杉原紙

relocation relocation relocation

2010-03-23T10:54:00.002Z

Dear all,

I would like to inform you of my new blog, to which I will be posting from now on. The address is http://p-latitudes.blogspot.com, and an explanation of why the change has been made can be found within!

It would be great if you could bookmark / follow the new blog and whatever else, and I hope to see you there!

I'll be moving posts from Sugiharagami to P-latitudes over the next couple of weeks, so if there's an old post you particularly like you'll still be able to read it :)

TA!

library maths

2010-03-09T13:35:00.004Z

According to the World Bank, the population of Earth at 13:36pm GMT March 9th 2009 is 6,692,030,277.

My library card number is 20109006909273. I presume this means I opened the 20109006909273rd account with the library.

If I subtract 1 from the population of the world to represent me, then divide my library card number, the number I get is truly staggering.

It appears that EVERY person in the world has, on average, 3004.9 accounts with the libraries of the borough in question.

That would explain why I always have to place a hold on the book I want.

pessimism / optimism

2010-03-01T18:55:00.006Z

Winston Churchill once said "a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty".

Christopher Lee (me) once said "what are you, then, if you see both?"

Because surely there are opportunities in every difficult situation, and once you identify and overcome the difficulties, the opportunities are presented to you. And surely also it is unrealistic to think that there will be no difficulties to overcome just because you can see an opportunity.

Either W.C. was being very cryptic here and implying that everyone is both pessimistic and optimistic, or it was one of his weaker quotes. Either way it is still weaker than his retort to being called drunk: "my dear, you are ugly, and what's more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly".

my new favourite Facebook page:

2010-02-28T05:38:00.001Z

"I love it when the parents are out of the house!"

It's endorsed by this cheery fellow:

and from what I can tell, peoples favourite things about their parent's absence include:

"crashing the house"
"doing illegal stuff"
"rading the frige"
"haveing the TV up really load"

and

"eating LOADS of sweets"

Sounds like a hoot, right?

culinary Chris

2010-02-21T21:05:00.004Z

I'm rather pleased with my culinary exploits over the last week:

Pancake day was Tuesday, and instead of settling for pancake mix as I did last year, I followed an online recipe and learned how to make them properly. The first pancake was a bit dodgy due to an overestimate on the amount of butter required, but from my experience the first is never up to scratch.

To strengthen my pancake skills, I made them again on Tuesday evening with a savoury filling instead of a sweet one as I had done earlier. The filling of choice was sausage casserole, and despite making enough food for ~3 people, it was delicious.

Yesterday evening, Emily, Charlotte and I decided to make cocktails (on account of being too poor to go out for drinks). The cocktail we settled on was Strawberry Daiquiris. (Mainly because it meant only one kind of alcohol needed to be bought (white rum.)) Breaking the ice led to some undesired consequences (a broken jug for example), but eventually we figured out that beating the bag of ice with a rolling pin was the way forward. We then blended strawberries, brown sugar and white rum with the ice and 3 delicious daiquiris were born.

Now I've ran out of things to write, despite acknowledging that I have a huge amount of things to write about. I'm not sure how that works but I don't feel so groovy and I'm really tired so I guess it doesn't matter too much right now :)

BURST blogging

2010-02-17T15:29:00.004Z

Expect approximately 6 posts later - for some reason my blogging habits have developed like this. Suits me fine though.

Isn't it a nice day today? It's relatively warm, and the incessant precipitation from the last few days has finally given up and allowed the sun to shine. I noticed this on the way to a job interview this morning, and decided that appreciating the weather from the inside of a bus wouldn't suffice: instead I decided to go for a walk in the nearby woods after a bout of washing up (~4 days worth...).

The walk was nice. I chose to just put walking shoes on my interview outfit, and so took to the woods in smart trousers, a shirt and a v-neck, which in retrospect probably isn't the most desirable outfit. Especially because aforementioned precipitation all seemed to coalesce into giant muddy puddles all along my planned path through the woods. After jumping across puddles to safe patches of dry for a while, I decided I looked a prat and decided to man up, and from then on strolled carefreely (word?) through the puddles, deciding that any mud on my trousers would come off in the wash so fuck it.

About half way through the walk, a dog (Mollie) took offence to my presence and started barking at me. I wouldn't mind but the owners assured me 'she doesn't normally do that!', which is little comfort anyway but combined with the fact that it's not the first unprovoked barking I've received this year, makes me feel slightly uneasy.

Mad dogs aside, I continued, and found an unspoiled patch of grass atop the hill. Unspoiled of course, apart from the 2 grafitti covered benches at the far side, one of which I sat on for a while and had a think about some things. I then walked to the bus stop and got the bus down the hill (lazy? Perhaps, but I'm determined to get my money's worth for my weekly travelcard).

Now I'm going to watch an episode of Scrubs, eat a Cornish pasty, 24 oven chips and ~half a tin of beans, then wash up the remainder of the dirties, tidy up a bit, and then commence my blog rampage.

Tara.

pour apprendre le français

2010-02-15T20:00:00.005Z

Pour apprendre le français est maintenant sur le mon pour faire la liste - après étude japonaise et obtention d'un degré de Leeds.

Cette chanson est par une bande appelée Malajube, qui sont Quebecois et qui j'aime:

Je suis désolé si un quelconque de ceci est mal traduit.

I don't care too much for fancy titles

2010-02-13T14:43:00.003Z

Hi.

I'm reading a book called "The Blue-Eyed Salaryman" at the moment. It's about a guy who travelled a lot, then decided to get a career in a Japanese multinational. Those of you who know anything about the Japanese work ethic will realise this is a huge transition from travelling the world as a free agent. The book has some good (or at least thought-provoking) quotes in it, such as these (adapted for tense / person etc):

"set off for a year of living free while [you] have the chance, because you only get the chance once and there [will] be plenty of years for a normal, everyday job later"

"when I get letters from far away I sometimes ask myself what I'm doing here. I'm free to leave anytime, go anywhere, am I not? But I'm not free. I've started something here. I want to see it through."

"Collect those fond memories of a carefree youth, something to look back on when life gets serious, because if you've nothing to look back on, then what've you got?"

"I don't care much for fancy titles and I'm worried that [they] might tie me down. I don't want to build my life around a piece of paper. Still, I have to get a job in the conventional world sometime."

Observant readers will notice that the title of this post is taken from the last quote. It was a pun - as a post title it implies that I don't care too much for fancy titles in my blog, whereas in the book he is referring to titles such as PhD and the like.

I put these quotes up because they seem quite relevant at the moment - they deal with wondering why you're slaving away at something when you could be elsewhere, something that's on my mind at the moment (Canada). They deal with seeing things through - something I'm trying to do at the moment despite things trying to distract me. I'm not sure about the third one - I don't like the idea that the only thing we have to hold onto are memories of the past, but I agree with the sentiment that we should collect fond memories as we go.

Another disjointed post here unfortunately. Perhaps you see where I'm coming from, perhaps not, but either way it's an interesting book and I'll probably write more about it sometime soon :)

today was a metaphor

2010-02-11T22:00:00.005Z

This is a bit abstract, so bear with me.

After waking up today feeling a bit weird, I decided to go for a walk in Greenwich to clear my head.

I got the bus to Blackheath (the stop furthest from the park) then walked across the heath to the park, which I planned on walking through to Greenwich. I ended up taking the most random route possible, shown in red on the map below:

In Greenwich I walked through the market and had a look at a few stalls and in a couple of shops, then went for a hot chocolate in a swanky café nearby.

I felt better after thinking over hot chocolate, and so decided to head home via the Greenwich University campus (to get my bearings for tomorrow). I walked along the river a bit and into the campus, then round a couple of buildings, out the other side and up through the park (route back shown in blue on the map above), and got the bus home from the bus stop closer to Blackheath (but further from home).

The metaphor is this: I felt 'a bit weird' when choosing universities originally, due to circumstances at the time etc. I decided to go to Keele (represented by the first bus stop). Greenwich is now, and I've taken a really random yet enjoyable route to get here. Now I'm heading elsewhere, a goal, which is represented by the bus stop further from home. There were more roads to cross on the way to the latter bus stop, representing the hurdles I have to / have had to overcome to get to Leeds (application, finance etc) - but now I'm on a straight path there.

I told you it was abstract. It sounded more sensible in my head haha.

up in the clouds

2010-02-07T00:13:00.003Z

Just got in from a nice night out with Mum, Connie and Sharon. We went to a pub on Blackheath for a couple of drinks after curry and some Baileys-esque cocktail at home. After incinerating the poppadoms and drinking aforementioned cocktails we got the bus up to the heath, then sat in the garden and talked over a pint of Frúli (strawberry beer).

We talked about a variety of topics - some disturbing - before moving inside for another round of drinks (a lemonade, a brandy and 3 random shots (the barmaid chose tequila gold, sambuca and jagermeister, of which I had the latter)).

After leaving the pub unusually early (10.30!) we had another drink at home along with an episode of bottom, before a cab arrived to take me back to the dogs at my Granddad's house. I opened the door and they nearly knocked me over out of excitement, so I immediately attached them to their lead and took them for a walk. Sky nearly dragged me along the first half of it, but she gradually calmed down and we took up a pleasant pace.

I'm listening to Darwin Deez now and thinking just how great things are / have been recently. Obviously some things haven't been ideal, but I think considering the circumstances some people find themselves in - I'm not doing too badly. I'm also thinking about how nice it would be to spend another week at 620 Huron before everyone moves out - and unfortunately how unrealistic this probably is.

Still it can't help to dream, eh.

Now I'm going to make a drink, relocate to the living room, watch whatever is interesting on TV at this hour and have a mong out until I feel the need to sleep. Then I'll get up tomorrow, walk the dogs for the last time, prepare a fried breakfast, and greet my Grandparents as they arrive home from their holiday in Borneo.

It's been a nice day.

touching quote

2010-02-02T02:38:00.001Z

As you may know, Terry Pratchett is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He has begun campaigning for the right to assisted suicide, and plans to use the method himself to die before the disease progresses to it's final stages. He said:

"And so I have vowed that rather than let Alzheimer's take me, I would take it. I would live my life as ever to the full and die, before the disease mounted its last attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the Brompton Cocktail some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death"

Quite touching, I thought.

a barmy notion

2010-01-14T10:46:00.005Z

I had an idea yesterday. Completely out of the blue - it just popped into my head out of nowhere like this: *poof!*!

The idea is this: to read at least one book every fortnight. I'm not completely sure it's possible to keep such a pace for a whole year, but I'm going to try anyway. I intend to post reviews or at least comments on each one also, which will be exciting (or otherwise) for all you readers!

So far this year I've read 'Jingo' by Terry Pratchett, and have made a healthy start on Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. I have also borrowed 'The Complete Skytraveller' from my Granddad, partly because it's related to travel but mainly because the blurb is so intriguing (I'll post this later in the book's respective post).

Wish me luck, y'all!

my advent calendar

2009-12-05T22:00:00.002Z

I suggested that everyone in the house get an advent calendar, and we put them all on one wall. This didn't happen, unfortunately (everyone's not as childish as I'd hoped!), but Nora noticed my desire for daily chocolate and bought me an Ice Age 3 advent calendar!

Woo!

After eating 5 of 32 chocolates (it counts down to the 1st of January!), it hit me that this advent calendar, if used properly, will see 3 continents.

I think that's pretty impressive!

Christmas v.1

2009-12-04T16:21:00.002Z

We decided to have a Huron Christmas on the 11th December, because it's the last date everyone will be in the house. The plan is to do a Secret Santa and have a little party.

Last night we went to Metro to buy the tree. It was $45 for a real one, and it's about 8 feet tall. We ignored the "cut an inch off the bottom of me" advice, and instead shoved it in a bucket of water, and tied the top to a hook in the ceiling to prevent it from falling over.

Here's me and Aaron with the tree:

In true Co-op fashion, there's loads of abandoned Christmas decorations about the house. We gathered them up, and applied them all to the tree. Here's the end result:

Over the next week, presents for aforementioned Secret Santa will start appearing underneath. There's talk of all chipping in and making a big Christmas dinner, too, which would be nice! At the moment however it's just Secret Santa, loads of food and drink, and maybe Hide and Seek (awesome!).

Nora made Christmas cookies too, it's all very festive in the house at the moment!

a lame statistic

2009-12-02T16:16:00.004Z

I found out today that this is Toronto's first November in SEVENTY years without snow.

I certainly hope there's some in December! Snow was one of the determining factors when deciding where to study and it'd be a shame to come home without seeing any!

Edit: Nora wrote about this too, stating it might be the first in 162 years!

Read it here!

speaking in platitudes

2009-12-02T05:13:00.002Z

So, I've fallen drastically behind on the blog once again. I don't want to explain because it seems that every post I've published recently consists primarily of an explanation, but I will say this: the distractions have been good!

Today marks the beginning of the winding down of my time in Canada; I've booked my flights (thanks Camille!!!), inadvertently made a countdown of days (it was supposed to be a revision timetable!), and realised just how nice it's going to be being home for Christmas ( =] ).

I mentioned my revision timetable: I have 4 exams over the next 16 days. Two for Music, and two for Psychology. I have the usual pre-exam anxiety, but I don't think I have much to worry about. James Yarmolinsky assures me that 200 code courses (second year) are "stupidly easy", or something similar. Let's hope he's right, eh?

I also mentioned distractions: the last couple of weeks in the house have been fairly crazy. We've got two new housemates, Jórge and Gonzalez, the former of whom is from the jungle and the latter from the rainforest. The fact that they are both plush toys doesn't seem to hinder their housemate status; both enjoyed full voting rights at Sunday's house meeting, and both participate regularly in house activities. James (and to a lesser extent myself) has had less work than everyone else in the house, and so has been acting extra-crazy: he's introduced new nicknames for everyone in the house (I'm "Rudeboy"), and initiated an unusual amount of (partial) nudity.

More things have been happening, including painting, concerts, trip to Montreal, English invasion, Dance Cave, film nights, comedy marathons, culinary genius, and much, much more, but as I said at the start, I've fallen behind blogging and these posts are yet to come.

I'm also on a Biffy Clyro inspired literary venture at the moment: several of their albums and songs are named after, or are taken from, books, and I'm going to try and read all of aforementioned books. I'm currently reading "I, Lucifer", a book written from the perspective of Lucifer (Satan); the fallen angel who has been given a chance at salvation. Very interesting indeed.

Bye.

Jorge and Gonzalez

2009-11-25T22:04:00.003Z

We've acquired two new house mates over the last month. One courtesy of James, and one courtesy of me.

Neither are very talkative, but both still manage to bring something special to the house. Jorge, for example, often spends the night in someone else's room. Gonzalez is less outgoing, but is calm and reflective. A good listener.

How they both get a vote at house meetings without paying rent is beyond me, but they do. Although they seem to vote the same as whoever's sitting nearest to them, rather than offering their own opinion.

Their exact origins are unknown, too, which I think is something of a security issue. All we know is that Jorge is from the jungle (which jungle?), and Gonzalez from the rainforest. Maybe as they settle into the house better, they'll open up about their past.

For now, however, we just enjoy having them around.

A giant blue gorilla and a small green tree frog.

et cetera

2009-11-23T18:36:00.002Z

I shalln't apologise for not writing recently, or emphasise just how many unfinished drafts I have this time. Instead I'll write a fairly lame post, then go to the gym, exert myself, and return home to finish the beast of an essay I've been tackling for the last few days.

This morning, after 4 hours sleep, me and Nora went to McDonald's for our complementary coffee (part of a huge advertising campaign). The walk there was pleasant, we spoke about various things, and planned to steal some abandoned furniture. The coffee was acquired, then Nora got the subway to university and I walked home.

On the way I was lucky enough to see an elderly man openly purge the contents of his nostrils all over the sidewalk. Not what I wanted to see. I tried to block the image from my mind, but to no avail.

I then arrived home, opened my essay and began working.

Told you it would be lame.

Check back soon!

Peace.

51% my foot.

2009-11-10T22:53:00.002Z

Got my MUS200 essay back today. The one I thought I'd done quite well on. Turns out they didn't think so - I got 51%!

I know it's not the end of the world, but after seemingly insulting/upsetting the professor by addressing him by his first name, I made extra special effort to make the essay good. Guess that plan didn't work...

Anyway, I've taken this blow on board, and plan to research and revise how to best write and structure essays so I can get a better mark in the future!

I feel like such a nerd writing this, but ah well.

♫ I'm going to Montreal

2009-11-10T02:11:00.002Z

Another lyric as a post title. This time, however, it's not so abstract.

Due to the tomorrow being "Wacky Wednesday" (or "Virtual Monday") and the subsequent mini-break, me and Alex decided to go to Montreal for a few days. Initially the plan was to hitch hike (it's safe in Canada), but unfortunately it's illegal to do so on the 401 (the road that goes most of the way there). Emily also expressed an interest in coming, so we all pooled together and ended up finding a ride share (kind of like pre-arranged hitch hiking). It's going to be $35 each, each way, which is cheaper than a coach.

Emily's friend has also kindly allowed us to stay with him, so we're saving on accommodation for the time we're there too!

Awesome.

double homicide in a sushi restauarant

2009-11-09T20:02:00.005Z

You may recall, at the end of this (this link doesn't work properly yet) post, my mention of a heavy police presence outside a sushi restaurant on Bloor. I found out today what it was in aid of.

This story, taken from CBC, explains what happened just minutes before we walked past:

"There was a fatal stabbing at a Toronto sushi restaurant on Saturday.

A fight broke out in the kitchen of the New Generation Sushi restaurant at 493 Bloor Street West between two employees at about 11 p.m.

Police say a 27-year-old man was stabbed during the fight and later died at St. Michael's hospital.

Xu Wang, 25, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

The name of the victim has not been released.

The slaying marks Toronto's 50th homicide of 2009."

generic update #9 (Will Smith vs. Beethoven)

2009-11-09T00:29:00.005Z

I'd hope most people know to whom the title refers, but just in case:

vs.

Today has been quite a productive day. Me and Alex rearranged our room, me and Char spoke about things and I've began working on the first of three essays due over the next couple of weeks. The essay is a comparison between 3 recordings of a famous Beethoven work of our choice, and whilst doing primary research I left my iTunes library on shuffle. Will Smith's cover of "1,000 Kisses" came on quite early on, and one of the lyrics it about Beethoven:

Yo yo me and more it's like a Pichasso painted your aura
It's like Beehtoven composed your vocal tones

I know this isn't hugely interesting, but I like it when weird little consequences like this happen. I got so excited that I jumped up and flailed madly, sending a cup of precariously balanced coffee all over Alex's bed.

