than her mother, that's not really saying much.

i.e. i spell bad, kids!

(thought i was going to put in a spelling mistake on purpose? i thought i would too..)

yep.

i detest mondays.

not looking forward to stef and nawaaz in the physics labs..

eunice calls me stephie..
stephiepie..
stephiekins..

robin calls me sweetie..

stephmeister..
stephizzle..

stef is always hitting on me, then telling me about how he "grinded so many girls to dust. they had to call the cops, cause they couldn't even recognize them anymore", then about how he's a one-lady gentleman, then about steph, then back to hitting on me..

but i'm feeling pretty good.

i talked to tam tam for a few good hours about different things. it reminded me of how i felt a lot last year.
i hope he comes to mac. but then again, i hope he does it for his own reasons. i think you'd be happy at u of t, it's just different is all..

emma, my physics presentation partner, had the same scarf as me. we both like it despite (or for?) it's harry potter-esque qualities.

breaststroke tired me out so much at practice today, i couldn't even swim it. what's wrong with me?
maybe i think about it too much.

mike taught me to do this thing where you swim in kind of a wave motion. it took a while to get used to it, and i felt like it was making me pretty fast. but i can't do it anymore. it's too hard, too tiring. i feel like i'm dragging my legs. i'm always out of breath. why?

i can't find the emma-black-clips anywhere here. i ended up having to get the overpriced ones they sell in singles.

it's so friggin' hot in herre.

i love milk. it is a love that will truly never die. i finished 4L in two days. my gut, however, begs to differ.
80% of asians are lactose intolerent. the curse of my people has struck yet again. soy milk and lactose-free just don't taste the same. they taste leathery. give me my skimmy.

i don't know if being buzzed/drunk is pleasent or not. it's just like being really tired, for me. i ended up slurring a lot, moving really smoothly, and constantly smiling. it also made me really good at pool. i didn't drink much. but i never drink, so i guess it doesn't take much anyways. i won't be doing it again anytime soon. last week was so hellish.. i think i was looking for a diversion.
actually, i was already really tired to start with.

leah said she heard i'm staying with steph c and an upper year in guelph next weekend. steph c and i get along alright. she doesn't think she can be close with a lot of people on the team, but leah and i are two who she likes being around, i guess. but i still can't believe she made out with kipp...

most rooms have 4 people. i guess we're lucky.

on rookie night, leah and i shared jeff, who was assigned to us. eileen and i went home with jeff (walked to our respective homes, in the company of jeff). it was really funny. we walked by jeff's floor on the street. they were all going out, and we were coming home. mud covered. wearing garbage bags. jeff in a tube top, eileen and i in clown makeup. it was about 2 degrees. sexay! ow ow!

i feel like i should say something to him when i see him. i thought i did see him, and i felt like i was having a heart attack. i don't know why. everytime i see a minivan i get nervous. i'd like to know if people are actually looking at me when i think they are. i'd also like to know what they're thinking about.
when i first saw him, i think i gawked. i freaking stared. i probably leaned forward too. what the hell..?!

leah thinks he's weird.
i think sean was surprised at this comment.
i said i thought he was a good guy... and that is 98% based upon how he looks.

nah, i'm not shallow at all.

this one girl at swimming always seems to be looking at me. she wears an expression that could mean anything. it's almost like she's watching me and trying to figure me out.

sean is safe. haha ew. i'm so glad he came out with us!

we ended up not going to mike's party, nor to the conti's birthday.

wait.. i think i told you all this.

i came on here to blog about something specific, and now i can't remember what it was.


ah yes.

"Brown!" "Pooh!"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAA

a flower pour vous, laurie.

i'm getting these weird zits between my brows. they're not like the normal soft, squishy ones. they feel like they have tiny pellets inside. they beg for a poppin'. usually i'm really good at popping zits, but these always end up bloody and weird looking for days.

me = glamorous.
and you wish you were too

what an emotional end to a plain day

my mom called to tell me she's visiting chris in waterloo, so she's going to try to drop in for some supper.

i hadn't seen her in so long..

i feel really sad

it was a good dinner, with good conversation. unfortunately, it's good in that she vented a lot. life is so unfair to her. she does everything right, and she's so selfless, yet it keeps beating her down. but i guess if doing the good thing made life easier, everyone would be doing good things.

we talked about james e. she asked if i heard any more info on it. i hadn't. i wasn't sure if i was sad when i heard, but now when i think that he used to be just a little cell, that grew into a baby, who learned to walk and talk, and think, but now he's gone. it seems like life comes about so easily, and is taken away just as easily.

