I'm having a really bad fucking day. I woke up on the wrong side of the desk chair and I feel like complete ass (which is good, because I'm being one). I'm absolutely miserable, nothing is wrong, but that's just how I feel. I think it's a combination of no sleep and lots of stress. Normally the nice weather would put me in a chipper mood, but right now all I want to do is curl up in the fetal position and listen to depressing music while sipping copious amounts of caffeinated beverages, because, did I mention, I am trying to give up caffeine and instead am going through withdrawals.
I even bought myself a berry burst smoothie from Second Cup because those always make me cheerful, but it's almost gone and I still feel like someone ran over my foot with a freaking 18 wheeler then told me to walk it off.
The worst part it, I feel bad about feeling bad! It's not like I'm deathly ill or having problems beyond my control. I don't have the right to complain or feel this shitty when life is currently being handed to me on a freaking silver platter. So on top of the shittiness that is my 'life' I feel bad because my life is not shitty!
To top it off, when I opened the fridge this morning to put milk on my Frosted Flakes (in yet another attempt to make myself feel better instead of bitter) the milk was empty. Honestly people, WHY DO YOU PUT BACK AN EMPTY MILK BAG!? Gah! It's not even like we didn't have another bag to put in. It's not hard to take the empty one out and put in a new one. Hell you can just leave it on the counter so that at lease nobody will reach into the fridge to find a bag bone dry.

Now, I'm trying to smile and turn my mood around, but so far it isn't working. Although, I saw two ducks on someone's lawn while walking home from class and it made me [actually] smile... maybe today will be okay after all... but right now, I feel like shit.

*PS. Blogger doesn't recognize fucking.. then again it doesn't recognize blogger...*

*PPS. This weekend we are having a party and I am going to drink ridiculous amounts of alcohol and be hit on inappropriately by drunken Burlington Boys and I'm going to love it. And then, one of them will sleep in my bed because right now there is a vacancy (however, I will be passed out... my as well give a guy a comfy bed when the other option is the floor... geez guys, I didn't mean I'd be having sex with him!)

To whom this may concern,

Stop screwing with my head. Seriously. It's 2:00am on a Saturday night and I am working on a paper instead of out partying with my friends like a normal student should be doing. There is something that I don't understand. How on earth can I have MIDterms from the start of March until the beginning of April. The concept is a little fuzzy and I'm pretty sure this isn't because I haven't slept for weeks and my eyes are blood shot like a pre-teen on drugs.

The thing that really kills me is that even though March has been hell, February was no picnic. I'll pretend that snow day and nice week off makes up for those first few weeks of hellish papers and tests but in reality, it only delayed the inevitable. I have used nearly an entire bottle of Advil Liquid-Gels (the 72 capsule bottle) since the start of the semester and while I'm sure my body's dependency is a laughing joke at this point, I'm actually worried that I swallow them with Red Bull. Speaking of Red Bull, I believe tuition should cover the cost, I drink more than I should and it's cutting into my food budget -you know, pop tarts, pizza pockets, things that can be made in under 5 minutes so I can possibly finish whatever paper I'm working on at the moment with enough time to catch one or two hours of sleep. If Red Bull was covered I could claim it on my income taxes and get a hefty return.

I have typed so many papers that the 'n' on my keyboard is almost worn off. Why the 'n' you may ask? I think it has a lot to do with quantity and it is only time before the rest of the keys follow suit. Realistically, the only letters I need are 'a' and 'h' so that I can write the sound of yelling over and over again across my screen.

I have gone through an entire pack of printer paper thus far. Do you realize how many trees that is? Neither do I but I'm sure some activist group will be out to get me soon. I have been assigned a take home final for one of my classes that will be 25 pages, minimum. Twenty-five pages! That must be at least a branch.

I think there needs to be new protocol, if not for the whole university then for the Department of Sociology. There is no need for us to write three papers and two tests per course, we get the picture, read the texts and pay attention. And now, with finals impending I see no light at the end of the tunnel. While I do finish finals relatively early compared to others, I must write them all within a week and a half. Not something I, nor my over used computer, is looking forward to.

