Enummerated: Reasons I Loathe† Stephen Fry October 30, 2008

1.    Language bends over for him like a  cheap whore with a spinabifida. The idea that anyone can be expected to grasp english so thoroughly is simply unfair.  I’d like very much to cuff him over the head…or watch him suffer a terrible bout of gonorrhea.  A clap on the head, or the clap in the pants, you might say, and I think those are pretty well the least I’d take to descry even a sliver of the glorious light that is his linguistic savoire faire, his scholarly prowess.  Which is linked, of course, to his overwhelming adeptness with a wit.  I could just die.  I could just die of a hemorrhage in my brain, causing a stroke, or BEING a stroke, I suppose, and then I would enjoy it if a troop of little clotular peices floated down and got lodged in my superior vena cava causing my blood pressure to rise, and, if the universe is quite kind and merciful, my thorax to explode rather fantastically all over a Starbucks cushy chair.  And, if all’s well with the world, I pray that Stephen might sit in said chair and get his lovely tall pants all mucky and covered in viscera.  That would be a nice, sugary icing.
2.    He is tall.  Furthermore, his height is just stupid.  I am astounded that he can sleep at night boasting such a proffessional amount of tallness ‘neathe those five thousand-count egyptian cotton snugglies, knowing full well that I am out there being shortly staturèd and low on thread.  So silly is his absolute god-talledness, that I can’t imagine that the belgian cathedral-style doors that surely adorn the fascade of his manor could possibly be anything smaller.
3.    That classy bastard has him some class, as Fry and others of his tallish, richish, British ilk are oft-found to possess.  Consistantly seen in an immaculately tailored suit crafted, no doubt, out of silk from only the purest, most erudite goats and the finest needles made from the ulnas of prophetic greek virgins, ever well coiffed, fashionably well fed and poised so masterfully that one might wonder if he was grown against a vine pole, Fry wafts class where e’er he goes, like a giant Tinkerbell, except without the tights—not that he couldn’t class the hell out of a cat-print singlet.
4.    He can/has do/done everythig that…everything.

The only area I can say I have, in full assuredness, squashed Stephen Fry is under the flighty column of ‘friends.’  Sure, he’s friends with Hugh Laurie, one of Douglas Adams’ best chums, and has tea’d with Emma Thompson and Rowen Atkinson, but there is not a drip-drop of doubt in my mind that in the end, my incredibly intellectual, undeniably sexual friends will mature into far more beautiful flora than he or I can even imagine.

† Did I say loathe or love?  Well, the truth is that I like him quite a bit more than anything, aside from perhaps my milk crate library and $9.00 vegetarian Indian buffets.  Since I’ve yet to speak to him, or have him speak to me, I will only go so far as to say that I wish that I could wish to attain such a veritably huge amount of knowledge as he has been able to retain in his season. I really do think he’s quite rare and quite supernaturally special.

Status Symbols October 29, 2008

As I walked down Fraser Street forgetting to buy stamps, I saw something sparkling through the leaves. Someone’s engagement ring! I was going to take the situation seriously if I found an engraving but instead I discovered tacky souldering and a half-missing “stone” on one side. Regardless, I felt bare so I put it on and headed to the bank. I needed to anyways.

Vancity and I speak only when necessary and without eye contact. I have all my account numbers memorized so that they don’t have to ask, just do. The silent sour relationship between us started on my first trip to France, when my account wouldn’t let me access money from overseas ATMs. Changing my account to enable this was like phoning the city of Vancouver to stop the rain so that I could go home dry because I forgot my umbrella. On my second trip to France I was secretly charged $70 CDN for a €20 withdrawl after the Euro-USD and USD-CDN conversion and ran out of money, thinking I had about $200 more than I did. My third trip to France, I withdrew all my money before I left (at the Vancity ATM, to save $1.50, I am so efficient!) so that Vancity would never have to know.

Needless to say, we are not friends, but only one of my jobs does automatic deposit so I am forced to engage in brief monthly encounters which seems to occur when the ratio of employees on lunch break totals one hundred per cent and the line of bleary customers fills the authoritatively logoed zig zag lineup and the closed captioning on CNN is either phonetic Tagalog, or the captioner fell asleep on the “B” key.

Today at the bank I was offered customer service. You know what happened? I gained electrons. Seriously, I went in asleep and hardly noticed the schizophrenic televisions and left with a newfound energy. I skipped across the street before noticing there was no walk signal while narrowly missing getting flattened by a WonderBread van. It was fabulous. Customer service prevents death!

It may have been because I got a fresh, motivated teller who was genuinely interested in helping me get an interest rate higher than Zero Kelvin, but I think it was because I had a potential joint checking account phare marqueeing from stage left. Or she saw my Starbucks paychecks and wanted to reciprocate the Lucy in the sky with diamonds sort of euphoric service before withdrawing into her reality of term deposits and interest maturity.