she asked when the last time i saw him was. it was his goodbye/birthday party. i don't remember how old we were. he gave me a trophy and sucker because he had a crush on me. i was the only girl there, except for his sister and mom. we (sister and mom, and i) played on the synthesizer. either his mom was really good, or i couldn't tell that she had set it to demo, and was tricking me into being impressed. the house was really nice. there were boxes of things in the basement. that's where the trophy was from. his mom encouraged him to give it to me. she thought it was cute, i guess. mark k may or may not have been there. i think it was by the bay.

when i think that he only had about 10 years left at that point. when it becomes like a countdown..

i thought about the doctor who choked on a piece of bread.

there was a neurosurgeon who went to sci school. i think he was semester 11 or something. he drowned swimming out to a small island, while vacationing with his young family.

see? so easily gone.

i got upset when we realized i wouldn't see my mom for at least a month.
she was the weepy one before then, but i guess seeing me so sad forced her to be the support, yet again.

i think it made her feel better, seeing that i still needed her.

eunice came up to talk about her night. i'm getting along with her better than with robin. i find robin prissy and annoying.
i somehow spilt to eunice the whole messy story. well, not all of it, but a good majority of it. i don't remember why, but i ended up retelling the story of how mark and i were crying together when my dad was confronted. i ended up crying. sometimes it just spills out. it's happened before.

i talked about joan and how being with/around her and sometimes my dad too long makes me physically ill. i tried to explain how i feel the most extreme of emotions all at once, and feel literally and figuratively torn inside.

it may have been the first time i complained about having to deal with some of the shit i deal with to someone not in the family. i've told people about it, but i always tried to make it obvious that i could deal with it, and i accepted that i had to deal with it.

my mom just called.
it turns out she brought stuff to give me my flu shot, and forgot all about it.
see what i mean? she didn't even tell me she was going to give me a needle!

next weekend, i guess. looking forward to it..

jan and jah-yen named their baby boy yoshi. "do they not realize what they're doing?!" <-- me and my brother's reaction.
yes, yoshi as in mario's yoshi.
and yes, they are aware of it.
and YES, they did it BECAUSE of it!

oh dear..

yoshi.

his middle name is japanese too. he doesn't have a chinese name yet. i feel a little miffed that he's probably going to know more about being japanese than being chinese, since they never talk about jah-yen's family, always go to japan, rarely to china, always visit jan's side of the family..

it's not really chinese/japanese thing i guess. i just don't like how it's more like jah-yen is a part of jan's family, rather than an equal balance.

i hope his chinese name is awesome, so he'll go by it instead of yoshi or his middle name, which i think means something like "little man". or maybe i made that up. who knows.

auntie doreen seems really enchanted by yoshi. she went to visit him a while ago. she says he looks really mature because he has a lot of hair, and it's always combed over to one side. his head's really big, and he's a good baby.

he also lays multicoloured spotted eggs, and when he eats turtle shells he can sometimes fly.

i'm sorry.

frig, yoshi?!

eesh.

last week, while walking home through hospital, i thought "i'd be dr.sun". that creeps me out. my dad is dr.sun (obviously) and i really don't want to be called dr.sun. i thought maybe dr.steph? that sounds a little too ...

dr.weiming?

dr. you're-not-a-doctor-so-why-are-you-thinking-about-these-things?

yeah, i like that one.

life is complicated.
so so complicated..

i wish i could take a break from it. just.. sleep for a long while. without time passing at all.

the stupidest thing you've ever read

here are some statistics i came across regarding med school.

for 2003/2004:

Mac:
3.75% applicants were accepted.
(138/3680)

Ottawa:
5%
(123/2447)

Queen's:
7.2%
(100/1388)

Toronto:
11%
(198/1757)

Western:
7.7%
(133/1728)

The three schools who still require the MCAT, (queen's, u of t, and western) had nearly half the applicants. i was really surprised to see toronto's % accepted was the highest.

i don't know if this is one of these things where i only realize how much it meant to me after i can't have it.

i always said i would be just as happy in education or research.

maybe i'm just trying to cover my ass in case i fail.

i don't know what will happen if i don't get in. does it matter that much to me? i can't tell. maybe it doesn't, or maybe it's been so deeply ingrained into my brain for so long that i've never really believed it would go any other way.

reading the admissions requirements makes me wonder if i will have a chance. it seems so unbelievable, that i would ever get into med school, but it seems just as unbelievable that i wouldn't. do you know what i mean?

