Bad choices and Beavers (part deux)

So somehow my family found itself wholly unable to communicate with one another while making plans for this winter break. I was told that I had to find something to do with myself for New Year's other than what I usually do, which is bum around at my aunt's house. So I was going to go back to Canada. Plan was, I'd drive the 6 hours to Kingston, spend the night in my empty house, then drive 4 more hours up to C's house and spend New Year's with her.

I woke up this morning not so excited to hop in the car. I had some things to do before leaving--my grandmother came over for breakfast, I went grocery shopping (during which the trunk of my car slammed into my head, another reason why I wasn't so keen on driving today), etc. and suddenly it was 1, not 11 when I had wanted to go. My cousin and my aunt had been saying I should stay, and by 1 I was not at all sure I wanted to drive to the Wasteland. So I stayed and had lunch...at 2:30.

Then I called C and canceled my plans with her. I feel bad, I love C and this is the second time I was supposed to see her family and bailed.
But I'm perfectly happy to keep doing nothing here in USA. We play games, watch movies, eat food, go shopping--none of which I would be doing tonight if I was in Kingston like I was supposed to be.

My father is a little disappointed that I didn't go. I think he's worried about me--I don't have a problem with driving normally--but he says it's fine for me to stay as long as I do my homework. What a good dad.
So here I am blogging instead of doing my work...

Bad choices and Beavers (part une)

So my best friend, who we shall refer to as B, recommended over the summer that I buy my father, a curler, "Men with Brooms," a curling movie.
B is a bit of a slut (I can't remember if she's been discussed previously) so I was a bit concerned about buying him this movie. But I did, and gave it to him tonight for Hannukah, and now we are watching it.
Together.
Unfortunately, B is a slut, and this movie is the Canadian version of "American Pie". But with curling. And beavers.

In the current scene, the main characters, who are essentially huge thirty-something bums with beavers tattooed on their chests just got out of the hearse they were riding in after having their asses whooped by old men at curling in order to remove a road block of BEAVERS.
There were so many beavers!!!

Anyway, I can appreciate such things, being pseudo-Canadian, as we all know. Beavers make me smile with a joy that can only be known by one who lives in Land of Moose and Beaver (Ontario) and expects to see beavers, moose, polar bears or similar walking down the street at random.
My father does not see the joy in the beavers.

There's really a lot of sex in this movie. Now is a scene of someone jerking off. It's very inappropriate for me to be watching with my non-Canadian father. Has led to several v. awkward moments thus far.
Also, beavers make a really stupid noise when they are blocking the road.

I'm pretty sure he's confused as to why I gave him "American Pie"-esque movie for Jewish holiday.

In other news, latkes made with a combination of white and orange potatoes and then fried as per usual, are really best.

Friends vs. Family

So here I have had this blog for months and months and prob. haven't ever mentioned my brother. He's 16, still lives with my parents, and wrestles. Thats pretty much all there is to him.

Tonight over dinner we (my fam) had an argument which boils down to my brother being a jerk.

My family always goes to my grandparents’ house in New Jersey for Christmas. This is for the simple reason that my family is Jewish, and we have never been especially inclined toward Chinese Food as a Christmas delicacy. So we go to my mother’s parents, who are Christian. Then we go to my father’s family for New Year’s.
My parents generally go to Boston or somewhere similar just the two of them for New Year’s, and I stay with my aunts. This is fine (not really) but this year my brother made a fuss about wanting to be at home (which he claims is about his having to wrestle) and so my family isn’t leaving for Christmas until the 23^rd (we’re driving) and they’re leaving on the 28^th.

Apparently these five days are a HUGE inconvenience for my brother, who complained so much (I really have no idea why, I quite enjoy Christmas with my grandparents, especially since if we weren’t there we wouldn’t be having Christmas as all, which he doesn’t seem really to understand) that my father had to scold him at the dinnertable about being a spoilt brat (which I have always known.)

My brother wants to stay at home because his friend is home from university. I know this because he just left to go see the friend. There’s supposed to be a HUGE snowstorm tonight, so my brother left home (like an insane person) to go see his friend.

He had been on the phone with the friend while I was in the room. Friend was coming home tonight (9pm) from university. It sounded like Friend didn’t really want to see my brother tonight, which made sense to me—I would much rather spend my first night home with my family instead of with my friends, no matter how good the friends were. I, like an idiot, mentioned this to my brother. His response: no, Friend was just messing around. ( I didn’t really believe this.) Friend wanted to see everyone. I obviously don’t understand this because his friends are his family and I clearly don’t have this relationship with anyone. Duh.

So apparently this is why my brother is so eager to get away from his family. Because he has friends instead. Duh.

Sorry for the long post, but that was just the background.

I have been wondering about what we mean when we say “family.” I use the term only for people to whom I am actually related, to whom I have common bonds and ancestry. Apparently unlike my brother, I like my family, and do my best to see them as often as possible. It isn’t ever a burden to see them. I miss them terribly and try not ever to hurt them. Since my moving out to go to university, my brother has spent almost no time at home with my parents, who seem to feel the empty nest rather acutely.