I took some free Badam Katlee on my way out, courtesy of Diwali.

Toast with nutella helps me forget about my cold toes October 22, 2008

Here’s my stab at a post in English. It is so pathetic that I could only feel comfortable writing that dry french – business french is what my prof would like to call it.

Life isn’t actually so miserable despite some mishaps. My soul is forgotten at a corner of a room with not a trace of what I desire. My soul is like a crunched up ball of paper that was once used to be a draft for a pencil-sketch and now forgotten to be recycled.

Questions you might have for me:
1) Um, why are you married to this girl named Tiffany Ho on facebook?
Yes, it’s a lame fb relationship. She is the president of the Ballroom dancing club, for which I occupy the post of treasurer. How I got involved was last summer when I joined the club as a joke to spite someone. There’s too much drama in this club – a really melodramatic version of Karlee-me falling-out from grade 12. The moral of this story, for me actually, in a nutshell, is that I still haven’t learned how to put my energy to good use with people whose hearts are at the same place as mine.

2) What’s this dealio with your mother?
Basically, business is haywire. Lawsuits are tumours to your wallet, your family and your own life. They might not be detrimental to your life in the long run but the quality of your life at the moment is definitely affected.
A little side note from dictionary.com, out of my own curiosity:
The term is first recorded as a noun in a debate in the Canadian House of Commons (1917), so it is a Canadianism[...]
Anyways, fortunately she’s found a new product that she’ll be introducing to the market in China. I don’t like the concept of it, however. Think of a box. A metal box. About the size of a mini-refrigerator. Now this little box sucks in air and spits out (okay, fine, release) clean air for you. It is sensible to have one maybe in an apartment in urban city locations only due to the air pollution, smoke, carbon dioxide… but that’s taking us further away from any notion of cleaning the environment in the greater sense. It’s saying – let’s just clean up the space where my bodies must cross on a daily basis, so that would be our homes, our working space, schools, a giant shopping mall, maybe some fancy fine-dining restaurants, movie theater and car dealerships. It’s like we had an ocean and now we’re choosing to go into a fish tank. Goldfish only grow as big as allowed by the size of their fish tank.  Jumping out of the fish tank will be suicidal when their bodies are accustomed to the filtered air. What else is there left to filter?

3) So how are you managing?
Well, I thought about what Irene suggested – concerning my antsy energy, my dissatisfaction with school and life/lack of hobbies in general. Unfortunately, what I would like to do – photography, dancing, singing, maybe badminton lessons – are all $$ and thus out of the option.
Here’s what I have done, plan to do/ Daniella, Beth and Mike should force me to do:
- when the class was practicing to write une lettre de commande (ordering certain items or services in a letter form), I chose to order a stripper, a belly dancer and a fire-eater for a year-end party. Thanks Office. That gave me two hours of ab workout.
- every morning I go on BBC. My favourites: when they provide short excerpts from different journals from different states/countries to show their perspective on one subject; when they provide the profile on a country. I dropped Geo but I’d still like to learn about the world in my own way.
- I really need to start reading – french english chinese. BC tea collective leaves: book club/ gathering/ movie every Monday? Sunday? Let’s decide on a day. I need to lovely human contact weekly, please. Dying please.
- Toast with nutella.

I love you and I apologize for being incommunicado for periods of time.

Demande de renseignement October 22, 2008

Madame,
Monsieur,

Nous accusons réception de vos messages au cours d’année scolaire (misérable). Vos partages généreux de vos pensées, en dépit de vos vies aussi d’étude et d’un emploi temps chargé, nous ont beaucoup plu.

En ce qui concerne notre organisme, il est en fonctionnement défectueux. Le cadre de nos cours, consistant le français, la philosophie politique, les méthodes politiques de statistiques et la linguistique, nous mène dans une routine (souffrance) de travail (fade). En plus, notre gérante (maman) m’abandonne afin de porter secours à son entreprise qui face la possibilité de faire faillite.

Nous souhaiterions obtenir les renseignements suivants :
- les détails de votre vie en rose (lavande, tournesol ou même cactus;
- des mots, des photos, des vidéos, des activités ou quoi que ce soit qui vous fait rire;
- des recettes simples de pâtisserie;
- votre sourire et non pas votre encouragement de mots miellés.

Dans l’éventualité d’un autre message en anglais de notre part, nous vous serions reconnaissants de nous faire parvenir ces renseignements le plus tôt possible.

Nous vous prions d’agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distinguées.

Agnès Kwan

The triumphant return of… well, me. October 18, 2008

Hm. Let’s see, where shall I start? It’s been such a long time since i’ve written a post or seen any of you for that matter. I’ve been somewhat removed from the world recently. Yes that’s right, studying. But no worries, I have been aware of this absence and am trying to amend the problem.

