I'm seriously thirty

This was a text message exchange between Ky and me this morning:

Ky: "I keep singing inner city pressure, but saying dragons instead of pressure."
Me: "If I could draw, I'd draw a cartoon of Inner-City Dragons for you."
Ky: "Try"
Me (seriously two hours later): "As soon as I get the scanner driver installed, I'll email you some Inner-City Dragons. They'll amaze your face off."

I'm thirty. 

Three-Oh

Hey look!  I'm in my thirties now.  And I feel exactly the same (of course).  Of course, I spent my first day of my thirties consuming too much sugar and going to a Disney cartoon, and so one might think I turned six instead. 

I went to see Tangled with Ky.  I decided to dress up and wear my Christmas Outfit, because I was all "HOORAY SPECIAL OCCASION AND I HAD TOO MUCH SUGAR ZOOOOOOM!!1!" Meanwhile, Ky is sick today, and also who dresses up to go to a Wednesday matinee?  So, we took a self-portrait entitled "Rich Lady Takes a Homeless Person to the Movies." 

Aren't we lovely? 

I think this was my best birthday yet.  I even got a present in the mail that I could open on my birthday (from my brother and sister), and my landlords gave me a box of cupcakes from the lovely shop near the beach.  And now I don't have to cook supper and Chris and I are going to watch an episode of Community while we eat, and so I don't know what more I could ask of my birthday. 

(Chris is very excited, because for the next thirteen days Chris gets to say "I'm only in my twenties and my wife is in her THIRTIES! I married an older woman!"  He enjoys things like that.  So, we're both happy today.)

Finally feel like I live in a regular Canadian city

I swear this is my last post about the Olympics. (One more note: figure skating, I will miss you most of all! I've been watching CTV's ice dancing videos to remedy my Olympics withdrawal.) Yesterday was such a funny day in this city. For the first time, it felt like I was living somewhere like Regina. I had to miss the first part of the gold medal hockey game, because Chris had promised one of the old ladies from church that we'd go out for Sunday lunch with her.

The restaurant we went to -- a favourite among this city's seniors -- is usually crowded on Sunday for lunch. We'd attempted to go there with the same lady once before, but she hadn't made reservations and the line-up was out the door. Yesterday, the place was nearly empty. We arrived really early for our reservation and they seated us right away because no one had had our table before us.

I'd been worried that I'd have no idea what was going on with the game. I'd considered having my sister text-message me with updates, but we both forgot our cellphones on Sunday. (Which is for the best, because that would not have been so polite.) However, we didn't have to worry; we knew whenever Canada got a goal. An old man with an ancient transistor radio at his table sent Chris hand signals to update him on the score. When I went to get dessert, I could hear the kitchen staff shouting to the wait staff, "Now the score's 2-1!" It reminded me of being at a store or restaurant in Regina during a major football game; everyone's interested and is keeping each other updated.

I rushed to Ky's house (where we were planning on watching movies for the afternoon), and even she was willing to watch the rest of the game with me. We hardly breathed through the last few minutes. After we watched the gold medals being handed out, we went to the grocery store. Everywhere we went, there were people honking their horns and waving Canadian flags. Ky honked her horn back at them and we cheered with everyone else as we drove downtown. The first grocery store was on Douglas Street (which ended up being partially shuts down for celebration), and so we could hear the constant honking through the whole store. In the second grocery store, closer to the University, someone ran through the store cheering, and the cashiers starting cheering along with them.

Some days, I love how different this city is, that you usually see everyone in the city come together over mid-summer festivals where everyone's dressed like fairies and pirates. But some days, I love when we all come together like that and I feel like we're in just another Canadian city. It feels like home on those days.

(P.S. Would you believe that 80% of this entire country watched at least part of the game? I'm normally not a hockey fan, but that's just so cool.)

I was at school well before 8am today

This is a big deal to me. Usually 10am is hard for me. I've been having trouble getting to the university in the morning (and I need to deal with this microfilm right away), and so Chris offered to drive me there on his way to school. Chris leaves the house before 7:30 in the morning, the time when my alarm clock usually goes off.

But I did it. And I got through two months' worth of microfilmed newspaper before my 2:30 yoga class. And I'll do it again tomorrow. (The microfilm part, not the yoga class part.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I haven't exactly been functional this evening, to the point that we ended up having frozen pizza for supper. I think I might go to sleep now.