Now, I live with my friends. The ones I don’t live with I eat with, I cook with, I sleep with, and I love.

But I could never, ever even consider them as a replacement for my family.

I have a best friend now, for the first time since I was little. She lives in Vancouver. I miss her like crazy when we aren’t together, which is most of the time. I love her. But she isn’t family.

Even, I expect, when (if) I marry, I’m not convinced that the lucky gentleman will be as much family as my parents are.

My brother’s attitude clearly hurts my parents, and it hurts me. I guess I just can’t imagine being so self-absorbed that I would be able to do that.

He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

Pierced.

So I've been thinking a lot about people who have piercings (and tattoos) in unusual places. A good friend of mine revealed yesterday that he has a fairly... um. Anyway, a piercing. And I'm trying to figure out why one would have an unusual piercing. To get noticed? To intrigue?

Anyway, I suppose this goes back to closed-mindedness and no accepting different things. I have my ears pierced but I never wear earrings (this isn't because I have a problem with earrings, it's because my ears are different lengths and I don't like my earlobes very much) so I guess I don't understand why anyone would want piercings in other places. My friend AS got his eyebrow pierced last year. It didn't really match his personality, but we loved him anyway. R has her nose pierced. I don't like it very much, but she does. It is important not to forget my best friend who got drunk last year and stuck a thumb-tack through her lip, and so now has a lip piercing which, on her, I don't completely hate. My cousin has one, too. Her parents aren't big fans. A friend from home wants to get second piercings on her ears this weekend (which is what brought this topic up in the first place.) This friend only got the first piercings done a year and a half ago, and wasn't really the bravest person in doing it. I can't really understand why she wants second ones. But she does, so, fine, I suppose.

But then we get back to my gentleman friend whose piercing departs from the usual canvas of his face. (This, by the way, is the gentleman friend on whom I am crushing. Can I have relations with someone with such an unusual...addition?) Which is where the concern comes from.

So the gist of it is, I must learn to be accepting, and not desert my relationship with my gentleman friend just because he's done something unusual to himself. I would miss him too much.
I will learn to be accepting and maybe someday I will understand.
Maybe.

USA Again.

I have a few choice words to say about the USA. Esp. re: the drinking age.
My Winter break is gonna be pretty boring.
The end.

Perhaps I will at some point remember to actually say these words.

Boys.

So, I have a gentleman friend who I've been spending an increasing amount of time with. This is a v. clear indication that men and women can't be friends. We are now friends. Apparently I decided that being friends is boring, so I developed what can only be called a whopping crush on him.
I don't like it.
At all.

I don't like relationships and I don't like crushes.
I have emotional/commitment/fear issues.
It sucks.

I really think that in anticipation of this sucking a lot (either me being rejected, me being a wuss, or me eventually breaking up with this particular person) someone should make me a really great "boys suck" mix CD or similar.
Thank you for you help in this endeavor.

Canada, Part Toi

According to the internet, it is -9° in Kingston today. Fahrenheit. And there is snow and ice everywhere. I went to breakfast (which is unusual, but I did it anyway) wearing thick stockings, jeans, Ugg snow boots (NOT the ugly poser-boots, actual snow boots, which are great because of their snow-boot capacity, their warmth AND their incredible traction), three layers of shirts, sweatshirt, ski jacket, heavy gloves, a scarf and two hats.

I was still cold.

The concern here is about quite how screwed I am for when it gets to be actually cold in January.

Ouch.

I wiped out while ice skating yesterday. Other than that it was quite a good time, being outside under the snow, etc. But then I wiped out and injured myself. By injured I mean bruised. It's v. painful (and I am v. mature, so really...) and its on my right thigh, which is fine, except I sleep on that side, so I couldn't sleep last night. Thrilling.

R wiped out and crashed onto her knees, one of which has a bruise the shape of a Star of David now.
PS, R is Catholic.

Man-Repellant

It's like bug-spray.
Astonishing how well and with how much talent a not-bad-looking person such as myself is able to quite thoroughly repel men. So C and her sister (who goes to RMC and who, therefore, should know) has given me the following advice (which I have always used in every other arena of my life, I don't know how it didn't manage to extend to this one): It is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.
So that's my new philosophy.
Get ready, men.
(prob not.)

Now I really hope nobody reads my blog.
(I swear, I'm sober while writing this.)

C

C has returned, do not panic.

Missing Courtesy

So, all other complaints about my housemates (and there are many, many of them) aside, I have this to say: C is missing.

She has been having a bit of a difficult term, and as such doesn't have any exams this week but has been bumming around anyway. She went away for Thanksgiving last weekend and told us she'd be back on Monday. Fine. I got back Tuesday night and saw, upon my return, that her car is not where it usually is in our driveway. Apparently, nobody has heard from her. I'm glad I wasn't here on Monday or I would have been worrying about her that much longer.
I know she's okay (or at least, she was) because she was on facebook last night, she wrote on someone's wall. Not anyone living in our house, but someone, anyway, so I know she's alive (or at least, was last night.) But I've called her, texted her, written on her and her sister's facebooks, and she hasn't responded. Another one of my housemates, R, has also done these things. C and R aren't best friends, but R gets worried like any normal person.

