I am in The. Worst. Mood.

Today started out pretty well, but around 2:00 I just got grumpy for no good reason and never bounced back. So I'm going to eat a danish and read the globe and mail and play insaniquarium while singing along to cake at the top of my lungs. And if that doesn't make me feel better, I'm just going to curl up in bed with a book until I fall asleep.

There were two guide dogs on the GO bus! One was yellow and one was black. Guide dogs are very cool. They would lie on the floor under their people's seats, so if you hadn't seen them get on the bus you wouldn't even know there were dogs there! When they were waiting for the bus, the dogs would lie down on the ground, and when the bus came they would indicate this to their people by standing up. They were beautiful and I wanted to pet them but I know you're not supposed to do that.

I'm also very excited because my living room is going to match. As I mentioned before, I'm getting a couch from Jimmy. This couch doesn't go with a thing I own. I also have a wicker chair, whose cushions are covered in the fabric from the curtains from my parents' original house (circa 1975). We were trying to figure out what to cover the couch with, and I said "Too bad we can't just cover it in the same fabric as the chair." Well, it turns out they still have a curtain left, so we're going to cover the couch with it. It has red in it so it matches my bright red curtains, and it's from the 70s so it matches all the other 70s furniture I have. (All my furniture is my parents' old furniture). My living room will match! YAY!

Here's something I wish I'd known four years ago. I'm posting it here so maybe someone who needs it will find it through Google. (People do tend to find this blog through Googling the weirdest things, so why not?)

If you are an anglophone who wants to study Translation at Glendon College (at York University in Toronto), these courses are the best way to make use of your first year. Translation starts in second year, so you can do these at Glendon, or at the university of your choice. (Sorry, I have no idea what the francophones need to do).

1. Intro to English Lit. (this is required for the translation degree, so you may as well get it out of the way in first year)
2. French as a second language. Not lit., just language training. Take the most advanced course you can get into. (Glendon requires you take all the FSL possible, so it's good to get ahead here)
3. Intro to Computers. (If you think it would be a bird course, it's an easy A that will fulfill some Gen. Ed. requirements and help you get a tech writing certificate if you need it. If you don't think it would be a bird course, you need to take it).
4. Linguistics (Not necessary, but it's a good background, and currently it will cancel out Specialized Translation into French).
5. a) If you think you might have the slightest interest in studying Spanish translation, take the most advanced Spanish course (language or lit) that you can get into. Even if you've never taken Spanish before you still might be able to pull off Spanish translation by the end of the 4 years, but you need to start ASAP.
   b) If you are certain you have no interest in Spanish, take a course that will fulfill a Gen. Ed. requirement. Something like Psychology, History, Sociology, Math, anything Sciencey.

If you're taking summer classes between first and second year, your priorities are, in order, advancing as far as you can in Spanish language and lit. (if applicable), advancing as far as you can in French language (never mind lit.), and fulfilling your Gen. Ed. requirements. A course that does none of these things is useless to you.

The most effective way to do your Gen Eds while staying close to the whole langling thing is to take Intro to Linguistics in 1st year (which will cancel out your specialized French translation requirement for some reason), then take Sociolinguistics as your Social Science requirement. It's a tough course and heavy on the reading, but it's the only advanced Gen. Ed. that's relevant. Then take Intro to Computers as your Modes of Reasoning requirement (which also goes towards a Tech Writing certificate if you're interested, and should be an easy A for anyone who has managed to find my blog) and then take something that interests you in either Humanities or Natural Science.

I'm walking through the subway station, when the PA system suddenly calls 506 on like half a dozen stations. "506 St. Clair West 506 Sheppard 506 Broadview 506 Dundas 506 Finch 506 Keele"

Anyone know what 506 means? Transit Toronto doesn't have it in their list (unless I totally missed it). A random list found on E2 says that it's Janitor (if so, wtf happened???), but I don't know why E2 would know it and Transit Toronto wouldn't.

Also, what's up with people who wear flipflops while otherwise dressed nicely? I'm not talking about decent shoes that happen to not have a heel strap, I'm talking about plastic, thong, walk-to-the-shower-in-res, go-to-the-beach flip flops! I've seen them with women's suits and nice skirts and clubbing tops, and all manner of otherwise well-dressed people. Today I saw a woman in a beautiful black pinstriped suit and white tailored blouse wearing BRIGHT ORANGE flipflops. WHY?

I'm in a weekendy mood even though it's Thursday. I had a good day at work, it's cool and rainy and my windows are open letting the nice fresh air in, and I have all kinds of food and reading material. Aaah.

