The Life Cycle of a Moss

It took me twenty minutes to get out of bed this morning. Shhhhh, don't tell my mother. She'll be mad at me.

Choir, I was only a little late. Natasha saved me a spot on the risers.

Block one, did my art homework, and then, with about two minutes of the block left, I suddenly realized that I had French homework and copied off of Marianne. In my defense, all we had to do was translate some stuff.

We spent most of French talking, about Halloween and fireworks, driving and how Kenny didn't go fishing this weekend. I didn't get to mention that I made cake and that made me sad. Somebody remind me to post a picture of my cake sometime. It was good.

English, debate. I'm going tomorrow. Pepin forgot to do his rebuttal speech. Him, Mikhael, Tena and I talked later on the 160 Special, apparently he had a really shitty day today.

Bio, lots and lots of notes, I filled two and a half double-sided pages in my journal with my writing, which is this big. Bad bio jokes. Zygomycota, Ascomycota, Givememycota . . .

Art, finished my proposal for my ceramics project. Discussed with Chalmers about my self portrait mark and managed to raise it six percent.

160 Special

Mall, went on mad search for orange mascara, enventually concluded that such thing probably doesn't exist. We went to Tristan and America to visit Pepin and Mikhael gave him a hug.

Dance, forgot my shoes today, but found a pair of oxfords that fit. Donna said I looked taller, I said that it was the black talking, that it made me look thinner. We spent a good five minutes telling each other what we did for our birthdays.

. . .

So, I have spent the last few hours playing Make The English Speech Sound Decent, a rather boring game that involves more brain power than I currently possess. I took a few breaks, one to carve a pumpkin, a white one, one to run up and down the hallway for a while, etc. It's now the desired length and it sounds a lot better than it did. Now, where has my flashcard gone . . .

It glows blue :)

I will not be updating tomorrow, as I am going to a Canucks game. Not because I particularly want to go, but because I have the opportunity to go. I hope they win, just so I can gloat in French on Wednesday. On the other hand, if they lose, I can have a nice discussion with Bellemare about how much they suck which will possibly bring my French mark up. I suppose we'll see how they do.

Got my Cookie Loves Milk shirt today. Will wear it on Thursday. Wednesday is the Angry Nerds shirt that I received from Beckie today. I will have pictures soon.

I have that horrible choir song stuck in my head. Do-do do-do-do-do-do-do do-do do-do-do-do-do.

I'm going to read some Darwin Awards then go to bed.

...

To my dearest sister, although I doubt that you'll read this.

Number one: Stop fucking moping and playing the part of the Poor Little University student. You've had all day to work. Half of it was spent talking to your friends in Norway and playing Solitaire. Nobody wants to hear that shit.

Number two: If you want to go home so much, go home. You have a UPass, use it. And while you're at it, take your shit out of my room. Most people's idea of "moving out" includes taking their stuff with them. You don't even live here and you take up more of my room than I do. Any time I try to move your stuff I find it moved back to exactly where it was before the next time you come over. And you complain that your apartment doesn't feel lived in.

Number three: I do not appreciate you hitting me. Violence is not the answer.

Playing my music loud to drown out the sound of you complaining about me to mom.

...

Somebody has eaten all of the icing off of my cake. Not cool.

"I'll be honest, like actually."

This morning my family went to the local pumpkin patch. We bought eight, two each. This year I wanted nice, round ones, and I ended up with an orange one and a white one, because I haven't carved a white one for years. Erin's two are going to be carved into Hitler and Stalin; she wanted to do something scary this year.

As soon as we got back to our house, I left and went to Mikhael's. There we spent some time bonding, telling each other what we liked about ourselves and the other person, and just "huggling" on the couch.

~

The only good thing that has happened to me in the last few days is my baby. I don't know what I'd do without you.

Je vais faire un gâteau

Today was an okay day, I spent most of my morning studying for my bio test. My bio test itself was okay, I mean, I doubt that I'll get an A on it. My thoughts all day were plagued by cake. Cake cake cake cake cake.

After school, Mikhael and I came here to make cake. We made cake. There were only a few problems with it, but they were mostly fixable.

Eventually mom and Erin showed up and the four of us went for sushi at the Hamada. Afterwards we iced my cake and all ate a piece before Mikhael had to leave.

I have decided to call my new rugby ball Stewart. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday today.

