Completely Meandering Nostalgic Blog

Alarmingly enough, I’m still conscious after this day of all days, and despite the quasi-numbness of my legs remaining after my beautifully brilliant walk outside this afternoon (yay skirts!), I’m in a (likely fleeting) typing mood. This week has been overall full of the usual fun with family and friends, with comparatively less of the former since the non-Cait-Lobes (the non-Cait brand of Lobe is not quite as cool as Cait herself, but are pretty much on par with her in every other respect) are no longer on spring break. Nonetheless, studying and reading have certainly taken their toll over the past few days. I was attempting to remain cognizant Monday night to squeeze in a few more hours of psych studying, and failed rather pathetically, thus ditching a few MSN conversations (sorry guys!). However, I did manage to get up insanely early this morning post-late-night-Jess-chat (even before the sunrise; somehow my body agreed with my brain that sleep is unnecessary), and fit in a good chunk of reading before breakfast. Perhaps I should have taken the obvious predilection for sleep that I have developed over the past few days as a sign to give into my somnolent state, but Jess wasn’t home from her fabulous evening until latish yesterday, and I really had to tell her about the various adventures had whilst walking and the odd things discussed at small group. I may need to listen to something slightly less sedate than the Denison Witmer that I’ve been playing recently because his soothing voice and placid guitar playing only aggravate my desire to curl up in a ball on my heating vent with Jess’ blanket and some cocoa. I suspect that some Franz or DFA could do the trick, but my parents might be awakened by the great vigour of these bands, and Jess is quite reliable in her capacity of keeping me up. After a period of reading and eating so far this afternoon, I feel like spouting rather than absorbing right now, though I really am drained currently and have very little on my mind besides conditioning and how much I loathe behaviourists; seriously, John Watson is very difficult to take seriously. The chapter I just finished actually dared to propose that hallucinations are conditioned behaviour. Therefore typing it is.

While the weekend was rather hectic at times, it was quite enjoyable all in all. After finally getting off work at 6:30 when Catherine arrived at the café from her overlong nap on Friday, and scrounging around unsuccessfully for Andrew’s cell number, I had the most agreeable sandwich at Great Canadian Bagel (the usual turkey on an un-toasted sesame seed bagel with everything except cucumber, cheese, and green peppers). Following a tasty supper, it was movie time with some excellent company in my basement! There was much enjoyment of Audrey Tatou, and of course AFV in between, since nothing can beat the magnificence of Americans indulging in their beloved stupidity and dangerous activities. After falling prey to a plethora of pranks at work, and finding about half of them amusing, I was done with the café (for another six days), which was rather lovely. However, the pranking wasn’t done at noon when I headed back home, because soon after arriving home and eating some lunch, I found a tremendously convincing post from Jill on the C&C forum implying that she had been ensnared by Mormonism. Despite the seeming impossibility of such a thought, I was in a gullible frame of mind, and was on the verge of tears and a phone call to Jill in an attempt to knock some sense into her and remind her of how she had previously referred to Mormon beliefs as lies. Thankfully, after calling Jess into my room to see what she made of it, we realized that Jill is silly and droll, and was simply hoaxing us. I subsequently drew Crystal and Ben’s attention to said post, and had some April Fool’s fun of my own. The series of odd events that followed that afternoon were quite delightful, but Jeremy summed them up charmingly in his blog, so I’ll leave it to him to illustrate the oddity and fun of Saturday afternoon. I will add, though, that I had a great deal of fun observing Jeremy and Rob in fabulous sunglasses, carping about sweatshops, hearing about interesting adventures in Hindu and Buddhist temples from Hayley L. and Matt, learning about La Senza secret fashion shows from Jill, discussing the excellence of white jeans with Matt, feeling the very strange material of some underwear in La Senza as pointed out by Jill, being yelled at repeatedly while listening to my iPod, not realizing that I was being yelled at repeatedly while listening to my iPod, reading weird cards that Jeremy picked out, nitpicking about the innate sadism in Rob’s violent sound effects, packing into Matt’s car and not having to sit in the trunk as Matt suggeste, observing Hayley L. model belts, and meeting people haphazardly.

















Since it would take ages and eons to describe all of the occurrences that took place at Nicole’s remarkable party on Saturday night, I’ll write another list of excellent things that no one needs to read. It’s simply fun to recount all of the fun episodes. Besides all of the cake, chips, and cupcakes that were had throughout the duration of the evening, there was discussion of books with highly literate friends Tara and Robin, enjoyment of Monica’s absurd definitions in Balderdash, efforts by Tara and Catherine to convince me of the reality of steamy cottage cheese (according to the grapevine, it does exist), the ostensible telepathic ability of the group to contemplate inflammation, conversation over the meaning and irony of my money shirt, subjection to Robin and Gavin’s Machiavellian tactics in Uno (I was the ultimate winner, of course), Speed Scrabble with a very loquacious group of people at the kitchen table, forgetting of presents, random acquaintance with people in the snack area, agreement with Jasmine and Katie over the greatness of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, consideration of premature Iroquois babies, Tim’s reference of Neil as “the guy with the beard” with Neil right behind the couch, and time spent in a purportedly mildew-teeming van. Needless to say, without a curfew, there was much fun had at Nicole’s.

