Actually the song and the coffee were two independent events, but it's amusing to think of them as related.

Now I'm about to resume working. I've just eating my second manwich (manly sandwich) of the day: both were filled with pasta from last night, chilli, chilli sauce, cheese and salad. Both were delicious.

Chrexat202620

2009-11-06T20:00:00.001Z

This post details another of my (and (slightly less so) Alex's) awesome creations.

Today, whilst listening to and discussing music with Alex, it occurred to us that we should have some record of our combined listening tastes. We each have separate last.fm profiles (Christophogo and hy07asw respectively), but after some intense deliberation, we decided to collaborate and create a joint profile.

Aforementioned joint profile was created almost immediately, under the name "Chrexat202620". Chrex is a mixture of Chris and Alex (3 letters of my name are included because it's half of each of our names, but I had to round mine up). The date between our birthdays was calculated as Chrex's date of birth (the date was 31st December 1989 - the last day of the 80s - which was pretty cool), and the music represented on the profile is a mixture of our own. 202620 is our room and house number.

The profile can be viewed here.

robot trap

2009-11-04T23:03:00.002Z

Last night whilst looking at our ceiling fan, I had a flash of inspiration and realised that it could be incorporated into a booby-trap of sorts. I immediately began work on creating such a contraption:

Above our window is a shelf, on which I placed my small plastic robot. For the prototype, I connected my phone charger to my headphones with a crude knot, and connected one end to the fan and the other to the robot (this was replaced with a length of white cotton for the finished version). When the fan was turned on, the rotation pulled the string taut, causing the robot to fall from the shelf and be yanked violently about the room.

As you can probably imagine, the path of the robot is highly unpredictable. It seems to work better if the fan is turned on, then off for a couple of seconds, then back on again. This causes epicycles in the circular movement it takes on, making it less likely to smash everything on the mantelpiece.

In the (crappy) picture above you can see the window, the shelf, the robot (circled), the fan, and if you’re particularly observant, the string. I might upload a video of the contraption in action, too, so keep an eye out!

Nora's notebook

2009-11-04T20:14:00.002Z

First I'll briefly introduce Nora for anyone reading this blog who doesn't know who she is: Nora is an exchange student from Germany, studying for a Masters in English Literature at York University in Toronto. She has lived at Huron since August*.

I'm not sure how it began, but people in the house were teaching slang terms in English and Canadian. She then came upstairs and inquired as to whether people in the kitchen had had any "butt sex" recently, then asked me and Alex to teach her some more words, particularly slang terms for genitalia.

Of course, we accepted. Below is a helpful diagram, labelled with all the terms we could think of.

I'm aware this is hugely immature, but it was fun and it was a good deed, so it doesn't matter.

*Sorry Nora!!!

generic update #8 (aaargh!)

2009-11-03T18:52:00.003Z

I woke up this morning (first time in a while) and checked my diary schedule book thing to see what was going on. To my immediate distress I noticed that the second PSY240 midterm is this evening.

I'll be honest: I haven't done nearly enough work for it. I missed a couple of the lectures what with moving house, and haven't done all of the reading, but I've taken the appropriate actions to remedy the situation: I've dismissed all prior plans for today, drank a cup of coffee from Camille ( =] ), eaten a fried egg sandwich, and installed myself, my laptop, and my consumables in the common room in preparation for an intense study session.

So far I'm 2 hours (out of 5 and a half) and 2 lectures (out of 3) in. The plan is to finish taking notes for the third lecture, then relocate to the front porch and read and read and read and read and read aformentioned currently existing and soon to exist notes.

In case you're wondering why I'm writing my blog instead of revising by the way, it's break time.

so far at Huron

2009-10-31T17:07:00.004Z

Before starting, I'd like to say that I may currently be experiencing writers' block. It seems I have lost the ability to structure and transcribe my thoughts in a coherent and readable manner.

I'm going to elect the excitement of the last few days as the reason for this affliction. I'm also going to attempt to write something anyway, so bear with me:

Since moving, I've noticed an inverse relationship between my distance from downtown Toronto and my enjoyment levels. Although I am incredibly grateful to Eva and Chelsea for their hospitality and their welcoming me into their home, I feel taking Alex’s offer of moving in was a good decision - so much fun stuff has happened here already (even despite its adverse impact on my budget).

We had the toast on Wednesday, as I mentioned in my last post. It was really nice to be welcomed and I feel like I’m pretty much settled here now. All my stuff is in and my half of the room is (currently) tidy and organised.

Last night we went to the Red Room for beers, then to a concert at El Mocambo. The headlining band were Bishop Allen, but the first support, Darwin Deez, were much better.

See the video below for a demonstration of their awesomeness!

As you're probably aware, today is Halloween, and we have some rambunctious plans to match: James accompanied me to Honest Ed's today to pick up some face paint, which I'm going to apply to myself until I look like this:

We also picked up some alcohol (I got 2 litres of 7% pomegranate cider for $11, which I'm very eager to try) to drink while we wait for trick-or-treaters to arrive, gorge, and leave again. We also spent $16 on candy to give to aforementioned scavengers.

I'm sure the evenings festivities will be duly documented by me at some point in the near future.

subjective imbecility

2009-10-29T01:46:00.005Z

The title of this post holds no relevance to its content.

In today's Beethoven lecture, our teacher recited a quote about subjective imbecility. As well finding the phrase funny, I found the content interesting also: Beethoven was queried by a critic as to why he considered a recent composition as "music", and Beethoven responded "it's not for you to understand, but for future generations". I found this incredibly smug, but also interesting because he realised that he was composing music beyond the comprehension of the current era.

Anyway. The content of the post:

On Sunday, I was offered by Alex to move in to Huron. It was proposed that we'd share a room, and split it in half along with the rent. At first it seemed like a hairbrain scheme, but it began to gather momentum. Alex asked various people associated with the house whether it would be ok, all of whom said yes, and I told Eva about it and she said it was ok too.

So 4 days later, I moved in!

Pretty much. I still have some stuff at the other place, and have to take some bedding back that I've washed and leave my key, but the bulk of my stuff is here now. We bought a bed up from the basement and stuck it in the bedroom, rearranged the furniture to accommodate two people, and that was that.

It's great here. Tonight we had a toast (sparkling wine!) to my moving in, went to get some food from the NEARBY shops, then came back to watch the IT Crowd and Peep Show. I then went to sleep without the need for an hour journey home.

Good times :)

day (and night) of the dead

2009-10-25T18:10:00.005Z

Yesterday was awesome. The 7th annual Toronto Zombie Walk combined with a Zombie Party at Huron resulted in a day of zombie-fuelled fun. In terms of fancy dress (or costume, in Canadian), I was aiming for something different to the hundreds of generic zombies I'd envisioned. I decided on the "well dressed zombie" look:

Lots of grey, white and black paint later (and a dash of red), this is what I looked like:

(Note - I still haven't managed to get the red paint off of the collar. One of my favourite shirts too!)

We wandered to Kensington Market to catch the procession, and ended up getting a pint in a nice bar while we waited. This was when I realised how weird it actually was being dressed as a zombie.

Shortly after, a commotion seemed to be stirring outside the bar; we went out, and were confronted with a scene similar to the one below (this was actually taken just up the road):

This was when I realised how scary it would actually be to experience a zombie apocalypse. Even thousands of costume zombies was an unnerving sight (especially some of the "famous" zombies we saw (Jesus was my favourite (the first one; I saw 3))).

We got into character (lurching and grunting), then joined the tide of the undead and made our way through the streets of Toronto. It was hugely fun: uninfected people were taking photographs and everyone was trying to act sufficiently zombified as to attract their attention, people were frolicking and other such activities, and the wardens/security were dressed as Umbrella officers which was a nice touch (Umbrella is a fictional anti-zombie organisation from a video game for those who don't know!).

Although most of the crowd were generic zombies, some people had put a lot of effort into their outfits. Some a little too much. Here are my favourites:

And here's my least favourite (call the RSPCA!):

The walk went all around the back streets of Toronto, mostly around Bathurst area and through the annex. It finished in the alley next to Bathurst Station, and the huge amount of zombies in such a small space made for a really atmospheric moment. It was awesome.

Then, just as the walk came to an end, I saw this. Something that managed to out-awesome everything else I'd seen and taken part in thus far:

The Burger King and Jesus, two of the most important figures in history, in the same frame. As zombies.

After the walk we went back to Huron, making the most of our zombie attire on the way (looking and banging on windows, lurching, pretending to eat people's brains etc (the usual)). As we walked along Bloor Street, a Red Bull car pulled up, and was mobbed by zombies (zombies can detect free samples, you see). As a reward we all received a can of Red Bull, which I added to the tower of beer cans I was assembling as part of the Wizards drinking game (every can you drink, you sellotape it to the top of the previous can, until eventually you have an enormous tower of empties).

The party was good, although I'm not going to go into as much detail. Pumpkins were carved (I carved a tiny one about the size of an apple, and it was awesome), decorations were put up, zombies arrived, and festivities began.

I even got a kebab.

the last few days, in a nutshell

2009-10-23T06:33:00.003+01:00

This was going to be part of 'generic update #7 (Silver Dollar, bluegrass)', but I changed my mind.

Apart from 2 academically orientated posts (1 of which is still unfinished... gah!), I've slacked a bit with the blog in the last week. This post is just a basic summary of what's been going on (a fair amount of which has been somewhat quirky):

On the way home after Friday's lecture, I saw an old woman in St. George dressed as a strawberry. I wasn't proud, but everything she was wearing (shoes, socks, trousers, blouse, jumper and hat) were all BRIGHT red and it was hard not to laugh.

I'd a busy schedule for the day (lecture, home, Skype, tour, home, eat, TRANZAC), so it was practically inevitable things wouldn't go to plan. And although I wasn't convinced it was temporally possible to fit everything in, I didn't expect things to turn out quite the way they did:

The lecture finished early, giving me a head start. I rushed home, and took a "short cut" that ended up taking 20 minutes longer than it's longer contemporary. I was still ahead of myself, but some technical glitches with Skype put me unwantingly back on schedule. After a nice conversation with my Grandparent's and a rushed lunch, I headed Downtown, ahead of myself once again, to catch the ISXO Harbourfront tour.

As I prepared to cross the road to campus, however, an elderly man asked me to help him across the road. Taking him across the road turned into walking him across the campus, and a 5 minute walk ended up taking 40. I have no problem with this whatsoever, and I don't want it to sound like I do. I accepted that I wouldn't make the tour, and instead spoke to the old timer (Bill) about UofT, London, how things had changed since the olden days, and much else, before leaving him at the University College book sale.

It was an experience to say the least. My favourite part was walking (very slowly) past the Varsity Arena, whereupon a team practice was taking place. As some sort of motivation for the players, "Eye Of The Tiger" was being played at full volume through the Arena's PA System. The image in my head was of what me and Bill must have looked like to onlookers.

Here the day fell into disrepair. I ran to the ISXO and told the story of why I was late. It was greeted with awe, and I was praised for doing such a selfless act (a bit over-the-top, I think). They gave me a number to ring and request to join the tour late, but I decided against it on account of being starving. Instead I went home, ate, and missed Hugh's thing AGAIN.

Luckily though there was a party at Huron, to which I went instead.

The weekend wasn't hugely eventful, and it wasn't until Monday that I didn't anything of note outside the house. It was Ceara's birthday, and she'd planned a celebratory meal at an Italian Restaurant downtown. I arrived late again (I'm rubbish at being on time recently...), but they'd changed the dining plans while I was on my way anyway. Now we were headed to Sneaky Dee's, a restaurant that had been recommended to me by Laurie on arrival in Toronto.

Sneaky Dee's is a restaurant come concert venue, but we limited our activities to the restaurant section. The food is Mexican, and I had two enchiladas and a taco. All were delicious, though not spicy enough despite vigorous lashings of jalapeño sauce.

After the meal and post-meal conversation, we went outside and decided what (if anything) to do next. Some people left, but the bulk of us headed to the Red Room for some drinks. I really liked it in there, it felt sophisticated. There were bookshelves dotted about, the waiting staff wore cardigans, they had lamps lighting the place rather than overhead lights, and it was just a really nice atmosphere overall. We lowered the tone a bit by playing "who can skim the salt and pepper pots across the table and get them closest to a predetermined point" for a while.

That was fun.

After lots of beer had been consumed by the rest (I'd ran out of money), we headed home. It was late, I was tired, and it was time for bed.

♫ I've been thinking...

2009-10-23T05:54:00.005+01:00

and I've been known to think too much ♫

Some lyrics there from Newton Faulkner's "Lipstick Jungle". I think they're currently applicable to myself (and a lot of people a lot of the time). You can listen to the song below, thanks to Australia's 2dayfm:

I've never knowingly used lyrics as a post title before. I have thought about it, but they've just not seemed to fit properly until now. These lyrics are suitable because, as maybe evidenced in my previous posts, I've been thinking (and worrying) about a lot of things recently: money, flights, courses and people at home are amongst them.

Not letting these things hinder my enjoyment of my time in Canada has been my prime concern, and it's worked for the most part, although it's hard to put things out of your mind completely (especially when you're so far away from the people you'd usually speak to about things).

Today though, as I laid in bed trying to get to sleep, it hit me: there's no reason to let these things stress me out at all. Obviously they're important, and require my attention, but it doesn't have to be negative (and is probably more beneficial if it isn't).

Money isn't ideal, but I've got a budget I can live by. The flight situation isn't ideal, either, but it will be sorted soon and it's a lesson learned. Courses are already sorted, so I don't even know why it's still on my mind, and although things are hard for people at home, they're all capable of looking after each other and themselves, and while I'm not there physically I'd do whatever I could to help from here and it's reassuring to know that the feeling's mutual.

Another thing I've been thinking about is where this is all leading me, and whether I've made the right decisions along the way. I've come to the conclusion that no, I haven't always done so: some things in my past I could and should have done differently, but this is all in retrospect. If I'd done them differently then I wouldn't be where I am now, and even though the aforementioned things aren't always ideal, they're part of me as a person and part that I wouldn't want to lose.

From all of this I've gained a second wind: before I was just thinking "things are so bad, I wish I could go back and change them", and now it's closer to "things aren't even that bad, stop being such a whiny bitch and get on with making the things that are bad better".

This, combined with what I've always thought about mistakes (that as long as you learn from them, it's ok to make them), will hopefully lead to some positive changes in the way I think about and do things. I don't want to spend my life dwelling on past mistakes and become someone I don't want to be later down the line.

Anyway, please excuse the heavy going post. I plan to get back to my old blogging habits asap, and to include more pictures so you can see what I'm up to instead of sifting through reams of text for the good bits!

'night.

generic update #7 (Silver Dollar, bluegrass)

2009-10-22T07:50:00.006+01:00

The title refers to the venue name and genre of a 'concert' I went to tonight. I put concert in 's because it was more of a bar with a house band playing. Either way, there was live music and I was there.

The evening began with an intended hardcore revision session at Robarts. I went there at around 7, with the intention of staying until I'd covered all material for my upcoming PSY270 exam on Friday. Unfortunately this plan fell out of fruition when I realised I had none of the material available to me: I'd left my notes at home, the course website wasn't working, and the course text wasn't in the library catalogue.

A disaster!

Luckily I was saved from perpetual boredom by a text from Laurie, inviting me to a bluegrass concert at a nearby pub/club/bar/establishment. I accepted, invited a few other people, sent out a desperate email to the PSY270 TA (teaching assistant) RE the course website, then headed to St. George for a hotdog.

Upon arrival, the hotdog vendor was engaged in conversation with another patron. They were discussing arbitrary things and I'd arrived midway through the exchange and so had no intention of interrupting, but I did hear something interesting: the hotdog vendor was fluent in 4 languages, and had a PHD (not sure what in). He said he hated when people judged him based on his job, considering he's probably smarter than 90% of his customers, and made the choice to do that job himself.

Inspiring.

Anyway, I loaded up the hotdog with all the usual artery-clogging goodness, then made my way to Spadina. A subway and a streetcar later, I arrived at the Spadina and College, and realised that the Silver Dollar was in fact the pub/club/bar/establishment next to the REALLY seedy looking hotel. Oh joy.

Nonetheless, I went in. After having my ID thoroughly scrutinised, I was permitted entry, which I celebrated by paying $2.75+tax for a can of Coke. I met Laurie and Chris, was introduced to some of their friends, then sat talking for a while until Ceara arrived.

Bluegrass music banging on in the background, Laurie explained the occasion behind tonight's gathering: her friend's father was moving to Thailand the next day, and they're fans of the Silver Dollar so decided to throw an informal goodbye party here. I felt a bit out of place being there considering I didn't know anyone apart from Laurie and Chris, but they assured me it was ok. The guy who was moving to Thailand spoke to me with interest about England, too.

When Ceara arrived we spoke some more, then headed to the dance floor to have a look at the music. Ceara's friend Ori (sp?) taught us how to "stomp", then him and a drunk lady demonstrated very energetically. There was a guy with an amazing beard (something like the image below) dancing around too.

Laurie dragged me to the dance floor after a while, and we danced. Ceara joined in too and I think we al did the dosey doe. It's hard to tell. There was a lot of spinning around and stomping involved though, and it was fun!

I left fairly early to go back to the library, and ended up not doing any work again... It was a fun night though!

academic update

2009-10-22T07:29:00.002+01:00

Firstly, please excuse the recent lapse in posting. I've had a stressful few days and blogging has to take the backseat when that happens or I'd probably have a breakdown in blog form. I won't bore you with the stressors, but tell you instead that things are picking up now: maybe it's correlational with the fact that tomorrow is the last of midterms.

I'm trying to think what's happened in the 6 days since my last proper post (3 if you count the temporary post I'm yet to redraft), but sadly it's not been much. This is one of the stressors, although I intend to stick to my earlier statement and not bore you with it, but tell you instead that I've planned to do more things from now on, to prevent it becoming stressful again.

So here's what I've got in the way of post content:

I've watched a lot of videos on Youtube. It would seem that last year's Peep Show grind (5 seasons in just over a week with Simon) was not a one-time-only occurrence, as this week I've watched the last 2 seasons of The IT Crowd, all 6 episodes of Garth Marengi's Darkplace, and the first 3 episodes of Peep Show season 6. On brief calculation that's 8 hours 24 minutes of videos, which could be considered slightly shameful.

I don't consider it so, however. The videos have been interspersed with high amounts of academic activity, and have acted as a barrier between it and insanity. With midterms, assignments and staple reading and note taking, I think it's healthy to have a break now and then!