Now, worried as I am, I'm a little pissed at C. She has methods of communication. She has my and R's facebooks, e-mail addresses, cellphone numbers, etc. She even has my American cell number, she could have called me within the States this weekend to let me know what her plans were. There are also things that still need to be done around the house. I need to pay January rent--C needs to give me a cheque. We also need to return our housekeys in exchange for new ones. C lost hers, so she'll need to pay for it, and clean up loose ends. The people in this house would have been happy to help, but we aren't psychics, you know? I'd think it was just common courtesy to let us know what was going on.

I understand we're nobody's mommies (thank God.) but we do worry. Something could have happened, you know?

Which brings up the question: what caused people to worry before this age of constant communication? (Everything, probably.)

Obama Maina

With the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the Untied States, I have been trying to sort out my feelings for my former senator. He was, as I have mentioned many times previously, a terrible senator. He did a bad job representing my state, rarely voting, and introdicing hardly any new pro-Illinois legislation during his term. Almost as soon as he was elected to the Senate (in what I remember as a terribly exciting and uphill battle in Illinois) it was clear that he had wanted to be a senator only in order to have a platform from which to run for president. This upset me because I don't think that a job in Congress should be treated as anything other than that. He didn't do his job in representing my state, and I felt, to be honest, jipped.

So my thoughts on Senator Obama are pretty clear. Presidnet-Elect Obama, though, I have no opinion about. One would think that someone as attuned to American politics as I am would have strong thoughts about such a divicive (though he claims to be otherwise) candidate. I'm pretty liberal, too, so really it shouldn't have been a problem.

Obama himself, however, has been so thouroughly eclipsed by the Obama Cult throughout his campaign, that however I might have felt about him were I to know him or his politics at all is washed out by my loathing of his supporters.
There seems to be a large group of Americans (and a surprising number of Canadians) out there who are having a difficult time distinguishing between Barack Obama and God. Frankly, this scares the shit out of me.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's wonderful that President-Elect Obama was able to get people excited about his campaign. It's been a long time since so many people have been excited about American politics, and the ability of his campaign to get "unlikely" voters, and especially young people to go to the polls yesterday is incredible.

The problem is the attitude with which they went to them. "Change" is a fine attitude. It doesn't mean anything, so I don't really have any problem with it as a voting criteria. I don't really like it as a platform, but whatever. The people I have issue with are the ones who, once Obama was declared the winner last night, said things like "I can be proud of my country again." or "I'm glad to be an American again."
Would these people not have been proud of their country if Senator McCain had been elected president? I still would have. Have they not been greatful to be Americans during President Bush's time in the White House? Would they rather have been citizens of some other country? I've been living outside the U.S. for over a year now, and to be perfectly honest, I'm thrilled to be an American. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

I'm proud of America because we had an election yesterday. No matter the outcome, the fact that our country has free elections and that in January, President Bush will willingly surrender his power to a member of the opposing party, just because the People have said he should is incredible. That's why I'm proud of America. And the resons I'm glad to be an American extend way beyond the executive branch of our government. They have to do with the ease and relative safety with which I can travel because of my American passport, and my representatives in Congress, Mark Kirk and Senator Dick Durbin, both of whom spend their time in Congress fighting for the rights and benefit of citizens of Illinois. I'm glad to be an American because I got to vote in the election yesterday (though I had to vote absentee, because of America's inability to provide affordable post-secondary education). I'm proud to be an American because all my life, I've thought that Americans are reach for higher standards, and that this was a good thing.
Barack Obama's election as president does not make me more proud to be an American than I was a week or a year or five years ago. Perhaps once he takes office, I will be able to say that I am more proud of my government than I have been. Perhaps I'll be able to say that I'm glad that my country is able to present a face to the world that doesn't make people in streets in Paris and Rome and South Africa and Iraq to look at it's citizens with disgust and hatred. But none of this has to do with my country. It has to do with my government.
I have always been proud to be an American.

People keep asking me if I'm happy about the results of the election last night.
I suppose I am. Or, rather, I suppose I will be, if President Obama is a better public servant than Senator Obama was, and if he makes good on any few of the hundreds of promises he made during his campagn. But for now, I don't know how to respond when someone asks, because truth be told, the Obama Cult has overshadowed the man, and I, an American Semi-ExPat living ten minutes from the Canadian/American border, don't know President-Elect Obama from Chicago, my hometown, at all.