In conclusion, I believe that we need a) a longer reading week; b) a less stringent examination schedule (midterms and finals); and c) more categories for tax returns.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration,
A very tired and cranky WLU student

* Updated to add: it's currently 2:36am on Sunday night and I am on campus working on a paper. Yup, on a Sunday night. Shirley is here too... I wasn't going to study with her because she has pink eye, but I forgot. I had better not get pink eye. Unfortunately, Dear Laurier, your supposed "Health Services" sucks and takes hours just to be seen and told that there is nothing wrong, despite your symptoms. I will be lucky if my eye balls don't fall out of my sockets, but if they do, I'm pretty sure THAT is covered on the health plan, at least there is one thing to look forward to!
** Updated again to add: it is now 4:13am and Shirley and I have returned from the computer lab. I'm pretty sure I will get pink eye because we shared some cheese and crackers. On the bright side, there was someone in the computer lab eating mashed potatoes and tex mex, the disgustiness of that situation made me laugh. PS. The floors need to be cleaned in the BA, I was wearing no socks (because it's SPRING damnit!)and no shoes and now my feet are grey.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done for my Grandpa at this point, he's old and he's ill, quite frankly he deserves to pass on. But there is something that can be done to help others, and it's as easy as a click. Sara has posted about her fight to cure and prevent breast cancer over here... check it out, read what she has to say and please do whatever you can, even if it's just clicking on the Fund Mammograms website daily. The odds are, breast cancer will affect someone you know and most likely someone you care about in some way over your life time. It's important to do something about this, something to make a difference and since I know none of us can step into the lab to do out part we can help out in different ways. I've taken some statistics from the Canadian Cancer Society website, they are listed below.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian women.

In 2005, an estimated 21,600 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 5,300 will die of it.

An estimated 150 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 45 will die of it.

On average, 415 Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer every week.

On average, 102 Canadian women will die of breast cancer every week.

One in 9 women is expected to develop breast cancer during her lifetime. One in 27 will die of it.

Since 1993, incidence rates for breast cancer have stabilized and death rates have declined.

Last week my Grandpa fell ill. I haven't talked about him for a while because it makes me feel ungrateful and like I am complaining, but for the past few months he has been incoherently absent. He hasn't known who we are or who he is, it's been hard and as a result I pulled away. I stopped visiting blaming it on school and got the cliff notes updates from my Mom when I thought to ask. I didn't want to see him like that, remember him like that, know that he was even living like that. But last week it changed. He got sick. A flu bug ran through the whole hospital and because he was already weak it hit him hard. We thought he was going to die, we thought this was it. But, he pulled through, sort of. The flu bug left his system, but he was left too weak to heal. He has the hiccups constantly, probably because he perforated something when throwing up. He needs to be aspirated because of a lung infection that has developed since the flu, and they say if things don't clear up next will be pneumonia.

On the weekend I went home. I went home for my Mom's birthday dinner but I stayed to say good bye to my Grandpa. To "say good bye" those words sound meaningless in most contexts. But to me, this meant looking at him and knowing it could very well be the last time. I think it's somewhat morbid to assume he will die sometime soon, but at the same time, I hope he does. I've known since the beginning that I was being selfish in wanting him to live, he would never want to be like this.

Mike came over on Monday, before I left for the hospital. I should have already been to the hospital and returned but I kept putting off getting in the car, putting off seeing him and having to do it alone. When Mike came it gave me an excuse to wait for the inevitable, we chatted and I almost forgot my goal of the day, but when he left I knew there was no forgetting, and no ignoring the possibility that this was it. My Mom was free by the time he left and I didn't have to go alone.

My Grandpa has so much fluid in his throat, he coughs but isn't strong enough to really cough. It sounds like he's in pain, but they say he isn't. I saw a tear roll down his cheek and I don't care what they say, I know he isn't happy right now. He was kind of with it, kind of coherent. He said hello and good bye when we said it to him, and while he didn't respond to me with his pet name he was still there.

On the way home my Mom looked to me for advice, for my opinion. She wanted to know if I also thought he was on his way out, I said that I hoped he was. She agreed. He would have been sucking on a tail pipe months ago if it was up to him. I don't want him to go, I don't want to say good bye, but I don't want him to be like this anymore and there is no middle ground. I know that when he does die it will kill me but there will also be relief because he will be free.

