Wonton Thoughts

It was one of those longish days that sort of went by in a blur. I'm nearly one hundred percent sure that I have injured my right shoulder. Grrr, it's my better tackling shoulder too.

Game on Thursday, dad's going to take pictures.

Donna was mad because my right arm wasn't moving and my left arm was trying to compensate. This was about five minutes after I told her it was injured. Walked into a door, I said. Beckie's going to help me come up with something to get me onstage for my solo. Donna said no the what I've bought for my costume so far. After three hours of hell trying to find something she'd like. I was just trying to find something on the picture she gave me. I'd tell her to go buy something for me, but her idea of an attractive and danceable costume is not the same as mine. I mean, look at last year's group costume. How long is menopause supposed to last, because I swear it's been about five years for her.

Bed now. Math test tomorrow and my shoulder hurts like a bitch. Bringing the iPod to school tomorrow. I haven't used it since last summer. Hopefully it'll be the last time.

Hocus Pocus II

So today we put up the raku fish. Our kitchen is finally starting to look like our kitchen.











Other than that I spent the day studying and writing. I've decided to do topic five for my TOK essay. We ate cheese fondu for dinner.

Hocus Pocus

A few short minutes after I woke up, I found myself in the kitchen. Realizing that there were no dirty dishes on the counter, I put two and two together and figured that they all must be in the dishwasher. When I opened the dishwasher, all I saw was row upon row of raku fish. Shaking my head, I closed the door of the dishwasher and continued my search for a plate.

The factors are looking at you 0_o

I honestly can't remember what I did last Sunday. When I remember, I'll post something about it.

This week: We had two assemblies, one about attitude and careers on Monday, one about course selection for grade twelve on Tuesday. This week I learned that I am going to a choir trip at the end of May. This school week was short, for which I am grateful. I was supposed to make a small presentation about my view on the privatization of health care in French, and I ended up rewriting mine the night before I presented it. By the end of the week I was so pissed at Rahemtulla telling my class how dumb we all are that I wrote a letter to him that he will never see; basically in it I tell him that he is an idiot. Didn't do much in TOK, but in history we spent a whole block talking about how Napoleon was incredibly stupid to think that he could capture Moscow. Mr Lehman keeps on pronouncing it wrong, which makes me want to yell, "there's no 'cow' in Moscow!" but I doubt I will. Eventually I will point it out to him. The week with Beckie has been lovely. She said something hilarious on Valentine's Day (that makes one of us, Beckie) and on Thursday we went to Starbucks. Shalaleh is so innocent. My right shoulder's been blah since practice on Monday, but I missed Wednesday's practice because I didn't want to get too muddy before dance, as it would raise questions. Lexi was at practice Thursday and at the end Monni showed up.

Today I met up with Mikhael and we went to the mall to buy me a dance costume. We weren't entirely successful, coming away with only pants, but I did buy booty shorts for my other dance, new stripey socks and a new bikini top. We bumped into Sergio and his girlfriend. I went to dance to practice with Luke and Thomas, but after doing it twice we decided that we were all perfect at it and to make any changes we would need Mao there. Mikhael and I went to the library so I could take out a couple books and pay my seventy cents in fines, then we went to visit my grandmother and bring her Valentines Day chocolate. When one of the nurses came in to bring her dinner she introduced us as "her grandchildren," (whatever, she wants to disown Garrett and her sister and adopt him anyway) then she bitched about the food until the nurse brought her food from "the ward next door" which looked marginally more appetizing. We then gossiped about the family, meaning the fact that Kendall has pneumonia (Erin babysat her on Thursday), how Auntie doesn't know what good parenting is, how wonderful Grandma Katie was, (Grandma, "You remember grandma?" Me: um, no, she died before I was born, Grandma."), and how Sharon isn't her sister anymore because she never calls (apparently she's in California with her new boyfriend. As Grandma says, "I knew it would be a white guy. She's had a Hindu and a Chinaman, and what's left? White men!" She's never been particularly politically correct.) She also made me try her coffee, so I would agree with her about how the coffee was, and although all I could taste was sugar, I agreed with her anyway. She seemed pleased when I told her that I'd be dancing at the manor next month.

We went to our respective homes after that, and after mom and dad picked up Erin, we played two games of crib, where Erin further proved that she can't count.(Abby: *puts down a three* "Three." Erin: *Quickly puts down a seven* "Eleven!") Dad and I won both games.

