welly welly welly welly well. I'm supposed to be writing an essay on Pinter's the Homecoming. Six pages/1500 words. And I don't want to, so I'm procrastinating. I'm actually getting a lot better at this university stuff. I wrote two essays and handed them both in on time, and I got an A/A- on one, and a B on the other. It's just this one I'm having trouble with because we're supposed to pick our own topics and I don't know what exactly to write on. Fun fun fun.

Of course, everything is new since May. I'm living in East Van, somewhat close to the Broadway Skytrain Station. I'm in fourth year now, taking four courses instead of five and working like crazy at Starbucks. I like all of my classes. I'm doing contemporary British drama (that's the one in which I'm doing the Pinter essay), Landscape and Dystopia (we're reading, get this: 1984, Handmaid's Tale, A Clockwork Orange [which is why I've reverted into Nadsat a bit in this entry], Neuromancer [I love it to bits], and White Noise by Don Delillo), Chinese (hard but somewhat rewarding), and early Imperial Chinese history (so interesting!).

I was watching the Multicultural Channel while I was eating today, and there was this show in Chinese about early Imperial Chinese history, so I was trying to watch it, but I always feel dumb because I can't understand anything. I hate those stupid dumb girls in my Chinese class who've fucking been to Taiwan and the teacher loves them because they're soo good at Chinese and isn't it amazing. I'm a little bitter. After all, we can't all afford these wonderful educational experiences, so how is that fair?

What else? I'm so goddamn busy all the time with politics and work and school. Umm. It's beautiful outside. The leaves and everything... our house is near a park with trees, and our street is lined with trees. It's also really cold out, though. That always sucks, especially when you don't have a car and you have to carry your laundry in a garbage bag for three blocks to the laundromat. Or even better, last week I bought soo many groceries and I could hardly carry them home. A gallon of milk, toilet paper. Stuff I needed. My arms were going into tremors. But then again, I've definitely lost all the weight I gained during the 4-month-long bus strike (the ended up legislating them back to work, the bastards... fucking capitalism). I'm so vain. It was like, 10 pounds. But I feel good. I think I eat healthier living on my own, and I'm walking everywhere and my arms are getting pretty again like when I worked at Safeway lifting gallons of milk. Caffiene=run-on sentences. Woo.

My roommate Raj (who's moving out at the end of the month and a cool girl from Mexico is moving in) got a kitten in mid-September. A little black friendly vicious kitten named Nana. Reference to various songs by Foxy Brown where she refers to her vagina as her "nana" or even better, "ill nana." Living with Raj these past two months has definitely bolstered my appreciation for mainstream hiphop. I look at Destiny's Child in a whole new way. I enjoy Bootylicious. Anyway, this kitten is so fucking cute, and he's moving away with Raj. :( I took pictures of him, so when I get them developed, I'll put them up. Oh, except I don't have a scanner. It may have to wait till Christmas, when I can use my parents'. I've been thinking about getting a kitten, but I probably won't. Too much work, and I'm never home, so he'd be lonely. And litter boxes are yucky.

Of course I've been to fun shows since you last heard from me. Fantomas, Low, Belle and Sebastian, Blood Brothers, Add N to (x), Fugazi (which I did not enjoy - I don't like them that much and the sound was TERRIBLE), Quasi... probably more shows than that. I saw Radio Berlin a couple times.

Yes, I did go to New York, and I took one and a half rolls of film. The first roll, with all of the good pictures on it, was not loaded properly, and I lost all of it. One of my biggest lifetime regrets. Seriously. I had pictures of the World Trade Center, which I was in every single day because I took the subway from New Jersey and the last stop was inside the WTC. So what did I see? Central Park, MOMA, Fifth Avenue, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Village and the East Village, the subways, the Statue of Liberty from afar, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum (soo awesome).... stuff. And I had pictures of all of it. I had pictures of Andy Warhol paintings and the subway and three blocks full of motorbikes we saw in Little Italy because there was some biker festival going on. It was such a blast and I want to go back tomorrow. Or maybe a little after then.. I bet it's a nightmare with all the fucking cops and the National Guard right now.