I don't know if I believe in Heaven, in an after life of any sort, but I do hope he goes somewhere peaceful. Somewhere that he will be with my Grandma again, after 20, almost 21 years he needs that. My Grandpa is still holding on, he could bounce back from all of this but he will never leave that hospital alive. Bouncing back doesn't mean he will be better, it just means he will be living. He isn't gone yet so maybe I'm being stupid, but some days I just wonder, is he really here?

Labels: Death, Family, Mike

After my week of horrible hellish school work, I took a much needed break and headed into Guelph to see the lovely Heather. We took the time to chat on her bed before going out to dinner, and it was fantastic, just being able to sit there and chat, talk about how much school sucked and share a little gossip. I miss Heather, and the worst part is, she is moving back home for four months over the summer aka 5 hours away. Anyways, we went in with fat kid eyes apparently. We were hungry so we ordered an appetizer. Seems normal, no? Well, the garlic bread comes and it's like a whole freaking loaf of bread!! The pieces were huge!! We knew at that point that we were in for it, that our tummies were in fact too small for this much food and we would be in some serious pain... and dinner hadn't even come yet! By the time I had eaten one slice of my pizza I wanted to undo my pants, the fullness was unreal. I ended up eating about two slices and taking the rest home with me, Heather and I also took home a garlic bread each (there were 6 in total I believe) and she took home half of her meal and one slice of my pizza. I think the server realized our problem, she kept asking us if we were okay and had this very concerned look on her face... we were in fact not okay. After we left the restaurant it was time for some serious photos. You see, this restaurant was tacky with bright flashing lights and Italian statues all over the front lawn. It was called "The Noodle Factory" and they served Italian and Mexican food. It was good, despite the gaudiness. After dinner we went back to Heather's residence to talk. And well.. we got ice cream. We were shirt button popping full but my reasoning was that the ice cream would just melt into the cracks... besides, who's too full for ice cream?? It took a while before we were empty enough that we could get up and walk, but eventually it was time. When I had to come home it was sad, I wish I could stay there for longer to visit... or rather that Heather could live here. When I got back into my car it smelt like leftovers and I almost threw up. More food... my stomach wanted to kill me already and the smell and therefore prospect of ever eating again was not good. That weekend both Heather and I said we ate more than normal, we figure we stretched our stomachs during the whole ordeal... luckily I think they have shrunk back down to their normal size. (Pictures: HERE)

This past Friday was St Patrick's Day and after yet another week of hell I wanted/needed the break. I could say it was a good evening, but that would be a lie. It was FANTASTIC! It was nice to relax, to spend time with friends and people who weren't my roommates (I love them but sometimes you need a little space), and well... to drink green beer. We went to our on campus pub (like I did last year), Shirley and I, where we met up with a bunch of the boys from my first year brother floor. Shirley is friends with them, and unfortunately I fell out of touch with them... but they are cool guys and the night was wicked. We danced drunkenly of course, and we drank copious amounts of beer (which is why I was willing to dance in the first place), and I even kissed a boy (photo provided). The great thing about about going to a small school, is that even though the bar only held like 300 I knew so many people there, some of my good friends showed up throughout the night, and that just made it more special. At the end of the night, Shirley had already gone home and I was pretty intoxicated, but I ran into my friend from high school, Hayley and we walked part of the way home together. We chatted and I'm sure I made no sense whatsoever, but she probably didn't either. It was nice to have someone to walk home with, even though I'm pretty trusting of people there are some sketchy ones out there, especially when they are drunk. But, we weren't even harassed, some guys talked to us and we talked to them but they were harmless. When I got home I decided that I wanted pizza pops, so being as quiet as I could (my roommates didn't go out) I put them in the microwave then decided to lie down on the floor to wait for them. This was a bad idea, for anyone who thinks this is a good idea, think again. The floor was stinky because of the garbage can, and dirty, because we clean on weekends and it was only Friday, and I was drunk. So when the microwave went off I couldn't get up. I was lying on the kitchen floor and quite frankly, was about to succumb for the night. Eventually I squirmed my beer drenched body up and flipped the pizza pops then layed half my body across the freezer for the next minute. Suffering serious still drunk pains, I woke up at 6am and stumbled to the kitchen for some more water, scrounged around in the dark for some Advil Migraine and grimaced as the blue light on my computer flashed and burned my retinas. When I woke up the next time, at 8am, I got some more water and quite frankly felt less like I'd been rolled over by a steam truck. At 10am when I actually got OUT of bed, I had more water, some more Advil, a hot shower and some KD. And then, I was perfect :)


(more pictures HERE)




Later come the sad posts about my today, for now, the happy posts about my yesterdays.