Oil Thigh Na Banrighinn

So, for reasons mostly long-forgotten (if there were reasons at all), I decided to come to a university whose school song is in, yes, Gaelic. Our team is the Gaels, the mascot also being a Gael, the band preforms in full kilts, and the cheerleaders wear traditional-style cheerleading uniforms as you would see in most US high schools...but they're trimmed in red tartan. Upon coming to the school, students receive Tams, Scottish hats with pom-poms on them (the color of the pom-pom correlates to the program you are in: ArtSci is red, Engineering is gold, etc.) Our school song is the Oil Thigh, the refrain to which is Cha Gheill!, pernounced Kay-Ya, and meaning "No surrender."

All this to say that homecoming is tomorrow, and I am very excited. The engineers dye themselves purple and storm the field. The band (including Jake, who lives next-door and plays the bagpipe in the school marching band) will preform. And everyone, yes, everyone, will sing the Oil Thigh in the traditional Gaelic.

Also, we're playing Western in the football game tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.

Left Behind

So people keep leaving me behind. We'll make plans and decide to do something together, and then they'll go do it without me. And then inevitably when they come back and I ask them what happened, they say I told them I didn't want to go, or similar.
I'm concerned about a possible split personality disorder.

Damn Yankees

The New York Times actually made me weep today. Weep. Not a lone tear but rather soaked tissues, runny nose weeping. Why, you may ask. No, not because the world is going to shit and they've finally exposed it in a front page article, because the front page of the times today (or at least, the top story on their website (www.nytimes.com) this evening) wasn't about the world or the state of international affairs at all.
It was about the Yankees.
Yes, I have wept, I have sobbed, because of the closing of Yankee Stadium.
I feel like a legit grown-up now...

Canada, Part Due

I am a v. bad blogger, you have my apologies.
Actually, nobody reads this, so it doesn't much matter that I haven't blogged in several weeks.
I don't think I've commented on the very famous Ms. Palin as yet, nor have I properly conveyed the emerging truth that is the Frozen Wasteland to you.
So, I will spare a few words on Ms. Palin: I think that people, and especially the liberal media, are making too big a deal out of her. If she is a joke, which I don't think she is, it will be made clear to everyone that she isn't worthy of the position. If she is legit, the best way to disqualify her from people's minds isn't to make it out as if she's a punchline, its to teach people about why she doesn't deserve their votes. Which brings me to point number two, which is that she isn't actually running for President. I've seen her compared in several places to Barack Obama (ie, Obama is so experienced compared to Palin, he's so old compared to her, etc.) when in fact, Obama should be compared to McCain, and Ms. Palin should be comared to Joe Biden, who I have heard almost nothing about since the end of the DNC several weeks ago. I find this distressing, because I feel I might like Biden, were I to be told anything about him.
Granted, I am in Canada, where we don't get real news.

The second item I wanted to discuss is totally unrelated, and as such I feel deserves its own post, though I don't know when I'll be back on.
So be patient and you may get some news again, you know, in the future.
If I don't forget.
Or have too much work.

Canada, Part Une

I have officially moved to the Frozen Wasteland (as I affectionately call Kingston, Ontario, and indeed all of Canada.) I live in a tiny, tiny room, barely enough for my bed and WonderWoman poster, in a house with four other girls, all of whom have rooms significantly larger than mine. At least I'm not in a dorm with a room-mate. The thing they never tell you about going to a large (or "mid-size" as it would be called in the States) university, is that once school gets up and running there are, in fact, a lot of people in town. There are students EVERYWHERE. Its a little scary.
I must run now, one of my house-mates and I are going out to buy cell phones.
Stay tuned for rants about French.

God or something like it...

So I've been watching the DNC. I know, its always a bad idea to watch when large groups of Democrats get together, but whatever. Joe Biden has won the Veepstakes, and spoke tonight. Quite eloquently, as a matter of fact. I quite like him. My crush on President Clinton has been renewed tonight also. He's so great, I really just wanted him to play the saxophone. Oh, well. Anyway, then Obama himself came out (as a surprise) and was introduced as if God himself was decending on the Earth. It was rather stunning. I am so pumped for the rest of the campaign...

In other news, am moving to Canada in two days.
Still no bed.

The Veepstakes

Apparently, and I definitely don't claim to be as informed about this subject as other people, mostly because I don't care that much, but apparently Barack Obama is planning on making an announcement about his running mate this week. Or in the near future, anyway. As far as I can understand, he made the announcement that he was planning on making an announcement by way of letting all his closest friends know that "they would be the first to know" about his decision...by way of text message.
Now, I'm going to know who the Democratic nominee for Vice President is when either the New York Times or CNN announces it. Unless Senator Obama decides to be a real gentleman about the decision and interrupts the Olympics on NBC. (As we all know, the Junior Senator from Illinois is a bit of a spotlight hog, and the odds are fairly good that about a week into Olympic coverage he will be missing it.) My brother, however, will know "first thing," as his loyalty to Senator Obama extends rather farther than my own, and he has signed up to receive this ground-breaking text message.
Cellphones are far too pervasive in our society.

