She's gone to the other side...

While I still have a half-hour of Internet connection left before it all stops, I just thought I'd write one last time from this side of the pond.

It is odd, to say the least, that I am leaving here, but I'm working on obtaining that sense of closure that I'll need before tomorrow. Once I'm done with the last of the packing, I'm planning on doing some serious angsting, followed by some thinking (possibly irrationally), and perhaps some journalling. On paper. 'Cause like I said, only 28 minutes of Internet time left and my paper journal's been a bit neglected lately anyway.

So. This is the last march of the Ents, the last of the Mohicans, the last crusade, the last dance, and possibly even the last Samurai. Heh. Oh come on; I couldn't leave you all hanging here for a few days without giving you some movie references. ;)

I won't have a connection at home (new home!) until Monday at the earliest, so I probably won't be updating before then.

I'll see you from the other side (or, you know, 10 minutes away from here).

Best wishes,
- J.

Spice Box up your life

So.

No more weekends before I move out, eh? No more obstacles, excuses, or Saturdays between now and *cue dramatic overtures* The Future.

In less than 2 full days from now, I'll be leaving this place, never to return, and all the rooms will be left empty of familiarities, the house locked up, only to next have its doors opened by people who are strangers to it. (Apparently nobody forgot to un-cue those overtures. Apologies.)

And then I'll be carted off, with my family and all our material belongings, to a new place to live. I'm having trouble seeing myself adapting even though I know I will, eventually. Maybe over time I'll start appreciating the view of water and city skyline over the view of serene green trees.

I know I complain and whine and worry and fret a lot, but the new place isn't exactly a dump or anything. But it IS new, and different, and not home, even when it technically will be. There is no problem, and I am fine, and this'll be a breeze. Right?

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P.S., Have I mentioned how much of a pain group work can really be, sometimes?

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ETA:

12", Holly, Dragon You scored 47 wisdom, 33 bravery, 15 emotional, and 16 martyrdom!

Holly is a powerful protective wood that good for use against evil, but it also represents dreams and fertility. Your dragon's heartstring core makes your wand very effective in hexes.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 57% on wisdom You scored higher than 53% on bravery You scored higher than 15% on emotional You scored higher than 23% on martyrdom

Link: The Harry Potter Wand Test written by sputnik845 on Ok Cupid

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Alani Alana

What's your Hawaiian Name?

Huh. All things considered, I think I'll just stick with the names I've got. :)

 

ETA:

You Are 50% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Arrrgh, it's only Monday and it's already so hard to stay HBP*-spoiler free. I think I've avoiding hearing any major spoilers, but really... I should, like, give up the Internet until I read the book. But what's the likelihood of me doing THAT? HA!

Anyway, I'm clearly here because I'm procrastinating from working on my case for class, but it's only because I have no stinkin' clue what I'm doing. For real. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I assure you I'm not. Hopefully the rest of my group knows something, because I'm sort of at a small loss.


* For the uninitiated, HBP = Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Questions

1. Have you gotten HP6 yet? I received a free pair of nifty plastic lensless Harry glasses with my copy. I can't believe they killed...<FFZZZT!>...

No, I haven't yet, unfortunately. Or, possibly, quite fortunately, since I don't really have time right now to read it (well, I do, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be that good to spend my time reading HBP rather than prepping for my midterm and case presentation, right?). The plan is to obtain one and then wait until my brother finishes reading it first and/or my course is finished. Le sigh. So please, no spoilers, or I'll send the dementors to get ya. ;)

2. I've been pondering starting my own blog, so I skimmed several Blogger blogs to check out the templates. I didn't encounter a single one that utliizes the three column layout that yours does. Is this a Blogger template or did you create the layout yourself?

I did start off with a Blogger template, although they seem to have retired that one since the time I first joined. The template only had two columns (the left, smaller one and the main post column) but I added in the third column myself. And was, at the time, quite proud of myself for figuring out how exactly to do that. :)

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It's not the bow that counts...