I drew Shaun from A Close Shave in English today

Shaun

~

Yesterday I spent the day in White Rock for the Fraser Valleys, where, until just before my race, I masqueraded around in my pink plaid pajama pants. It was incredibly cold and kind of miserable all day. Upon arriving, we did the walk through of the course, then a bunch of us (Betty, Mikhael, Louise, Shalaleh and I) sat down and did some homework. Mikhael brought me hot chocolate, which in retrospect was not such a good idea and I should have drank coffee instead, but I welcomed it at the time because I was cold.

Eventually I decided to warm up a bit, so, Shalaleh, Betty, Louise and I jogged around a bit.

Sometime after that my race started, then it ended. Somewhere in the middle I felt very sick, and somewhere near the end I passed a bunch of people, including Louise, but my knee tried to give out about fifteen metres from the finish line, which wasn't good at all, because that's how I injured the other one. It hurt a little bit today, but I don't think it's injured.

I took pictures of the senior boys race.

We packed up and left soon after that. Took some pictures on the bus, of Siemin looking gangster and Jung looking gangster, and of elephant oranges.

It took an hour and a half to get across the Pattullo, but Sayers dropped me off near Coquitlam Centre and I managed to make it to dance on time. Good thing too, because it's Halloween Week and we get candy at the end of class.

Dinner at Hon's, really good dish with mushrooms and broccoli and tofu puffs.

~

Today started off with me being bitchy as hell, though only to a select few.

I don't remember anything particularly exciting happening today, except the spirit assembly I guess, though it wasn't particularly exciting either, but it was better than last year's.

I bought the shoes that Faaria wanted today, on my way home from school. I'm going to wrap them up all pretty like a birthday present and give them to her tomorrow.

Apparently I get a brand new pair of shoes tomorrow too, provided Siobhan remembers to bring them. Should be interesting to see what they look like.

Question

If you are a vegetarian becasue you don't want to harm animals, does that mean that it is against your morals to eat mushrooms too? They're fungi, but they are a lot closer to animals than they are to plants.

Poor, little, only-a-vegetarian-because-I-don't-like-the-taste-of-meat me is confused.

X-Rated Sudoku

You Are Changing Leaves

Pretty, but soon dead.

What Part of Fall Are You?

Um, depressing much?

~

Today started out bad, with the traffic accident and everything making me have to take the train to school again, but slowly got better with the making fun of Francis and finally sending those cards to Jordan.

I drank coffee today and it made me happy.

Stephane Dion is a pop tart

So, I was just eating my "fun-sized" pack of peanut M&Ms (of which there were six) and I turned the package to the back, and what do I see? The allergy alert of course. What did the allergy alert say?

Allergy Information: May Contain Almonds.

Um, what? What the fuck?

~

I've been stressed and bitter all day. Half of my day was spent quietly stewing and the other half was spent beating up Mikhael. He puts up with so much.

I drew alligators on my English notes.

I'm so full of bitterness; I want to punch something. You'd never guess. Let's keep it that way. Pretend that this post doesn't have a title

Went to the Chan today for a CBC Radio Two orchestra concert. The theme: East Meets West, a fusion of Western and Persian. I actually enjoyed it. It made me want to take up the clarinet again. I even liked the flutist, and I don't like flutes.

Red Onion after. Slow service. My bagel thins came with my meal, not before, and it took them forever to clear our table after dinner and serve us our moose pie. The little boy at the table next to ours had the awesomest Thomas the Tank Engine boots.

I can't wait until this fucking debate is over.

Ear Poison and Snuggles

So visiting my grandmother wasn't too bad, it was kind of funny really, the gossip and everything. Apparently my oldest uncle is a (and has a) Tweeny Little Thing, and my second oldest uncle was last seen wandering around in "what looks like a silk dress." My grandmother herself has been reading chick lit, right now she is reading one about this guy who wants to marry this girl, but not really, and she's not sure if she wants to marry him, but he has a lot of money, and, oh look, he has his fingers crossed behind his back on the cover. It was funny enough the first time, but my grandmother's conversational skills work on a bit of a loop, and eventually she started to describe it again, but after about two words in, my dad filled in the rest, practically word for word.

Of course there was the usual large number of compliments to Erin and I, because of course we are beautiful and perfect and smart and have a beautiful mother.