Sunday comprised of a lack of coffee before church at the café, the superb service, followed by the intensely anticipated Sunday lunch celebration of the return of Grandma and Grandpa from snowbirding lunacy. Jess and I even got to conduct the inaugural sticking-our-heads-out-the-car-window-until-your-tongue-is-as-dry-as-possible warm weather celebration (pictures included in blog). My grandparents are the people who I respect and admire the most out of anyone I’ve ever met, for about a million reasons which I obviously can’t touch on for reasons of time and space constraints. Please skim over this part, as I’ll likely go on and on about all the reasons I love them and consider them to be so terrific. I have an extreme tendency to love the things and people that I love to an immoderate extent, and as a result am prone to droning on and on about them. But I truly must illustrate how remarkable they are at least a little. My grandma is a brilliant woman who grew up in Edmonton, went to Vic for high school, and was at the top of her class in her Arts & Sciences program in university. She met my grandpa through IVCF at my dear old U of A when he was the lovely treasurer of the group and an engineering student, and from the pictures I’ve seen of them, they were the most adorable couple to have ever dated (you were forewarned about my bias, so you could judge the previous statement to be rather subjective I suppose). Once they’d finished their degrees, and after my grandpa’s stint at GE, he realized that God was calling him to do yet another four years of university at McMaster to eventually become a pastor. He was the simultaneous pastor at three churches in an Anglophone region of Québéc while my mom and her three siblings were young children, and later moved to Clive where my mom’s family lived with cows, farmers, and the freedom of a small town community until my grandpa became the pastor at Zion when my mom was in grade 9. They’ve been at Zion ever since, and are the most generous (with their time, money, and home) people in my life, and are incredibly sincere and deliberate in their walks with God. Not only are they a wonderful couple to look up to, but they’re also unbelievably zany, with my grandpa’s intense love of jokes, astronomy, chatting, and engineering and my grandma’s penchant for gardening, working far too much, and our shared love of grammar and abhorrence of cats.

I’ve just realized that there is nothing at all deep about this blog, and I need to get back to the reading in a minute, so I think that I’ll make a list of deep things I’ve been thinking over recently and leave it at that. After a few days of delightful sunshine, it’s now raining, perhaps a signal that I should initiate the obsessive studying mode and cease the usual disproportionate level of fun. Although watching engineering cars, hockey games, and plays in the past couple of days have been enjoyable enough to make a week of studying entirely worth it. I’ve learned not to talk to Rob or Tyler on the phone when in complete hysteria with Crystal, that making hockey signs is extraordinarily fun, how delicious Papa John’s mini-pizzas are, why it is unwise to wear long-johns on very warm days, that I’ve been missing out on the joys of essentially fan-free and side-splitting St. Joe’s hockey games, how Crystal is at times a phone-a-phobe, that Dusty has no problem eating lip chap, that using cell phones is not free (scandalous, I know, but I forget this a great deal), how close to the ceiling of the library parkade Caitlin’s van actually is, why plays focusing on mortality and relationships are so brilliant, that Caitlin may actually see Gig working in a McDonald’s (very exciting!), how to sneak a Steeps chai latté into the Citadel, and that it is still a bit chilly outside at night. I shall leave you with the previously promised lists, and likely write a consequential blog when finals are over (May really can’t come soon enough, though the middle of April is approaching at an alarmingly speedy rate). Hope everyone’s studying and enjoyment of April showers is going brilliantly, and that none of my friends will end up requiring psychological assistance by the end of this month of mixed blessings and hardships.

















Things in April to Be Happy About
- Easter and Palm Sunday
- rain and sunshine in perfectly balanced amounts
- the nearing of summer
- reading outside on the lawn
- the return of Sunday dinners at Grandma’s
- late-night swinging
- my grandparents’ FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
- finding sunny and rainy MSN display pictures
- football contracts being signed
- early Eskies chat
- formulating pro and con lists for Crystal (I’m not posting them Crystal)
- Philomena Guinea’s slightly increased fortitude in warmer weather
- the cool picture for April in my Beatles calendar

Slightly Less Excellent Things in April
- friends preparing to leave the city
- required lack of fun evenings
- required sleep to study more effectively
- instructor evaluations
- exams

Things to Do in May
- picnic in Hawrelak and my yard
- walk and bike in the river valley
- find a cool vintage bike
- eat exorbitant amounts of fruit
- write essays for friends
- have more serious fun (not that silly fun isn’t fulfilling and extremely fabulous, but I haven’t had enough indie movies, good plays, walks with friends, coffees with friends, deep conversations with non-Jess friends, listening-to-music-silently sessions with friends, interesting concerts, art gallery perusals, political debates, game nights, or enjoyment of speakers and poets on campus recently)
- write postcards to people who are going away
- prepare for Jay Jay’s birthday in June
- ignore my allergies and my refusal to take drugs, and instead hang out in the outdoors as much as possible
- find new summer music
- listen to old nostalgic summer music
- be absurd and odd in typical “hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer”-style

















Recent Considerations
- why Christians use different faces of Jesus to conveniently justify their different behaviours
- how being nice is extraordinarily draining and difficult at times
- how being nice is extraordinarily important
- how seldom people are nice in certain places at certain times
- the importance of academics
- why ignorance of global issues is so common
- the line between being fake and being affable
- white lies
- that adulthood really does mean a lack of time to do everything that one wants to
- how I need to buck up and study hard right now regardless of how torturous it is
- that my own mediocrity makes me ill at times
- that often clichés are amazingly true, and rarely applied
- the purpose of Lent
- the hope and challenge of Easter
- how weary I feel right now
- how un-weary I’ll feel when I eat my sandwich (hopefully!)