 

1. Thanksgiving!
This year on Thanksgiving, I decided to try my hand at pies. My church was having their annual ‘baked potato + something’ fellowship deal with pumpkin pies. Sadly, I came up short and was runner up to a pie which honestly looked pre-bought and therefore blew away my own regular uneven pie.

 

2. Midterminal Illness.
SO. I had 2 midterms this week. My Cell Biology one was on Thursday and was terrible. You know how if you have an essay question on an exam, they are very nice about it and balance it out with some multiple choice or match-up? This exam was 50 minutes long but consisted of an essay and enough short answer questions to make up another 2 essays. My second midterm however was incredible. Vertebrate Biology. It was this afternoon and I quite honestly believe that it will be my best exam mark since highschool. My reason being that they’re animal families and classes, which are quite reminiscent of well…. Pokemon. And let’s face it, nobody ever had to TRY memorizing Pokemon, you just did it.

 

3. FRIENDS.
I’ve been watching a lot of reruns lately, approximately 2-3 episodes a day. I’ve found that having FRIENDS running in the background while i’m studying seems to work. It provides you with that little thing you have to look at when you’re trying to memorize things. I watched the pilot the other day and never truly realized how epic it was. It was at that moment that I thought to myself: ‘What if FRIENDS was not picked up for subsequent seasons by a television station?’ It would be horrific. Then I proceeded to ask myself other ‘parallel universe’ kinds of questions about the show as I watched reruns (Yes, yes, I know there is a ‘What if’ episodes of FRIENDS but humor me). What if Ross ended up hooking up with Phoebe after that Pool table romancing? What if Carol wasn’t a lesbian? Joey getting fat? We will never know.

 

4. Blindness
I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for Blindness in the past couple weeks (see above: TV watching whilst studying). I know i’ve said it before but the concept of mass blindness REALLY, REALLY scares me. Perhaps it’s the fact that i’m already fairly blind *frown* Anyhow, I want to watch this movie.

 

Well, it’s 12:06 am and I am tired from a long day of well… day. I hope to see you all very soon, and will try to keep updating/posting more often. Cheers!

cloudburst doesn’t last all day October 14, 2008

I stand here, split between splitting home (which would take an hour) to get my camera – the one time I decided I wouldn’t need the extra weight in my bag – and standing here to savour it.

It, is the photo I see.

I was walking along E 51st avenue from Main Street to Fraser to get myself something warm to drink because it was cold in the rink and cold outside. The biting cold that makes my nose run backwards, inking my throat with the phlegm enabling me to temporarily yell above a group of eight year olds in a sexy Phoebe voice type situation. The kind of cold that a whole milk americano misto would cure.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched the two men paint the side of the elementary school. Their trucks were parked on the grass nearby with multisized paint cans spotting the grass around them like cylindrical, plastic sheep on a prairie. The sidewalk sloped downwards and as I descended, the angle of the photograph perfected itself.

The sun shone white through the earl grey clouds casting pale yellow into pale violet and was aligned with the painter’s ladder which was framed by the two parked trucks. Tears of sun shone through cracks in the clouds and filled the image with a careful momentary dimension while the air held a flat glow as the image waited for capture. I stood dumb feeling only the warm cup in my hand and the rich woody lyrics of All Things Must Pass penetrate my head.

It was the perfect photo to the perfect song and there was nobody to hug.

equation October 12, 2008

the truth is in the laundry, originally uploaded by box of lettuce.

Love is life and film
and LIFE is FILM with ME.
Me is I.
I love you.
So love is film and life
with me and you.

Cookies October 11, 2008

Today I made cookies with Maciek’s Mom. We made them with almond flour because she thought Meghan might be coming for Thanksgiving. We made them in Harvest-themed shapes. We like the squirrel cutter best. Maciek’s mom always decorates things with edible healthy bits like dried fruit, seed and nuts. Maciek’s grandma asked me to call her grandma even though we can’t talk to each other due to our language barrier. She gave me a necklace with a swan pendant.

I love my second family.

Archiving October 8, 2008

I am working on this project archiving old photos from theatre at UBC prductions. It feels good to have some purpose between classes other than homework and studying.

Greek man has returned to ubc pool. For some reason his supension has been lifted. There is an asian man who hates him and submits “formal” complaints against him every chance he gets. Old men need to have better things to do than trying get each other kicked out of the facility.

I have been scanning pictures and negatives to digitize them for the archival project. Holding negatives made me miss that moment after processing a roll when you unlock to funnel lid to the canister and twist the holder apart. When the film unravels and swirls. When you grab one end and the rest falls to the floor in a shiny black ribbon. When, too impatient to just let them dry, you uselessly try to decipher which pictures are best even though you won’t be able to tell until you do a contact sheet. I miss that excitement when you can just tell the roll is a good one. I miss the photo room.