My grandmother is also going to help Erin find a boyfriend. She's looking for a "character who will snap you up and say 'you're mine' and that's exactly how it happens."

Speaking of Erin, in her own words, she is "une pizza avec beaucoup du fromage." I think I might have been born into the wrong family. No wonder I'm so weird.

I like tea

When I was younger I used to be envious of all of the other children because they always seemed to have more candy then I did after Halloween. Maybe it's because they got all of the leftovers from their own bowls of candy and we were too out of the way to give out candy, so I only got what other people's parents gave me.

I have never admitted this before.

~

I get to visit my grandmother today. The boring one. Maybe I will get some work done on my constructive speech today.

The dark of the matinee

Yesterday Mikhael and I went to Vancouver for the sole purpose of going to Death by Chocolate. We went to the one in International Village, as it was one of the few places that my coupon was valid at. After eating our desserts we decided to go see a movie, because we were in Tinseltown. We saw Marie Antoinette, which was good, but it's not one of those movies that I'd see over and over. Still, the little girl running around saying "Un petit abeille! Un petit abeille!" was really cute.

We public transited it home after that, then webcammed it up. I spent nearly five hours on public transit yesterday.

Track and Lawn

Choir:
Had that really annoying Italian guy as a TOC on Monday. He kept yelling crescendo at the top of his lungs. It made my ears hurt. On Wednesday I gave Natasha a birthday present.

Block One:
Fairly unexciting. Been working on lots of homework. Today I gave Sabot fifty cents to buy a cookie for me and he went through the m&m ones until he found one with a big blue m&m, because apparently that one is special or something.

French:
Been doing worksheets and talking about prepositions. Lots of funny things said, insults etc, but I don't feel like walking over to my bag to get my journal.

English:
I hate cross-examination debating. 'Nuff said.

Bio:
Finished that weeklong lab finally, missed the awesome grow your own bacteria lab yesterday, but stained ecoli pink today and named it Rutherford.



Art:
Working on a ceramics project now. Finally something that I'm capable of making look decent.

Cross Country:
A couple good practices recently. Yesterday was the districts. PMSS placed second overall, but nothing for us Grade eleven girls this year, not like last year. Didn't go to practice today because I didn't feel like running. Terrible excuse, I know. I'll run extra hard next week.

Dance:
Went okay on Monday, got into trouble for talking to Luke inside to the teacher's room, which I'm not allowed in, but even though I have a valid argument for every single point that Donna came up with, there's not point in arguing with that woman because I will never win. I won't rant about it here.

I didn't go yesterday, partially because I forgot my tap shoes at home, partially because I was having some issues with my right contact, meaning it got stuck in my eye and it took me three hours to find it and get it out, and meanwhile I didn't have my glasses on me, so I couldn't see very well, and partially because I really didn't want to go, but if it had just been for the last reason, I would have gone anyways.

I'll bug Luke on Monday until he teaches me yesterday's step.

Mikhael's House:
Went over today. We snuggled on the couch in his room and talked for a few hours about various things.

Webcam:
Stole the one that Erin's been using for months. I meant to do that months ago, but only remembered two days ago. Mikhael and I have been webcamming it up ever since. Webcams make it so much easier to be sarcastic on MSN.



Um, I think that's it. Death By Chocolate tomorrow.

...

Today Carolyn said something funny, then I bitched about my report card then . . . fuck this. I don't feel like typing tonight. See post below.

Pleasepleaseplease

If anyone buys this shirt for me for my birthday, I will love you forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. I might even pay you back.

You're not earthquacked and that's happy

And here it is, the movie you've all been waiting for. This is what happens after four days in a car with my family:



~

I spent the day watching the coverage of the earthquake in Hawaii with Mikhael, and when we became bored of that, I launched into a three and a half hour monologue about everything I did during the last week and a half.

On the way home I protected my journal and my box of chocolates as it poured.

I really should be doing my homework

I love this music video:



In other news, I was buying brown sugar and razor blades at the local Save On today, and behind me in the express line was the tallest man that I have ever seen in person in my life. He had to be over two feet taller than I am, and he had these monstrously huge hands that could practically engulf his Shreddies and 2%.

Halibut Man

My computer has a virus on it, so I might not be posting too much in the next few days. I have, however, recorded everything in my journal, so I don't have to type anything out if I don't want to.