On the midterm front, 2 of 3 exams are now done. I feel they both went well: I got 80% in Abnormal Psychology, which I'm happy about, and I mentioned my positivity regarding the most recent exam a couple of posts back (I'll see if it's well founded when the results are given out next week). Tomorrow's exam, though, I'm not feeling so positive about: I've been a bit too casual with revision to feel completely confident, and annoyed at myself because that's a lesson I should've learned by now.

No matter, though. I'm revising now, have done so earlier today, and intend to do so again for the whole of the time I'm awake until the exam. I can draw upon a lot of what I learned last year at Keele, too, which I knew from the start and think is part of the reason I was casual in the first place.

So although the stress, high-volume video watching and qualms about exam preparation don't suggest the best mental state, I'm feeling good. Being here is teaching me a lot about myself and life, and they're lessons I'm happy to learn. I figure it's best to learn them and feel crap temporarily than not learn them 'til it's too late and feel crap for ages.

I'm sure if I put some more thought into that it could sound more philosophical, but as long as it gets the message across it'll do for now!

all-nighter in Robarts

2009-10-19T09:53:00.001+01:00

I intended to write a structured post informing readers about the last few days, and the current all-night study session I have embarked on, but unfortunately I'm too tired to construct a sentence.

Apart from the sentence I just constructed. Chalk that up to luck.

Anyway, I'll edit and rewrite this today/tomorrow/soon, after I've slept.

Bye!

my juices are flowing

2009-10-16T04:00:00.002+01:00

Creative ones, that is.

I got an email from Keele about a film competition for exchange students. The brief is as follows:

"We invite you to submit a short film (of no more than three minutes) that captures an interesting aspect of your study abroad experience. Subjects may include - but are certainly not limited to: a video-diary reflecting on new challenges/adventure; a short documentary recording a typical day or a special event at your PU; an interview with another student, etc."

And luckily:

"[I] don't have to use the latest technical equipment, a mobile phone or digital camera will do just fine!"

For some reason, I'm hugely excited about this. I've got no prior experience with film making, nor any idea whether my ideas are even doable, but I'm going to try anyway. I've got some film making software on my laptop, some ideas in my head, and a camera that's ready to be used!

If this project comes to fruition, I'll post the video on Youtube for all to see!

And if I win the £150 prize, I'll post a picture of me with the cheque up here!

Ha!

second exam!

2009-10-14T22:45:00.003+01:00

This is odd. I just signed in to write a post and found this draft, but I have no recollection of writing it. Maybe my future self signed in and backdated the post to now so I'd remember writing it? Or maybe I'm just a numskull.

Regardless, I'd like to begin with a brief financial update, illustrating why Natwest rocks:

[12 Oct 2009 - Interest - £0.01]

That's the date, reason for and amount of an incoming transaction. I only had £780 in my account at the time, too. That's a corking interest rate (~0.01%!) if I may say so myself.

Now, for the meaty part of the post.

Today I had my second exam. I say today as in since the last time I woke up, not according to the clock, otherwise it'd be yesterday. It was about Beethoven, and consisted of a listening section, a short answer section (S.A section) and an essay section.

It's weird how S.A section and essay section sound the same aloud, when they're such different things.

I think I got 72% on the listening section, but it could go either way. There is speculation among my friends as to what the answer for one part is, so depending on whether I'm in the right or wrong, it could give or take another 20% to or from my score.

The S.A section and essay section were, upon reflection, fairly easy. The questions weren't unexpected, and so I'd revised the topics sufficiently to pull a passable answer out of the air. I used a lot of big words too, and that's always a good sign.

So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

After the exam, I picked up my UHIP Card, so I am now covered financially in the occurrence of any horrific injuries. I then caught a streetcar across to Yonge Street, and went into HMV to do some research. I got sidetracked while trying to find the World Music section and ended up discovering Chickenfoot: a band consisting of Chad Smith, Joe Satriani and two other noteworthy musicians who I made a note to look up later.

A shop assistant with an awesome ginger beard set me up at a listening booth, where I listened to the "cockbluesy" stylings of Chickenfoot, and played with the album packaging. It was heat sensitive! When you touched it, that bit changed colour. Very impressive stuff. The music was ok too.

I also glanced by chance at the World Music section while I was listening, and had a look through its contents afterwards. I'm doing an opinion piece on World Music for a course assignment, so in case you're wondering, looking at CDs is valid research.

The rest of today was spent writing letters, washing up, playing Civilisations in the library, and eating Chinese food. A good day by my thinking.

in this crazy world in which we live in

2009-10-14T03:10:00.002+01:00

This post doesn't really have a main point to convey. It should probably be generic update #7, but I thought of the title on the streetcar today and it made me laugh.

Notice how I used the word "in" 3 times in one sentence.

But yes. Today was a productive day indeed. Some aspects, however, were just plain crap. I got up at 7.30am, which constituted "plain crap". Then Eva gave me a lift to the subway, which acted to quickly restore the equilibrium of my day. I had an interesting lecture about Chinese music upon arrival on campus which added another "good" point to my day, making the score 2-1 in favour of good.

Regarding the previous point: did you know that Chairman (l)Mao's wife started a "cultural revolution" in China in 1966, in which all music, aside from 8 pieces with her seal of approval (8!) were banned? Fascinating.

Notice how I used the word "in" 3 times in that sentence, too.

After my morning lecture I wandered around for a while, trying to see some of Toronto that I hadn't seen yet. I walked through Victoria college and a picturesque cloister, onto Charles Street, which I followed East to Church Street. There was nothing much of note, except a big green building towards which I was walking. Upon reaching Church I turned South, walked along to Carlton Street, and turned West towards Yonge. At Yonge and College I got a streetcar to campus, and walked up to Robarts with the intention of doing something useful.

I browsed a book sale, ate my lunch, tried and subsequently failed to put to paper a comical idea for a cartoon I had earlier, then left because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Once outside I remembered my intention to drop AST210 - Great Moments in Astronomy, and so headed towards Woodsworth College (nearby) to find out how to do so. I was advised to log in to ROSI and do it from there, but unfortunately I'm a cretin: I returned to Woodsworth twice during the day with queries on how ROSI works, until eventually they gave up and did it for me.

I now have one less exam to worry about.

The rest of the 7 hours until my next lecture was passed mostly by wandering around aimlessly. I went to Chinatown to pick up some postcards for people at home and a T-shirt for Finn, and took some more photographs while I was there. I went to the library again to procrastinate online for a while, and realised just how much of a colossal timewaster Facebook is. I tried to recruit James to come study in the library with me, but we quickly realised we'd get more work done alone. I also gave him the response "it's an inquisitive remark. used in that context it's a prompt for an explanation of your previous statement" when he asked what I meant when I said "what".

With my options exhausted, I ended up panicking about how much revision I hadn't done for tomorrow's exam yet and heading home with blatant disregard for my evening lecture.

Since arriving home, I have revised. I have eaten chicken noodles, which were delicious. I have spoken to Bean on Skype, which was great! And replied to a couple of emails (need to do a couple more before bed). I've eaten more chicken noodles, and drank a can of Coke. Currently I'm playing Civ with James, and I intend to be asleep by midnight in order to get up and squeeze in some more revision on the morrow.

That'll be it for now, goodbye!

generic update #6 (sometimes I'm a lazy bastard)

2009-10-09T18:22:00.003+01:00

You may have noticed from my recent inclusion of the "posts in progress" box, as well as referring to posts yet unpublished in other posts, that I'm falling a bit behind with my blogging.

Obviously this isn't catastrophic: there are more important things than online recordings of my time in Canada, but I still find it distressing. I have 42 drafts in my posts list, most of which I have removed from the blog or have no intention of publishing at all, but the 6 of those I do intend to publish (at a quick count) are anywhere between half written and not yet started.

I think it's because when I fall behind in something, my immediate reaction is to STOP (!), plan how to catch up, then implement the plan and eventually catch up. Usually however this process takes longer than it would to just sit down and grind whatever it is that needs to be done until it's done, which strikes me as slightly counterproductive. But ah well, that's just how I work I guess.

ANYWAY. That's the end of my rant. It's none of the readers concern how I operate, and I haven't had any desperate post requests (or any whatsoever, in fact), so I guess it's not a huge issue!

Today however, in an effort to undo some of my lazy-bastardness, I got quite a lot done. Despite unfortunately missing today's only lecture (I was at the wrong university when it started).

I read and replied to a few emails that I've been meaning to attend to. It's so nice getting an email from home: it makes me feel all goofy although it makes me wish I was there too...

I also browsed the UofT Clubs Directory once more, and emailled a few societies and clubs, including 2 campus newspapers, the Lego engineering club, and the French and Japanese student societies. I am aware that I am neither French nor Japanese, but they welcome anyone with an interest in the respectively represented cultures.

There's a chance that I may be able to contribute content to the student newspapers I mentioned, too, which would be cool. I submitted some of my photos, as well as a link to this very blog, so that the higher-ups may get a taste of my, well, photography and writing.

Also on my list of things to do was tidy up my room, which I half did, and do my laundry, which I half did as well.

I presume I'll do the other half of both things tomorrow, or on Sunday at the latest.

Now, however, I'm going to bed. It's Thanksgiving weekend this weekend, and Eva has invited me to her family's celebration, which I'm looking forward to greatly! I need to be up and ready in 12 hours, and I've got a lay in planned.

I'll leave you with this invitation to participate in a research study that I found on the Psychology Society's main page.

"We are currently seeking volunteers to take part in a positron emission tomography (PET) study at CAMH. Persons eligible for a screening interview must meet the following criteria:

[Be] 18 to 35 years of age
Use [...] cannabis/marijuana at least three times per week and hear voices or feel paranoid while using"

It seems to me to rely heavily on the trust of potential participants. I hope for their sake that they remain anonymous, otherwise there isn't much incentive to take part!

Keelite out night

2009-10-09T12:00:00.001+01:00

I got an email a couple of weeks ago about the upcoming travel plans of a Keele professor. He was coming to Canada to help set up an exchange program, and wanted to meet the Keele students here on exchange at the time.

Me, Tom, Abi and Sammy arranged to meet aforementioned professor (Wynn) at York University yesterday evening, and to have a meal afterwards. We were going to go downtown but decided against it, because we still hadn't decided on a restaurant the day before we were supposed to go.

Unfortunately I arrived late, half way through the main course to be precise, but it was still nice. We spoke about Keele, England, and all the problems we've all had since arriving, then Wynn paid the bill and said he had to go. We all thanked him for the meal, said goodbye, then talked amongst ourselves for a while.

We decided to go to a Blacklight party at a club on the campus, and so headed there. We got VIP tickets for $2, but unfortunately they weren't valid for non-York students (i.e. me). I had to upgrade my ticket (and the cost), and also persuade the bouncers that my ID wasn't fake just because it wasn't Canadian. After showing 3 separate photo IDs they let me in, where I was fully frisked, charged a $15 cover, and forced to leave my jacket in the cloakroom ($3).

So, $22 later and we were inside!

We headed to the bar, got some drinks, then found a booth and sat talking for a while. Some of their friends arrived shortly after, and I was introduced, then they were incorporated into our conversation. We were given glowsticks before we came in, so we were messing around with those, and more drinks were bought.

After a while most people headed off to dance, but me and Sammy sat at the table. Bouncers came around periodically to check we still had our wristbands (apparently someone was shot in the club last year, which is why the security is so tight), and my visitor wristband attracted some sour looks. The night went on like this 'til just before 2, when everyone regrouped and we headed out.

I'd inadvertently missed the last bus from campus, and even the security advised me against walking up to Keele and Finch to get a bus from there. Thankfully Abi and Sammy's friend Areeb offered to let me crash in his room. We met him, then headed over there. It was in a big confusing building (which proved difficult to get out of the next day), and I had to sign in at the reception as a guest and was given a temporary guest permit accordingly. We then got in the lift and went up to his room.

I was given the bed, despite my insistence that he should have it, so I got a good nights sleep and headed out at around 10.30am to try and find my way back home. I wandered around for a long time looking for the bus stop, got some pancakes, then finally found it and ate them on the bus home.

generic update #5 (Beethoven and Coke)

2009-10-07T21:41:00.005+01:00

This is in the same vein as generic update #3, in that a large portion of it is about my Beethoven lecture. It's also been edited since I first posted it, so if you're reading it for the second, third or any other subsequent time, you may notice a few changes (for the better I hope).

Firstly, and nerdily, I'd like to explain my recent blogging tendencies. I introduced the "generic update" posts to cover any posts made up of a collection of smaller things that don't really warrant full posts. I feel generic updates #1 through #4 were successful, however as of this one (#5) I'll be adding subtitles to hopefully make the title (and subsequently the posts) slightly more appealing.

Now, the (delete as applicable: boring/nerdy/riveting) stuff is out of the way:

It's getting really busy here at the moment. All of my exams bar one are over the next two weeks (the aforementioned one was this week), and revision / panicking have ensued. I've spent two late night sessions in the library; both have been quite fun however due to the combination of working and video games.

It's not all work and no play however: tonight for example I'm meeting Abi, Sam and Tom (fellow Keelites studying at York University (North of Toronto)) to go to dinner with a visiting Keele professor, which should be nice. I'm not sure where we're eating yet, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. The professor is here to help set up an exchange program with the school of nursing, from what I can gather.

I'm pleased to say that my budget is still holding up. Sort of. I moved from a daily budget to a weekly budget because it's easier to keep track of, but I may have to move to a monthly budget soon as I've spent over my weeks budget this week and I need to get back in the swing of things. There's so much to do here though it's hard to conserve money! Luckily most museums are free on certain days, there's a lot of free / cheap stuff on and around campus (including sports), and the city is still new and interesting enough to wander aimlessly around without spending a penny (in the financial sense at least).

Now, the large portion of this post related to my Beethoven lecture follows:

MUS202 - Beethoven, is my favourite course here at UofT. It's the only one (shamefully) of which I've attended all the lectures, and also the only one I find it truly interesting. If you hadn't guessed from the title, it's all about Beethoven's life, music, and interaction thereof. The lecturer gets really involved, and is really quirky as well.

Good (or at least weirdly intriguing) things seem to happen before/in/after the lectures, too. Last week was the woman invading the mens toilet incident, and this week a vending machine malfunction gave me 2 bottles of Coke for $1.75 which delighted me to no end (and therefore falls into the "good" category of things that have happened before/in/after MUS202).

This week's lecture was not hindered even by a long winded exam talk, in which hints were given as to the possible content of the upcoming midterm. This may have been due to the (theoretically) free Coke I was enjoying, or due to the fact that I feel strangely prepared for the exam after reading half of the course text in one sitting (a freak occurrence by my standards), I'm not quite sure.

One thing I do know, however, is that I feel like a bit of an ignoramus for only just learning which of Beethoven's symphonies is which...

first exam!

2009-10-06T21:46:00.001+01:00

As the cryptic title of this post suggests, I had my first exam today! It was for PSY240 - Introduction to Abnormal Psychology, and so consisted of questions about how to detect, diagnose and treat disorders of the mind.

Luckily for me, most of the stuff covered I'd studied (or at least been introduced to) at Keele last year. This fact, combined with two intense (ha!) research sessions beforehand and 74% on a mock exam lead me to believe I did fairly well.

I realised immediately after the exam, however, that I'd mixed up two basic principles (Operant and Classical Conditioning, for anyone of a Psychological persuasion). This made me feel intensely stupid, and probably knocked about 5-7% off of my result.

The exam format was favourable. It was a 60 question multiple choice exam, which we had 75 minutes to complete. Me and most others left after about 30 though. The response sheets were so much cooler than those at Keele, if only for the name: Scanotron. Or something along those lines. It felt like sitting an exam in the future.

After the exam, traditional post-exam celebrations were conducted. I met Alex and James at Huron at 8ish (I think that's how I'm going to refer to it from now on by the way, instead of Alex and Neil's house, or any other similar description), and we walked to the bar we went to on the day we met. Last time we were here they were advertising 25c chicken wings, and we were interested in seeing if a) the offer was still on b) the price was accurate c) the wings were worth the price and d) how many chicken wings it's humanly possible to consume in one sitting.

Unfortunately our progress was hindered at a): the offer was no longer on, and so subsequent events b), c) and d) were nullified.

Darn.

We bought a pitcher between us to be polite, drank it, then went back to Huron via Sam's Supermarket (I think) with the intention of some combination of the following: eating fast food, playing poker, watching The IT Crowd and drinking beer.

A pepperoni, ham, red onion and topping I've forgotten pizza was ordered, along with 10 chicken wings and 4 cans of pop as part of a deal. The IT Crowd was watched while we waited for the food, then we moved upstairs for a casual game of poker afterwards.

All in all it was a good evening, apart from the fact that Alex bought up the fact that I look like a snake. I wasn't insulted, just really confused...

generic update #4

2009-10-05T19:20:00.002+01:00

A lot has happened in the 4 days since my last post, and so my post frequency has decreased. This is not a problem for me because I've been having a great time, but it may be problematic for my (possibly) devoted readers.

I've just added a "posts in progress" box to my page, which you should be able to see on the right just beneath the title bar. As you may have deduced from the name, this box will show posts that are in progress but are yet to be published.

Keep checking back for them!

Anyway, this post is just a general summary of what's going on; I won't be giving any sneak previews to my posts in progress, so you'll just have to wait for those.

It's Monday afternoon, the first Monday in October in fact, and while my contemporaries back home have only just started lectures, I have my first exam tomorrow. I'm not too worried, it's a 60 question multiple choice exam based on the first 5 chapters of the course text, but it's still slightly disorientating to be thrust so quickly into exams (I also have 4 others over the next two weeks).

Currently I'm supposed to be in the library revising for aforementioned exam, but there's only 1 copy of the book and someone seems to be using it. I had a look in the University Bookstore but it cost over $100 for the book, which I refuse to pay (mainly because that's 2 weeks budget for me!).

I've just returned from a brief visit to the Toronto Music Garden; a permanent installation at the harbour front based on Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cellos. It seemed nice, but it's designed to follow the pictorial elements of the pieces, and so I was unable to appreciate it fully without a tour. Luckily there are weekly tours and I intend to go back at some point and join one.

That's it for now, anyway. I'm going back to the library in an attempt to track down the elusive course text. I may also get a can of Orange Crush on the way (it's kind of addictive!).