Laziest Blog Post Ever

My most recent Facebook status: [QoWP] carved pumpkins, ate apples right off a tree, walked to Brentwood Bay and climbed Mount Doug, and then made roasted pepper and carrot soup while watching the Riders game. And is now tired.

I'm pretty sure I just had the most autumn-y day ever. Delightful. (The full Flickr set is here.)

How I spent my pre-vacation vacation

Remember when I went to see Goats on a Roof with my in-laws, and the store was decidedly lacking goats on their roof because it was not quite springtime and apparently goats don't appreciate having to graze on a roof when it's still snowing out?

Well, after we went camping with people from our church this weekend, we all decided to take a detour to the Goats on a Roof store, and look who I met!

That's not even with zoom or anything! I just held up my cellphone and snapped a picture of him. I like that he's standing right behind the sign that tells us that we can't feed him.

Also, we explored the beaches near Parksville, where the tide goes out forever, and Chris collected sand dollars for me. And I got a little bit of a sunburn, right before I remembered that I should put on sunblock.

I'm glad we got to do a tiny bit of vacationing on this whimsical island, days before we leave for our summer in Saskatchewan.

Celebratory ice cream sandwiches

At 3:00 this afternoon, I mailed 114 pages of funding application off to the UN Building in jo(e)'s Big City Like No Other. I cut it really close, considering the fact that it had to be postmarked today, and considering the fact that I didn't get the last recommendation until 2:46pm. And considering the fact that until this morning we hadn't heard back from the Doktorvater since he originally offered to be my Doktorvater, and we needed a faxed or emailed-as-pdf letter of invitation from him.

But it all worked out. That was the most perfect application I could send out, and now it's out of my hands. I've been actively preparing for this day for a solid year, and dreading it for longer, and now it's over. Well, except hopefully they give me money.

And now I won't do any more work for this whole long weekend. (Except for housework, as tomorrow is Let's Make the House Perfect Day.) In honour of Queen Victoria's birthday, I'll spend the long weekend read Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. And eating ice cream sandwiches.

How this dissertation will know that I mean business

My hair is up and off my face, so that it doesn't distract me. I'm wearing makeup, because somehow that makes me feel like I'm not being tired and lazy. (Seriously: I'm wearing lipstick around the house.) I'm wearing the wrist warmers, the "WINNER" medal from Anastasia, and I'm wearing Scooby-doo slipper socks. My iPod is set to my Study Music playlist, and my Batman cape is on hand in case I really need to pull out the big guns. (Okay, right now I'm not wearing the cape because it's made of fleece and it was really nice and warm and made me feeling like taking a nap.)

Now, let's see if I can take advantage of my Non-Teaching Day and get some serious work done, eh?

My Papa Turns Fifty-Five Today!

Since he's so keen on posting old pictures of us on our own special occasions*, I thought I'd post this picture I found of him. This was taken back when Dad was a spy for the Canadian government, during the height of the Cold War. (Don't let the Lassie curtains fool you.) He then grew up to become Professor X.

Those of you who know him should go and send him birthday greetings on his blog. Happy birthday, Papadoodle!



*Here's where he posted a photo of my first day of pre-school, in celebration of the day I finished comps.

Again with the photo-blogging

Today I found the Holy Grail: a light and cute bag that's large enough to hold my library books and notebooks when I'm not bringing my whole computer bag to school, but small enough that it can double as a purse. I've been searching for something like this for months.

I love Chinatown. I just had to share.

(I'm so pleased with it that I keep carrying it around the house with things, filling it with stuff. And I'm totally taking it with me as my purse, when Janny and I go to Hatley Gardens tomorrow.)

I've finally decided

I finally picked my first post-comps fun book!

(Drumroll please.)

Son of Interflux by Gordon Korman!

I'm so excited. A familiar Canadian Young Adult book with an offbeat sense of humour? That's exactly what my brain needs right now. It's funny, because when I was imagining finally being done comps, I expected that I'd want to read L.M. Montgomery first.

ABD!!! ABD!!!

I passed! And it wasn't traumatic! And my Canadian history prof gave me a hug and said she was proud of me and then I showed her my "Winner" medal and it made her laugh!

Huzzah!