Two things of importance:

1. My baby comes home tomorrow :)

2. Saw the awesomest musical ever today. It was called, Ebola! Siobhan did the cutest little tap number that had me giggling and awwwing at, and Sabot laughing at me as a result.

Possible titles from last Thursday onwards:

Hey! Pebbles! Oooooooo

Kenny's Korean name is Christina

Dessine-moi un mouton

This is the dawning of the age of Emo? Eno? Uno? Emu?

This is not an orgy

Hot Italian sausage and beans

Pee comes to get you

Wearing out pants

You. Me. Your Kitchen. Chocolate Cake.

Gooooooooo

I'm not going to bore myself with rewriting all of the details of my trip. It had its ups and downs, mostly downs, and eventually I will post that video Erin and I made of the Hurcules song.

Tomorrow I will update with today.

Il est avocat. He's an avocado.

I finally got my folder today in choir. It was exciting.

In block one I worked on my Darwin cartoon, and coloured both the Darwin and the Lamarck cartoons. I also handed in Mikhael's IB exam sheet to Mr Saucier.

In French I answered another question right, which was nice, and Bellemare signed my IB exam sheet.

In English there were two presentations, A Woman's Issue, which was very depressing, and This is a Photograph of Me, which is also depressing, but for some reason I really like it:

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be a
smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say

how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)

In bio we took lots of notes. Sabot left for about fifteen minutes to go pick up his daughter who apparently wasn't feeling well and was crying at daycare. While he was gone we continued to take notes, and three different science teachers would wander in at random, to exclaim that the amount of note-taking we were doing and discuss whose printing it was of the notes that we were copying, because it wasn't Sabot's. Tsui called us naughty for moving the piece of paper off of the overhead that was covering the rest of our notes so we could finish them faster. Eventually Sabot came back with his daughter, who was so cute and so very calm. She coloured a map of the school while Sabot finished teaching our block.

In art we had that TOC again, but I managed to get out of her class early for a cross country meet.

The meet itself was good. I felt pretty good for most of it; the last quarter of it I practically sprinted, because I couldn't let Diane get ahead of me. We both sprinted up the hill to the finish, me ahead, but she passed me with about three meters to go, so I pushed myself that much more and we crossed the finish at the exact same time. It was dramatic. After a few minutes of trying to catch my breath, Betty, Louise, Shalaleh and I walked down the trail a bit to go cheer the guys on.

I got to dance fifteen minutes late, but all I missed was some technique. Donna complained that I was very stiff, but considering that I had just come from a race, I wasn't surprised that I was a little stiff. We are about a third of the way through learning our dance.

I came home and started on my bio, then gave up because my textbook is useless, and I will finish it tomorrow in block one.

I am leaving for the island tomorrow evening and will be gone until Monday night. I doubt I'll even give an overview of my weekend when I get back, as I'm sure I'll be incredibly bitchy.

Mother Russia wants you to have a guinea pig

Yesterday I woke up to a power outage. For some reason it made me faster than usual, so I actually got to choir on time.

This is Maple Ridge:


The power outage was here:


I live here:


The street next to mine (227th) had power. Figures.

Nothing particularly interesting happened at school yesterday. Had a French test, basically sat around for the rest of the day.

Went over to Mikhael's for food, then to dance for dancing. Dan saw us walking through the mall, and when he told me this two minutes ago I thought it sounded very stalkeresque. John gave me a sticker after my class.

~

Today I slept in until six-thirty, which had my mother quite angry, but I already knew what I was going to wear today, so I was ready faster than normal. I got my Threadless shirt in the mail yesterday, Ambition Killed The Cat.

I spent my block off studying for bio, block two trying to figure out what Saucier said to us about IB exams. His accent, mixed with the speed in which he talked, mixed with the fact that he talked into his chest, mixed with the fact that he talked so quietly meant that I couldn't understand a word he said. You'd think that because the information is so crucial, he'd speak in English.

In English Hunnings talked about the murders of the Amish girls. It tied in perfectly with the poem we were discussing yesterday, Notes Towards a Poem That Can Never Be Written.

In bio I wrote a test. It was not a nice test.

In art I . . . didn't do much. We had a TOC who was really pretty, but wouldn't let us out of the room until about thirty seconds before the bell because she didn't want to get in trouble. I suppose that she's used to schools that have a common lunch hour. She wanted me to go to the caf and pick her up a drink, and wanted to know if I needed a hall pass.

