The surrealistic beauty outside continues.

I haven't done much since you last heard from me.

I am now entering that phase in exam time where I have no idea what day it is, ever. Every Day is Like Sunday. It hasn't been silent and grey, but it has been a vacuum of motivation. I work almost every day... I had Monday off, but I'm working every day until Saturday. But I haven't done one speck of school work yet.

I got a letter from Telus telling me I didn't get the job. I'm not too heartbroken considering the likelihood [God, I can't remember how to spell that..!] of actually being employed there. It won't be too incredibly hard for me to find a job, anyway. I've got four workplaces on my resumé now, and I'm relatively okay at faking it in an interview. I'd like to work at a coffee shop, a bookstore, or a video store. I'll probably end up waitressing, though, because my parents are pushing me that way. If only there were places like Wazubi's [a café for hipsters on Commercial Drive] in Coquitlam. I'm totally cut out for that line of work. I've sort of got the indie kid look down now. Not that I'm cool. But sometimes I can appear to be.

So what have I been up to? Let's be chronological.

Sunday night I downloaded mp3's and talked to Tynan and his friend Jason on the internet. Jason had little interest in talking to me. I felt kind of bummed about it, since I was already depressed, but when I got off the computer, I thought, why the fuck do I care what people think of me, read some Kurt Vonnegut, and went to sleep.

On Monday I arose at 11 [a bad and increasingly more frequent habit] and sat in Chantille's room and talked to her for a couple hours about politics and school and stuff that's going on in her life. I think she was a bit irritated at our political discussions, but things other than that went quite smoothly. We haven't had a conversation that long in months. We were talking about how all the girls on our floor get their period at the same time now [this happens with groups of women when they live together for long enough] and how much it stinks. It smells like death in the bathroom right now. Everyone started around Friday, so of course I got mine on Monday, because my cycle is 32 days long instead of 28. I hate counting, because I used to always count for 28, and then I'd start freaking out because I'd be 4 days late.

I went downtown that afternoon to get some pictures developed. I walked along Broadway around McDonald and Trutch. I perused a used book store and longed for enough money to buy books once again. I looked at Star Wars toys at a toy store. I want lots of Queen Amidala stuff. I'm in love with Natalie Portman. She is so fucking hot. I also found some action figures of pro skaters. Tynan was excited about that when I told him. I also found a strictly blues and jazz record store called Black Swan Records. I felt lost when I entered. I went and looked at the John Coltrane section because I know nothing about jazz except for a miniscule amount about John Coltrane. Then I walked out sheepishly. I felt uncultured.

I picked up my pictures. It's been a long time since I've wasted that much film. There were maybe five good pictures. I was disappointed. Plus, I was supposed to get a picture enlarged for Chantille, and I got the wrong one blown up.

I came back and saw Tynan. We decided that we should go out and do something that night, but we didn't know what. First he went for dinner with some Arts One friends at the Cactus Club, while I lazed around here. Then he came back, and we downloaded mp3s and goofed around and talked to people on the internet, and then I fussed about what I was going to wear, because I felt gross and repulsive no matter what I wore [I generally feel that way when I'm menstruating.. it's a thing], and finally left at about 11:00, still with no destination. We saw Tessa on the way out, and she said she had been sitting outside on a rock and had turned around and there was a naked man standing there. She took us over to the spot, but there was nobody around. Still, it was incredibly disturbing. We asked her if there was anywhere she thought we should go, ruling out DV8, the Sugar Refinery, and Subeez because all of those places had been exhausted. She suggested the Java Joint in Surrey. But that was too far. So we started to head for the bus stop, and we ran into some friends of Tynan. They were heading back from Koerner's, this pub on campus, and they had taken a pitcher of beer with them. One of them suggested Wazubi's. I had never been there. So it was decided.

The bus ride there was long, and very quiet at first, but as we got going our discussion got more interesting. We talked a lot about politics. We weren't even sure if Wazubi's would be open. The streets were dead. There was no one around. It was strange. I never go out on Monday nights. Originally I had planned to go to Brit Pop night with Richard at the Purple Onion. Apparently it's much better than the one at Luvafair on Thursdays. I think the deejay, Jeremy Warren, needs a very long vacation.. he just plays the same music every week. It gets boring. When he was in the UK for a month, and there were different deejays, it was much better. Anyway, Richard says there are way more hot indie boys at the one on Mondays. So I plan to go eventually.

Commercial Drive is not a fun place to be at nighttime. The few people that were out and about were dodgy. We walked fast. We got there at about 12:30. They closed at 1. That was fine, though. I ordered orange juice and granola with fruit and yogourt, and Tynan got a lemonade and some curry-chickpea-coconut soup. Our waitress was cool... a hardcore bull dyke. Tynan said she was "so anti-waitress." It was true.. she was totally gruff and unpersonable. [is that a word? no, it's impersonable, isn't it.]

Anyway, it was fun. The music was decent.. not as good at the hardcore dark heavy drum'n'bass they play at Subeez, but pretty good. The décor was much better, though. I don't see what's so great about DV8. Everybody always says it's the greatest, but there are lots of better hipster cafés out there. We had to wait for the bus for a long time, but eventually it came and we got home.