I think I'll read a bit before bed. I picked up Everything is Illuminated today at the library. Unfortunately the regular version was the the Porier branch, so I had to settle with the large-print version. (Abby, to Mikhael, "You know how small print gives some people headaches? Well large print gives me headaches." Erin later agreed). Erin is on her laptop in my room, and it looks like she hasn't gone to bed yet. We pulled out some of our picture and posters and things this evening (this place is starting to feel more home-like). We put the hotcakes picture in the kitchen, like it belongs, dad's baby picture (with the three curls on his head) in the parents' room, and in my room I have one of the Nitka prints (the blue one, and when I find the yellow one, probably that one too. Erin was kind of upset, but I reminded her that she has both Bedards) and the painting that Grandma B-J painted for me twelve years ago. Soon I will get Erin to print out some of my pictures (that, or convince mom to buy a photo printer, because they're becoming rather cheap nowadays) and I'll frame them and hang them all over my walls, just like Erin is slowly doing at her apartment.

That's enough. Bed now. Tomorrow I shall make another attempt at buying a shirt for dance.

Pop the cornea

The first thing I see when I get to school is that they've replaced the old, scummy sign on the side of the building with a shiny, new one, that says, Port Moody Seconday (logo) IB World School. Ha, as if we weren't arrogant enough already.

"So if you want to start a poultry farm and you want to put a chicken in it..."

My week:

Choir:
On Wednesday the vocal jazz people were going somewhere, so we had pregnant practicum woman teaching us. She let us go early.

French:
I can't speak French. I'm screwed this smester. We spent the week doing comprehension exercises and discussing our debate topic.

TOK:
I like TOK muchly. I'm addicted to reading the textbook. We spent the last few days discussing rationalism. Next week is focused on the other three Ways of Knowing.

Math:
FUCKING RAHEMTULLA. Didn't take much in the way of notes all week due to only being able to write really slowly. If I fail math, it is because I don't understand any of his metaphors. Yesterday he was talking about poultry.

. . .

Block Four:
Been hanging out with Beckie and Shalaleh. Lovelovelove Beckie. We bored and and amused Shalaleh with dancing stories. Shalaleh brought her laptop to school one day and gave us a tour of Windows Vista. I gave Beckie lessons on orange-peeling techniques, and yesterday Mr Siu walked by us and proceeded to tell me how I should have taken physics instead of bio.

History:
Love history. Love it so much. Nothing particularly exciting, we've been talking about twentieth cantury ideologies.

Rugby:
Rugby Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which is why I didn't post all week, because I was so tired and sore. Tuesday and Wednesday were mainly passing, Thursday tackling was introduced to the new girls. I sprained my left pinky on Tuesday, which is why I couldn't write particularly well or very fast the last few days.

Dance:
Donna is a bitch. I seriously considered quitting.

Today:
I was all set to make up my math homeowkr, when I realized that I still don't have lined paper. I woke up with something in my right eye that took half an hour to remove, and by then my eye was so irritated that I couldn't look at light for the next two hours and I haven't been able to wear contacts all day. I just watched Everything is Illuminated and I loved it. I meant to read the book before; eventually I'll read it, when I have time, and money to pay off my Coquitlam library fine. Unless Port Moody has it, but Port Moody has a shitty selection. Fraser Valley just sucks, and I don't think they're open tomorrow anyways.

Ow

Saturday...I went to visit Grandma in the evening. I'll quote Erin: "Grandma doesn't really need us to visit her anymore. She's got the tv to keep her company. The trip wasn't worth the cost of the parking ticket we got outside the hospital." Conclusion: Grandma fine, though losing her short-term memory. That's alright; it makes visiting that much more interesting. Her new roommate doesn't seem like much of a talker.

Sunday movies, Mikhael. Pursuit of Happyness and Arthur and the Invisibles. Dinner at Mikhael's after, then home.

Today. Um, choir, some woman doing her practicum, looking about six months pregnant. I don't like having a different conductor. At the end of class I introduced myself as the one-who's-always-late-so-don't-mark-me-absent-because-attendance-is-worth-a-good-chunk-of-my-grade.

French block one. I'm not used to having class in block one. Luckily Bellemare spent part of the class trying to get people to leave, then spoke really slowly for the benefit of the former Thompson students. The resolution for our debate is about privatizing healthcare. Beckie and I just know that we'll be stuck with affirmative.

TOK. We didn't do much. Hunnings outlined the course, then we were discussing whether or not Carolee was African-Canadian, and whether or not her ancestors at one point lived in Finland (she just sat there the whole time saying, "Yeah, I was born in South Africa, but I'm Chinese.")

Math. FUCKING MATH. Fuck, I HATE fucking Rahemtulla. Who fucking does math in fucking PEN! And the fucking squiggly line. And FUCKING LOOSE LEAF PAPER! I DON'T FUNCTION ON LOOSE LEAF! And fuck, he treats us like fucking idiots. The rest of my class might be, not being able to figure out what X is if 2x - 2 = 0. I AM NOT A FUCKING IDIOT! He won't even let us use the word, "parabola" because it's too hard for us! What the fuck! Fucking bastard!