Nuit Blanche

2009-10-04T17:52:00.005+01:00

Toronto's Nuit Blanche, the "all night contemporary art thing", is an offshoot of the European all night art festivals of the same name, whose exact origins are disputed. They began in 1997 in either Paris, St Petersburg or Berlin, and have since spread around the world, arriving at Toronto in 2006.

Me and a group of friends went to Toronto's fourth annual Nuit Blanche yesterday. I missed nearly all of Bea and Belén's pre-festival party because of the Anishinaabe Fall Ceremonies, which was a shame.

I planned to write a proper post about the event, but it's getting longer and longer overdue, so I've decided to just post some pictures of the art instead:

This is a giant silver rabbit shaped helium balloon. I'm not sure what it's called, who it's by or what it represents (it's the same with most of the art shown from here onwards unfortunately), but it was striking. It was also bloody hard to take a good picture of because of it's size. Luckily Windows Live Photo Gallery is good at stitching separate photos together.

This is the "4 Letter Word Machine". Based on the name, I'm sure you can figure out what it does without an in-depth description on my part. Throughout the course of the evening, I saw it say numerous words. Some got better reactions than others, some had people cheering, some were phrases and had people chanting along, but the most notable for me was "fart".

This was the weirdest piece of "art" I saw. It was a 39 man last man standing wrestling match, and as if that isn't weird enough, it was exhibited in a bus station. On one side of the building the cross-country bus service was operating as normal, and on the other, 39 sweaty latex clad men were interacting with each other in a very homo erotic fashion.

After watching the wrestlers prance about for a while, we walked South and saw a guy (presumably with some kind of inferiority complex) juggling an active chainsaw, a hand grenade, and a meat cleaver on the way. The crowd was surprisingly close to him considering his choice of juggling implements...

Towards the Financial District, the art gradually became harder to understand. Outside the head offices of the banks, someone had put funfair rides. This juxtaposition of work and play was enough to constitute art, apparently. The rides were free though, so we tested the Fun Slide and found the description to be fairly accurate.

Another challenging piece, further pushing the boundaries of what can be considered "art", was this:

A pool of 80 proof vodka, in a bank lobby.

For some reason, as is with any substantial body of water (or vodka) in a public place, people were compelled to throw money into it. There were coins EVERYWHERE. People were trying to skim them across the surface, they were throwing handfuls at a time, some threw them so hard that the coins ended up across the other side of the building. I guess it's both good and bad for the artists, though: they make some money out of it but they can't drink it afterwards.

At this point, my camera died, so the photos will end now.

Throughout the rest of the night, we saw Monopoly being played with real money (by C-List celebrities), a presentation on how your hand shape can help you win the lottery, a lot of radio receivers hanging from the ceiling of a lobby (the feedback combined with the aesthetic was the art), and a really interesting interactive music thing. There were areas marked out by neon duct tape, and cameras high above that picked up when people crossed the tape. When the cameras detected someone, it was processed by a laptop, and triggered a sound. All the sounds together didn't sound too great, but the exhibit itself was really interesting. People were trying to figure out how it worked, and dancing around like maniacs in the process.

After a game of chess in a posh hotel lobby at around 4am, and a while spent wandering aimlessly, the crowds began to dissipate. So too did our group, until it was just me and Alex left at around 6am. We went to the famed exhibit whose name I forget (which had been too busy to get to for the rest of the evening), saw inside, felt disappointed, then went our separate ways. I went home to bed.

Anishinaabe Fall Ceremonies

2009-10-04T10:47:00.004+01:00

[click the pictures in this post to enlarge!]

On Saturday I had an opportunity that not many people get. The ISC sent out invitations in the previous week to participate in an Anishinaape (Canadian First Nation) Ceremony, and I was one of approximately 45 exchange and international students who accepted.

If you've read any of my other posts you'll know my budget is quite tight, so I originally debated whether to buy the $35 ticket. I also wrote here about the runaround to get the ticket after I'd decided to do so. The result was more than worth both the debate with myself and running around like a madman thereafter.

Anyway, Saturday arrived, and it was an early start. I'd set numerous alarms the night before as not to miss it, and was (un)lucky enough to find out what Toronto looks like at 7am. I arrived just before 8 in a groggy state at the ISC, had a complementary Tim Horton's muffin, and spoke to Yaz and his friends while we waited for the bus.

To my glee, it was an "American" school bus. I say American because it was like the ones you always see in films, but I'd take an educated guess and say that this one was actually Canadian.

After our stuff was loaded, the roll call had been completed, and the bus was boarded, we set off on our way. Our destination was about 2 hours away from Toronto, but I have no idea in which direction. About an hour into the journey Michael talked to us about the Ceremony protocol, then got out a drum and introduced us to the Anishinaabe music.

This increased my glee (if glee can be increased?): I had now been in a school bus, on a school trip, and sang songs. It was what I imagine kindergarten is like, all over again!

Anyway, back to my sane train of though: From what Michael said, music plays a completely different role in the Anishinaabe culture to that of ours. The concept is "hard to grasp in Western culture", but songs are considered to be alive; they are greatly respected, and seen as a measure of wealth. Families, Clans and important events have specific songs written in their honour, which are passed down through generations. You aren't allowed to play a song unless you've been granted permission, and Michael told us that in the past songs were used in a similar way to currency; to secure everything from property and livestock to wives and children.

I found that fascinating.

After the songs, I looked out the window for a while and saw my first glimpse of what I imagine the majority of Canada is like. I remember reading somewhere that a huge proportion of the population live within 100 miles of the Canada / USA border, and most of the rest of the land is untouched. This was 2 hours outside Toronto, and although the previous statistic may not be completely accurate, the transformation was astounding.

Houses were few and far between, and they were evidently rural. There was so much greenery, although the leaves had began to change so it wasn't all green any more. There were rivers and lakes too but we didn't get such a good view of these.

Below are a couple of pictures of the rural houses and not-completely-green greenery:

Nice, huh?

I looked out of the window for most of the rest of the way, soaking it all in, but it wasn't a touch on the place we arrived at shortly after. I think it was referred to as a reserve, basically just privately owned woodland on which the Anishinaabe conduct the Fall Ceremonies (as well as other things). There's another couple of pictures below:

There was some food out, which we ate while the ceremony was being prepared, then it was time to go in. The ceremony was held in a long tent, called a lodge:

This was a modernised one built with timber and canvas, but you can imagine that generations ago they'd look a bit different. I heard it referred to as a teepee at one point as well, I think, so I'm not 100% sure of the name.

I didn't take many photos inside because I wasn't sure if it was allowed, but the picture below is of the ceremonial objects:

The ceremony itself is to give thanks to Mother Earth, and acknowledge that she needs rest over the Autumn and Winter. A big part of it is the interaction of men and women, and the strawberries (red) and blueberries (blue) in the picture above represent those. There's also masks on the ceiling, half red and half blue, and women and men sit on opposite sides of the tent.

The other bowls are tobacco (brown) and cedar (green). Later in the ceremony, the "talking circle" happens, where everyone stands up, gives thanks for whatever they feel necessary, then make a wish. This wish is accompanied by throwing tobacco on a fire, which is followed by cedar to purify any negative aspects of the wish.

The mat in the picture shows a turtle, divided into red, blue, white and yellow. I think the blue is supposed to be black, as the red, black, white and yellow in Anishinaabe beliefs represent the worlds people, which were created by the Creator to populate the world. Instead of the Adam and Eve idea, they believe that 64 people were made originally, 8 of each gender in each colour group.

The Anishinaabe also believe that the world is split into "generations", but different in meaning toa generation of a family. Each lasts 400 years, and is referred to as a fire (2000 was the beginning of the 8th fire, for example). These were prophesised long ago by elders, and are interpreted as they occur. It is said that one day the 4 colour groups will reunite, and will realise the and fulfill the human purpose (I think, apologies if I'm remembering any of this wrong...).

The human purpose I referred to is our task given to us by the Creator. Everything else in the universe is doing what it's supposed to: Grandmother Moon orbits the Earth, Mother Earth provides sustenance for the creatures upon it, animals provide food for humans and clean the Earth, fish, birds and bugs all do the same. Humans, however, have veered from their path. They have fallen out of touch with nature, and it has affected their lives (and the lives of other creatures) negatively. When an elder spoke at the ceremony, speaking about the above made her very emotional. She said something along the lines of "we all do things that hurt each other, and hurt Mother Earth... We're capable of so much more, but we choose not to do it", which I thought was quite apt.

The talking circle began after a short "pee break", and I found it really interesting. It took about 2 hours for everyone to speak, leading us to miss the later parts of the ceremony, but the things people said were really insightful and inspiring. Most of us (exchange students) gave thanks for cheesy stuff like the opportunity to partake in the ceremony and our families at home and stuff, but the Anishinaabe's thanks were really eloquent and well thought out. I can't remember too much, unfortunately, but it was said that "it's not our job to live in fear", and that "we should not forget our links to nature".

Thanks were also given for things we'd normally take for granted, like the ability to cry (some of the speakers got emotional). It was inspiring and thought provoking stuff.

We were also thanked for attending the ceremony. Someone said that seeing all the cultures together in one place was really special, and that "hearing all our accents makes [her] heart smile". It was also said that 3 out of 4 colour groups were represented, which was good to see.

At the second "pee break", a 30 foot army tent had to be put up for eating space. The men did this, and the women (except those on "Moon time") prepared the feast. A few exchange students (including me!) helped put up the tent, and it's amazing how quickly the beastly canvas was erected. Once the tent was up and the feast prepared, we all tucked in.

Unfortunately no one used the tent, and it started raining really heavily, so we all got wet. Especially on the walk back to the bus!

That's all for now anyway, except for the picture of feast food below:

generic update #3

2009-10-01T00:14:00.001+01:00

This is about yesterday. I starting writing it today (yesterday) but tomorrow (today) came before I could post it.

I've been starting my other generic updates with a brief update on the weather, so I'll do the same here: it was cold today. I think the low was around 9°C. It's weird how quickly it's changed, apparently there's only two weeks of Autumn between Summer and Winter here.

I arrived on campus late this morning, and so missed my Astronomy lecture with the intention of writing up the notes from the uploaded slideshow. I haven't done this yet, I put it on my to-do list and did other things instead.

At around noon I went to the ISC to talk to Michael White (who I accidentally called Mark in 2 emails, even when he signed the first "Michael") about the Fall Ceremony trip this weekend. He told me it's a native Canadian ritual celebrating the harvest which we could observe and participate in, followed by a feast and stories around a campfire.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough money on me, and there were only 7 tickets left, so I had to go on a mission. My final destination was the bank, although I headed for 3 other places on the way (often pirouetting mid-route and heading to the next place). The reason for this is that I'm still not completely familiar with the city, or indeed the campus.

30 minutes and $420 later (I took out money for rent, too), I went back to the ISC and bought a ticket. I was advised to dress warm and bring a blanket, and congratulated for stepping out of my comfort zone to participate in this. What the hell have I got myself in for?!

Naturally I'll let you know afterwards.

Also, while (loosely) on the topic of other blog posts, I still have drafts to publish for the Frat party I recently attended (and the morning after), Keele friends (and Hugh Oliver) and the CN Tower (with views therefrom (I can't believe therefrom is actually a word)).

Back to my day: I ate lunch on the way to Beethoven (one of my courses), then met Mariko outside and went inside. Before the lecture started I went down to the "washroom" to grab some tissue, and when I exited therefrom (woo!), a woman stopped me and asked if there was soap in the gents.

"Yeah I think so" I replied.

"Great, can I go in and get some?"

I wasn't really going to say no: I was leaving and therefore didn't give a crap (I might note that I didn't give a crap when I was in there either).

"Shall I just bring you some soap?" I asked.

"Ok"

I got her some soap. A fairly generous portion if I may say so, but apparently not generous enough. She asked me to check if the urinals were in use, then when I said no she charged in, did a mass apology, stole more than her fair share of soap, and ran away.

I went back upstairs, took my seat next to Mariko, got my books out, tried to put what just happened out of my mind, and got ready to learn. The lecture was good. Our lecturer is really quirky: he said Beethoven "isn't like Rihanna, because firstly, it's not crap ("she really gets up my nose")". And according to him, "music reviews are like soft porn", and "if you play parallel 5ths you can... go into space".

Great guy.

He also noted how the freakiest thing he's ever seen is when he turns the lights off in a lecture theatre, and sees all the laptop-illuminated faces looking at him.

After the lecture I headed home to do stuff. I typed up some notes, spoke to Char on Skype, tidied up a bit, and did some laundry. Eva got home with Chelsea and her nephew Eric (cool guy!), and we all had dinner together which was nice. There were also cinnamon buns for desert, which were delicious!

And now once again, I'm going to bed.

generic update #2

2009-09-30T04:29:00.002+01:00

This is also about today.

Today, yesterday's dreary weather continued. I got up early, had breakfast, then subjected myself to the elements once again (thankfully the rain wasn't as bad and the bus arrived straight away). I arrived in Downtown dry once again, this time without the sense of smugness as everyone else was dry too.

I had an early morning World Music lecture, and though I hate to say it, the drones typical of Indian music didn't do much to help me stay awake. After the lecture, and nearly falling asleep a couple of times, I headed to Hart House to ring James, then to the ROM for some free browsing.

After revisiting the exhibits I covered a fortnight ago with a camera, I visited the Canada exhibit, and had a quick look through Dinosaurs, Mammals, Birds and the Bat Cave before heading out of the ROM and back to campus for a meeting with the Psychology Undergraduate Counselor.

The meeting went thus: I arrived at 2pm. I was advised that there was nothing I could do to solve my problem, apart from maybe talk to the college registrar. I left the meeting at 2.05pm, and headed to the college registrar (after visiting the ISXO to find out what college I'm actually enrolled in).

Once at my college, a lovely woman helped me as much as she could, fiddled with the computer system a bit, got someone to make a phonecall on my behalf, then told me there was nothing that could be done to solve my problem.

Bugger.

Basically, I'm enrolled on the wrong Psychology course. It's better to have found out now than when I return home, but it's still a bit of a polava. I'm in correspondence with home now to try and sort it out, so hopefully it won't mess things up too much!

Anyway, back to my day. I met James (randomly) in the library at around 3. We went to the UTSU building to get his October TTC pass, then to the bank so he could reimburse me $80 for aforementioned pass. Unfortunately it was closed, so I'm gonna have to send out the goons to collect my money tomorrow.

We then backtracked all the way back to Hart House with the intention of playing pool, but after sitting around like plums til the table's current occupants had finished, we found out you had to book in advance. Luckily the current occupants took pity on us and let us play doubles.

We lost.

Defeated, we wandered back to the ROM for a 20 minute look around before closing time (during which we went to the interactive exhibits (designed for kids) and goofed off). I resisted James' noodle offer, went to my late lecture, and got home around 10.30. After dinner (spag bol), American Dad, and Futurama, here I am.

first view of Toronto

2009-09-29T04:35:00.002+01:00

It's a bit late considering I've been here for 3 weeks nearly, but I've only recently acquired a camera. Below is a panoramic shot of the view that greeted me when I first arrived in Downtown Toronto (via subway). Click it to make it bigger!

up the CN Tower

2009-09-29T03:14:00.002+01:00

After a day of reading about vertigo and horror stories associated with high places, I met Alex, Neil, Ceara, Camille, Nora and James in the evening with the intention of climbing Toronto's colossal CN Tower.

After a brief run in with security at King Station (misunderstanding, managed to avoid an $80 fine though which was a nice touch), and with my stomach going over at the prospect of being high above the ground very soon, we walked along the Skyway from Union to the base of the CN Tower. We spent a long time there while people took photos (like the one below, courtesy of James), and then moved on.

The lobby was weird: it was empty and felt really surreal. Also there was a giant moose which is never a good sign. After taking photos with the giant moose, we got in the lift.

We got in the lift.

By this point I was shaking. The lift goes 118 stories in 58 seconds, I think, and that seems very fast. It's also made partly of glass, which I had no intention whatsoever of looking out of.

We went up.

And up.

And up some more.

Then hit the top.

On the way out of the lift, I looked down the little crack between it and the floor, and thought "holy shit". Some other people did, too, then we headed out.

Despite the initial terror, it wasn't that bad at the top. With a solid ground under your feet, and a psychological barrier blocking out the ~1000ft drop under the solid ground, it's quite a pleasant place to be. There were vending machines, toilets, and even a mailbox (which I feel is somewhat redundant).

I stayed indoors for the first few minutes, then sacked up and went on the outside viewing gallery. It was amazing out there; the views, the air, the wind (!) and the lights combined to make it really awesome.

The lights changed colour every few minutes though which was weird. It also buggered up photograph consistency.

James took some more pictures, which he kindly donated:

Now there's not really much else to say. We stayed til closing time, played with a broken telescope (trying to spot interesting things in people's windows), then got the lift back down. I looked out the windows on the way down, and the view was really nice. It wasn't terrifying any more.

The evening was closed with hot chocolate at Alex and Neil's. Good times.

generic update #1

2009-09-28T22:16:00.002+01:00

This is about today.

Today was the worst weather I've seen in Toronto so far. I woke up to pounding rain and howling wind. I then felt a sense of gratitude that I was still in my warm bed, rolled over to go back to sleep, and was immediately woken up by my makeshift alarm clock (iPod).

How distressing.

I dragged myself up, opened the curtains, and cursed. This rain was on par with what I'd expect in England! I tried to consume breakfast and morning television with blissful ignorance to the torrential downpour taking place outside, but my vain attempt to ignore it for as long as possible before I had to go out in it didn't work: I knew what I was in for.

With this in mind, I made the best attempt at a matching outfit that would protect against the elements, and ended up in black jeans, a blue t-shirt and a burgundy hoody (although thankfully it didn't look as bad as it sounds). I went outside, and luckily, despite the previous over dramatisation, it was quite refreshing. I took a brisk walk (sprinted) to the bus stop, and inserted myself therein until the bus arrived shortly after.

The TTC orchestrated itself perfectly for me to make my journey to campus in relative dryness, and when I emerged from the subway to see myself surrounded by wetties despite the rain having stopped, I felt an enormous burst of smugness (remember this).

Most of the rest of the day passed without consequence, and I headed home at around 1pm due to a headache. The rain held off for the whole journey, until my left foot hit the ground upon departure from the bus. A few drops of rain quickly turned into the torrential downpour I mentioned earlier, and I was the moving epicenter. In the 2 minute walk from the bus stop to my apartment, I got completely drenched.

Good times.

Since then I've dried myself off, been to the shop to buy 2 packs of ham, a loaf of bread, and a packet of mince for $1 (60p?), responded to some emails, tried to whittle away at the things on my mind, and restored my laptop to it's former glory (I had to do a complete system reboot to get Google Chrome working again (the only alternative was IE!)). I'm now about to go to bed.