i'm so scared of not making it, that i almost don't want to try.

then there's the med school in the north, the one in UBC, and the rest of canada..

no, i really want to get in.

do i just really want to get in, or do i actually want to be a doctor?
i don't even know.

i want to be in school forever. i find the idea of graduating from school at the age of 29 appealing (haha i guess that can be worked out, even without med school...)
i'd rather be in med school than be an actual doctor. why is that?

i walk through the hospital everyday. i'm always looking out for a med student, trying to pick them out. i don't want to set myself up for the disappointment of my life.

i feel like how i feel before a race.
or when i'm looking up swimming times.
like the cool kid i am.

i can't see myself as a doctor. i can see myself doing research with a small, close-knit team in a university lab somewhere.

but everyday?

how can anyone do the same thing everyday.
i guess that's what i'm doing.

maybe a prof. with a balance between teaching and research.

i like how i act as if i have control over it.

maybe i shouldn't see it as it's out of my control.

i feel like i might be one of those kids who thinks they'll get into medicine despite all the signs.

the morning after lunar new year, a couple of us from sci centre were eating breakfast at a greasy spoon place by alexgirl's apartment. the subject of our dream careers came up. a lot of people weren't too sure. i wonder if krystian will ever write an article for national geographic. i said i didn't know what i wanted to be. i think robin said, "a doctor!"

i said i wanted to be a neurologist. i felt ashamed and embarassed. i think i voiced my feelings. i don't think anyone understood why i felt embarassed about wanting to go into neurology.

i still feel a little embarassed when i say i want to go into neurology. i feel like i'm revealing myself as just some girl who sat down and tried to figure out which specialty, if any, she wanted to go into. as if she had control over it. i feel like how you'd feel if you told a cancer researcher you were very knowledgable in cancer research. you don't know what you're talking about and you have no idea what it's like to actually be doing it.

it seems like such a specific thing to aim for.

sometimes when people ask what i want to be, i'm vague on purpose. in case i don't get there? i don't know. the more general my answer is, the larger my safety net.

i feel like if i throw myself into this, it'll just hurt more when i fall. so if i just put in a little less effort, if i fail, i can always say, "well if i had given it my all. i'm sure..."

just like with swimming. i didn't go to practice because then i could say that my times would always be faster if i had gone to practice. i kept excuses in my back pocket, but now i don't really understand why. either way, the outcome was the same. why didn't i at least go for it?

so why don't i just go for it now.
it's hard to see the difference between pessimism and realism.

i wish i had a hint as to how this was going to work out.

i'm scared in case i don't get in.

i'd be so upset.

it takes the average med student 2 to 3 attempts to get into a school. my first application is going to happen after third year. during third year. holy fuck.

i hate answering the questions regarding contributions to your community.
sometimes it seems like i do a lot, but on paper it's nothing.

so if i apply in third year, and get rejected, will i keep trying?

my dad makes it seem like i only have one shot.
"your first three years of university will be miserable, you'll shut yourself in your room and lose yourself in your books. i don't envy you, it's what i had to do, and i hated it. but once you're in, you're in. you get the payback for the rest of your life. it's like someone is paying you 2 million dollars to study. would you do it then? the hardest part is getting in. it's only for the three years.."

chris submitted his applications not too long ago. i'm not sure if this is his second or third attempt. he even applied to the states, though he really doesn't want to go there.

i feel like i put myself at risk of being ridiculed when i tell people what i really want, and what my ultimate goal would be, if i weren't so scared of not achieving it. ridiculed because i don't know if i even have a chance.

i'd like to know who is going to get into med school. i wonder who they are.

it's not that i feel like i'm not good enough. i feel like no one is.

even lots of today's doctors are really bad doctors. they shouldn't be there.
compassion is so lacking in the field.

it's just being a doctor.
all they have to do is look in a book. they're just a medium.
a computer could do their job.

both my parents agree to that. they find it amusing.

i won't get in unless i put in my all.
if i put in my all, and don't get in,
i'll have no option but to admit that anything i ever decide to do
was my second choice.

it's that damn second choice.

it's so scary..

hello jello

tonight was good, all-round fun. and that's fun as in julia's way, as well as zach's way. but not laurie's way, because that'd be too friggin' creepy.

the two friends who were supposed to come to visit chris didn't, because they had too much work. so we weren't sure what was going on, really.

i skipped swimming to study for chem. chem test went better than the last one, but not perfect. i'm feeling indifferent to it right now.

