relocation relocation relocation

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

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

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:

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.