Good night all!

Keele friends

2009-09-27T20:14:00.007+01:00

Before I came to Toronto, someone at Keele told the prospective exchange students about the "Keele Friend" scheme. Basically, you could request to be put in contact with an alumnus of Keele living in the city you were going to, and could then arrange as much or as little with them as you like.

From what I can tell, the scheme wasn't hugely popular. I don't know of anyone else on the study abroad module that requested one (but then again I didn't really ask). I took advantage of it, however: it seemed good for a few reasons, but mainly so I'd have someone to speak to if I was a complete social failure upon arrival.

I was put in contact with two alumni: a Canadian man named Stephen Silverheart who studied as a postgraduate at Keele in the 70s (I think), and Hugh Oliver, an English octogenarian who studied there shortly after it's conception in the '50s.

Stephen was kind enough to pick me up from the airport, and to significantly reduce the distance I had to lug my bags after getting off the plane. This was achieved through his (possibly) all access pass to the underbelly of the airport, which I think comes from his position at the GTAA.

I then made a total arse of myself in front of him by forgetting that cars are operated from the opposite side here, and missing two subtle hints of his to go to the other side of the car.

It wasn't until last Friday that I met the other Keele friend: Hugh Oliver (who has a Wikipedia page!). He's an amazing man. I mentioned before that he's an octogenarian; his 80th birthday was yesterday as a matter of fact, and in the last 5 years he's released 2 full length albums, as well as a plethora of literature (including some bestseller books) during the rest of his life.

Hugh's band, The Foolish Things, play at the TRANZAC club in Toronto every Friday (I think the ANZ in TRANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand, and there's a few boomerangs dotted around inside, but I'm not really sure of the connotations). Anyway, I was invited to the club to meet Hugh. I arrived and asked at the bar if he was there, and was pointed to the man sitting on the stool immediately next to me.

It seems like I'm destined to make an arse of myself in front of each Keele friend at least once.

After introductions, we spoke for a while about Keele, music, England and Canada in general, what I'd been up to since arriving, and various other things. It was really interesting getting an insight as to what Keele was like back then. Apparently Horwood (where I lived before) was around even then! The singer from Hugh's band (who's name I've forgotten... Jeez that's terrible!) arrived shortly after, and I was introduced to her too. She told me some interestingly gruesome murder stories she heard when she worked for the police, then went to sing some blues. Very surreal.

Over the course of the evening I was introduced to some more of Hugh's friends. They were all really nice people, and most of them were musical from what I could gather. A couple write and publish books, too, and tt was interesting to meet real people who'd done so.

The next day (Saturday) was Hugh's party, to which I was invited. It was held in his son's house, and I arrived slightly late after walking from James'. I went in, and only recognised about 10% of the people. After dumping my bag in the closet I tried desperately to find Hugh, before someone accused me of being a gatecrasher. Luckily I did so fairly soon: he was in the kitchen, where I greeted him and was introduced to some more people.

Two buffets were laid out, and both were excellent. I was introduced to a lot of Hugh's friends, some English, some professors at UofT, some family, but all really nice people. As the evening progressed there were speeches, musical performances (by Hugh's grandchildren, as well as Hugh himself), and a lot of interesting conversations.

I was given a life to Bathurst around 1am, and went home to bed. It was a really nice evening overall! I'll write about any other meetings with my Keele friends as and when they happen.

6 course breakfast and strange civilisations

2009-09-26T18:02:00.006+01:00

So, me and James crashed at Neil & co's after the Frat party last night. Due to the copious amounts of alcohol ingested, I felt a bit queasy in the morning, and I think James did too. We decided a good breakfast was in order.

The other James suggested a place on Bloor Street, which would've been a maximum 5 minute walk away. The originally mentioned James, however, suggested a place on College Street, and assured me it would be a maximum 15 minute walk away.

45 minutes later, shaky from hunger and feeling sick from last night, we arrived at our destination. The walk was torture; we'd passed several breakfast-capable restaurants, a McDonalds, numerous pizza houses, and another McDonalds on the way.

Nevertheless, we'd arrived. And we intended to take full advantage of the place. They offered an all you can eat breakfast for $13 (~£8.50?), with everything from cereal, to fried food, to omelettes, to fruit, to jelly and cake. Naturally it was my intention to try them all.

I had 6 courses, which you can see below:

From left to right, top to bottom, they were: waffles and pancakes with maple syrup; what I've dubbed the "full Canadian", because of it's slight resemblance to a full English; the palette cleanser (fruit and cake); Fruit Loops (the best cereal on the planet); jelly and cake; and a banana for the road.

By my working, that qualifies as "tak[ing] full advantage of the place"!

I forget what happened immediately after, probably due to the food induced haze, but we ended up at James' slightly after. I think we went to the bank, found it was shut, and got a streetcar west on College to the subway, but that hypothesis is open for debate.

When we arrived at James', we played Civilisation something or other. It's in a numbered series, and has expansion packs so I'm unsure of the full title, but basically it's a strategy game wherein you develop a fledgling civilisation with the ultimate goal of obliterating all other human life in the computer generated world.

It was good, however I noticed a few historical inconsistencies: For example, my 4000BC Hindu Roman's, who had recently invented Stonehenge, didn't seem to be wearing togas.

I'm sure Romans wore togas...

party at ΦΚΠ

2009-09-26T17:00:00.005+01:00

I was a bit skeptical about this at first. Everything I've heard about Frat parties suggests some combination of Jocks, people in horse costumes, sprinkler pranks, horrific murders or spiked punch. Admittedly 5 out of those 5 are either from The Sims 2: University or probably inaccurate.

Luckily, then, I didn't encounter / experience any of those things!

Me, Neil, James², Alex and Lim left for the party at 9ish, and arrived shortly after. There was a $15 cover to get in, which was paid by all except James Y who bailed for curry. The $15 covers beer for the evening, and so drink prices on how much you consume. Being the fiscally responsible type, I tried to get the best possible value for money I could by consuming as much beer as I could.

The picture below shows two gentlemen working the makeshift bar:

The majority of the party was spent downstairs in the smoking room (reminiscent of Union nights at Keele...) either sitting on the sofas (or single car seat) that had been dumped there or talking to people, mostly from Ryerson University for some reason. I presume all the UofT students were elsewhere. The time we were there was roughly equally divided between talking to aforementioned Ryerson students and getting beer.

Later in the evening, they bought a keg downstairs to remove the hassle of navigating the troublesome staircase. You can see it below:

Somewhere along the line it must've been shaken quite violently (maybe on the stairs?), because it seemed to produce only pints of head:

Anyway, the party wrapped up at around 2. Alex had disappeared early (we later found out he had an early morning the next day, but originally we thought he'd been attacked and/or had pulled), James Y never turned up, Neil went before us, and me and James left to wander around for a long time trying to find Neil and Alex's.

As we arrived there, someone else (who neither of us recognised) was just leaving. We went in, curled up on separate sofas, and fell into an alcohol aided sleep.

some more (annoying) eccentricities

2009-09-25T21:03:00.005+01:00

(To add to the ones detailed here)

I know it's only to be expected that things will be done differently in a different country, and I have no problem with that at all. Some things in Canada, however, definitely take some getting used to.

The first is the mobile phone situation. At home I paid £15 a month for unlimited texts and 300 minutes. Here, $15 a month gets you 50 (fifty!) texts and 50 minutes. I don't know anyone who can survive on 50 texts per MONTH, especially considering the next point: You have to pay to RECEIVE calls and texts. For me, this completely defeats the idea of paying for a phone. It just turns into a free-for-all: what if someone rings you as a wrong number and drains your last credit? What if someone on contract decides to send you a hundred texts and leech the lot? It's so flawed...

Phones here are about 10 years behind the UK aesthetically and price wise, too. The asking price for a phone comparable to the one I had 5 years ago is $70 (~£30), which although cheap, is still a lot. The only modern phones I've seen here are the iPhone and the Blackberry, though I must say these are similarly priced to home (too bloody expensive). You also have to pay a monthly fee to be able to ring the emergency services...

Despite this, I do intend to get a Canadian phone at some point.

Another confounding point: bank accounts limit your monthly transactions, and unless you're a student, OAP, or rich enough to maintain a $1500 minimum balance, you get charged monthly for having an account. The charge isn't much ($8 (~£5)) a month, but it still seems odd. It must work though because the Canadian banking system is one of the strongest in the world apparently, even during the recession.

The final of my rants, before I start to sound like a disgruntled rocking chair dweller, is regarding tax. A product's advertised price over here isn't what you pay for it: depending on the nature of the product, you either pay 0%, 5%, 8% or 13% tax on top. This confused me greatly the first time I went food shopping. Most food is seen as a necessity and so tax is waived, but I added 13% to everything and paid significantly less at the till than I expected. I then went shopping for toiletries and didn't add any tax thinking the same logic would apply, and got stung at the till.

The above points are here for educational purposes only; I thought people at home might like to know how things work over here. No way is applying basic mathematical knowledge here and there and having to read terms and conditions on phones more carefully going to hinder my time over here.

travelling monks and subway pizza

2009-09-23T21:35:00.003+01:00

Today could easily have been one of "those" days. I woke up in a weird mood and with a bit of a headache, and had to literally drag myself out of bed, into my clothes and off to campus.

I was stressing about some arbitrary issue as I walked to my first lecture, when a man stopped me in my tracks. He looked a bit ragged, and I was about to shrug him off and continue until he produced a book from his bag and handed it to me.

"I'm a travelling monk", he said.

I wasn't really sure what to say.

"You look like a smart guy, what do you study?"

"Music and Psychology" I replied.

"Ah ok, so you understand what causes stress then? This [aforementioned] book is about meditation and de-stressing, a concept that's misunderstood in the west. I'd like you to have it."

Now he seemed like a nice guy, but I'd already been warned by a friend that sometimes people in Toronto make it look like they're giving stuff away then try to make you feel guilty and pay for it after you accept.

"I don't have any money on me to pay for this" I said, "I used a subway token to get here and I've got one to get back and that's it."

"Oh that's ok, most people just pay a small donation."

"Yeah I'd like to, [I didn't want to] but I don't have any money at all."

"Oh. Some people like to swipe it?"

And with this, he pulled a card reader out of his bag. Now I was already a bit confused by the whole travelling monk idea, but a travelling monk with hi-tec banking equipment in his satchel? That tipped me over the edge.

I handed the book back: "Thanks for showing me, I'd like to help but I'm here on exchange so I don't even have a card yet. Have a good day."

"Oh. You too", he said, then we went our separate ways.

Someone please explain why things like that happen? It's so weird. The plus side to the encounter however was that it made me feel a bit less glum. Somehow the monk's meditative mindset must of rubbed off on me, as I felt better from then on.

Another mood enhancer came at the subway station nearest where I'm staying. The smell of pizza was wafting through the station when I alighted, and when I emerged at the top of the escalator, I saw a pizza stall staffed by TTC employees. Fresh, warm, pepperoni pizza at $1 a slice, which naturally I couldn't resist.

After my first slice, I remembered reading in the paper that with the generously priced monthly pass the TTC offer, they lose ~3¢ on each fare. I thought I'd help them make up the loss on the last 33.3 fares by buying a second slice (what a good Samaritan I am!).

I'm going up this tonight

2009-09-21T18:30:00.001+01:00

pictures from the Niagara Falls

2009-09-20T20:28:00.000+01:00

These are my favourites, you can see the whole album here!

The American part of the falls

The (bigger, more famous) Canadian part of the falls

The Rainbow Bridge: you're in Canada on the left side and America on the right

The Maid of the Mist: the boat that takes you up close

What I thought was "Goat Island". Turns out it's actually a rock.

From left to right: Eva, Chelsea, Ania (Eva's sister), me and Chris (Ania's son)

a tour of Toronto

2009-09-15T13:47:00.000+01:00

Since the events detailed two posts ago, I've been finding my feet and getting myself settled in as much as possible. My room has all my stuff in it, I've sorted out a budget, and explored some more of Downtown Toronto. I was also shown around by my friend Laurie and her fiancée Chris, and that's what I'm writing about here:

We met at Bathurst Station in the morning of September 12th, then got a subway to Spadina and a streetcar to College. We walked South a bit, then went into Kensington Market. I'd seen it here briefly the night before, but it was a bit different during the day! There were people everywhere - it's not pedestrianised either (except on Sundays), but the roads were clogged with people milling around the stalls and shops. We joined the crowds and had a look around, I saw butchers, bakers, cheeseries (is that a word?), green grocers and fishmongers, as well as independant fashion shops, furniture shops, record shops and loads more. It was a great atmosphere; it reminded me of Camden without the drug pedallers.

From Kensington Market we went back onto Spadina and walked South through Chinatown. This Chinatown is the biggest of the 3 in Toronto I think, and it's quite impressive. The street signs are bilingual and Chinese shops and restaurants line both sides of the street. We strolled along, looking at the tacky souvenirs and random wares on the way, then went into Goldstone: one of the hundreds of restaurants in the area. I was intrigued by the menu: It had pig feet, beef tripe, beef tongue and several other "exotic" meats on it, but luckily we went for the familiar options (hot and sour chicken, beef with vegetables, spring rolls and rice), and it was delicious. Laurie also told me that if you ask for "cold tea" here in the evenings, they'll give you beer.

After Chinatown we went to Queen Street, and walked West along there. From what I can tell this is the hip end of Toronto, full of clubs, art shops and fashionable stuff. There were shops selling bongs and stuff too, as well as every kind of bar or coffee shop you could ever want. We reached a park after a while, and had a sit down (it was a hot day!). Laurie marked some stuff on my map, and told me about the dodgy areas of Toronto, before we headed back East to Squirly's for a drink.

The last stop on the tour was Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto's answer to Times Square. We took a streetcar along Queen Street because we were too pooped to walk, and headed North along Yonge. Yonge is the longest street in the world by the way at 1896km (!), but luckily we only had to walk a little bit. It was cool here, but quite a lot of the shops were big chains, not too far from what we'd get at home, so it wasn't as impressive as the other places I'd seen today. We had a look around nonetheless, got some free chocolate bars from people in silly outfits, then walked to the subway and made our way back to Bathurst where we went our separate ways.

There's a map below of the route we took, starting at the green square and ending at the red one, in case my explanation was too confusing.

some eccentricities

2009-09-14T21:07:00.006+01:00

This is more brief than the last post, so you can breath a sigh of relief. I just want to relay some of the quirky things I've experienced on my trip so far:

The first was on the plane, in the "Sky Mall" magazine (the shitty duty free one you get in the back of the seat in front of you). Amongst such wacky inventions as "The Upside Down Tomato Garden", "The Bacon Genie" and "The Bigfoot Garden Yeti Sculpture", was "The Marshmallow Shooter": featuring such perks as "a clever pump-action device capable of shooting edible miniature candy over 30'", "an LED sight to help locate the target for accuracy", and "a 20 barrel magazine", this product really stands out from "the other marshmallow blasters". Aside from the general stupidity of the product itself, the fact that there seems to be a competitive marshmallow launcher market amuses me greatly.

The second was in Philadelphia airport, where some creative soul had scrawled the timeless graffiti: "Toy Story 2 was ok". Such intellectual insights have not yet been surpassed on my trip, despite my attendance at Canada's best university.

The rest are based around Toronto. There seems to be a self-supportive population of lunatics here. In the first week I saw one per day pretty much; people walking around shouting at inanimate objects, other people, or even themselves... It's quite tragic really, and slight unnerving!

I've also had to do a fair few double takes. I was walking Downtown when I saw a banner saying "Thank you, wa kers!". The gap was obscured by a tree, and being a teenager my brain automatically substituted an "n" into it. Two paces further all became clear: it was an "l". Thank God too, there's a childrens' hospital over the road!

I also thought the red Power Ranger was a student at the University of Toronto when I saw him sitting outside the library. Unfortunately, on second take, it turned out to be a guy with a red t-shirt and matching bandanna (an interesting fashion decision nonetheless).

I'm sure there'll be plenty more. Maybe I'll even post them on here!

the first week

2009-09-13T22:03:00.005+01:00

A little forewarning: this is going to be a LONG post.

Last time I left of with me arriving at Eva's, and since then I've had 3 days on campus, but only 2 days with classes. I've wandered around downtown both alone and with others, met some cool people, drank some cool beers, and not slept enough.

This time I'll start from (pretty much) the beginning of my time as a Torontian.

Eva gave me a wake-up call at 8 on the first day (Wednesday). I forgot to bring any form of alarm, which wasn't very intelligent considering I have a 9, a 10 and two 11am starts and an hour journey to campus. After having a shower, getting my stuff together and shoving it in my bag (along with the lunch Eva made me :)!) I was ready to leave. Eva drove us to Sheppard-Bathurst where we waited for a bus to Downsview Station.

Now let me interject here: Firstly, most of the streets in Toronto are on a grid, and Sheppard-Bathurst is an intersection. Each "square" in the grid is about a mile in diameter I think. And secondly, the TTC (Transport Transit Commission) has a pretty different system to that of England: Instead of paying or showing a pass on every bus/tube/train, you can get "Transfers" between them, so if you're quick you can get all the way from one side of the city to the other on one fare (no backtracking, quickest route only, no dawdling). I heard you could get "Tokens", little coins that entitle you to one fare, at Subway stations, and the bus from Sheppard-Bathurst was to take us to Downsview Subway station. Somewhere along the line, this information led me to believe that I didn't need to pay on the bus, as I'd pay on the Subway (some kind of reverse-transfer I guess), so basically, I accidentally skipped my first Toronto bus fare :)

The (free) bus took us through the rush hour traffic to Downsview, where we alighted and descended to the Subway. The trains here are much bigger, brighter and overall more welcoming than those of the London Underground. They're air conditioned, too, which is a welcome addition. I've heard they're overheated in the Winter though. Anyway, we traveled South the Yonge-University-Spadina line, one of three (or four?) on the Toronto Subway network. Eva left me at St Clair West, and the rest of my journey to Queen's Park (5 stops) was spent in quiet contemplation.

Another touristy moment for me here (the first was skipping the bus fare): Upon getting out of the train, I walked at snail's pace through the station, taking it all in and making subconscious comparisons to London's Underground. The tiles are bigger here, and the barriers show how trusting the TTC is (just turnstiles). You don't need to use your ticket to get out of the station either which is a nice touch. The buskers are more talented from what I can gather, and most have CDs available to buy if you want to listen to some hobo goodness at home. Apparently they hold auditions so only the best can busk.