My brother the Obama supporter wants Bill Richardson to be the Vice President. I may know very little about the Obama campaign, but I do know enough about politics to know that Governor Richardson, of whom I am a fan, at least more of a fan than I am about Obama, wouldn't be that good a choice of a running mate for Obama.
I pointed this out to my brother, who seems to think that Obama is going to have a hard time winning the Hispanic vote away from the oldest and whitest of old white men, Senator McCain.

Everyone is stupid in an election year. (I am a huge WestWing fan, which is where the quote comes from.) In fact, the problem is that in an election year the stupid people simply become more vocal than they are in a normal year, and so you have the opportunity to see how truly stupid the general populous is.
I don't mean to rag on my little brother in this, my mostly anonymous(ish) blog which nobody reads anyway, but I do so hate it when people speak as if they know what they are talking about when in fact they have very little knowledge or even original thought on the topic.

The nub and gist of the thing is that I'm looking forward to the announcement of running-mates, if only to shut up those who are speculating.
I ought to be finished, as this has been far too long a blog posting for my own good, however, I would like to, for a moment, say that where I was working this summer we had a pool of potential vice presidential nominees. In filling it out, I and another girl looked each candidate or potential-candidate up online in at least one, but more often several places, and evaluated their benefit to their party's ticket, etc. And even then, I still didn't know enough about them to speak about it like I knew what I was talking about.
I hope my brother is wrong, and that the Governor of New Mexico, who I would have liked to see win the Democratic nomination, won't be chosen to run as a second to the Senator from Illinois. It would be bad, I think, for the Democrats, and bad for the Governor himself. However, he might make a good VP.

Ah, America.

Canada

I have arrived in the land of the Frozen Tundra.
Actually, its quite nice in Kingston, ON in the summer months. A little empty, but thats to be expected with school out of session. I've been staying in the house where I plan to live in the fall--its not quite what I'd expected, but its certainly nice. Livable. At least, after we've moved in, furnished and decorated I expect it will be. It needs some homey touches, thats all. (Its like the three pigs house. Its wood, and kind of crumbly on the outside, and next-door is fancy brick, v. nice house. Thats how it goes, though.) The location is what makes it so great--two seconds from campus, and a hop skip and jump away from downtown. Fabulous. My room is 7'x8.5'. which is tiny, really. It'll fit a bed, though, I measured to make sure. (I couldn't tell just looking at it.) So thats set.
Also, yesterday I opened a Canadian bank account. Made me feel like a real grown-up. Love it.

Anyway, I can't wait to move here in three weeks. Canada is going to be a great place to live.

Screen on the Green

So I went to the Mall (the National Mall, where the Smithsonians are, not a shopping mall) yesterday to see a movie as part of the Screen on the Green series. The movie was something with Robert Redford that I didn't much like, I left early, but all this is beside the point which is as follows: the US government, as I may have mentioned in previous blog posts, sucks. This time, the reason is as follows: HBO sets up a huge screen on the lawn every Monday for movies. Many, many of the hundreds of college-age interns living in DC over the summer turn up to sit on the grass and watch the movie, which begins at dusk. Unfortunately, however, the screen is right in front of the Capital building, which remains brightly lit all night, not only making it difficult to watch the movie, but also wasting a really large amount of electricity unnecessarily. Therefore, another reason why the US government sucks.

In other news, apparently the Kool-Aid has worn off of my Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
Thank God, I'm moving to Canada.

Attack of the Dirty Kitchen and Slobby Roommates (Part 1)

I was away all weekend. My family was here, and I was with them, having a wonderful time.
Sadly, however, upon my return to Dorm Hell, I discovered that there was mold in my kitchen. In fact, there was mold, there were dirty dishes everywhere, empty bottles of vodka, and the entire kitchen smells like a small animal died in the garbage disposal.
Which is super.
Basically, I tried to clean up, but there is only so much of that smell that one can take before one perishes of disgust. (I wonder if you can really do that...)

I am way grossed out.

Watchin' the Nationals

The time I feel the most American is when I'm at a baseball game. I love baseball. I love the environment more than the game itself, especially when, like tonight, I'm not especially invested in the team. The Nationals played the Diamondbacks tonight, and neither team was particularly impressive, though the Nationals won 5-0.

Tips from Cops

Good tips I got from police officers while wandering around on the Fourth of July:
1. "I try not to walk in front of moving cars. It might not be a bad idea for you to do the same."
2. "Please stay with other people when walking" (so as to avoid assault by scary DC crazies.)

These were the highlights of my night. Everything else basically sucked.
I did get some good pictures, though.

Word to the Wise

Often when I am reluctant to go out (aka, every time I go out) people try to convince me using the following: "What's the worst that can happen? You might have a good time?"

DO NOT LISTEN TO SUCH NONSENSE.
There are worse things than having a good time. For example, you might end up in a gay club with lots of straight, humping-style couples, and no single straight men. They might be playing Britney Spears music. There might be forty-something year old men not wearing shirts. They (the club, not the gay men) might give you liquor.
And then you might walk the mile back to your dorm in high heels and ruin any resemblance your feet once had to being, you know, useful.