So, I'm finally posting about my trip, I've had the week(s) from hell and am taking a couple of hours to relax, which includes writing here. This week alone I had five midterms/essays due but the weeks is over and I can finally take some time to breathe... not much though because next week isn't a walk in the park. I have been waiting for not only time but the pictures compiled from everyone's cameras in order to write this post... however, upon getting all of those pictures compiled I realized that there are a good 500 and NOBODY is going to want to look at 500 photos. So, I have made a "highlights" album which is MUCH shorter.

Drive Down
We left Waterloo at 5:00 in the evening on the Saturday with the intention to drive straight through the night as we did last year. The drive was long and tiring but we arrived in Albany, Georgia at 1:00 in the afternoon on the Sunday. Along the way we saw specialties such as, the giant Jesus on the side of the I-75, more light up crosses than could be counted, and factories upon factories upon factories. We took the I-75 the whole way there and it was pretty boring, although we did get to see some beautiful city centers lit up at night.

Arriving in Georgia
Upon arriving in Georgia we were met with a list of rules and obligations. While we had expected there to be some rules since we were staying at a church owned camp we didn't expect as many as there were. We weren't even allowed to have food or drinks in the lodge, which I suppose was to keep the place clean, but since we had to clean it anyways I don't see the point. The most important rule for the camp was that boys and girls sleep in different rooms. There was a boys side and a girls side of the cabin and there was to be no co-habitation. This wasn't really a problem because we had 3 boys and 18 girls in rooms that fit 30. However, unbeknownst to us, another group was also staying at the camp with us.... a group of 40 from New Brunswick. It was a cramped week with only 17 boys and 44 girls. We dealt with it and went to bed.

Day One on site:
We arrived on site and were somewhat disappointed to find out that we were working on restoring an old home that would be used to house their chapter. It seemed less important to be building something that wouldn't directly benefit the families. However, without their office they wouldn't be able to see families and determine who gets a house much less arrange the staff to build said house. We were all split up into smaller groups and with the exception of 14 of us assigned to an Americorps Volunteer. I was one of the 14 without an Americorps leader and therefore was lead by the site foremanperson Penney. She split us up once more into two groups and we were set out to throw away some of the scrap garbage in the backyard. We had to move a big pile of rotting wood into the dumpster about 12 feet away. Well this sounds a lot easier than it is... however, underneath this pile of wood lived about 6000 HUGE RED COCKROACHES!! It was so disgusting, I tried to avoid going near the pile much less touching the wood and I definitely dropped a piece at one point crushing a bunch of the nasty bugs. After screaming our way through that task (common we were all girls!!) we set up the tables for lunch and prepared ourselves for another meaningless task. HOWEVER, we were given the best job of all... DEMOLITION! First we had to move a huge pile of wood from the room we needed to work in, to the room next to that room. It was while doing this that we encountered nasty thing #2 (number one was of course the cockroaches). In the pile of wood there was a big pile of ANIMAL POO! Very nasty and random. Shortly after we came across # 3 and 4. The first of them was a HUGE SPIDER... I swear I have never seen something so big and disgusting in my life. I think that if we hadn't killed it there would be a fear of it eating our brains after paralyzing us with it's poisonous venom. I hate spiders. The fourth thing was a salamander. Not gross, kind of cute actually but freaked us out as it ran from the pile of wood... we carried it around showing it off to the other teams and named it Lizzie. After lunch we started with the serious demolition. We used the reciprocating saw and a sledgehammer to remove seven ceiling beams then knocked down a wall. It was really cool to see all the work we had accomplished in a few short hours. Before finishing up the day we had time to put in a floor board on the lower floor.

That night we headed to the mall for some President's Day sales, and then crashed into bed because a day of that kind of work is incredibly tiring.