On the bright side, I spent all of math in a Jung/PJ sandwich. At least I'm not completely alone.

I had block four off, giving me time to rant and rave to Beckie and Shalaleh. Beckie and I talked dance, then taught Shalaleh how to play big two.

Block five was history. I like the semesters where my day ends with a happy note. I'm very optimistic about history. Love it like I hate math. I don't like alpha order though. I'm stuck in a corner.

Rugby meeting after school, then I talked to Kush in a bathroom for an hour.

Went to dance early, watched Luke half-heartedly help eleven year old children with their dance, and hoped to a higher deity that I don't turn out to be one of the dreaded dancing moms later in life. I'd like to think that I'll have something better to do with my time then sign my kids up for three or four dance classes and sit outside with other moms gossiping. At least I would know what I was talking about when it came to what the kids inside were doing. Bloody hell, they piss me off. Luckily they all admire me and want their kids to be just like me. Or Luke. I didn't say much today; I wasn't in the mood to humour them. A little girl was playing with my phone.

I have officially stopped trying to make Donna happy. I'll be fine on stage. We go through this every year.

Home, homework, how I hate math. Hot chocolate.

:)

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My knees are itchy

Mkay, so Wednesday. Wednesday Mikhael and I ran around everywhere. First we went to Metro where I finally bought a pair of jeans, then Lougheed, where we price checked books for Pepin, then Marks Work Warehouse, for socks, then Chapters, then Soccer City for studs and Value Village, then Coquitlam Centre, then Mikhael went to Sport Mart and I went to dance, which ended up being non-existent because Mao and Thomas weren't there and Luke's tap shoes were MIA. For the ten minutes that our class did happen, Luke just stared at me because he knew that it would piss me off, then when I mentioned to Donna that Luke wasn't doing anything, she basically told me to shut up and dance (which is a good song, by the way). I went to Starbucks after and met up with mom to give her her debit card back, then dad picked us up and gave me a ride to Erin's. Erin was out at a Student Union meeting, but her laptop was not, so I played with it until she arrived home with her best friend, Kathy. Kathy initially stayed to watch Little Mosque, but stayed for about two and a half hours, where we talked and looked through Erin's page a day knitting calendar for bad patterns. After Kathy left Erin and I watched les triplettes de belleville, which we have been waiting to do for years; we watched in English, though really, we didn't have to because there were about two lines said the entire movie. The animation was amazing. I loved it.

Thursday I woke up early, showered (Erin had no shampoo, blah) then went over to Mikhael's where we ate sushi and watched the Food Network and TLC. It was one of those "do absolutely nothing all day" days.

I forgot to mention in my last post, that my Threadless shirt arrived sometime at the beginning of the week.

Today I went for lunch with Mom and Erin. The commute to Vancouver took longer than usual; there was traffic in PoCo, so I missed the 152 and had to take the B-Line to Lougheed, but luckily the skytrain ride took less time than usual, only half an hour from Lougheed to my mom's work, including the transfer and the walking. Frankie brought her golder retriever, Leila to work today, and after I said hi to her, she escorted me down the hall, then went to find somebody else to receive attention from. We ended up going to The Mose and Bean for Mexican, the first time I've eaten Mexican since Mexico nearly a year ago. This food was authentic though, and I managed to order the same food as what I lived on when I was down there, including the drink, which was not quite Manzana Lift, but pretty damn close. I was so effing happy by the time we left. I took the skytrain back to Lougheed with Erin, then she took the B-Line and I took took the 152, though we shouldn't have split up, because dad picked me up at Lougheed and immediately drove back to Erin's apartment to pick her up. We came home and made dinner for mom to celebrate the end of her work's annual audit. I read all of Fahrenheit 451 on the commute to Vancouver and on the 152 back.

Tomorrow I am going to White Rock to visit my grandmother, who fell last Saturday, bruised herself quite badly and has been drifting in and out of consciousness ever since. Coincidentally, on the same night her roommate, Margaret had a stroke, is in a coma, and her family is on deathwatch. Sad. I love Margaret almost as much as I love grandma. Grandma still hasn't gotten a settlement from ICBC from that car accident nine years ago, they've been waiting for her to die, so she'd not allowed to. She has to stay alive to spite them further.

I like this picture:

Ha HA!

No more portfolio!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Students will be required to meet three standards to graduate," said Minister Shirley Bond

Students in grades 10-12 must complete the following mandatory standards:*

-80 hours of physical activity
-A graduation transition plan that will help students set goals for post-secondary education or career pursuits
-30 hours of work experience or community service.

Original article here. Thanks to Yuki for sending me this.