When we got back, we fooled around, and it was super good because both of us were incredibly turned on. We think the girl upstairs heard us, because she got up and closed her window. Chantille said on Arts County Fair day, the girl was really drunk, and she was talking very loudly and openly to everyone on our floor about how she thinks Tynan and I are having sex because she can hear stuff. How incredibly rude and immature. If she has a problem, there has got to be a better way to deal with it. Sigh. Anyway. I slept over in his room and had an incredibly bad sleep. I was hot and sweaty and Tynan had put his Miles Davis CD on repeat, so I kept waking up and hearing it, and I was cramped because he had his arm under my neck and my shoulder got all twisted funny. Generally that is why we don't sleep over in each other's rooms. Single beds are a pain in the ass.

We got up at about 12:30, showered, and went to the caf. I had to work last night, but only from 5-9, so that was okay. Except that I was menstruating, so it felt much more long and terrible than it would have otherwise.

I get to use my Chinese on at least one customer every shift now, because I'm getting more gutsy. I talked to a mother and her daughter for a while. The mother was so impressed with me that she gave me her phone number and said I should call them up sometime. It was rad. I love making these... connections with people. It feels like there's a big divide between white and Asian culture in Vancouver, and a lot of white kids make no effort to learn anything about Asian culture. I know people who think this is our [the white people's] city, and that immigrants are taking over. What fucking arrogance. As if Vancouver belongs to anyone. And so many Asian people come here and learn English and adapt to everything here, and have children, become Anglo-Saxonized, or whatever you want to call it. Oftentimes their kids hardly learn any Chinese at all. And a lot of Asian people are afraid of losing that, and so they only hang out with other Asians... which I can understand to a certain extent. But I feel like I'm an exception to a lot of this [not that I claim to know very much about Asian culture... but I'm willing to learn!] and I've met so many elderly Asian people who are absolutely thrilled [and usually perplexed] that I'm learning their language. I gain a lot of respect, and I also gain a lot of understanding of something that has always surrounded me as a Vancouverite, but I knew nothing about and was always separate from.

I had a lot of trouble writing that last paragraph, so that's why it's so awkward sounding... because I know it comes off as very ignorant-white-kid.

So anyway. I met up with Tynan on the way back from work, and we went to the video store and rented Mars Attacks! and Welcome to the Dollhouse, because it was two-for-one Tuesday. We came back, got some Coca-Cola [which, strangely enough, I've been drinking a lot of.. I know it's because of the caffiene], downloaded mp3s yet again, and started the movies around midnight.

We watched Welcome to the Dollhouse first. It was directed by Todd Solondz, who also did Happiness. I could totally see the similarities. It was a very good movie; incredibly heart-wrenching. I cried. A lot of the things really hit home with me. All of the characters in it... Dawn Weiner was this sweet, naive kid who just got shit on through the whole movie. And she felt guilty for terrible things that happened to her that she had no control of. I could see aspects of myself when I was young inside her. Though obviously things were never quite that bad for me. But the movie totally showed how horrible school can be for some people [and it's not exaggerated until the end], and how horrible parents can be on their kids. Brandon McCarthy was the rebel bully kid who came from a dysfunctional family, and at first you hate him, but then you see what shit he's being put through, and then you love him, even though he holds a knife to Dawn's throat and threatens to rape her. God, I knew that kid. And her prissy little sister who got everything she wanted and was loved by everyone... there are so many grown-up versions of Missy that go to school here. People who just coast through life. The movie makes you love people, and it makes you hate people. It was so, so sad.

And then we watched Mars Attacks!. It started out really well, and the cast was excellent. It was so overly clichéd and well-satirized, and the aesthetic and characterizations were so Tim Burton. The music was great. But the movie degenerated into wasted special effect after wasted special effect. Everyone dies, and it's funny, but it felt empty and kind of boring after a while. Jack Nicholson was particularly good, though. And Natalie Portman was her usual sex goddess self. It was good light fare to watch after Dollhouse.

After the movie we messed around for a while, and then we went to bed at 4:30 [each in our own beds]. I awoke today to girls talking outside in the hallway at 10:30am. I put my pillow over my head but I could still hear them. I was not impressed, because quiet hours don't end until noon during exams, but when I got up, it was 12:30, and too late to yell at them. I sat down and joined in on the conversation for about ten minutes, because I felt like everyone was bonding, and it was nice, and why not join in. Alicia was there. We were talking about tattoos or something, and the subject of frogs came up. I remembered that I had these tiny glow-in-the-dark frogs that I had been meaning to give to her, because I didn't know what to do with them. So I went and got them and gave them to her, saying, "I know you really like frogs and everything, so I thought you might like these," and she was kinda like, "...thanks," really insincerely. I went to go do something, and when I came back, she was gone, and she had left the frogs just sitting there. I don't know if I hadn't made it clear that she could have them, or if she was just being a bitch, but it made me hate everyone all over again.

At work I was talking to the other girl who washes dishes with me about my floor, and she said that the bitchy clique on my floor actually has a reputation of how horrible they are all throughout Totem. Not all floors are as horrible as mine. That made me feel better.

I always end journals with this, or so it seems, but I'm hungry, and I have more will to eat than to write. So bye bye.

Later: I found a nice Natalie Portman picture: