...the party didn't make it here...

!!!

...shit crazy...

I can't even describe to what extent this has been a horrible day. The inefficiencies of my university have reached an all-time high and their bureaucratic fuckups (the ones which slated me as third year and not fourth) have had an unexpected consequence that makes me wince: apparently I received my scholarship allowance for third year last year when I *was* in third year, but this year I don't yet qualify for fourth year until January and am now in some kind of limbo year. Since they can't give me my third year amount again, and can't give me my fourth year payment at all until I am in fourth year, this year I get nothing. *Next* year I can get my fourth year payments, but next year I will be taking a credit and a half so they will pay me something like $800 for those credits. This years credits? On me.

I fucking hate Vic. So. Absurd.

I need, in order of importance:
- tuition money for this year
- a sledgehammer to take to the registrars office
- a better-paying job

Why am I even doing this again? Can I drop out of school? It's so ridiculous and frustrating, I need these complications like I need a hole in the head. Maybe I *should* just shoot myself in the head...

...unchecked, this will escalate...

HFTS and Phil Booth: "Something lovely is happening in the sky and it has direct relevance to you and your future. You are being freed from a trap into which you have inadvertently fallen. A solution that has eluded you will come to your attention."

...this town has dragged you down...

Mint chip cone in hand, I was walking down Unionville Main in a brown linen dress and Hepburn shades when I heard him call my name. Greg was sitting with his mother outside the Arms, she had a cappucino. He said in an excited tone what I was thinking with dull incredulity: "I haven't seen you since high school!". In my head, I qualified that to: "I haven't seen you since prom" followed by "I can't believe I went with you to prom".

Prom was a surreal experience in itself, a milestone in which I would not even have participated if it hadn't been for the influence of Pretty in Pink, but seeing my prom date four years after the fact was wierder still.

Tomorrow he's going to Scandinavia, one of those soul-searching missions he was always heading on. I haven't thought about him, well if I'm honest probably not since prom, but if I *had* thought about him, I would have hoped he had found himself by now. Or maybe he has.. it's been four years after all. Who knows what has happened to him? I mean, in four years I found myself, lived myself, created it and danced it down sidewalks and staircases. I loved myself on good days; on bad ones I wanted to show it off in different light but came to realize that now, after years of struggling with my self-perception, I didn't want to change myself.

I can imagine everyone going through this transformation, getting to a point where they are happy with who they are and proud to let you see it. Notice that the transformation was never of self, but of perception of self. At the same time, I saw Greg today and thought "I wonder if you've changed, I hope you have" and I wonder how many people want me to change, or wish I had. I want to know if my wondering what people think at all takes away from my supposed growth?

...i may have gone too much, too long...

In my excessive melodrama I forgot to mention that I was able to enrol for every lecture I wanted for this year, including not one but TWO courses with Danesi. My academic hormones are starting to fly high, and I'm feeling the urge to buy copious amounts of sparkly notebooks and flowy blue pens.

...like me she's uncomfortable...

There were several birthday greeting waiting for me today on my facebook wall, among them a message from a girl named Brin who says she misses me, that it's been too long since we've seen each other, and we have to have baklava again soon. Now, I am fairly certain I don't know this girl and I am absolutely certain we have never had baklava together. The reason I am certain of this is that I hate baklava. This isn't the first time she has messaged me though, with messages that you wouldn't send to a stranger, and she has been on my friends list for several months which naturally leaves me confused. Who does she think she is speaking to? Does she really think she knows me? Do I have a body and *name* double running around the city interacting with people who think it is me? I don't know what could account for all this.

I've been thinking about myspace a lot this week, and internet network platforms in general, including facebook. I've been thinking about the idea of "profiles" as they relate to these platforms and what they have come to represent, namely the concept of "identity creation" through technology. Something to consider: the internet profiles, the comments on myspace, the blogs, the facebook walls, our online albums - these are all things that are meant to represent us, and we would hope they would do so accurately. However, anyone visiting my wall right now would believe that Brin and I are friends, when we are not. They might look at my pictures on myspace and on facebook and think I am a well-dressed dancing queen stuck like glue to my whisky sours and rye & gingers (and let's face it, didn't I want people to think that? Why put up those pictures otherwise?) - based on those, the entries I write selectively, the info in my profile... based on all these no one would imagine I just spent three consecutive nights playing Dead or Alive on Xbox tournament style with my two best guy friends into the early morning, at which point my thumb hurt too much to continue.