And now for some Annoying Randomness:

- Email is my pensieve. Whenever I think of something at work that I need to remember at home and vice versa, I email it to my other address. If work is monitoring my email, they get a nice insight into the minutiae of my life.
- I saw a firetruck with a giant sign on it that said Toronto Fire Department. I mean a giant sign. Picture a billboard hanging from the ladder. Why do they need such a big sign? We can see it's a firetruck, so we assume it belongs to the fire department!
- There's a guy at Eg. station who panhandles by asking in a whiny voice "Do you have a loonie?" Inspired by a previous brilliant idea de mi cielito, I propose that everyone say to him "Sorry, I only have a toonie. Do you have change?"
- I'm entering the subway station. I show the booth guy my metropass. Right after he nods me through, a TTC cop stops me and asks to see my pass. I show him my pass, he inspects it, everything is in order, and he wishes me a nice day? WTF? Why pick on someone when you just saw the booth guy approve their pass?
- And speaking of TTC, I got this thing telling me how to get my metropass in event of a "postal interruption". Is there an impending Canada Post strike that I don't know about?
- The most important hyphen I've personally encountered is the one that differentiates the word "resign" from the word "re-sign". In some contexts, these words are complete opposites.

Now that I get two newspapers a day, I'm less inclined to read the comics online. I get most of my favourite comics in the newspapers, and it seems more pointless to go to the comics sites just for one or two strips.

I also find I don't know how to visit my parents as an adult. My mother's birthday is coming up so I should probably go visit. As a student, I would throw all my laundry in a bag, get on the GO bus, and call for a ride home from the GO when I arrived. When I got home I'd throw all my laundry in the washer, eat some home-cooked food and read newspapers, and enjoy such privileges as TV and a bathtub and use of a kitchen.

But now I have a bathtub and use of a kitchen every day. I don't have TV but I'm working on it (I have A TV, and I will have TV as soon as I can arrange for someone I trust to wait for the cable guy for me) and when I do have TV I will have a better selection of channels than my parents do. I have home-cooked food whenever I want, I get newspapers to my door every day (and, since I picked them myself, the newspapers I get are much better than the newspapers my parents get). I still have to pay to do laundry, but now that I'm earning a professional salary (albeit entry-level) it isn't worth lugging all my laundry home just to save six bucks.

So it looks like I'm going to visit for a day. How do I do that? Seriously, it's a whole different dynamic. When I would stay there overnight I could just do my thing, whatever, chat with people if I felt like it and go to my room if I didn't. But what do I do when I'm there for just one day? And how long do I stay, considering that my commute is probably 1.5 hours each way?

I had a horrible dream last night. It was indescribably horrible. I wasn't even sure what was happening, but there was something in my apartment and it was going to GET me. Next to my bed I saw a huge, ominous-looking shadow. I started screaming, and slowly got up to face the THING. My screams woke me up, and I woke up standing next to my bed in the dark. I had been staring at the THING, but it slowly vanished as I woke up. I turned on the light to find my stuffed aminals scattered around the room, and a picture had fallen off my wall and somehow landed in the hall, TURNING A CORNER to do so. This probably sounds hilarious, but when I woke up I was jumpy, sweaty, nervous, warm, heart racing - all the usual symptoms of a panic attack, but worse than I've ever experienced. I haven't the slightest idea what brought that on, but it was the freakiest experience of my life

I love having big projects with distant deadlines. My next deadline is in 11 days. The one after that is a week later. I can just sit in my office and work at my own pace. When I'm feeling productive I can tear through the text, producing rough draft as fast as I can type. When I'm feeling less productive, I can idly read related websites for research until the productivity kicks in. When I'm feeling tired, I can close my door, turn my back towards the window, position myself as though I was reading a paper on the desk, and close my eyes for a few minutes.

No one checks up on my progress because nothing is due for days, I don't have to check in with anyone, and my text benefits from several days worth of Second Cup Early Edition-induced morning freshness! (SENTENCE! and this coming from someone who was bitching about noun phrases earlier today!)

In the back of my mind it has sort of become a given that I will go to grad school and get my MA in a couple of years. I want to do my MA one course at a time over 2 or 3 years, but York has this stupid system whereby you pay a set rate per semester of graduate studies, regardless of the number of courses you are taking. So it would be better financially to do as many courses as possible for 1 or 2 years, but I certainly can't maintain that and work full-time. I don't NEED my MA so there's no point in wearing myself out taking all the courses offered, but it's such a shameful waste of money, and it simply isn't worth $1000 per term for just one course

There's a billboard ad for Coors Light.