Chinatown in New York is way better than the Chinatown in Vancouver. It looks like I'd imagine China looking. Kind of grungy with trash in the gutters, a big McDonald's with the Chinese characters for it on the sign (it's mai don lao in Chinese). And the restaurants are superauthentic and there are no white people around anywhere. Tynan and I went into a restaurant because he was starving, and he was trying to ask if they had anything without meat, and they didn't understand, so I switched to Chinese, telling them we were vegetarians and did they have anything with tofu (doufu in Chinese). Of course they were remarkably impressed... people either ask, "Ni zenme hui shuo Zhongwen?" (How do you know Chinese? - not sure if that's totally gramatically correct) or "Ni qu guo Zhongguo ma?" (Have you been to China?)
Anyway, you can tell I'm still enamoured with all this Chinese stuff. I'm getting better at conversation, but my characters are still pretty pathetic. I'm not as good as you think I am. There's a reason I'm bitter at those girls in my class.

I need to meet more people who can speak Chinese, but it's really hard. Meeting them on the internet is pretty useless because I can't have proper conversations with them, and it's not like you can just go up to people on the bus or at Starbucks (though I sometimes do) and just start speaking Chinese with them. They usually think you're totally cracked out, especially if you're kind of socially inept and not informed on Chinese manners. Like me. One of Tynan's roommates is from Beijing, and he's really friendly. I like talking with him.

What else. I'm going to the ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead show as Mary Catherine Gallagher on Hallowe'en. I love Hallowe'en, and I love shows, and I fucking superlove shows on Hallowe'en real horrorshow. Though I can't imagine this show beating out the one on last Hallowe'en, because that was just awesome. Oh yeah, and Tynan's going either as the boy Mary Catherine Gallagher is in love with, or the boy she ends up with who's icky and stutters. Putting on the skirt for the costume made me realize how much I like ridiculously short skirts. They're great fun. They feel slutty and innocent at the same time - especially those plaid Catholic schoolgirl ones. I think I'm gonna have to start perusing that section of Value Village more often.

Stereolab is tomorrow. I'm not all that excited, but I feel like I should go because I would regret it if I missed them a third time. That's why I went to Belle and Sebastian too. That show was kinda funny. It was a who's who of the Vancouver indie scene. I must've recognized half the people there, and there were soooo many people there. It was in the Orpheum.

Raj is taking the TV with him too, but I think I'm happy about that. It's too much of a distraction. I find myself watching so much shit, like Nigella Bites, that show with that sumptuous British woman licking her fingers and showing us how to be a good housewife. She's masturbation material. And I watch Whose Line is it Anyway?, and they always play like 4 episodes in a row and I find myself watching it and watching it. I feel sorry for the actors on that show.. I'd get sick of it pretty fucking fast. And whenever Star Trek (TOS or TNG) is on, or the Simpsons, or Iron Chef, Seinfeld, Daria and Downtown, Saturday Night Live, or really anything remotely interesting is on, I watch it. It's bad because I really don't have time to veg. I have shit to do. Like now, for instance. I should be doing my essay. Pangs of guilt. Bleah.

I read Neuromancer in September to get it out of the way and because I wanted to, and it was so great! It's totally sci-fi fantasy stuff. I was sad when it ended, and disappointed that there wasn't more sex in it, when it had that really good brief scene near the beginning, when Molly and Case first fuck. I bet the girl from the Matrix was modelled after her. This book was a lot like the Matrix, and Blade Runner, only better. It fulfilled my nerdy side in a way that I hadn't previously experienced. Top notch.

I wrote an essay for the same class on how 1984 is a cold war book, and how Orwell totally disregards Trotsky and Lenin and puts in his own theories for the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union. In fact, I should put it online because I really like it. Here it is. I didn't expect a good mark, it being from a Marxist perspective and all, but I did well. I had happy tears in my eyes when I got it back today. My teacher is so rad. She was totally a punk in the early 80's, and she talks about the Sex Pistols in class, and now she's into Goth, and we have an online discussion board. And she must be like late 30's, early 40's. I hope I'm that cool when I'm her age. She enjoys speaking in Nadsat, too.

When I get new glasses, which shouldn't be too too far away from now, I want ones like either of these:

I think it would be okay for me to end things here. Don't expect another update soon.