Amazon.com's 10th anniversary presentation (yesterday?) included some brand new behind-the-scenes LOTR footage. <excited fangirl>Wheeeeee!</excited fangirl> It features David Wenham, Orlando Bloom, and Viggo Mortensen and mostly focuses on the swordfighting and archery training. :D Go here to download the clip.

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Hello, welcome to the class...now here, have a midterm

Never in my life has a course gone this quickly. Last summer was the first time I'd taken a summer course. That one went for 5 weeks and was a full-year credit, but we had class 4 times a week, and so you did feel like maybe you were learning things. This time, though, for this course there is only class twice a week -- we've had 4 classes so far, and I'm already trying to study for a midterm (in class 6), and the class after the midterm, I've got to present a case...which wouldn't normally be a problem at all, except that I in no way feel as if I've actually LEARNT anything yet in this class -- at least not enough to be presenting anything in an accurate and knowledgeable manner. I'm kinda worried since I'm just not used to the whirlwind speed (well, comparatively) that this course is going at. AAAAAH.

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What’s so amazing about really deep thoughts?

Well, if you're gonna space out, may as well think strange thoughts while you're at it, I say.

Two books were sitting next to each other in a book rack. One of these was noticeably more beat-up than the other; its spine was creased and bent and a portion of its front cover was detached from it. The other one looked more pristine, less damaged. At first, I tried to fix the beat-up one to make it look more like the other one, and I started wondering what had potentially happened to this book for it to look this way. THEN I got to thinking how these books were like people -- one person might have gone through more trouble in his/her life, and come out looking/feeling the worse for it, but ultimately, this is the one that is more interesting. You wonder what has happened to somebody who has obviously endured hardships, and in comparison, the person who seems to have gotten through unscathed seems, somehow, to be less real, or less human. In comparing the two books, the perfect-looking one was less remarkable, more irrelevant, and more inanimate. But then, taking a closer look, I noticed that the book wasn’t that perfect in actuality after all; at least a few of its pages were folded down and unintentionally creased. And then somehow, this book became just as interesting as the other. And so the oblique lesson about people is that one person may look like he or she has been through more than the other, but that we’re all alike underneath the surface, and we’ve all got troubles, and maybe they’re different kinds of trouble, but trouble is trouble nevertheless. No one doesn’t have problems, even if it might seem like so. None of us are completely unscathed. Sounds bleak, I know, but I found it strangely comforting somehow.

:: juliet :: 1:22 PM :: 0 comments

Unlimited? Are you sure?

Okay, so I'm really not a fan of the new ads as part of the 'Toronto Unlimited' campaign for the city of Toronto, but this one has got to be the worst. (You can see all of the lovely, lovely posters here.)

The text on this one reads, "In the city that welcomes the world, every day's an international film festival." I mean, yes, we do pretty much welcome the world, and yes, we DO have an international film festival, but....HOW does that sentence make a single iota of sense? And I know I'm not exactly the authority on Sense (especially of the Common type), but...what? What does that even MEAN? Sigh.

Miscellany

My love/hate relationship with computers continues -- I'm posting from my parents' computer because the Internet connection on my computer is suddenly not working. It was connected to this main computer via router and it's been working flawlessly in the recent past, but...alas. So now this is the only computer connected, and we're not gonna fiddle with it too much for now since I have to register online for my university courses on Tuesday morning. Bah.

Now on to my post...

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I've kind of been putting off posting for the past few days, since the incidents that took place in London on the 7th. I didn't feel ready to post anything about London but also didn't feel that I could, in good conscience, post about anything else without first posting about London. I don't know why, really, and it's strange, but...somehow, the attacks in London affected me more strongly than the tragedy that occurred in New York City on September 11, 2001. The New York attacks were...bigger, I think, and in general were "worse", if either of these incidents can be called "better" than the other. New York is also geographically much closer to where I live, and yet...I felt worse this time, and felt it immediately upon learning of what had happened. I don't know. For New York, I felt sort of numb, disbelieving, sad...but in a semi-detached kind of way. This was different. Maybe it's because I'd never been to NYC before the attacks, and I was just in London a little more than a month ago. I just find it all very strange, but of course, how I'M feeling about what happened is of no importance compared to the feelings of those who have been personally affected by it. I hope everybody's loved ones are safe.