Upon emerging from the Subway, I was greeted by a delightful old building to one side, and a massive skyscraper on the other: my first hint that Toronto was going to be a mish-mash of different eras, cultures and atmospheres. I also figured, from what I can tell so far, the that main method of navigation here is orienteering. You need to know your bearings (compass bearings, not just the slang for "where you are"), and look out for street signs that are usually quite high up on lampposts, traffic lights or whatever else is around. This being the case, I walked for quite a while in the complete opposite direction from where I was going until two lovely young ladies saw me looking at my map like a putz, and pointed me in the right direction. Shortly afterward I arrived for the first time at the University of Toronto (UoT) campus, and then a lovely old building wherein the International Students Center (ISC) is located (I wish I knew some architectural eras, so I could elaborate on "old").

I went into the building, and was directed up to the ISC office by the receptionist. Inside, one of the team gave me a rundown of UoT, a couple of forms to fill in, and a bag of stuff to read later. They then sent me to the International Student Exchange Office (ISXO) which is where I'd intended to go originally. Apparently I wasn't the first to get the ISC and ISXO mixed up, which was good. The ISXO was over the road, and as I'd arrived 5 minutes before the staff did, I had a little wander around the building. It was bigger than the Union at Keele, and from what I can tell it was only an office building with a café and a shop. This was going to be interesting.

The ISXO team were helpful, they gave me some more stuff to read, and a "to do" sheet for my first day: I had to collect my T-Card, set up my UTORid, pay for my UHIP, and collect my UHIP policy card. I still had forty minutes or so before my first lecture, so I went to Robart's Library, and to the T-Card office. They took a mugshot and gave me my T-Card two minutes later. I then went to a makeshift computer station to do the UTORid, but unfortunately they were still running Windows 3.1, and I had to leave before it was done to go to my lecture.

Before I arrived in Canada, the ISXO sent a course enrollment sheet to all prospective UoT students, on which we marked the courses we wanted to do. I put two for Music, two for Psychology, and a selection of other ones that looked interesting (Inuit Studies, Beginner's French, Ancient Japanese History etc). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately during exam period) I was only enrolled on one of the "interesting looking" ones, and it was here I was headed to now: my first lecture at UoT was AST210 - Great Moments in Astronomy. A good understanding of Math(s) and Physics is required for this course, which the Professor deemed me to have (again, I can't tell if this is unfortunate or fortunate!).

I'm going to interject again: The education system in Canada is different to the UK, instead of gradually narrowing down from secondary school to one subject (or maybe two) at university, Canadians (and all North Americans I think) keep their choices broad right through 'til the end. For this reason the classes are made up of people from different years, faculties and colleges. I think it's a better idea really. Only the people who want to do a module are there, rather than people who have to do it to earn "credits" for their degree like home, meaning that everyone seems to be a lot more focused in the lectures. The little fold up "tables" built into the lecture theatre seats are put to good use, and so far the atmosphere in lectures has been a lot more involved than at Keele(!).

After my first lecture, I went back to the building where the ISXO office was and had a look in the bookshop, then sat outside and ate my packed lunch (yum). I had a look at my map to figure out where my next lecture was (MUS202 - Beethoven), and left in what I thought was ample time. I was mistaken. I'd read the map wrong, and thought that the relatively small King's College Circle was the relatively big Queen's Park, meaning I had to hurry when I realised my error. Luckily I was only 10 minutes late, but I still felt a bit daft walking into a packed lecture theatre and trying to find a seat.

Being a diligent and focused student, I returned to Robart's library after the music lecture. I figured I could save some dollars by getting textbooks from the library as and when I needed them, but I failed to take into account the numerous UoT libraries; it turns out the music book I need is a fair distance away in the Scarborough Campus library, and the astronomy book I need is across the campus at the Gerstein Library (I'd been here earlier to find it, and went to the 13th floor of the library (of 14) where it was said to be. When I got to the shelf the book was meant to be on, I found a little notice saying "Sections P through R are in the Gerstein Library" - apparently the system hasn't been updated accordingly yet!).

I mentioned the Scarborough Campus above. UoT is split into three campuses: the Mississauga Campus (UoTM), the St. George Campus, and the Scarborough Campus (UoTSC). The combined size is 70,000 students, with ~10,000 at both UoTM and UoTSC and the remainder (including me) at St. George, so quite a difference from the size and spread of Keele!

By this point in the day, about 5.30pm, I was pooped. I still had jet-lag and it wasn't helped by a late night and early morning after a day of flying, so I went home, had dinner with Eva and Chelsea, and turned in at about 9.30. Luckily for me I have Thursdays completely free, meaning a lay-in was possible. I gleefully took the opportunity and didn't get up till 9.45, which isn't late by normal standards, but was acceptable after 11 hours sleep. I made some cinnamon and raisin toast for breakfast, which was delicious, and headed (directions in hand) to the local library. After a "short" walk through the suburbs I arrived, and was amazed by the size (7 floors) of just one of Toronto's 99 (!) public libraries. I went in, tried to collect a book Eva had reserved for me, but couldn't do so without a membership card, inquired about joining, but couldn't do so without a permanent Toronto address, and then, with all options exhausted, headed to the nearest Subway station, which to my shock was underneath the library.

I took a train to Union Station, where I spent a while trying to find the exit, and emerged to a sprinkling of skyscrapers and condos. Union Station is relatively famous I think, and if it isn't, it deserves to be. It's a huge building, beautifully designed and seemingly incredibly useful: from what I can tell it offers train and bus services to most of Canada and parts of America. Outside I saw my first Toronto hot dog vendor, and decided to give him my custom. The hot dog stalls are great, they have boxes around the sides with olives, relish, chilli, onions, sauerkraut, pickle, bacon bits and a couple of other things that slip my mind right now, as well as bottles of mustard (Dijon or honey), ketchup and mayonnaise. All this, not to mention the bun and well (or at least adequately) cooked tube of processed meat is only $2.50 (or $3 nearer the city center). That's about £1.50 (or £1.80 nearer the city center). I loaded mine up with everything, then found a place where I could eat it safely and without it bursting and sending complementary condiments all over the place.

Thirsty seconds later, full of hot dog and in good spirits, I was ready for my first stroll around Downtown. And what a good stroll it was! I headed first for the CN Tower, which dominates the skyline from most vantage points in Toronto, including where I was standing right now. It was huge. Seriously. Pictures in guidebooks or seeing it on TV can't do it any justice, and I was overwhelmed to see just how big it was. I found and sat on a bench at the base, and watched the elevator whizz up and down a couple of times (114 storeys in 58 seconds) before continuing on my way. My next stop was the harbour front, which turned out to be more lovely than I imagined. The water was a clear blue, the sky was clear and blue, there was a cool breeze blowing, and the views were amazing. I walked East past a few boats and buildings, made a note to come back here another day and walk West as well, and sat for a while in the Harbour Square Gardens.

As you may have figured, I didn't have an itinerary for the day. I was just walking to wherever looked interesting and close on my guidebook map. For this reason, I ended up walking North along Bay Street, through the financial center (lots of skyscrapers) and past the old and new City Halls. The old one is now a courthouse, and the once controversial new one serves the City Hall function. I went in, collected some coupons and vouchers from the tourist information desk, then got lost in some corridors that it looked as if I shouldn't be in. I bailed from the nearest emergency exit, and walked briskly East to the Eaton Center, Toronto's biggest shopping mall (I think).

Shopping wasn't on my mind at the moment, so I cut through the Eaton Center to the PATH system, a 27 mile long system of underground walkways through Toronto (I think). Although it was quite empty at the moment, it proves vital in Winter when sometimes the weather gets so cold that your skin can freeze if left uncovered for too long. I thought I'd get to grips with it early, but despite the supposed simplicity of the system (follow the "T" north, the "H" east, the "P" south and the "A" west), I still managed to get lost (again), and was to be saved this time by a jolly fellow with a speech impediment. I followed his directions, and somehow managed to get lost again (!). Losing heart, I emerged from an exit in the same building I walked past thirty minutes ago, just before Old City Hall. Feeling like a putz once more, I headed for the relatively familiar UoT campus with the intention of doing some reading at the library.

There's no point reciting what happened in the library in detail. I got a book, read it, returned it and left within an hour, then headed to Museum Station (North of Queen's Park) and caught the Subway home. Eva was going to Yorkdale Mall, so I tagged along and had a look around the Canadian equivalent of Bluewater / Lakeside. Most of the shops were pretty much the same as home. A couple were exactly the same, so I had a look in those to comfort myself, and a couple I didn't recognise at all, so I had a look in those too. Then with a few minutes to spare before the designated meeting time I headed to the food court and sat reading my guidebook for a bit, before meeting Eva and heading to "Price Chopper". Price Chopper is one of Toronto's grocery stores, along with "Shopper's Drugmart", "Walmart" and a few others. I did a basic shop, looked in mild awe at the foreign products, and met Eva outside to go home (where I went to bed).

Friday was my second day of lectures, and my first 10am start. I left at 9am, and quickly realised that I was going to be late. Accepting this, and the fact that there was nothing I could do, I sat back and enjoyed the journey to campus (a quick note: I paid my fare properly today with one of the tokens that I'd picked up on Wednesday afternoon). I arrived about twenty minutes late to my lecture, which was scheduled to last three hours (!). Thankfully it finished early, giving me time to go East to Church Street and claim my free truffle. I didn't realise Church Street and the surrounding area was the gay district until I started seeing rainbow flags everywhere (that's another great thing about Toronto: all the different areas have distinguishing ornamentation on the lampposts. So far I've seen dragons and rainbow flags). I pressed on to the Adam and Eve chocolatier, where I bought an iced latte (it was cheap and I'm crap with coffee) and chose my free (tiny) truffle. In retrospect it probably wasn't worth the walk, but I guess it was good to see another of Toronto's neighbourhoods!

The ISXO Orientation session was scheduled for 4pm, and it was about 3.30 when I bought my latte. So I headed back to campus, and into the Medical Sciences building. The orientation was good, Marc Arnold (the incoming students officer) gave us a rundown of life in Toronto, how to adjust to the culture, and what to do. It was mainly geared at non-Western cultures I think, so some of the stuff was a bit arbituary (what a thumbs up means, for example). We also had to stand up and introduce ourselves to everyone else, which was fun (terrifying). I listened to the introductions, and in the break I went to introduce myself to a few people in more detail. Most of them were British (and Irish!): it's easier to talk to people from home, at least at the start.

After the orientation I headed with James (a fellow Brit) to Hart House, where there was to be an International Students welcome buffet. It took us a while to find it (we found a swimming pool, a pool table, a restaurant and a vegetable garden beforehand), but we still managed to be early which was good. People started arriving, and the smell of the food started wafting out of the room and getting everybody excited. There was some general chit-chat while we wrote out name labels for ourselves, then the doors were thrown open and everyone swarmed the buffet table.

I must say, it was one of the most impressive buffets I've ever seen. There were enormous piles of fruit, veg, crisps, cheese, meat, snacks, breads and puddings. Some things I'd never seen at a buffet before (figs, mango, asparagus stalks etc), whereas some were commonplace (breadsticks, cheese and pineapple sticks), but it was all delicious. I loaded myself up with food and punch, then went to introduce myself to a few more people, including a Japanese girl, an Australian guy, an Irish guy, a couple of Israelis and a group of British people. It was a great atmosphere, and it was great to meet some people! I stayed 'til just before the end, then headed off with aforementioned British (and Irish!) people with the intention of drinking beer on a porch.

The LCBO was our first stop. I don't know what it stands for, but basically alcohol in Canada can only be sold in government-run outlets (I think), and the LCBO is the biggest of these. They all shut before 11pm, with the majority shutting at 10 or even 9, which means drinking has to be planned here unlike England where it can be spontaneous. The selection of alcohol is good because of their standing, so we grabbed a few packs of beer and headed back to one of the people's houses to sit on the porch.

Conversation went from initial thoughts of Canada, to how the house was probably haunted, to Big Fat Burritos, to weed, to plans for later that evening, and various other things along the way. We planned to go to Yonge-Dundas and see a film for TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival), but we left too late and ended up going to a bar in Kensington Market. Kensington Market reminds me a bit of Camden; it's full of independent shops, arty places and hippy-esque stuff, and so it was good to walk around. The bar we went to had a patio, and we sat outside with beer and food until about 12. I headed home 'cause I wasn't sure what time the last buses were, and everyone else went to play Rock Band.

So basically, the first few days have been amazing. I'm guessing it will continue to be amazing as well, I'm just figuring out what to do, when to do it, and finding my feet socially. I'll continue to update this, and it'd be great if people read it! Leave a comment to if you so desire.

the journey

2009-09-10T10:27:00.001+01:00

The flight, despite the usual terror I experience during taxi and takeoff, was fine. Smooth, and no turbulence for the entire 7 hours 45 minutes. The in-flight move was "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", and was surprisingly good (apart from too many manly roars). Also, I got around the $5 "entertainment fee" by plugging my own headphones into the armrest as opposed to the airline's, which seemed to be the only benefit of paying aforementioned "fee".

Lunch was served at 2ish (UK time), much to my delight. Some people think it plain, but I always enjoy plane food: the little pots, the rich flavours etc. Today I enjoyed chicken and mash with veg. There was also a "salad" (an American one; coated in grease and with nothing green in it), a ciabatta, and a nice chocolate slab for pud. I inadvertently made the salad even more unhealthy by dousing it in butter (it had melted to a liquid state, a fact I failed to realise until it was all over the salad). After applying the remainder of the butter to the ciabatta, I tucked in, and it was delicious. I also had a can of Diet Coke, which was 355ml as opposed to the standard 330ml in Britain. An increase in size of about 7%! (I later found out that 355ml is 12oz, so I assume the difference in size is just to make it a round number of ounces).

After customs (surprisingly smooth despite being grilled for filling out a government form in pencil) and baggage claim and whatnot in Philadelphia, I managed to find the only seat in the departure lounge from where no clocks were visible. I had a nap on the plane, as well as a turkey and cheese sandwich, a bag of pretzels and another coke, so I was feeling refreshed. I had a look around, and was lucky/unlucky enough (you decide) to see a range of American stereotypes quite early on in my trip: I saw the fat black lady with the attitude, the patriotic white guy with the crewcut, Uncle Phil, and the shriveled old bint you'd expect to see at any information desk (the one who it is a crime to ask for information). If any of you have played Thief 2, I also had a flight attendant who sounded just like Karras.

I also discovered, to my glee, that Philadelphia's mayor is called Michael Nutter. And based on his picture (below), his surname also acts as an adjective.

Since arriving in Philadelphia, it occurred to me that my knowledge of US geography is atrocious. I found out where it was, and vowed to brush up on the layout of America at some point. But anyway. I went on a wander around departures, and to my shock it took me a good half hour to find a McDonalds. I believe that everyone should try an American McDonalds at some point, just to compare it to one in the UK (a disturbing realisation: since last time I was in America, the two have become a lot more similar). I changed up some $CAD into $US and bought a cheeseburger (after stowing a lucky dollar in my wallet (well why not?!)). Then I purchased a bottle of "Orange Soda", wanting to see what the fuss was about, and forgot about the tax. I had to spend my previously stowed lucky dollar.

Luckily the cashier was charming; she must have detected my reluctance to fork it over as she gave me a dollar from her tip jar and wished me luck on the rest of my journey. Dawwww.

The rest of the flight was fine. I arrived in Toronto Airport ahead of schedule, went through immigration and customs without delay, and met Stephen Silverheart, my pickup. He dropped me at the block in Bathurst Street that'll be home for the next 3.5 months, and went on his way.

I'll write again soon, gonna go explore now!

pre-departure thoughts #4 (四)

2009-09-08T01:05:00.002+01:00

The final pre-departure thoughts post is here, and it's going to be a good'n. 12 hours from now I'll be on the plane, and 20 minutes after that I'll be in the air and well and truly on my way.

The thing I "fucked up" yesterday has been sorted, it was a bit costly, but it's acted towards my self-realisation before I've even left. I went through with the exchange program mainly to better myself as a person (this sound so cliché), so maybe it's a good thing that things have been hard even before going?

Anyway, there was a goodbye gathering at the pub today. Most of my local friends made it, and it was awesome. Drinks were spilt (over people), laughs were had, and most importantly, I got to see everyone together one last time before going, a thought that I'm sure will help me in any bouts of homesickness.

The apprehensiveness has gone now by the way, and has been replaced by tiredness. I imagine I'm going to have beastly jet-lag at some point in the first week, but it's better than sheer terror at the thought of going. I'm just going to "relax and look forward to the upcoming semester and all the new experiences", as someone told me this evening via email.

pre-departure thoughts #3 (三)

2009-09-07T01:11:00.004+01:00

These thoughts are slightly more 'meh' than the last two. I feel apprehensive about arriving, and I'm not really sure why.

There's a small chance I've fucked something up. I won't go into details on here but it (feels like it) could jeopardise me even getting to Canada. I just hope the brackets in the last sentence are redundant.

Anyway, the status update: I've seen Char for the last time 'til I get back (another contributing factor to me feeling 'meh' I think). I've got my airport pick-up sorted, and have loosely arranged my first tour of the city with a friend. I've also figured out transport arrangements, and found out where my lectures are in relation to where I'll be living.

All I need to do now is finish packing (not much left), book insurance (I've left this way too late), write down a few things (phone numbers, buzz codes, references etc) and go (the scariest bit)...

Also, my daily budget has fallen to £6.32. I don't know how.

pre-departure thoughts #2 (二)

2009-09-01T17:55:00.002+01:00

Sorted LOADS out for Canada today: Got myself a new document folder and arranged all my Uni, bank, Student Finance correspondences and other (semi)important documents. Got a new outfit for the plane (some strange quirk I have); black stonewashed jeans and a blue shirt with white stripes. Got some Canadian Dollars, $170 to be precise, courtesy of my Mum which is massively appreciated!

It's so weird how different I feel about going each day. Yesterday I was quite apprehensive, whereas today I can't wait. Saying goodbye to more people for the last time 'til I go sort of brings home that it's actually happening (today it was my Uncle and cousin). And so do the 'good luck' texts/emails/messages that have started arriving, which are nice.

I'm waiting on confirmation of an airport pick-up on arrival, as well as a couple of emails detailing last minute things I may have failed to consider. I'll probably do a couple more of these posts, because as I said I feel completely different about it all the time.

