sleeping late these days

I can't seem to sleep until like 2 or 3 am these past couple of days. Tonight I made instant noodles by 1:30 am, and devoured them vigorously until 2:30 am. I predict digestion will make its way through the night leaving me sleepless until 3 am. But I'm not that worried, because everything is all right with school and life and everything.

🍰🎂🍰
On the 29th I went to my own karaoke party and sang a lot of chinese pop songs. Then we all went to get hotpot at celebrity hotpot. Then we made our way to Rush Lane and had a couple of drinks. 

On the evening of the 30th I went to the UTPT tutoring orientation and was freaked out. U of T has such high expectations for the tutors' behaviours, making me want to quit and take things the easy high school way, where they don't care as much. But I decided to go for it, and maybe even get to tutor some people in biochemistry or organic chemistry...or personalized medicine (smirk). I was surprised that Andy Dicks the organic chem prof was the head of the group, and it was great to hear that he loves teaching.

Afterwards I met up with Andrew to eat cheese-coated ribs. We hung out for a bit at his messy apartment and he showed me a really bad cantonese music video called sugar baby by ffx. There were lyrics like "I'm ready be your wife" sang in really high terriblly autotuned voices. He talked about how easy life would be if he was gay because sex and relationships would just be easier and he didn't have to deal with emotional drama associated with girls. He was being serious. Unfortunately dicks gross him out, so he is trapped in this tortuous cycle of binary existence. Refreshing as it was I think he's just afraid of commitment and having to deal with people.

After THAT ordeal I went to meet up with Anne, Jonathan, and Anthony at the open mic at Amsterdam Bicycle Club. She ended up bringing Kallum (this weird 19 year old guy) to the thing. I filmed a portion of their set and put it on their instagram story. They wished me a happy birthday onstage and people clapped. :)


Today Nov 1st I went to CALC to tutor and Laura watched me and interacted with me and the students as I was teaching them math. It went really well, and after the tutoring session Joy and I went to see Laura and talked about the students not learning their basic english or math causing a lot of difficulties in the classes. I suggested that she talk to Natasha about the schedules for the tutors and tutees. She said she would draft a reference letter and I could come into CALC another day to talk about it with her. SHE IS SO ON TOP OF THINGS I LOVE IT

Then I took the subway to spadina with Joy while talking about nursing and tutoring. At the physics lab I successfully solved a question that I learned the night before and it felt great. I wish all the questions were this easy for me to understand and solve quickly ha. A lab administrator came by to ask our group to volunteer one person to go to a focus group in a couple of weeks to help improve physics labs, which I said I would go to. He encouraged me to speak with him about education in his office later. When I got home I e-mailed Dr. Sage about the OISE reference and he got back to me in an hour I swear......everything seems all set to go for OISE, but I feel like I can only focus on one application at a time to avoid bothering my references too much.

It was a really productive day.

wow

"the 21st century’s wormy world is likely to comprise mosaics of parasite prevalence and distribution not seen before, ultimately driven by a changing climate"
-butler text

the term "wormy world" brings to mind a festering ball of oversized cells with dark wriggling shapes inside, while the long stringy worms wrap around them, feverishly gyrating  :\

Lolita

"Here are two of King Akhnaten’s and Queen Nefertiti’s pre-nubile Nile daughters (that royal couple had a litter of six), wearing nothing but many necklaces of bright beads, relaxed on cushions, intact after three thousand years, with their soft brown puppybodies, cropped hair and long ebony eyes."

words I learned from Lolita 11 pages in:

ribald: referring to sex in a rude way

ardent: passionate

sibilant: hissing sound

aridity: bitter, pungent

impunity: immunity from injustice

fey: mystery, otherworldliness

poignant: keen sadness, regret

chameleonic: fickle, changeable

I took a nap

And when I woke up the sky looked like this.

I had a dream where I went to see an old busker every night just to hear him play. One night he was playing the acoustic guitar strumming with two acoustic guitar necks and plucking the strings of each one. He asked me what I was doing there and I said I enjoyed this spot he was at and listening to him play. He was playing on the roof of the bonsai shop in Chinatown at around 11 pm. Instead of looking cold and dirty, Chinatown had lots of silent traffic in the background with warm bokeh scattered everywhere. It was very romantic. We talked about each other and I woke up while he was telling me his wife or someone dear to him had died. The sadness lingered for a good 10 minutes as I drifted in and out of sleep, trying to capture the essence of his story.

Ai Weiwei

Today I went to the TIFF theatre to watch Human Flow 

The film itself was kind of boring but I couldn't pull my attention away from the glowing screen - a rectangle of light in this absolute quiet dark room. People walked across, in front of, and in the same plane as the camera, looking like ants. The way he frames his shots remind me of how I do it. Linear, arranged, capturing the whole picture. None of that artistic macro bullshit. Although when done right, it can be quite inspirational.
These days I can really focus on a song I like and listen to it all the way through while not doing anything. Maybe I'm turning into Nina.

I wrote a poem on hello poetry and it is "trending" today. Wonder if it'll disappear tomorrow.

1:30 pm cafe

I glanced at my reflection in the counter that I was sitting opposite to. The crack between the slabs of granite made it seem like my laptop and books were there, but I wasn't.

I guess this is an accurate representation of how I feel today.

a 30 minute chat with my parents and an actual blog post

Today I walked to College to meet Emily at Second Cup after successfully studying a chapter of physics at Robarts feeling rather pleased with myself, listening to Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist.

As I walked home my dad called eager to help with my Beijing paper and gave me some pointers with China's oil and gas industry and the heavy hydrocarbon problem. He said "most people wouldn't know of these issues but your dad is sensitive to them" while I waited for the streetcar with Emily. As I got off, still talking about anything, I told my dad about volunteering in a high school and he said that was good. We discussed moving back to calgary after university to "find myself", and I honestly didn't expect him to be so understanding all of a sudden. My mom told me Toronto is a dangerous place and I said only the certain parts you gotta watch out for, and we didn't talk for long. I realized she does the same thing I do when I suddenly think of a topic and want to change to it right after my current one, showing it with a bit of hesitation, and a "but, um...".  My sister talked to me about school at FEO and how she saw my picture on the wall and how she had weird classmates and was wearing a red riding hood costume for halloween.
It made me sad all of a sudden to think about all these events I'll be missing out on. But I can relive them through the pictures my parents will hopefully take. It doesn't seem like they enjoy taking pictures very much only for life landmark events or to show to their friends and distant family. Both me and my sister remember Mr. Yaris from FEO, which was kind of great.

I feel good being more independent. Especially after my parents called. Even though I didn't tell them how I was feeling talking to them about other things really helped. As it usually does after a good phone call. Even a bad phone call gives me contact I guess. 

some names jennifer has for margaret atwood:
Megan atweed
megan arwood