saw robin afterwards, she was waiting for mike. there's been some tension between us this week. i'm finding her really annoying and snapped at her, and since then she's been acting funny towards me. i think it bothered her that i did better than her in all our exams so far. or maybe i just wanted to mention that to make myself look good. or maybe not.

after the chem test, which went for 2 hours, not 1, like all the other tests, i called up leah and went over to her house. helped her choose something to wear. a lot of things i suggested she threw out, because she'd be showing too much cleavage, or her boobs would look too big. it was different from what i'm used to. we then went over to chris' house.

my fingernails are really really dirty..
and i was just eating with my hands. ew..

leah had told me that chris' house was really really clean and neat. but this was shocking. it seems like the further you are from campus, the nicer the houses are, and the cheaper it is. i guess it makes some kind of sense. leah's house is tiny, and kinda filty, but the rent is $80 cheaper than mine. anyhoo..

chris was watching indiana jones on his computer when we came in. he's a relaxed, laid back guy. he's pretty witty, friendly, and outgoing. we talked and whatnot. i asked where all his housemates were, since the house was pretty quiet. they were all gone, except for sean b. who is the triathlete and on the swim team (i've mentioned this too many times before). we went downstairs to say hi, and he was watching some show where people get them to film their partners cheating, then film the confrontation. cheaters, i think it is. there were two really really good looking bikes in the basement, which was finished and carpeted. they belonged to sean and to the other girl who lived downstairs, krystal, who is also sean's girlfriend of four years (he's a second year). sean's a hardcore triathlete. he's sponsored by new balance and powerbar, his bike was about $8500, and the biking and swimming parts of his race are on the international level. there was a lot of other fancy bike equipment down there too.

so leah and i had not talked to sean before. actually, i think leah has, but it's only been in passing. he asked what we (chris, leah and i) were doing, and chris told him we were hanging out before going to player's. so sean asks to come along, since his night is obviously not going to get any better. of course he can.

soon enough, we're sitting in their kitchen, talking and such. chris gets a call from his friend matt, who asks what chris is doing. matt comes over, and now there's 5 of us.

eventually, we head over to player's. we took a shortcut through a dark gravel alley, that had a wall on one side, and a barbed wire fence on the other, with a parking lot on the other side, and what i hear was a candy factory even further on the other side!

we weren't sure if we'd be able to stay, since leah and i are both underage. it was matt's birthday.. today (15th), he's turning 20. matt's a fine arts second year. he likes it a lot, it sounds like a lot of fun. we get in no problem, despite my yelling out "i just turned 18" at one point.

chris and matt went to play airhockey, which left leah and i to get to know sean a little better. i'm really glad he came, it was fun to hang out. and make a new friend. hahaha aw.

matt challenged me to pool. i promptly kicked his ass, mopped the floor with it, then handed it back to him in a plastic bag. holy crap, i've never played so well. all the flukes looked intentional, and there were a ton of flukes.

sean then challenged me. he beat me.. actually, i beat myself, because i sank the 8-ball early in the game. but it wasn't even close at that point. t'was fun. the pool tables were tiny, like the ones at ace's.

we stayed until closing. on the way home, chris was showing off some of his breakdancing moves; walking on his hands, jumping into a back flip. pretty good for a drunk guy. he was definately not as witty nor eloquent after drinking.

i think everyone was more drunk than they thought they were. i think everyone mentioned that at one point or another.

a chicken fight was had.

then more sitting in the kitchen, and downstairs. matt went home first (at about 3:30am) because he was having a party later that day for his birthday. we may or may not go, depending on what two girls on the swim team (twins, also having a birthday) decide to do. at about 4, sean decided to go to bed, after saying "alright, i think i'll have to get to bed" about four times prior. chris, myself, and leah were slouched on the couch, and leah didn't want to walk home. we were offered a spot to sleep (on couch, and empty bed) but i didn't want to stay over. especially since i haven't showered (whut?) and was wearing my contacts. so we eventually left. to go to macdonalds, which was actually a macdonalds express in the esso station (sorry, julia). surprise, they were open, and so we got food and ate on the way home. split up, then told each other we weren't dead nor raped once we reached our respective rooms.

and then i sat and blogged.

and now i sleep.

today was a good day.

i had my camera, but i didn't want to take pictures. so none were taken.

i like how it wasn't a big crazy event, it was just hanging out and getting to know each other.

leah told me in the bathroom that i was probably her best friend from the team. aw..