On the upside, you might talk to your far-away best friend for the entirety of the twenty minutes that the walk to your dorm might take. She might suggest the two of you go on a cruise for Christmas (if only you'll stop pestering her about coming to your school in the fall.)
Then you might get back to said dorm and have very pleasant conversations with some people for, you know, several hours. And eat mini-pizzas.

So I had a pretty good night, then. Not a total waste, anyway.
And I'm very impressed that I'm mature enough to know when I'm not having a good time somewhere and am able to actually, you know. Fix it.
Good for me.

Bummer.

Life is terrible for the following reasons:

1. I have finally decided to go out tonight with the people from my program and, of course, I have nothing to wear.

2. I still do not know where I will live in Kingston. Which would be fine, but I'm moving there in, like, two months, so I think this is cutting it a little close.

3. Someone told me something very stressful recently which has to do with something I had finally come to terms with changing. Which sucks.

4. My father wants to get rid of my car. Which I am very attached to, and which I will miss desperately if he gets rid of it.

I must now go in search of some appropriate "American Gay Club" clothing. Because apparently we are going tonight to a (18+) gay club.
Yay.
...

Thank You, Mr. President.

Barack Obama ruined my day.
I don't want to influence anyone's vote, but man did he ruin my day.

I work with a few Canadians, so for Canada Day a bunch of us were going to go have lunch at the Canadian Embassy, by the Capitol.
I even wore a red dress.
So did one of the people at my office. One wore Roots gear.

Then this morning I heard this: "We can't go to Canada. Something is happening." Something? "Something with Barack Obama."

Super.

So we didn't go. Why? Because Obama, my very own senator from Illinois, gave this speech about Faith-Based Initiatives.
So, that was, you know. Nice for me.

I especially like the bit about, well...all of it really. What a super reason to miss Canada Day.

And, as a result, on of the women in the office where I work and I had to wear matching outfits all day and we didn't even get to go to Canada.

God Only Knows What I'd Be Without You.

My roommates were talking about their best friends earlier. I think one of them used the term "Besties" which makes me kind of ill, but whatever. They were talking about how they couldn't live without their best friends. About how that was their other half, their life-mate. Which made me really sad.
Here's the story:

I was best-friendless from the end of fifth grade, when I moved away from my first best friend, until this year (my first year in university) when I met another best friend.
I keep to my original policy, though, that one cannot have two best friends, no matter what they tell you. BF1 and I wouldn't (and aren't) still be best friends. We'd've drifted, I can tell when I talk to her. I still love her, I always will, and she's still a wonderful person who was with me for a big part of my life, but I can't image being as close with her as I was when we were young. We're two very different people, and its good that we are. We're both happy with who we are, and with where we've gotten in our lives. She'll be at my wedding, and I expect I'll be at hers, but save for major events like that and little happenings when I'm in her town or visa-versa, we won't see each other much. The person who you are best friends with when you are young isn't like the person who turns out to be your best friend as a young adult. And I expect the person who is your best friend as a full-grown adult is different still.

My best friend now (or at least, the person who was my best friend this year, I don't know what will happen in the future) is someone who makes me understand what my roommates were saying about how hard it is to live without your best friend. My best friend lives in Vancouver. She is going to school in British Columbia next year, which would be great, except UVic, where she's going, is like, 3,000 miles from Queen's, where I'm going.

She's a lot more tough than I am, and though I'd seen her cry before, it caught me WAY off guard when she broke down when saying goodbye to me when we left school. Totally broke down. And then I did too, of course. We didn't think we'd ever see one another again. The people I was travelling with after we left had to talk to me for a long time about how we were two of the most stubborn people ever, and if we wanted to see one another again, we would. And as fate had it, we did. We met up in London a month later, and spent all of eight hours together. I got to meet her mother.

And now I haven't seen her in, what, six weeks. Which sucks for me, nine times. And for her, too, probably. And she's in Canada, which means I can't call on my cellphone, I have to use Skype. And she's in Vancouver, so there's a time difference issue. Basically I haven't spoken to my best friend in many weeks.

So for once I could relate to what my roommates were talking about.

This sucks. At least I have several million excellent memories with her. And pictures...

Yeah, this sucks.

You're So Vain

The fact of the matter is that my roommates eat approximately three times as much as I eat at any given time. Which is fine, except they complain about how much they eat/how fat they are/etc. and work out all the time. Which is, again, fine. Except I can't even begin to express how much I don't care. I eat approx. one legit meal a day (v. anorexic of me) and don't work out ever. I mean, I walk to work (1 mile each way) and then some every day, but I'm basically eating the same amount as I always have and should really not feel so anorexic.

Furthermore, there isn't ever any food in my room (which I don't understand, as we def. purchase groceries twice a week) and I've lost about as much weight as I lost in the first few weeks of living in England (aka a LOT)

Anyway, the nub and gist of the thing is that if you're going to eat all the time, please don't complain about it, and if you're going to work out all the time, the correct thing to do after is NOT to scarf down lots of not good for you food.

End of unintelligible rant.