My daily budget is now £7.56 by the way :)

pre-departure thoughts #1 (一)

2009-09-01T00:10:00.002+01:00

So, 7 days today I'll be in Canada. It's 185 hours, which is technically 7.7 days, but taking into account time zone differences, I'll be there in a week.

That's a daunting thought. I've said goodbye to my Grandparents for the last time until December. I've spent my last full month in the UK. I've started packing, and my stomach has started going over when I think about going. But I've been reading around TravelDK, Now, and Eye (the latter 2 are Torontian magazines), and I've found some useful information:

"plan to arrive with at least $50 to $100 in local currency and acquire change as soon as you can for tipping and transit."

They have a V-Fest in Toronto as well. Moshing is prohibited "due to the possible injuries that could occur from ... such activities."

and

"just because you're sitting at a desk, doesn't mean you're doing real work."

I think the last one relates to me right now.

well... (そうです...)

2009-08-31T23:50:00.001+01:00

This post might be a bit more eclectic than usual; I've got a lot to cover and only one post to do it in.

But anyway, I'll start with the rant: Over the last week I've been repeatedly hindered by the fuckwits that are the Student Loans Company. Their work rate meant that they were dealing with a backlog of correspondences from 2 months ago - not hugely useful when I sent my signature form in early August. I rang them to see if there was any way of speeding up my application, letting them know that I ticked the box to receive my money early, but no joy. I then resorted to the (poorly designed, hard to use and overall shit) website for help, but found instead that the 'ask a question' tool was like Mirage Island in the old Pokémon games; it was only present 1 times in a million, and the chance was reset each time you went away.

Bugger.

So I phoned them again. This time to change my bank details, and I wasn't surprised to find there was some issue to stop them from doing so: their systems were being updated, rendering them unable to deal with ANY queries. This was at 11.30am on a MONDAY. Great. So I waited, and rang back an hour later, to find that they couldn't do that over the phone; I'm sure the original operator could've informed me of this without looking it up on the almighty system.

But never mind, it all turned out well (I think). I managed to track down the elusive 'ask a question' tool, and asked away. Several DAYS later I got 2 replies, both on the same day, at roughly the same time: one said my application hadn't been approved and gave me a long list of things to do to solve the problem, the other said my application HAD been approved. Despite the contradictory responses, I figure it has been approved, and am now just waiting on my payment schedule letter now so I can finalise my Toronto expenses spreadsheet.

Now for the good stuff. Alongside the aforementioned farce, I've been sorting out the last minute things for my upcoming exchange to Toronto. I've decided on 2 travel insurance policies to get, emailled everyone I needed to email, found the best exchange rate, and even looked through my guidebooks for possible things to do there. But perhaps most importantly, I've found accommodation!

It's a room in a family's apartment, 30 minutes from Downtown by subway, and with a double futon bed, a desk, a tv and a chest of drawers. Nice.

The rent is cheaper than I expected as well, and now my daily budget is £6.82 (about $12.50).

All the last minute preparations are going as planned; I've got loads to do in the last week, people to see etc, and it should be amazing. I can't wait to go but at the same time I don't want to leave!

I might expand on this later, but I want to post one last post for August, so here goes!

the domino effect (ドミノ)

2009-08-23T12:54:00.004+01:00

I can't think of anything worthwhile to blog about at the moment, yet it seems a shame to go so long without a post... Luckily I found some stupid pictures in an old folder that you can enjoy.

On a trip to Domino's Pizza in Welling a couple of years ago, me and Aaron saw this sign and thought it was stating a rather bold claim:

So we decided to take action. The Domino's website unwittingly gave us a means by which to contact them, and we sent them this:

This email is now dead by the way, so no spam please! Anyway, 2 years later, and after being presented with the message below, we're still waiting on a reply.

I wonder why?

the winning entry? (勝)

2009-08-19T14:07:00.001+01:00

To be eligible for a tasty £500 BUTEX scholarship, I had to submit an essay titled "Why every student should study abroad". I went for the light-hearted, joke-occasionally-slipped-in touch, and feel I pulled it off quite well. Feedback appreciated:

"In today's world, it is easier than ever to travel at a low cost; budget airlines, hostels, affordable travel packages and numerous other means allow travellers to get to almost any city on the globe for a modest sum, yet usually people only experience the 'tourist' facade of their chosen destination (through choice or otherwise).

While it's all well and good to see the main tourist attractions, shop in duty free, and stay in English speaking accommodation, I feel the best way to experience foreign culture is to immerse yourself fully in it; befriend the residents, learn their ways and (if applicable) their language, see the things they're proudest of, and give yourself a completely different perspective of the place to that of the travel guides. Obviously this method requires more effort on your part, more time must be set aside to truly benefit from immersing yourself, and as a result of this more money must also be set aside. For this reason it strikes me that university is the best time to go; you'll have all the time you need during your year (or even semester) abroad to immerse yourself, and even to experience the 'tourist' facade if you so desire, as well as an abundance of resources for funding.

From an academic viewpoint, you'll have the chance to be taught by Professors with a completely different outlook from those at your home university; this will give you an advantage over your classmates upon return as you'll have been shown aspects of your subjects that would have been missing otherwise. Learning how foreign education systems work is also beneficial; it will give you a new way of looking at the one at home, highlighting it's good (and indeed bad) points, as well as giving you ideas of how to improve your education at home by combining aspects of the two.

On top of the reasons mentioned above, there are also plenty of opportunities for personal development to be found studying abroad; the people you'll meet will have come from all different walks of life, and will be able to give you an insight into their cultures and customs. And of course there's always the chance of forming long-lasting friendships (or maybe even more!). Living independently in another country will provide further opportunities to develop yourself, and things such as organising your time and budgeting your money will take on a whole new meaning during your time abroad!

In short, studying abroad will not only enhance your CV and academic profile, but you'll have the opportunity to make great new friends, learn about and develop yourself into a more capable and more mature young adult, and maybe even get a tan! It is for these reasons that I think every student should study abroad."

we went to Australia (オーストラリア)

2009-08-15T14:37:00.025+01:00

Summer 1998: The Smith family are in Australia, tanned and relaxed from their recent week in Malaysia and are ready to head back there after a couple of weeks touring the Oz. The itinerary for the holiday, without dates because I can't remember that far back, was as follows:

July 1998: Fly from London to Kuala Lumpur, then from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. Book into the Golden Sands hotel for a week and spend said week lazing around on the beach, swimming in the awesome pools, using the neighbouring hotel's better facilities (it was 5 star, we were 4), and experiencing the hustle and bustle of Malaysian markets.

After said week, fly from Penang to Kuala Lumpur and then to Sydney. Spend some time with Australian family, doing such things as barbecues (barbies), bowling, and seeing red-back spiders. Then drive around Australia for a couple of weeks, going to Canberra, Melbourne, Windsor, the Blue Mountains, and the Jenolan Caves (probably not in that order).

August 1998: Fly from Sydney back to Kuala Lumpur, then to Langkawi. Spend another week in beautiful Malaysia, this time however staying in two hotels (I can't remember whether that was planned originally). We also had an underwater camera which provided hours of entertainment!

August 2009: I (formerly Chris Smith) find photographs of the aforementioned holiday, and upload them to Facebook for everyone to see, Matthew and Lewis Smith in particular (my then-stepbrothers I recently reestablished contact with).

The pictures below are my personal favourites from the two albums worth we took during the trip. The quality isn't too great; the film was cheap to begin with, and transferring them to the computer via my phone's camera didn't help any. But they're still nice to look at:

See all the photos here, if you want.

a Smoot too far... (スムット)

2009-08-13T23:55:00.000+01:00

As some of you may be aware, I recently had my haircut. My hair was between 0.176 and 0.235 Smoots long before, but now it's about 0.017 Smoots all over. I'm thinking now that the 0.146 Smoot minimum that was cut off was too much, and I should have gone for a comfortable middle distance, (around 0.117 Smoots?) like the length it was in late Summer / early Autumn last year.

I'm still not used to several things: the sound of wind in my ears, for example. It's been a while since the wind was able to penetrate the full Smootiness of my hair. My head's the wrong shape now as well, and ergo my shadow. Instead of casting a mushroom cloud shaped shadow as before, it's a boring human head shape now. And perhaps the most perplexing thing to comprehend, is that the elastic-banded ponytails of hair laying on my dining room table could be worth money. Money, for hair. It's madness.

By the way: a 'Smoot' is a nonstandard unit of measurement which piqued my interest. Read about it on Wikipedia if you so desire. I was going to name this post as I did whether it related to Smoots or not, so I guess it's lucky it did.

20p each or 4 for £1! (ポンド)

2009-08-10T20:44:00.005+01:00

The title of this post refers to the kind but inconsistent logic of the local shop assistant, which allowed me to buy a single packet of '4 for £1' biscuits for 20p and brighten my day immensely. The reason my day was not sufficiently brightened beforehand is I spent a large amount of it ungloved and hunched awkwardly in someone else's garden, pulling up a plenitude of thorned weeds.

However despite not being bright, it wasn't dark either. It was dimly lit. The prospect of payment provided much needed lumination throughout, which was reinforced by budget biscuits at the end of it. Further reinforcement came via listing my first item on Amazon for a healthy £4.25, and an email from a Torontian friend informing me that she'd happily view properties for me, removing the possibility of living somewhere for 4 months that I had not seen or evaluated beforehand.

Tonight I intend to settle on the travel insurance I'll be buying, and update my "Toronto budget" spreadsheet, and intelligent little document I whipped up yesterday, accordingly. Check back soon for more exciting updates!

(further) thoughts on Canada (カナダ)

2009-08-08T15:19:00.002+01:00

It's amazing the difference 12 hours can make, give or take.

I signed my last post off on a fairly pessimistic note, stating that I was "yet to find... a clear frame of mind in which to tackle [things]". Now however, I feel a great deal more optimistic about the whole experience, and here's why:

Firstly, I spoke about it. A massive weight dropped after talking to Dave, Jay, Aaron and Charlotte, and their ear-lending is muchly appreciated! I was in a mood to get things done after this, and a couple of hours spent browsing Craigslist enabled me to find a selection of accommodation options, all within a sensible distance of the University, and all under $400pcm (£221!). Taking these figures as accurate, the rent total for my trip would now be around $1600 (£884), a much more likely sum!

Using Google Earth to find approximate distances between accommodations and the Uni also fuelled my appetite for Toronto; I managed to pinpoint several attractions and places of interest (or at least mild intrigue) along the way, including the Cabbagetown, the BATA Shoe Museum, the CN Tower, Little Korea, Little Italy and many more.

Perhaps I'll even pick up a collection of funny hats and comical t-shirts from these attractions to divide up between family and friends upon my return...

The last thing on my list of things to sort for today is insurance. I'm going to scour every page on the internet to find the best, cheapest and most inclusive deal in existence. Then hopefully accommodation will get sorted over the next couple of weeks, flights can be booked, and it'll all be dandy.

Wish me luck!

thoughts on Canada (カナダ)

2009-08-08T04:26:00.008+01:00

So, if things go to plan I'll be heading to Toronto in just under a month. I feel like it's time to address some personal pre-departure ponderances:

I still haven't got accommodation. Several people have been asked by me or on my behalf whether they know of anywhere cheap to live, or even if they're willing to except a student lodger for the best part of 4 months; but so far no luck. The general consensus from aforementioned correspondences and Craigslist is that I can expect to pay between £250 and £400 a month for accommodation, and if I take my stay as 4 months (it's actually just over 3), that's between £1000 and £1600 total rent. Once I have my student loan, hair sponsorship money, earnings, and other acquired money collected together and have spent out on insurance and other necessities, I'll have somewhere in the region £1500.

It doesn't take a great mathematician to see that's not a huge amount of spending money.

£500 (at most, as it would seem) has to cover food, travel and other expenses for 112 days in a completely new, bustling metropolis, of which I will certainly want to take full advantage, and it seems an awfully meagre amount for the task. I am open to any (and I repeat, any) suggestions on how to improve my financial situation before arrival.

A further reflection of mine is how I will experience the experience itself. Obviously my senses will relay information for processing via electrical impulses to various centres in my brain, which will then decode the information and feed it back to me in an coherent fashion, but consider beyond this: Will I be an exchange student or a tourist? Will I be taking full advantage of everything this strange new place has to offer, or just living frugally against a different cultural backdrop? Of course these questions are impossible to answer at this stage, but still important to consider. I don't want to return to London to find that I wasted the entire trip choosing whether canned spam or a loaf of stale bread is the most financially advisably dinner choice, yet on the other hand I don't want to return to a horribly overdrawn bank account with a vast collection of funny hats and comical t-shirts from assorted tourist attractions to be divided up between family and friends.

It's certainly a bother.

With the exchange being such a potentially amazing experience, I refuse to give up on it. Yet I must say it's becoming a struggle getting it all sorted. With just under a month to go, and as I have already mentioned in part, I am yet to find accommodation, insurance and a clear frame of mind in which to tackle it.

new email system (メール)

2009-08-07T13:47:00.001+01:00

After weeks of deliberation, today finally saw the implementation of a whole new personal email system. And by 'personal', I don't mean my own email server or anything equally absurd, but instead a method of virtual filing so confusing that no others would likely consider it.

Basically, I now have 3 email addresses: one 'formal', from which I send any correspondences wherein I don't want to sound like a dorky teenager; one 'old', which as the name suggests has been around for a while; and one 'new', which suggests the contrary.

The 'new' one can send and receive emails from both the 'formal' and it's own address, a feature gmail offers which I find rather nifty. The 'formal' one receives a copy of any correspondences sent with it's name from the 'new' account, as well as any email sent directly to it. The 'old' one receives a copy of everything sent to the 'formal' and 'new' addresses, as well as anything sent directly to it (and a healthy amount of spam. Just over 1000 in 4 days is the record so far).

The goal is to have one sign in I can use to send and receive any important messages (the 'new' one), and another acting as an all-encompassing archive of every message, important, spam or otherwise, I receive (the 'old' one). The 'formal' one will never be signed into itself, but instead any messages needing to be sent from it will be sent through the 'new' one, with thanks to gmail's aformentioned nifty feature.

I hope that brief nugget of techno-babble has enhanced your day at least a little.

Portal (ポートル)

2009-07-18T21:05:00.010+01:00

Portal is (essentially) a bonus game on the Half Life 2 Orange Box thing, on which are 5 games in total. And in my opinion of the disc overall so far, it's also the best game on the Half Life 2 Orange Box thing. It's based on the Portal Technology from Prey, hence the name, and takes it to into a more puzzle-based context (a move that works surprisingly well).

The game begins with GLaDOS, a seemingly innocent (if not slightly quirky) AI, guiding you through some kind of facility. You're taught the basics of the portal physics with pre-placed portals, and over the first couple of levels you gain and upgrade the Portal Gun, enabling you to place your own. From here on in the puzzles get gradually more taxing, and GLaDOS provides you with a range of quirky quotes as you play (such as the fact that the fully upgraded gun is worth more than the organs and combined yearly incomes of those who made it).

The game really begins when it's supposed to end, though. At the end of the last trial you're placed on an 'inescapable' path into a furnace (a fate similar to the Weighted Companion Cube who accompanied you on a previous trial, before being incinerated). Despite the looming certain death, your handy portal gun allows an escape route which puzzles GLaDOS to no end (you think she'd have noticed, considering she'd watched you overcome much trickier puzzles before now). After her futile attempts to capture you ("please lay on the floor with your hands at your side, and an agent will collect you... for your celebratory party; there will even be cake"), you escape into the underbelly of the facility, and have to find your way to GLaDOS (to destroy her!).

Scrawled on the walls are messages, presumably from previous escapees. Most guide you in the right direction, but some notify the player how "the cake is a lie", and are often accompanied by pictures of the Weighted Companion Cube. This probably sounds weird, but along with GLaDOS trying to persuade you that the whole death thing was a joke, the game achieves a great quirky feel that you rarely get from a game.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I enjoyed it. The ending theme is also amazing.

fashion is retarded (式)

2009-07-18T18:51:00.009+01:00

This is another of my (in)famous observation posts:

It struck me recently when thinking about clothes that the design process for fashionable female shoes is somewhat flawed. From what I can work out, the designers choose a historic and/or iconic male shoe, then release it onto the market for female consumption. This is evidenced by two recent crazes; the Ugg Boot and the Gladiator Sandal, both of which started life as a male shoe long ago.

The Ugg Boot has long been associated with surfing, keeping soldiers' feet warm at high altitudes, and sheep shearing, all of which are largely male activities. Then they were bought onto the market and became immediately popular and fashionable.

The Gladiator Sandal originates where the name suggests; it was the preferred footwear for hulky gladiators in ages past. And similarly, it was released to the public and immediately became the shoe of choice for (seemingly) every female.

Weird...

family dynamics (家族)

2009-07-18T18:30:00.008+01:00

I believe it was Frank Zappa that once said "we could improve world wide mental health if we acknowledged that parents can make you crazy"; I've seen two things recently that inclined me to agree.

The first was in a local record shop, I was browsing the discount section when I heard a customer talking to the clerk about a family day out to HMV in Charlton, and how their selection of products has declined. At first it sounded like general chit-chat, but then I realised; a day out to HMV?! How dull! I wonder if they took a picnic? Or had a family discussion over which season of The Simpsons was superior?

I can't decide if the second event was better or worse. It was in Greenwich Park shortly after the Race For Life earlier this month; a young girl of around 6 or 7 was jogging ahead of her family, presumably in high spirits about completing the 5km run when her gargantuan father (and that's an understatement) rumbled "hur hur, surprised you managed that, never been the most afletic kid 'ave ya!". This man was to provide the foundations for her upbringing, and insulted her athleticism when he probably couldn't spell the word, let alone embody it.

Chris the food critic (批評家)

2009-07-05T13:41:00.004+01:00

"a good performance overall from Pizza Hot 4 You, despite some slightly flaccid onion rings"

that'll teach 'em.

first festival of the year: (祭)

2009-06-24T00:40:00.008+01:00

'moff to Glastonbury tomorrow, which should be awesome despite the forecasted torrential thunderstorms and lack of wellington boots! The clashfinder supports this hypothesis; at first glance there are no bothersome clashes!

I'm all packed as well; I've got a tent, a sleeping bag, changes of clothes, toiletries, a tea towel, shot glasses, a cocktail mixer, an umbrella, a multitool thing, my ticket, my wallet, my cards and my keys. Just gotta go to bed for 6 hours and 10 minutes, then it'll be time!