Day two on site:
We were admittedly sore upon beginning this day, our muscles weren't quite used to swinging a sledgehammer... but it once we woke ourselves up fully our muscles relaxed and the day went smoothly. Tuesday was rather uneventful, as far as the 'days' went. We worked on flooring all day, which was fun but tedious. We had this one corner that was ridiculously hard to figure out the angle for because the boards we had to line it up next to weren't straight. In any case, we didn't get it figured out before the end of the day, and had to leave it until day four. On day three there were a hundred (or so it seemed) TV crews through doing stories on us, it was incredibly annoying after a while. We went to a church for lunch, they provided it for us, unfortunately it came with a sermon about abstinence... it was kind of strange. I mean, we were incredibly grateful to them for feeding us and we respected them but it felt as if they were condemning us because of the topic and the way they spoke about 'teenagers' as these sex crazed individuals who needed saving. In any case the food was fabulous (what I could eat) and we were able to use indoor pluming!!

After work we kind of relaxed but went to Target and TJ Max. We are such an exciting bunch when faced with American big box pricing!

Day three on site:
On day three things got a little bit better. Since we hadn't finished the flooring the day before there was still a bunch of open beams. Well, while balancing on one of said beams and carrying a piece of particle board flooring I lost my footing and fell through the floor, luckily one leg was up on a part where we had already floored and the other leg just dangled down the hole. The real damage came from also going backwards when I fell which slammed my body into the window frame (no glass). It knocked all of the wind out of me and I thought for a while that I had broken a rib but since EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. stopped to look at me (including turning off power tools) I got up pretty quickly. It took a while to get my breath back and I talked like I had a hole in my lungs or something, but eventually I was moving (stiffly) and while bruised able to carry on with my day. We got the flooring in, I discovered I couldn't bend certain directions and while hammering in our last piece of particle board I smashed my finger with a hammer and got one hell of a blood blister. In any case, it was a surprisingly fun day and I was able to laugh at myself. After the flooring was in the day wasn't over. We started working on framing a section of walling, finishing the actual framing and leaving the particle board until the next day.

Our dinner was provided by a local church, the food was pretty good from what I understand but I could only eat the salad and one of the delicious desserts. It was really amazing to see how much support we got from local churches of all denominations. It was nice to see the community helping out in such a way and showing us such hospitality.

That night was "study night" we all sat down with our books and made the most of our evening... it was afterall reading week!! However, when I finished up with my school work a bunch of us sat outside listening to nature, we were so secluded in our camp it was wonderful. No noise, no distractions, not something a city girl is used to. Dave played his guitar, and Chris from Mt Allison played his fiddle and we just chilled. It was great! Since the weather was pretty nice we were even able to sit in our shorts and a sweatshirt without getting chilly. I tried playing the fiddle but I was horrible, Chris was a great teacher I am just apparently a bad student.

Day four on site:
The majority of our day consisted of attaching particle board to our wall and then putting the wall up. I was still pretty stiff and bruised, I had a two inch bruise on my leg from falling (because of the 2x4) and of course most of my back. After we got our wall up, which was easy since we did so much of it the year before in Arkansas, we helped another group to put up their wall. Unfortunately, they didn't measure properly and we stood there for an incredibly long period of time holding the wall as they tried to squeeze and cut it in. Finally they gave up. It was kind of unsafe and if the wall had suddenly squeezed through it would have landed on me, so I was pretty glad when they did.

After our work day we decided to walk down the main strip of downtown Albany. It was short but there were some cute shops and these hilarious turtles all over the place. I guess it's like our moose or like the bears all over Berlin.

After dinner a bunch of the "of-agers" went to a local bar while the rest of us stayed at camp. We did some reading and played some games then lit a camp fire and roasted marshmallows while chatting and listening to Dave play the guitar. It was really relaxing and needed. Apparently the people who went to the bar were met with incredible racism and were horrified by what they witnessed. From the moment they entered the bar people were making rude comments which forced them to eventually leave. Apparently there is some sort of headquarters for the KKK in Macon Georgia. One of the girls came home that night and said she had a really hard time falling asleep, and she wasn't even being harassed.