Sex, Drugs and...Well. You Get The Picture.

So apparently in Indiana people get married straight out of college. Apparently, many people do this. There are four girls from IU here (more than from anywhere else) and they talk (and talk, and talk) about ALL the people they know who have gotten married. Many have children.

Now, whatever. I know people who are going to get married as soon as they finish university. Some people do, thats fine. They do what's right for them. Things to keep in mind: Its just SOME people. Also, who cares?

The two girls in my living room have just finished a conversation about sexual positions. I'm pretty prudish myself, but wow, these wanna-be skanky American girls are MAJOR prudes! They talk big, but its just talk. Nutjobs.

And I thought I was coming to Washington to talk about things like Politics.
Silly me.

In other news, Friday is the Fourth of July! Also, Tuesday is Canada Day (which basically means that 1. I'm missing big parties that are going on in Canada Tuesday, and 2. the Embassy is not going to process my visa this week. Yay for me.)

Beer Pressure

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
Unless, apparently, you are in my room, at which point it takes a full four hours before you realize that you are, in fact, drunk.

I'm not talking about me (see previous post) but instead about twenty or so of my fellow participants, many (most?) of whom are underage, and many (most?) of whom are apparently not used to or familiar with drinking alcoholic, and so generally drank too much and acted like buffoons.
Which, again, would be super.
Except they were in my room.
And I was very, very tired.

I didn't kick them out initially, because the whole concept was introduced as "pre-drinking," which would have been fine. I went elsewhere for an hour, assuming that by the time I got back they'd've taken their dressed-for-clubbing selves and, you know, gone clubbing.
No such luck.

They stayed here, and drank and/or spoke gib in order to make it appear as if they had been drinking heavily (a concept which my father thinks is very much the reality, and which I will come back to in a moment) for several hours. Which, again, would have been great, except I wanted to go to bed.
And also I don't like most of them.
And also, I didn't care.

So, anyway.
I suppose I'll get back to my father, at this point. What happened was this:
I was bored after five minutes of being with the drunkards in my room, and so did what I do best, I got pissed (pissed off, not pissed as in drunk), grabbed the bare essentials, and went for a walk.
In DC.
In the middle of the night.
By myself.
In an unfamiliar neighborhood.
So that was super. I wanted to walk to the Lincoln Memorial. I got most of the way there, to the point where I could see it, but then there was construction, etc. so I kind of gave up and walked back. Please don't worry about me, I was fine. Then, I called one of my friends to complain. Basically she told me to get over myself and be social. So I hung up on her, and called the only other person I can talk to who would be up at this hour--my father. Choice number one, no, but whatever. I talked to him for a long time. He explained that probably most of the people who were "drunk" were, in fact, not drunk, but only pretending. Why? I have no idea. Peer pressure, possibly. My father said that they do this in order to fit in, and I should go talk to them. In fact, I have minimal respect for anyone who willingly does this (again, see previous post, "Fake Out") and as such didn't bother. On the other hand, probably they had a good time pretending to be drunk ('cause thats such a fun thing to do) whereas I had a crappy time being the only person not at the party and also not asleep.

I plan on making excessive amounts of noise early tomorrow morning in retribution.
On the other hand, it isn't that likely that I'll be awake early tomorrow morning, as I'm not asleep yet.

Last thing: WTF kind of Friday night party was this? It started around 10 and when I came back up from talking to my dad (which I was doing from outside my dorm) not only were very few people still drunk, but the party was over. That's what I call lame.
Also, as part of the Friday-night-lameness debacle, someone told me I was being a cockblock. In my life, nobody has ever told me that I was doing such a thing. Because, lets face it, I don't care.



In other news, I went to the Canadian Embassy today to obtain a student visa for next year. I didn't get the visa (because, of course, it has to go through sixteen layers of bureaucracy first and also because they wanted proof that I can afford not to live in a box when, in fact, I expect I will be living in a box) but it was nice to go to Canada for a few minutes. I even needed my passport to get in.

Fake Out

I was asked for the first time today whether I had a "Fake."
Apparently, if I did have a coveted Fake, I would be able to go out this weekend with some of the other girls from my program. Otherwise I'm basically confined to my room for the next three days. DC closes early.
Unless you have a Fake.

The use of the word Fake caught me off guard when I was asked if I had one. It took me several moments to figure out what the other girl was talking about, as my first thought when hearing the word Fake is of Fake people, people putting on masks (so often of bad make-up) and acting like something they aren't. I guess it’s a peace of mind thing that I've been doing with the people here, but if I think they're just being fake, if they're just trying to impress one another of if they're just talking, you know, just to talk...well. I guess if I think they're being Fake it means that somewhere in there, under all the nonsense, there must be something Real. Though I've got to say, I heard the most inane conversations today, I'm beginning to doubt my theory.