i had better remember that she has my red hoodie.
i have too many hoodies.
i think i wear a hoodie everyday.
enough hoodies to wear one everyday. and not smell (too much).

i liked how matt thought leah, chris and i went to school together. when he heard he was wrong, he guessed that leah and i were roommates. wrong, then he guessed that sean, leah and i went to school together. then he stopped guessing.

i sleep now.

i should go to more practices.. at least the morning ones.
..uh oh..

nah, it's not happening again.

yesterday's physics test was crap.

the only mistake i saw i made on the calc test was that i said 0.4 was a smaller number than 0. i guess i'd rather make an incredibly stupid mistake than one that is related to the material we were being tested on. but hey.

i ran out of time on the physics one, leaving me to guess on more than a quarter of the test.

i had a week to do the biology formal lab.
i started and finished it in the last 8 hours before it was due.

i'm ultra-screwed for chemistry tonight.
it's the test i've been most dreading.

did i ever tell you how i feel like i could enjoy chemistry, if only i worked harder to understand it?

there is temporary art set up all over campus. like the oversized beach ball in front of life sciences building, or the strange pile of what looks like cardboard at the base of a big tree by the engineering building. the theme is something like re:cycle.

one of the artists (this is my favourite piece) rented one of those signs where you put in the letters yourself. the custom-signs, i guess. but the artist puts in little messages, like
"doctor told me to give more blood
cold out i still cant find the cat"
i made that one up. but something similar to that.
the message changes regularily.
today on one side it said,
"NOV 14 met with ryerson student..." i wish i remembered the rest of that part.
the other side i really liked.
when i saw it, i was walking home. the sign is on the lawn beside one of the GO bus stops on campus. there were a group of students getting on the bus, and one of them was sitting on the sign's support bars, waiting for the bus line to shorten. it was cold out, and he looked a little tired, a little sad, isolated.
the sign he was leaning on said, "seeing all these smart kids makes me feel bad"

a couple of hot-dog shaped hot-dog stands have popped up on campus. $2.50! my eye. i can make my own pig innard/pidgeon meat/dog ear sausage for much less.

i bought a scarf from the bookstore. if only i hadn't left my grey one at home. this one is pretty long, dark red, and has two mcmaster coat of arms weaved into the ends, with "mcmaster university" weaved along the length of it. i threw it on my bed when i came home between classes, and looking at it now, it looks like something from harry potter.

i pulled a near all nighter last night, due to the bio lab.
i feel less tired than ever, today.
i also look less tired.
how does that work?

so hamilton didn't get the 2010 commonwealth games. that's too bad. i was looking at the plans for the new pool. 10 lanes, 50 metres! and they were going to keep the existing one too. even though i wouldn't be around to use it, it'd still be pretty neat. our pool was built in the 30s, and it is quite possibly the ugliest thing you'd ever saw (the poor grammar emphasizes it's ugliness). it has strange plastic looking tapestries hanging along the sides.

it's a 6 lane pool. at least it's 50 meters. i heard waterloo's is 25 yards, not meters. i remember looking at last year's results from mac vs. waterloo, and the times were crazy fast. i think i posted that too. but it turns out they were in waterloo's pool.

that'd be cool.. to swim a 50 br in 32 seconds..

next week is a taper week in swimming. ahh i look forward to it.
university training isn't as hard as i remember club swimming to be.
but then again, i think i'd be going faster if i was in club. but oh well.

there was a blood donor clinic in the hospital today. it was situated around the base of a staircase that i use to get to and from campus. it was pretty badly designed. or maybe they made it so open on purpose, to encourage people to join in. either way, it looked a little eerie, even though i've been to blood donor clinics before. but it was pretty quiet, but packed. they had the refreshments table tucked under the stairs, so people were sitting in the darker part of the room, watching everyone else, and nibbling on food. the people who were out on the stretchers were right smack in the middle of the room. the little machine to keep the blood from coagulating always fascinated me. i like to watch it. (...)

i couldn't help but feel like i had to rush through the clinic, or else someone would jab me with a needle.
i think that comes from all my memories of my mom chasing me down to give me my flu shots. she'd bring us all to the office, "for company" but she'd really be planning on giving us our shots. i'd hide under the desks, or say i had to go to the bathroom, then never come out (well, i obviously came out eventually. but you know). i have a vivid memory of flying into a rage when my brother told my mom how i was under the desk. i refused to get out so she tried to give me the shot while i was still there. it's scary, trying to fight off someone with a needle. i think i got pretty slappy.

yeah, that was last year.