"Colder than your landlord at 2 am."

So they're advertising the coldness of the beer? The coldness isn't even a function of the beer, it's a function of the beer's current environment!

Translation: "We think you think you have a good fridge. Buy our beer."

I'm so tired for some reason. I thought I had slept enough, but my eyes are exhausted right now. I'm still having trouble adjusting to 2-day weekends (I had 3 day weekends for most of uni). I could seriously fall asleep right now, but it's only 6:30 and it's totally sunny out, so that wouldn't be a good idea. I'm working on Harry Potter, but it isn't sucking me in as much as the other books are. When I'm reading it I get transported into the world of Hogwart's, of course, but I can also put it down quite easily.

I think I'll blame this on PMS. I ate a whole jar of Bic Sandwich Saver pickles in two days. That sounds like a sign of PMS, doesn't it?

I find it interesting that people define US citizens as "rich" because of their per capita GDP. As some of you know, in high school we travelled around the states a lot for our band tours, and we always stayed in the homes of our American counterparts. During these trips, I noticed that more Americans in what is probably defined as the middle class have to worry about money. I wouldn't quite define this as poverty, although they certainly weren't well-off. They were in a situation where if they wanted something, they had to do some quick math in their heads first. If disaster struck, they could be ruined. And these were all people who were settled enough that they had a house and a family - they weren't immigrants, they weren't students, they were what I would define as grownups.

That's not to say there aren't people in the rest of the world in this position, but I find it occurs more rarely in Canada and in Europe. There is certainly poverty, especially among immigrants, but when you look at second-generation (or even first-and-a-half generation) or higher families who are settled enough to have started having kids, more of these households can afford to make impulse purchases, and can absorb an unexpected disaster (not that an unexpected disaster wouldn't affect them financially, but they wouldn't be ruined and they could recover).

A lot of this probably has to do with social programs - if I got pregnant or got cancer, I probably wouldn't have to pay a cent to get the medical facet of the problem dealt with. Perhaps, when trying to calculate a country's per-citizen wealth, they should somehow incorporate the social services to which citizens have access instead of straight GDP.

Apparently a man in Arkansas awoke from a 19 year coma (I don't have a link - it was mentioned as fact on Fark in a link to a photoshop contest).

This raises the question of whether they have a time limit for letting keeping people in comas alive. I mean, this guy was taking up a hospital bed for 19 years! Are people in comas on life support, or are they just there, alive but unconscious. Does their hair grow?

They stopped making my bra in cotton! GAH!

Meanwhile the street festival is bringing out the rednecks, and carrying home $50 worth of groceries when it's 33 with a humidex of 37 is not a good idea.

I vote we get rid of the idea that a visible panty line is a fashion faux pas. First of all, you shouldn't be looking anyway, and secondly, who cares? Visible bra straps are perfectly acceptable, and a panty line is certainly less of a big deal

Two unrelated things:

1. I got the TV home all by myself with one of those carts you use to move boxes! And I only had to be rescued once!

2. The Globe and Mail has a huge-ass student discount on subscriptions. If you're a student and you're thinking "I'd like to subscribe to the Globe and Mail when I grow up and get a job", subscribe just before you finish school while you still have full-time student status. It's over 50% cheaper that way.

I need bungee cords! (The kind for strapping things together, not the kind for bungee jumping). Someone out there must know where bungee cords come from! Please, where do I buy bungee cords?

Do you qualify to immigrate to Canada?

I took this test, and I got 76 points. You need 75 points to qualify. If I hadn't gotten a professional certificate along with my university degree, I wouldn't have qualified. Good thing I was born into citizenship!

I should learn how to read braille. Then I could read, and I'd have something to amuse me, when my eyes are tired and the rest of me isn't. Listening to music or the radio isn't enough to amuse be on its own, so when my eyes are tired I get grumpy and bored.

Today I was in the supers' apartment for 15 minutes to sort out some paperwork, and I got an allergic reaction to their cat and smoke. Just from being there for 15 minutes! GAH! So my eyes have been unhappy all day.

Otherwise, decent day. Enjoyed my day off, did some laundry and got some cleaning done, how exciting. It's July 1 and I don't have my metropass yet and my Toronto Star wasn't delivered today, so I'll have to make some phone calls tomorrow. Ick, phone calls. Maybe if my work tomorrow is as easy as my work yesterday was, I'll finish my work early and can make the phone calls from the office guilt-free.

Cool thing of the day: Jimmy is giving me a couch! How cool is that?