boxing

Happy Boxing Day and Kwanzaa! The snow is turning to slush and tonight I'm going to Shabusen for all you can eat made to order sushi and Korean BBQ. Tomorrow I'm heading up to Whistler for a day and a night. Should be a good time if things all go off without a hitch.

read

There are many people for whom this should be required reading. If that's too much reading, at least read the final paragraph.

white

Why would anyone dream of a white fucking Christmas? I did not ask for this. All I really wished for this Christmas was to maintain my sanity and not have an aneurysm while visiting home which is already a big request. We haven't had snow on Christmas day since 1996 or something and here it is. Hoo-fucking-ray. You know what snow means for me? Seeing as I live on a steep ass hill and there are probably 3 snow trucks in all of the greater Vancouver area it means I get stuck at home so that my dad can make unwelcome remarks using his trademark tone of voice which is a unique combination of condescending, critical, and obnoxious. His choice of words also always manages to grate my nerves. There is no such thing as saying something gently for him. Oh and hockey, which usually keeps everyone facing forward and yelling at the TV and not at me, is not back on for a couple days yet. Snow please melt.

order

Had a fun night last night with my friends who were house sitting their cousin's condo down in Coal Harbour. Such a sweet place. We were originally going to karaoke but I didn't realize they'd forgotten batteries and didn't know that I had also brought my magic mic but whatever. Eating Beard Papas, 7-Eleven nachos, chips, cookies, and chocolates while chit chatting and later watching many episodes of Family Guy served us just as well. My friends who know my paternal cousins really well decided that, despite all of us cousins being only children, we have ended up manifesting the characteristics of siblings in terms of birth order. My older cousin is the rebellious one, my younger cousin is the silly laid back one whom everyone wants to take care of and give advice to, and I'm the complicated, frustrated, and misunderstood middle child. Not sure how we didn't figure this one out sooner because it's kind of true. Anyways, I ended up falling asleep and not being able to pry myself off the couch until 3:30 in the morning.

After the girls day over at Olympus spa in Lynnwood last week, I decided to see if there was such a place near my parents' house that I could go to to escape the constant lecturing, prying, and unwelcome commentary from my parents. I found this, JJ Spa Plus, right here in my neck of the woods and apparently the only Korean spa in the greater Vancouver area. Only $15 admission too. Might have to go check this out.

Anyways, Merry Xmas and all that crap that I don't really care for. Hope you didn't spend too much money buying a bunch of meaningless consumer goods from big huge corporations when that money is really better spent helping the sick and needy or at least sharing a meal with friends or contributing to a child's college fund, or hell contributing to MY college fund to pay for books and conference travel. (I mean, did you really need that new LV purse or ridiculous overpriced rags from *gag* Abercrombie? C'mon. Bah consumerism)

Castor

I'm watching a Hockey Night in Canada interview with Phoenix player Doan who grew up in a small town in Alberta. He played in the town of Castor and his team was called the Castor Raiders. Say that fast.

break

The end of Autumn quarter is always a weird one for me. I'm supposed to be on break but I've come to accept the fact it's hard to really get a chance to do nothing. Aside from Xmas shit, I actually have a long list of stuff I need to get done on this so-called break, part of it involves finished a couple projects to wipe out the incompletes I've taken on my professional development seminars, I've got a graduate students association web site to update, I've got a program of study to finish (and it's already late), my EndNote desperately needs updating, I've got old video to edit, my own web site to update, reference letter to write, books to read, exam reading list to develop, and a big mess of papers, handouts, and lecture notes to organize and file away. I also just got word that the panel that Robyn put together just got accepted to the Association of Asian American studies. Yay!! What that means though is that I need to magically turn my abstract into a full paper by April. Christ. That's a lot of stuff.

In other news I did take a day to head up to Steven's to try out my new Flow bindings which I'm thrilled with. Who woulda thunk that losing feeling in your toes is not a necessary part of snowboarding? Also took a morning this weekend to go to Olympus spa in Lynnwood to get naked with the girls from school. It was good fun to chit chat all morning while soaking in tubs of varying temperatures and napping in hot rooms with salt, charcoal and other good stuff. There was also a sweet steam room and a great Korean restaurant with fantastic bibimbop and fresh smoothies. I think the spa thing is going to have to become an end of quarter tradition.

McLovin12Four

This user showed up on my IM list a few days ago. Usually I need to grant permission for people to add themselves to my list but this one just showed up so initially I thought someone had just changed their handle after seeing Superbad. I did a quick google search and discovered this in a forum: "It's supposed to be some clever marketing for the SuperBad DVD... which was released on December 4th... thus the 12four (12/4) reference." If you think that is annoying how about this "found this annoying thing on my phone today. send it 'who are you?' and you get
Hi, this is McLovin, I am a Bot; I advertise for the DVD release..."

I saw the movie. I'll sum it up like this. Teen boys are charming, eager to get laid, but are innocent and have impressive feminist ideals. Teen girls are a bunch of morally depraved sex-crazed whores who want nothing but to get laid when they're drunk enough to be throwing up. On top of that the movie was actually rather slow and boring and unfunny. Not sure why so many people told me it was hilarious. While it had its moments, it was mostly annoying, sort of like that bot that showed up on my IM list.

seven

This came from Blue Sunday. If you're reading this, you're tagged.

The Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules.
3. Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag up to seven people

---------

My Seven Random/Weird Facts

1. I have a slight phobia of chalk and chalkboards. The sound of chalk on a chalkboard and the feel of chalkboard chalk on my hands sends shivers down my spine and not in a good way. I had the overhead in my classroom pushed out of the way for public speaking so I was forced to use the chalkboard (no white board). Even my students noticed my awkward handling of the chalk.

2. I don't like talking on the phone. I've never been a big gabber and the awkwardness of talking without seeing the person combined with my short attention span and unstoppable urge to multi-task gets in the way of my focusing on phone conversations.

3. I've never been stung by a bee and have not yet been allergy tested for bee stings so I have a horrendous fear of bees. I'm also supposed to carry an Epi-pen in case I discover something new that puts me in some sort of anaphylactic shock.

4. My oldest piece of clothing is my SFU hoodie which is 14 years old. It's navy blue and has holes in nearly every seam.

5. My knees and fingers bend past 180 degrees the wrong way.

6. I have very vivid dreams, suffer from sleep paralysis, and (once in a blue moon) I have night terrors which cause me to wake up screaming bloody murder.

7. My parents used to make me collect stamps even though I had absolutely no interest in them. What is it with Chinese parents making their kids do something that seems intellectual or cultured. It's like they get bonus Chinese parenting points if their kids totally fucking hate it too. For most kids it was piano (I would have loved to take piano but it was too expensive) or violin or playing one of those ancient Chinese instruments. For me, stamp collecting. Stupid stamps.

outrage

I wish I could write about the specifics of what happened today but it could cost me dearly so I can't. But the gist of it is that I went to an important event at school today and witnessed the most outrageous and offensive Q and A session ever in my lifetime. It taught me several things:

1. Do not assume that senior (white male) faculty have even a rudimentary understanding of race and feminist theory, or any appreciation for the importance and urgency of it
2. Be prepared to defend critical scholarship that examines such topics as feminism, race or post-colonial theory because some people consider such research to be "irrelevant"
3. There is a good chance that many people out there, even other scholars, will believe that my life's work is meaningless and unimportant
4. I'm going to need to be mentally prepared to deal with all this

Right now I'm just in so much shock that I don't even know what to do next.

2007

It's a bit early to do one of those end-of-the-year inventories of memorable events but so much has happened lately that I can't help thinking about it. Off the top of my head:

February - turned 31 (bleh...)
March - went to Hawaii for the first time, surfed for the first time
May - went to Michigan for the first time and presented at my second academic conference
June - finished my 1st year of a PhD program and got elected to the grad students assoc
June - watched the apartment 3 doors down from mine go up in flames completely
July - relearned how to read music and learned how to play piano
July - wrote for an encyclopedia -- potentially my first publication
August - ended a pukey mess of a long term (6 year) relationship in a rather dramatic fashion
August - spent 3 weeks living and reconnecting with my cousin in a cool part of town (Santana Row)
September - watched my best friends get married
October - met an amazing guy who makes me wonder what in the hell I was doing in that other relationship for 6 fucking years
October - went to Kansas City, MO for my first conference for people more senior than just grad students
November - presented at my first national conference
November - found out one of my closest friends is pregnant
November - had my car break down on the I5
December - drowned my car in a flood in my own garage

This was actually meant to be a bitchy moany post because that's what I do here is bitch and moan. But having survived fire, flood, breakdowns (of both the mental and automotive type) and a breakup this year, the number and intensity of good things that happened far outweigh the bad. Even if I did list all the times I've injured myself just navigating my own apartment or all the delays and foul ups I've put up with at airports, it would still pan out that way. Ewww this post is so positive and out of character and so lacking in colorful language that now I feel all gross and sell outish. I'll just compensate by saying fuck for good measure. There, fuck.

RAIN

What. The. Fuck.

I didn't learn my lesson last year when my car narrowly escaped drowning in the underground garage you see here at my apartment. This time last year the drains were clogged but they managed to get the water pumped out pretty quick. Last night I got home late from K's house and saw some water gurgling a bit out of the drain in the garage. I figured that after that incident it couldn't be that bad. All the shit that was clogging it last year is probably cleared out.

I was tired and needed to go to bed and so I did. This morning I hurried off to catch my bus, a bus that did not show up. Neither did the second or third bus. 25 minutes later I caught the 4th bus and barely made it to school in time to teach my class. The roads were flooded everywhere and the bus looked like it was driving through a fucking river.

Oh and did I mention that today's class was taught outside in the pouring rain being blown sideways by the wind? Yeah, we're practicing our vocal projection for outdoor advocacy speeches. Being sane, I had the students each run through their speeches in groups and then ushered them inside to do TA evals before sending them off early. 11:30 am and I head on over to stats class.

I'm taking out my laptop when the phone rings. It's the management at my apartment. There is 3' of water on the street in front of the apartment (where Denny's car is parked) and the garage is filling up with water. Denny managed to wade to his car and move it and do the same with our other roomate's car. Mine however requires an alarm and a club key and when the alarm goes off the car doesn't start. So that is fucking awesome.

I had to skip out of stats, office hours and a job talk to go home and rescue my car. Actually since Denny had already done all sorts of swimming in dirty water to get his car and Jerri's car he kindly offered to wade knee deep to my car and drive it over to the grocery store parking lot. Damage was already done though. Cars are apparently not to be submerged even in 2.5" of water or you have the pleasure of scooping it out. Here are pics of my car.

I love my life.

So can someone tell me who I'm supposed to pay to suck out the rest of the water, spray anti-mildew stuff on the rugs, clean them and dry them? I imagine there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this and I want to make sure to not fuck this up.