stress again

I felt a really strong wave of anxiety just now.
Procrastinating is just making things worse and even when I try to relax and to do something else my brain thinks like I'm wasting time.
I'm applying to bachelors of education and sigh, the MOMENT OF TRUTH is here. Reference collecting... I feel like the worst person in the world for some reason, just asking for a reference out of nowhere but that's the problem with academia, it's so inorganic and only works because of professionally written e-mails because who needs to be eloquent anymore

and at the same time I should be looking into programs everywhere, it seems like teaching is easy to get in but it's not true if you don't have all the courses lol

and everything just seems like a dead end, whether it's lack of interest or

(tiff) bell mushroom lightbox window in the evening forest

Emily and I walked in downtown toronto to different spots with bustle and hustle and ate dumplings for dinner.
I finished writing my essay for photography scholarship, now all i need to do is to remember to send it.

pharmacy stuff!!

I got a volunteering position today at a pharmacy 30 minutes away by subway. Plus I also got a call for an interview about a pharmacy assistant job near my place on wednesday!! Hope I get it.....Thanks kijiji

It sucks that I got the volunteering interview first. But I guess this is like what juggling life is like.

My first introduction to jazz

This is one of those "I always disliked jazz, but then..." stories.

In first year at UTSC I took an intro to music course, which is where I met Noam. He was a TA for the practical sessions, and he was also completing his music dissertation or something or other. He was a jazz pianist that was doing some project or other and performing his pieces here and there on campus. I went to a couple of his performances and I was hooked. His song The Nagila Mayster was my favourite song. I think I asked him about writing pieces during the course and he said it was hard work and that a song has many layers. I wrote about his performance in the concert report, about how that song sounded like it was raining and the sunshine afterwards.

Last night I went to another performance by the Amos Hoffman / Noam Lemish quartet, with some toronto dude i didn't know on the bass. Some of their songs were not that jazzy, but the live music still sounded great. At one point performing "the god of forgiveness" Noam forgot to start his piano solo lmao

He asked me if I took any more music courses and I said no, and at that point I felt it was kind of a waste of my skills to not further my piano playing. But he was nice about it anyways. When I went home, there was a guy standing in the middle of Queen St. in front of a car just blankly staring ahead. A police officer was planning to remove him and was putting on sterile gloves.

I think my laptop speakers are subtly fucked

I saw this posting for "laboratory assistant" on cln:
The laboratory assistants will provide important supportive roles for the scientific research in a cell and developmental biology laboratory. In fulfilling the work, the students will learn technical skills and the care and precision needed in research. They will be mentored by our Laboratory Technician and work as a team. Importantly, the positions are also entry points for getting directly involved in our experimental work. Thus, applicants should have a strong interest in pursuing future research (e.g. research courses in the lab).

Please provide a cover letter, your resume, and a copy of your marks from ROSI.

Positions begin in early September.

Qualifications:
-an interest in laboratory research, especially in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
-past work experience in any area (science or non-science)

Duties:
-washing glassware
-preparing solutions and media
-maintaining Drosophila (fruit fly) stocks
-possibility of directly participating in experiments


HAHAHAH. That's incredible. Who the fuck would want to do this. How does this help your "research career" in any way.

Insight

Olga says that she would like to go to school for computer science. She was anticipating having to take upgraded high school classes in order to apply to u of c. It is hard to get out of the monotony that is working, though. She did not seem happy. However, always pursuing something she wants to do may not be the best for her. I feel it's important to experience both, and not let disappointment stop you. Perhaps that's the difference between high school dropouts and people who went to university.

meditation

"I’d been meditating in a halfhearted way since I was a teenager, but when my father died, I got serious about it. I couldn’t do anything about sickness, old age, death, terrorism, war, or even writer’s block, but I could do something about my grief-stricken state of mind."
-Ruth Ozeki on meditation
She has some good points on writing. It seems every post on her weblog is a published piece of writing. I wish I valued completeness and polishedness as much as her. I want my pieces to mean something, or to give insight into something. It seems like this blog is heading nowhere, just as an aesthetically pleasing site hosting my thoughts. It doesn't really matter.

It is hard to multitask. I'm in a google hangouts room for the DRC meeting this bright and hot wednesday morning and also trying to focus on learning about buddhism. I'm going to keep listening to zencast after the meeting. And maybe try to sleep.

update: I did not sleep, instead I looked at zen buddism centers in toronto. It seems a lot of them require monetary donation except the one at school: http://www.truepeace.ca/events. I e-mailed the Toronto Zen Centre about the next intro workshop and they got back to me in 10 minutes saying they are still planning it. It seems silly to pay money for a workshop where you are taught to let go of worldly desires and attachment.