I do not, of course, have a fake ID. I've never needed one; I've never even imagined needing one. At school, everyone was old enough to get into clubs, and if you weren't you just borrowed an ID from someone older, you didn't have your own Fake made. There wasn't so much influence put on drinking that people would go to any lengths to get liquor. Don't get me wrong—many of my classmates drank, but it was legal. Anyone could do it. Nobody cared.

Now here I am in the good ol' USA, and this simple right, one which I'd gotten used to having, has been taken away. It’s like someone telling me that I am still too young to drive, after I'd gone away somewhere and been allowed to do it for a year. In Canada, where I am moving in August (thank God), the drinking age is 19. I turned 19 last week, and I can tell you that it was the most depressing birthday I have ever had. Not only was I in an unfamiliar place with a group of people I didn't know (though to their credit, they were nice enough) but this rite of passage that my friends had been going through all year, I missed. Though the drinking age in England is 18, everyone at my school recognized that once they turned 19 they were recognized as being mature adults at home as well as at school, and for that they celebrated. At home I'm still treated like a little kid. I'm still given Shirley Temples or soda or just water instead of wine with nice meals. And maybe that's how it should be. I guess I'll have to accept it, at least until I get to school.

Not to would be Fake.

Wandering in Washington

Hello, and welcome to Washington, D.C., the Capital of the United States, and the epitome of what was missing in my life at school this year. Of course, I was at school in Europe, and since everyone I was with was Canadian, the number of Jews was even more embarrassing than the number of Americans I was with. In Washington, everyone I associate with is Jewish, I'm on a Jewish program, with 100% Jews, working at a Jewish lobbyist organization, and living in this fancy-pants capital of the U. S. of A., Land of the Free and Home of the Brave...

Well. I'm living here for the summer, at least. Then I'm moving to Kingston, Ontario, CANADA to go to school.
I have taken to calling Kingston the Frozen Tundra . I don't like the cold. Still, I can't wait.

So I have moved for the time being into a dorm on the GW campus, in order to spend time in Washington. GW, I would like to clarify, is the most expensive university in the country, probably in the world, at a cost of more than sixty thousand dollars a year. This dorm sucks.

D.C. is fine, though. I don't know how much I'd like living here for longer than a summer, but maybe. Its a little (a lot) boring after London, and surprisingly chill, especially when you consider who most of the people around you are, and what they do. I'm not a big fan of the Metro here--its simply pathetic after the London Underground (isn't everything?) and of course, my roommates and I can't get our acts together enough to cook food, so I've been eating a combination of cheap restaurant food (I'm very poor) and frozen Lean Cuisine-style dinners. And chips, popcorn, brownies, etc. It is very bad, and makes me have a great deal less respect for Anorexics. Perhaps it isn't the huge amount of self-control that we all thought it was, perhaps they just can't figure out how to cook themselves anything decent. On the other hand, my roommates continue to fight over who has eaten more each day, and who is fatter, so I find myself, again, being driven to the genius of an eating disorder. I just don't care to be involved with the conversation.
(DISCLAIMER: I do not have an eating disorder. I do not expect to have an eating disorder in the near future. I eat fine. Please do not worry about my eating habits. I just talk/complain a lot.)

Anyway, as I continue to explore and as I am exposed to more and more Americana and U.S. Government paraphernalia, I am finding myself less and less impressed with my country. Today I went to a press conference about the newly-passed-by-the-House Americans with Disabilities Act. First reaction: Its 2008. Have we seriously JUST passed an Americans with Disabilities Act? It has to do with eliminating discrimination in the workplace. There was a disabled Rep. there, who had the coolest wheelchair ever. He was the same height as someone standing up while sitting in it. And it was on only two wheels. V. cool. Anyway, several Congressmen spoke, and one epileptic woman, who was very eloquent and thanked everyone for the help she would be receiving from this bill. All of which is fine, except that the whole thing was made to be a stage production. I was standing with the people who will be most affected by this bill, and the people who worked the hardest to pass it through the house (which I didn't do, of course, because I have been in the city for a week and in the country for a little more than a month, and have really no idea what is going on in American politics) but these people who really cared about the legislation, and who should have been celebrating a victory at this press conference were made to stand behind those who were speaking so that we couldn't hear anything, but we looked good for the cameras. It is beginning to seem to me that the American government is just for show.

I went yesterday to a Senate hearing on the issues taking place in Darfur. By now everyone (or everyone who might possibly care) knows about Darfur, and considers it a major problem. I can understand people (mean people, but people) in the American government not considering it a priority, per se, but they know whats going on, at least. Anyway, there was really only one senator at this hearing. I guess most of them just don't care that much about it. I am proud, however, to say that the one senator there was my very own Senior Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin. He is great.

So I guess that somewhere between my education about foreign governments, whether they are European, Israeli or Canadian, and my ever increasing knowledge about my own, American government, and in part because of the amount of show and the lack of desire to actually instigate any king of real change (especially for people who don't vote in U.S. elections, especially people who live in Africa and look, you know, like Africans)... Anyway, somewhere I guess I have lost a lot of the respect I once had for my government.

They have five weeks to win it back.
Thank God I'm moving to Canada.