once andrew ran out into the parking lot. this was during actual office hours so my dad's patients saw the whole thing. that is, saw him scream and yell, then run out of the building, and my dad chase him, labcoat flaring. then carrying him back in, kicking and screaming (andrew, not my dad), and having the secretaries hold him down.

so sometimes my mom brings the needles and vaccine home. my heart still races whenever i see them. i find it hurts a lot less if you hold the vaccine bottle in your hand for a while, so that the vaccine isn't icy cold when it goes into your arm. the part where they force the stuff into your muscle hurts more than the needle puncturing your skin. when my mom would bring it home, there would be no where to hide. you'd have to walk really really quickly when you were near her, (but not too quickly, because then she'd notice you and tell you to roll up your sleeve) or else she'd see you.

always in the left arm.

i have a little mole right where the needle always goes in. they'd joke that it was like a little spot to show where to put it in. not funny, at all.

ah i despise needles.

a lot of things hurt a lot more than needles.
but it's the fact that when you're going to get one, you know you're going to get one.

but that being said, i'm not saying i'd rather they jab me when i'm sleeping or something like that.

i'm going out tonight, with leah and chris to player's. i think it's a sports bar (urrr..gh?) but there's things to do, like pool and so on. i hope it's fun. i like leah, and i like chris, but i'm not sure if i'd say they were fun people. they're fun in the way that julia would think someone is fun, but not in the way that i dunno, zach or emma would say.

i fell up the stairs going from the changeroom to the deck, yesterday. i don't even know how it happened. i was just suddenly sprawled out on the stairs. it was pretty loud. i have a bruise underneath my large left toe. i guess that would be my big toe?

it's funny how it's just your toe, but when you hurt something you feel like you're unfit to swim.
i remember when i had cuts on my fingers, and i kept thinking about them while swimming, and picturing them opening with every stroke. i think i tried to convince myself i was too hurt to swim.

so like i said, hamilton didn't get the 2010 commonwealth games. i think i figured out what kipp was saying to me (at least a part of it) way back when, after that first swim meet, at the infamous quarter's night.

nothing exciting. i heard he was working on the commitee trying to get the games (not hard enough! just kidding. uh.. kipp. who doesn't read this... alright anyway) and said something about if we get the games, he'll probably stay to be a coach, but if not, he might go to australia for his masters, or something...

or maybe he said if he gets the job, he'll stay.
yeah i have no idea. i guess i lied.

we're staying four to a room next weekend, in guelph. the divisional champs. the biggest meet so far, but not the biggest we'll have. i wonder who i'm staying with.. other people know, but i haven't checked.
it's also four to a room in acapulco.

i really like this scarf. the longer i wear it, the more perfect it becomes to me.
will it marry me? no? aw that sucks.

because i must marry anything that is perfect. AND NOTHING LESS!

waaaahhh

i finished the whole box of Snack today.

oof.

sitting here, at my desk, makes me tired. i think i conditioned myself to this, by studying when tired and so on.

amanda was saying she thinks she might do health science with a minor in math. that'd be pretty neat.

i really don't know what to go into.
i'm not even sure what i want to go into.
let alone what i should, or shouldn't..

i have to work harder. all that stuff i complained about in the beginning, i did to myself.
it seems like i don't get very upset over bad marks or bad tests anymore. i stopped somewhere during first semester of last year. i think it's because i realize it's my fault, and i can't really get mad unless i'm honestly doing everything i can to get the highest mark i can. which i'm obviously not, since you're reading this right now.

i was going to try out a new self-.. what's the word.. self-maintained? sure. self-maintained policy that i wouldn't blog until my most recent post was commented on. i was going to add that the post couldn't be something like "blog more!", but had to be an actual comment on the post's contents.

but that didn't work out.

i love to sleep, so so so SO so much.

i really do think it may be my favourite thing to do.

i sleep in much too often.

that is my reward to myself.

i love the feeling of when you decide that you can afford to have another hour of sleep.

i think i will put my pillow in the dryer to air fluff it.

after the phys test, choni and i both headed straight for the kitchen. we both started cooking like crazy, and were bitching to each other about our problems with the test and how different it was from the past tests. the more upset we are, the better our cooking is.

.. which goes against how i just said that i don't get upset after tests.

that's when i made the mashed potatoes à la emma. it took me 55 minutes to make, but 5 minutes to eat.

i still wonder why it took so long.

they were good, though.

ever since grocery shopping, i'm always full.
it's a great feeling.
ahh yes.

chem test tonight.