Nighty night.

hey, what do you think? (考)

2009-06-18T00:03:00.008+01:00

I was asked a rather ambiguous question today; "Hey, what do you think?", to which the possible replies were "in the front" or "in the back". Being of my persuasion, I went with "in the front", to which the reply was "NO! Putting it in the back is more effective!". Effective I thought? That's one adjective I'd rarely (if ever) heard used in this context...

Apparently placing the engine in the back is much more effective, as it provides more power and balances the weight, but I bet you were thinking the same thing I was reading that right? I now share Jacob's beliefs; that "most engineers are weird..."

things are falling into place (降)

2009-06-17T12:43:00.009+01:00

Just as the title says, it really does feel like things are falling into place the last couple of days. I was talking to David on Monday night about how much I want to play Red Faction and Blood Omen 2 again, but wasn't sure where to get them cheap. On our 'jurb' hunt we had a brief look in Game and there they both were, in the 3 for £5 bucket! Great condition as well!

Also, I've needed some new shoes for a while, but wasn't sure which ones to get (or where). We went in Burton shortly before Game, and they had 2 pairs for £55; me and David both found a pair we like, and with student discount we only paid £25 each!

Now I just need one more thing to fall into place (no, that isn't a euphemism.); I need a job (and the money said job will bring)!!!

Also, after seeing it on Jay's blog, I chose my Facebook url: facebook.com/funkyhomme

(half) a day at the Southbank (日)

2009-06-14T17:40:00.007+01:00

I got up at 8, which felt a bit criminal on a Sunday morning, and walked into Welling. On the way an old man said "good morning"; a greeting which I reciprocated and felt lift my spirits.

Most of the Southeastern train network was broken for some reason, so we met at the station as planned, then walked back to the high street to catch a rail replacement bus. It took quite a while but it was probably quicker than walking. In Lewisham we hopped on a train to London Bridge, which was fairly uneventful, then alighted at London Bridge and asked the man at the information desk for directions to the Tate Modern.

After a couple of false alarms and a lot of walking we found the Tate's back entrance, where we were ushered to the front by a chubby, Italian accented worker. We went in and all ignored the recommended donation of £3, and chose to replace it with a combined donation of 11 pence. Oops.

The adult playground installation (Bodyspacemotionthings by Robert Morris), our intended destination, was awesome. There were several slides, climbing walls, balancing blocks, tubes and balls to interact with, all of which were inventive and fun (and swarmed with little kids). Naturally we went on everything, in order to get our full money's worth.

We left the exhibit after about an hour to cool down, then found our way outside (harder than a sounds) for a well deserved sit down. We threw bread at pigeons and watched them moronically eating it, then walked further down the Southbank. One of my favourite things about London is the weirdos you see there; on our walk we saw a man building sand sofas, drunks on giant grass sofas, a street magician, several guitarists, a pavement artist, two 8 year old buskers, and several freerunning teenagers doing dangerous gymnastics.

At about 2 o'clock, after a cheap and cheerful lunch from Sainsbury's, me and Mark headed home (Em and Mike stayed in London for a bit longer). Our combined intelligence saved us the walk back to London Bridge (about 25 minutes (we got the train home from Waterloo)). I had to get off in Lewisham and get the aforementioned replacement bus, which was dull, but on the bus I managed to give a European girl directions to where she was going. Another good deed for the day :)

I started a trend! (勢)

2009-06-12T21:11:00.042+01:00

Yep, it's official:

I found a lump of blu-tack in the Union a few days ago, and with my highly artistic talent (despite what my previous post said), I turned a ladies toilet sign into a work of art. I returned a few days later to find that someone had followed my lead and transformed the disabled toilet sign into a similar (but less remarkable) artwork. Thinking that would be the end of it, and with a sense of inner-smugness, I stopped looking for artworks inspired by my creativity. But as they say, it is when you stop looking for something that it appears to you. During my recent stay in Leeds, I saw another enhanced sign.This time however the quality surpassed that of my original creation, which is why I posted this claim to the original trendsetting masterpiece.

two days in Leeds (リーズ)

2009-06-12T20:27:00.016+01:00

Aaron and I went to Leeds from Tuesday to Thursday of this week, primarily to see Jay and David but also to attend Jay's 'hot and steamy' flat party. The 'hot and steamy' part is only a name by the way, not a description.

As usually happens when spending time with Aaron, Jay and Dave, several things that would normally appear unfunny took on a whole new hilarious persona, this time they included Chinese food, bakery signs, post-it notes, Windows XP log-on screens, mobile phone contacts and bus bells. Pictures clarifying what I mean here.

Upon arrival in Leeds, just after 12am on Wednesday 10th, me and Aaron got a cab to Jay's residence at the cost of £6.40. We were greeted by a slightly inebriated Jay and escorted back to his corridor, which was crammed full of slightly inebriated students. We then found and greeted David, said hello, got drinks, and stood around waiting to be introduced to people (as you do).

Throughout the course of the party, I spoke to two Canadians (one of which offered to show me around Toronto, which is greatly appreciated!), several of Jay's friends, and an unusually high amount of oriental people (not a bad thing, of course). Me and Dave also got takeaway, which unfortunately turned out to be the worst kebab I've ever had. Pah.

Everyone buggered off by about 2am, then me, Jay, Aaron, Dave and Simon sat in Jay's room talking 'til the wee hours. Dave fell asleep on Jay's bed, so I had to share it with him (clothed and above the covers) while Aaron slept on the floor. Nice!

Wednesday was 'all you can eat Chinese buffet day'! Aaron didn't want any Chinese food with chemicals in it, so we took Jay's friend's advice over Jay's, and went to a restaurant that wasn't as good as the one Jay recommended. Aaron then went on to eat only chips, rice and watermelon... Despite this however, me, Jay and David still managed to get our monies worth. I think I had 1 soup, 3 or 4 starters, 2 or 3 mains and 4 or 5 deserts. It was awesome! We wandered around Leeds for a bit as well, then played some pool in the union while Aaron 'worked' in the library.

In the evening we played Ring of Fire with some home made punch, and ordered pizza. By the end of it it wasn't Jay, Chris, Dave, Aaron and Simon playing anymore, it was Poo Bucket, Funky Homme, The Grand Ol' Duke of York, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Lord Wellington... In the pants.

Thursday didn't amount to much, as we accidentally overslept by several hours. We spent what time we did have trying to find a coffee shop with wifi so we could book our holiday. By the time we found one suitable, we'd ran out of time and so we had to depart for the coach station, say our goodbyes, and head home.

Despite it's shortness, it was a great couple of days =)

two more observations... (測)

2009-06-12T20:17:00.010+01:00

to go with the ones in a previous post:

When you're in a moving vehicle it looks like outside is moving while the vehicle is still, while the opposite is true.
Sometimes when I go "pffft" to blow my hair out of my eyes it sounds as if I'm shrugging off what someone has said, or laughing at a passer-by. I wonder if other people think that as well?

fuck you, Pepsi (ペプシ)

2009-06-09T15:25:00.008+01:00

17 cans of Pepsi (and their ringpulls) down, and still no £10,000 in my bank account...

I give up.

last day in the bubble (泡)

2009-06-07T22:00:00.007+01:00

In the early hours of Sunday June 7th, after eating my last takeaway of first year University, I started packing the majority of the stuff in my room whilst intermittently dancing to 'Superman' by Black Lace with Charlotte, Simon and Tom.

I then went to bed shortly after 3am after saying bye to Dave, and Dan apologising to Charlotte for the inconvenience he'd caused the previous week. Going to bed so late ruined the plan of getting up at 9 and finishing off packing; instead I got up just after 1pm and had to hurriedly pack with Charlotte, meaning my stuff was a lot less neat than desired, and also a lot less efficiently packed. Mum arrived and we took a couple of bags to the car, then went to take back library books, pick up my yearbook, and get lunch at the Sneyd Arms.

Lunch was nice, I had the meal I'd decided against every previous time I'd been in there previously; a spicy cajun chicken burger with Jalapeños and cheese. It was delicious. After lunch we drove back to Horwood, and Charlotte, Simon, Tom and Gerry helped me take all the stuff to the car, while Mum crammed it in.

We left shortly after 4, following (fairly) emotional goodbyes. Luckily we remembered to take the key back just after leaving campus, rather than half way home. The journey back was fairly uneventful. We went on a toll road where the signs said "tender exact fare" - a slightly confusing way of wording it I thought. We also stopped in some services for the loo and a quick snack.

I can't believe how short a time it seems since we did the same journey the other way (I.E when I started at Keele last September)... We got back to London just after 8.

two observations: (測)

2009-06-05T19:01:00.011+01:00

I always feel a sense of emptiness after eating a nice meal, which is ironic considering I usually feel full up as well...
Seeing (and subsequently peeing on) a penny in a urinal a few days ago made me think about the state most currency in circulation must be in; it's probably best not to think too much about it right?

Woodstoke 2 (二)

2009-06-04T17:42:00.027+01:00

Yesterday the KUSU (Keele University Students Union) building put on it's most impressive event yet; Woodstoke 2.

I've heard the name 'Woodstoke' was taken from a past event hosted by students independent to KUSU, but I'm not really sure. Wherever the name came from however, the whole event followed a festival theme with such witty venue names as the Glastonbudget Stage, T in the Dark, and Keelefields.

A £20 ticket (what's left of mine is shown below) entitled you to a nifty wristband (also shown below) allowing unlimited access to all venues between 4pm on the 3rd June and 4am on the 4th. That works out at just over £1.60 an hour (bargain!).

I got my ticket only a couple of hours before the event, after a last-attempt-ticket-getting-mission paid off (someone told me it had sold out the day before). We headed in at about 4.30 to check out the area, then headed back home for some predrinks until the good stuff kicked off at about 6.30.

The aforementioned good stuff included:

Immense amounts of meat surrounded by a bun for £2!
Fruit dipped in sherbet for £1.50!
Facepainting!
Rides!
Foam party!
Fully clothed shower to get foam out of clothes!
More facepainting!
A skirmish between security and drunken party goers!
A fucking TOP HAT!
Stone Roses and Oasis tribute bands (both of which were the same people, cunningly wearing slightly different 90s indie fashion)!

The combination of those 'good stuffs' and hanging out with a bunch of cool people made last night (and ergo this morning) one of the best at Keele so far! There was also a rave in the woods apparently, but I didn't go.

Kudos KUSU.

the last few days... (数日)

2009-06-01T23:23:00.007+01:00

have been amazing, if not fairly unproductive from an academic standpoint. A previous post of mine detailed the rise in outdoor (drink-fuelled) activity, and most of the events recorded in this post follow suit.

On Tuesday it hit me that in nearly 8 months of living here, I have been in the woods only once (and even then it was almost pitch black). This realisation inspired a twilight walk with friends through the grounds of Keele hall, across a privately owned field, and into the University-owned woods:

Hopefully the poorly shot photographs do some justice to the grounds, which are surprisingly beautiful. The grass in the field was knee height, and so was quite interesting to walk through (and jump in). The woods were fairly standard in most respects, apart from one thickly overgrown area on the side of a stagnant lake which looked as if it should be inhabited by trolls. Walking back was a bit odd due to the contrast of the aforementioned grounds on one side, and the M6 on the other.

On the way back we decided to have another fire in the woods next Tuesday, which I'll probably write about at some point. This time however we've got a spot in mind (shown above) at the far side of the field, complete with a fallen tree bench and previously built fire which just needs to be rekindled. We might buy a keg of beer as well; 20 pints for £18, fresh from the brewery!

Wednesday led to a lunchtime Philosophy discussion with a friend at the KPA Clubhouse, one of our newest haunts. I've been reading The God Delusion and he recommended me some 'proper philosophy' in the form of Descartes Meditations, along with telling me the story of Descartes' death.

Thursday evening was the first of what I imagine will be many poker evenings. The kitchen table was finally put to some other purpose than a graveyard of abandoned kitchenware, as four of us sat down for a £5 in winner takes all game of Texas Hold 'Em. The most proficient poker player amongst us went out first, opening up the game a bit for the underdogs (me). I was playing well until a couple of silly errors cost me most of my chip stack, shortly after which I went out. Tom went onto win the game after a 50/50 all in by Gerry.

Friday night was probably my best night at Keele so far; it started with a few beers and pizza on the grass outside Horwood F, moved into Rich's room for more predrinks, then through 3 campus bars and into the woods in the wee hours. The atmosphere was great as well due to the amount of people milling around between the two main events (usual Union night and 'Boycott'). After a couple of drinks at the Pig, another couple at the Union (and dancing!), we made our way to the fabled rave in the woods. It was about 4am by the time we arrived, and me and Char didn't stay for long, but it was an amazing experience! Walking through the woods towards a faint beat, seeing the fire through the trees as the music gets louder, and seeing four or five separate bonfires burning with groups of people sitting around each was surreal. Everyone one was peaceful and chilled out (I wonder why), and it felt a shame leaving, even though I didn't want to stay at the same time...

The weekend consisted mainly of recovering from Friday night, attempting to revise, and chilling at Keele hall with some combination of; friends, a football, alcohol, food and music. Here's a couple of pictures (I like the weird perspective in the first one):

"amazingly... the pigeons can do this!" (鳩)

2009-06-01T17:13:00.012+01:00

"VI 30s deliver twice the reinforcement rate of VI 60s, and the animal pecks the VI 30s twice as often as the VI 60s"

it feels like I'm in an 80's movie (映画)

2009-06-01T10:52:00.010+01:00

Today I woke up feeling stressed about a few things, to the point that while me and Charlotte walked to the shop all I spoke about was revision, exams, money and dirty clothes.

It seems strangely fitting (and oddly reminiscent of a low budget 80's film) then, that as soon as we walk into the shop, the opening of D:Ream's 'Things Can Only Get Better' comes on.

It also seems strangely disturbing things do feel slightly better...

a humorous transcript (録)

2009-05-29T20:39:00.008+01:00

This post relates to my last in some ways; today's revision session with friends descended into petty text-banter (for some reason, face to face communication wouldn't suffice), a transcript of which follows:

Simon: 'Bellend'
Chris: 'Fagtube'
Simon: 'What a fag, man'
Chris: 'A fag man?'
Simon: 'Swellend'
Chris: 'Bellbag'
Simon: 'Shit-stomper'
Chris: 'Cock-caresser' (cheers Dave!)
Simon: 'Cancer patient'
Chris: 'Turd burglar'
Simon: 'Randy rimmer'
Chris: 'Dandy dimmer'
Simon: 'Japseye'
Chris: 'Urethra'
Simon: 'Orathuro'
Chris: 'Dipshit'
Simon: 'Shitdip'
Simon (to Char): 'C**t'
Chris: 'Armpit'
Simon: 'Legpit'
Char: 'Bumpit'
Chris: 'Fuckwit'
Simon: 'Fickwot'
Chris: 'Dickpot'

And there it ended; it seemed funnier at the time than it did copying it up here, but that's probably because it provided a means of revision procrastination for half hour or so.

the ultimate distraction (気の散る)

2009-05-27T14:20:00.008+01:00

No matter how motivated I am to work / do something useful, the motivation always dissipates at the precise moment I turn the internet on. Some unimportant website (blog, Facebook, last.fm etc) can distract my attention for hours at a time, while the time I set aside for important things slowly passes by.

It's frustrating because nothing gets achieved during the time spent browsing, and it's ironic because even as I write this I'm supposed to be either tidying up, washing up, proof reading an essay, revising for an exam, or having lunch...

But alas.

I'm struggling... (闘)

2009-05-27T02:01:00.012+01:00

with an Advanced Japanese essay, to be precise. The only two things keeping me going are intellectual conversation with a friend over MSN, and the fact that one of the headwords in my Japanese dictionary is 'fart'.

Endless entertainment!

fire in the woods (火事)

2009-05-26T13:12:00.027+01:00

The combination of clement weather and the need for a means of procrastination led to a rise in (mainly drink-fuelled) outdoor activity this weekend. A friend, for example, drank a whole litre of Gin and attended two barbecues to which he was not invited before collapsing drunk in bed at 4pm.

Inspired by other goings on and as a variation to the usual Sunday evening routine, me and a few friends ventured into the woods with a crate of beer, a selection of meat, and a box of matches. The plan was to make a fire, eat the meat, and drink the beer.

As you can see, the fire burned a treat. Everything from sticks, mulch, leaves, empties and wrappers was used to get it going, and it lasted a good 3 hours before our 'combined efforts' doused it. The meat was cooked on makeshift grills made by flattening empty cans or on sticks held haphazardly over the flames (the first option was definitely the safest, despite the extended cooking time). By 3am all the meat and beer had gone, most people were drunk, a couple were high, and we headed home.

Glastobury line-up announced! (並)

2009-05-25T13:25:00.014+01:00

Bean (豆)

2009-05-24T00:18:00.014+01:00

A hot Bean just ate some hot beans and her tongue is burning.

"appreciate the macabre" (不気味)

2009-05-23T20:12:00.023+01:00

Whilst reading through some 'blogs of note', I stumbled upon this painting:

For those of you who don't know it's depicting some iconic Scooby Doo villains, and I'm posting the picture (linked to it's source at Alex Pardee's blog (eyesuckink)) on my blog only because of it's awesomeness. I don't mind telling you that Scooby Doo was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid, and seeing the villains rendered so beautifully brings a smile to my face.

I wish I had artistic talent...

a weird dream (夢)

2009-05-23T15:20:00.041+01:00

I have a rotten hangover; Smirnoff and Jack Daniels does not make for a good combination, a fact I failed to consider last night. During the comatose sleep the aforementioned drinks induced, I had a bizarre dream:

There was some form of black tie event at a hall backing onto a taxi rank-esque building. As the evening progressed a commotion began to develop, in which some wannabe Mafiosos became flustered. The boss figure ran down from the taxi rank office followed by a shorter, stockier figure, who had managed to open a safe containing an umbrella, a bowler hat, and a note of high denomination. At the bottom of the stairs the boss continued running while the stockier fellow slipped out of the front door; he stood briefly under a red awning, donning the umbrella and hat, and strolled away from the taxi rank. The boss figure emerged from the taxi rank shortly after looking irritated and scanned the street, presumably for the other man, who by now had reached his destination; a cashpoint machine amidst a busy market. The stolen note was paid into the machine, and the dream ended.

I'm not really sure how to interpret the dream, I think the stocky Mafioso had done one over on the other guy because he seemed smugly satisfied after assuming his disguise and walking off, but even so no meaning is immediately obvious. Thoughts?

nothing... (無)

2009-05-22T20:22:00.015+01:00

that's what I fully understood of the Advanced Japanese exam I recently sat...

私はすべてを忘れていた...

杉原紙