Day five on site:

It was our last day on site and we were only there for a half day so we had to get a lot accomplished in a short time period. We started taking out some of the upstairs windows so they could be leveled and fitted with new windows. However, there were too many people on that task so a few of us split off. With the help of Chris (Mt. A) and Julie, we knocked down a room/closet type thing. It was kind of cool to do demo again. HOWEVER, while taking down the area we came across two of the biggest, nastiest spiders EVER! It was so disgusting. Georgia has some nasty spiders. It was kind of sad when the day ended, it was nice being on site, and the end of the day pretty much meant the end of the trip even though we had a few more things planned.

After being on site we drove out to Global Village, which is owned by Habitat and displays model homes they have built all over the world. It was nice to see what they produce but in a way I kind of wish those houses could have just been built where they are needed not for teaching purposes.

We went to a last night dinner at Hooters, yes, Hooters. It was... special. I have been to a Hooters before so I should have expected it to be as it was. We bought t-shirts and laughed too much (if there is such a thing) and had a great time. We had been invited to a 'sock hop' at the local university after dinner so we headed there... we got seriously lost along the way but made it eventually. It was cool but we stuck out like sore thumbs as we tried to bounce to the beat but showed no rhythm at all. A bunch of the girls, who were all really nice by the way, came and taught us some dances and hung out with us while we were there. Everyone at the dance knew the same dances and knew which dance went with which song, it was crazy!!

Last day and drive home:
After packing and cleaning we loaded the trucks and got on the road. We stopped at the mall first so a couple of people could do returns, grabbed some lunch and off we were for home. We decided to stop at a pecan place on the way and while there found a cotton field which we just had to run into and get some cotton *shh*. The drive back was okay, not really eventful but not overly tiring. We saw a van completely engulfed in flames at one point which was scary and of course, saw the giant Jesus. We arrived back in Waterloo around 1:00pm on Sunday and had no problems at the boarder crossing.

The trip was great, while the weather kind of sucked (and rained) it was a lot of fun and relaxing to boot. My bruises healed pretty fast but I couldn't do yoga or go to the gym for the first week because touching my back and moving certain directions hurt too much. Pictures can be seen here: Laurier Does Georgia Highlights

Okay I'm quickly going to say something about my weekend for two reasons 1)I don't have time yet to post about my trip to Georgia, and 2) I don't want the "sad" post to be at the top of the page anymore.

My life sucks and school is trying to kill me. Or something like that. I wrote three midterms last Tuesday, that sucked, we're not going to go there but needless to say, my roommate and I shared a Ben & Jerry's tub of Half Baked. Thursday I saw the insatiable Shirley on stage at Fr!nge festival and while it was difficult knowing that this was the first year I wasn't a part of the production it was still nice to watch. Friday I worked out way too hard at the gym and hurt my body, then went out for a celebratory birthday dinner because my friend Sarah turned 23. Saturday I went back to Oakville for a few hours, got a gift from the tropics (thank you!!), found out my cousin is an ass (story to follow another day, another time), and attended my cousin's 2nd birthday party... then drove back to Waterloo to work on a paper. Sunday spent the entire day writing a paper which was due by midnight. Then stayed up until 5am studying for today's midterm. Got two hours of sleep and I'm back studying because this will be a week from hell... and that's my quick update.

I'll be back with pictures and stories of the south.

I'm back, I've been lurking around catching up on people's blogs and occasionally commenting. I want to share all about my trip, and I will but I'm waiting for the photos to be compiled from everyone else's cameras. In the meantime, I found out news today that has me oddly upset even though I feel that I shouldn't be. One of my best friends, Carmen, e-mailed me to say that her ex-roommate killed herself on Sunday. She was young, in her early 20s and had a four year old son, and just like that she is gone. While I never really knew Tara, not on a close personal basis I had shared conversations and stories with her and because of that we had a connection of sorts. I am worried about Carmen who admitted to me she is putting up a front but when she gets home she cries until she falls asleep. I am worried about what this will do to her because even though she is one of the strongest people I know I don't think she was ready for this and wont' be able to handle the guilt she is feeling. I am sad for Tara's death as well, sad for her son, and for her family. Over the next few days I will be thinking about Tara and what has happened, wondering if somehow someone could have known she was planning this and if in the future we will be able to stop someone from doing the same.

Rest in peace, Tara, you're in a better place now, I hope you find the serenity you were looking for.

Labels: Death