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Now on to my regularly-scheduled petty programming...

On LiveJournal, I joined the daily_book community, which gives a poll every day for a different book -- whether people have read it or not and what those who read it thought of it. So, I've been having to answer "no" since I found the community, and I was starting to think that either (a) I don't read enough books, or (b) I do read, but not the right books. Heh. Finally, though, I've been able to answer "yes" for the most recent 2 posts. I got to rate them and everything! Heh. Good thing I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn some year for school and Suz lent me Generation X a few years ago.

In other news, I went with Tiff to Corner House Restaurant, which is literally what it is -- an old house in a residential area, converted into a restaurant, and located right on a corner. I'd never heard of it before, but then I don't really keep up with the restaurants anyway, but it was quite nice in more of a laid-back kind of way, and I think we had the best table in the house. Who knew "Baby Spinach Salad with shaved sugar pears, Gorgonzola, Candied pecans, apple cider vinaigrette", which I wasn't sure would be that good, would turn out so well? :) (Suz -- we had vegetable fricassée. Heh. Though according to this, veggie fricassée kind of, um, doesn't exist, or at least normally involves some sort of poultry or meat. Huh.)

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Went to see Fantastic Four today, and -- apparently, I'm still comparing every movie I see to Kingdom of Heaven, which I must have really not liked, since every movie I compare it to is better than it is. That's not the way that was supposed to work. KOH should just...take itself back to the editing room, stick back in all the chunks of storyline that got chopped out of it, and then bring itself back out of that room when it's actually watchable. I've got high hopes for the Director's Cut DVD, but that might be unwise.

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There might be more to say, but honestly, I'm so tired right now that I can't remember what that would be. Only other "news" I'll mention is that I've started my Computer Auditing course, which is not, sadly, called Computer Oddity, which is what Suz's mom thought I'd said it was. She thought Computer Oddity sounded like something out of Hitchhiker's, which was amusing. I've no doubt that would be a much more enthralling class. Heh.

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Anyway, I'm off to bed [shortly] so I'll end this here. Hope all goes well with all, and to all a good night. :)

Oh, and p.s. - the Government of Ontario, Canada, visited my site. Like, dude, man. They only (I think) read my post regarding Toronto Unlimited, but still... that kinda creeps me out just a little bit. :)

Ta!

Just for fun...

You Are 26% American

America: You don't love it or want to leave it. But you wouldn't mind giving it an extreme make over. On the 4th of July, you'll fly a freak flag instead... And give Uncle Sam a sucker punch!

How American Are You?
And if you want to find out how Canadian you are, read the fourth question in that quiz. If you don't feel the least bit offended by it, then chances are that you aren't very Canadian at all. :)

Went to Live 8 today. Am tired. Will probably post somethin' about it sometime, but I can't promise anything. Got my first [small] sunburn today, which I guess is some sort of rite of passage or something. Heh. Anyway, going to Niagara-on-the-Lake tomorrow morning and possibly going to watch War of the Worlds, the *cough* "reimagining" of H.G. Wells's original story (Hollywood, as an entity, is against admitting to the large number of remakes it's been producing lately and has thus resorted to phrases like "the reimagining" and "an update of") in the afternoon when we get back. *shrug* Hey, a trip to the movie theater is a trip to the movie theater. :) It's all good in my books.

Happy Canada Day!

Your Summer Anthem is Speed of Sound by Coldplay All that noise, and all that sound, All those places I got found. And birds go flying at the speed of sound, to show you how it all began. You're out of your mind this summer, in a good way.

What's Your 2005 Summer Anthem?