We got our special back. It was nice.

I hung out at Mikhael's for a while, before I had to leave because the family needed to pack. I'm going to miss my baby so very much.

Warning: Picture-heavy

Okay, yesterday. It all started off with me going for a walk to buy Carolee's birthday present. I bought it, brought it home, worked on it like mad and finished it two minutes before I left.

The plan was to call Mikhael a few minutes before the bridge so he could come out to the bus stop and give me my phone back. However, there was less traffic than I thought, and Troy's house ended up being farther away than I thought, so he was not there when we got to the stop near the Wendy's, and it was only when everyone was on board and the bus was about to pull away that I saw him sprinting across the parking lot. I asked the bus driver to stop, he said no, so I begged him, said I needed my phone, and he gave this big exasperated sigh and stopped to let Mikhael on. He didn't have to be so rude about it; he was eight minutes ahead of schedule.

I hopped onto a C27 and took a nice ride through Heritage Woods and Westwood. I couldn't remember exactly where I was going, I only remembered what the stop looked like and that I had to cross the street and go up the hill to find the path to Carolee's cul-de-sac. Once I got there it took me a minute to remember which house was her's, but I got it right on my first try. I was the second person there. When I don't have to rely on my parents for transportation, I can even be early for things.

People started arriving and we spread around Carolee's house and neighbourhood. People were in her basement, on the first floor and the second, were out in the back and out in the front, and a few even decided to take a walk. Shalaleh, Megan, Marianne and I decided to take a few pictures.



Kenard arrived and the five of us headed outside to take pictures of ourselves jumping.



We also took individual pictures. Here is the Kenard Look:



Everyone came outside and we played with balls and frisbees and such, or maybe that was before the jumping, but I don't remember. All of the guys who were playing Keep Up admired my drop kick.

In the back yard, Richard was setting up the barbecue. It was scary. I had to show Richard how to use the lighter thing, which led to jokes about Richard not knowing how to get past the child safety mechanism. Luckily Shalaleh knew what she was doing and helped him, and I gave Megan a lesson on burquettes.

After a while everyone headed in, and I went downstairs to find half of the party-goers squished in the basement. I managed to find a spot on the couch. Jas was down there, and if there's Jas, there's a card game.



Jenny arrived and there was a lot of screaming.







Eventually we all headed upstairs to watch Tokyo Drift, the Western ripoff of Initial D, and I secured a spot right in the middle of the sectional. Iris and I played Where's Waldo.



This is only about two thirds of the people who were there.

After a while the movie was paused because of dinner. There was tons of food, and we didn't finish it all, mainly because we had been eating lots and lots of cheesies. Carolee borrowed my camera to take pictures of people grabbing food. I'm not in any of these because I grabbed my food as fast as I could, then booked it back to the couch so my spot wouldn't be taken.




Faaria has chicken and that makes her happy.


Alex giving out fork and knife sets like an auctioneer.


Yuan and Kenald, with Richard in the background. Richard gave me hell for taking this picture.





We all took our food to the couch, or around the couch and ate until they brought out the cake. We paused the movie again to crowd around the table. Richard got to light the candles.


Carolee, Talia and Kinsley. I wish I had younger siblings who were cute like that.





After that we finished the movie and headed down to the basement to watch people play DDR. Carolee opened her presents, and that was when I left. Gave Blaise, Esaly and Natasha a ride to Wendy's.

~

Today I was back again at aforementioned Wendy's, only at the Tim Horton's side of it. I met up with Mikhael, and we walked to Troy's house; I complained the whole way about the mediums at Tim Hortons being the same size as a short at Starbucks and the coffee wasn't even as good anyways. We got to Troy's house and finished our project. I am officially sick of it and wish it would die. I am sorry that poor Troy had to put up with watching it over and over again.

We left and I suddenly remembered that my cousins lived around the corner, so we paid them a little visit. Garrett loves Mikhael, my aunt does as well. Gary and Mikhael have the same energy level. I got to spend some quality time with Auntie and talk, something I don't usually get to do because of Garrett. I also got to see Kendall before we left; we played hide and seek. Gary wanted to come with us.

Mikhael and I hung out at Tim Hortons for a couple hours, because we are that cool. I went home after that and haven't done very much since.

I am tired now. This post took a while.