These platforms are a tabula rasa of esteem and personal identity. What does it mean that we can create the image we portray to people in a cyber context, and what happens when the "cyber" you meets the "real" you? Do the personalities reconcile? Is it real or is it fantasy, and to what point is the situation healthy? This is just the surface; there are so many questions that emerge from this idea. This year's semiotics paper? Possibly.

...his value declined when he offered his name...

In brief, due to exhaustion:

i) Three days in cottage country with a couple-a redheads, a canoe, and Xbox 360, mmmm. The boys bought me ice-cream cake, happy birthday to me. And the water! Swimming off a tiny island, the beach is a strip, the water shimmers clear blue and floating on your back the sunset smiles happy on you. Less happy is returning to the cottage, beating everyone in Monopoly, raising your fist in victory and straight into the ceiling fan. Things were bloody, I should have gotton a tetanus booster. Alas.

ii) Tonight we spoke to the boy who belonged to the kiss, he is some kind of adorable.

iii) I will lose all this weight, I promise. I promise, I do.

iv) I'm away less than a week, and I come back to a Lebanon under fire and Iran maybe next. What is going on?

...they also mourn who do not wear black...

This is going to be a lousy day. Some things I can just feel. You may have noticed it's a little after 6am and may be wondering what wakes me at this hour. Well I attempted to enrol in courses today, satisfied that my 6am start time would ensure my entrance into any of the courses that set my academic heart a blazin. I signed on only to be met at every attempt with Error 6708 deadline reached. Panicking I tried to figure out what this means, landed back on the View Start Time page and noticed that the date stamped next to my time wasn't July 11, 2006 but July 17, 2006.

Apparently due to the new guidelines, I am half a credit short of 4th year so I enrol with the 3rd years, next week, in the second round. If I fail to get into any of my courses, heads will roll.

I hate it when my quest for academia is left obnoxiously thwarted.

They did add a new feature to the enrolment program; the ability to see at any point how many spaces are left in a particular class. Which means for the next week I will be desperately loading and reloading the program to see the numbers and pray I get a space. Bastards.

...all good naysayers, speak up!...

Oh fucking eh.

I can't even elaborate on that. I have so much I need to get out of me, but there is no forum open to me which is guarded enough that I can say what I need. So I will repeat. Fucking. Eh. And prepare to write an email to Claire.

...could i do more...

It was such a gorgeous compliment, better than any of the others, because it was about something that matters. But maybe I wish it hadn't been said; or that I could remember exactly the wording in which it *was* said; or that I was just in another place completely mentally and physically because this one is getting so tight. I'm the one in the corner.

...she's having an identity crisis...

A lady sat next to me on a bench in the streetcar alcove with her grocery bags at her feet. We sat for several minutes in silence, each of us watching the rain that poured in sheets outside. A moment later she began singing softly under her breath, raising her voice so slightly as she finished the phrase. My first inclination would be to think her crazy but then I remembered all the times I have been so filled with a song it rocked me inside, and I have to sing to let it out. I knew from the way that last note shook that she must be one of those.

...you are a liar! you are a liar and a bastard! i'm calling the police!...

Something I've always wondered, but wonder again rather desperately this week. Sepi, how do you get your hair as gorgeous as you do?

Sepi and I have almost exactly the same type of hair; that Persian curlin' hair that can get frizzy when it wants to, but if properly managed is oh so beautiful. She always has it looking so beautiful! And I would like to know how.

Persian curls are a funny thing. They are completely impossible to control unless you have chanced upon that perfect combination of product and styling ability, which has more often than not eluded me. There have been the odd nights where something unexplicable occurs and my hair turns out perfect in its wound-up delectability, but usually it is frizzy and uneven, and therefore bound in a bun where it can do no damage. I would love love love to be able to wear it consistently down, or even in a well-conditioned poufless curly ponytail.

Once recently, I did manage this. I never wear my hair completely down, unaided but this time I did and you can see the curls somewhat in the background. (Really though it's just an excuse to show off the top I bought from American Eagle, ain't it cute?)

Recently a new salon opened up in Thornhill called Prisma, and was touted in Fashion18 magazine for their unique approach to cutting curly hair. It is supposed to be worth the $150 styling fee + tutorial and consultation. I'm seriously thinking of going there and spending what is disappointingly close to half a paycheck on one haircut. Thoughts?

...bless her soul...

I'm having a tough time keeping my blood sugar on the level this week; I'm just all over the place. Today was a low day and nothing I did brought me up to *stay* up - I ended up sluggish, with a migraine, and nearing tears because I was so frustrated. Everyone wants to go out tomorrow night, get some drinks. I feel like when people start getting older and say "man, I'm too old for this". That's how I feel. Except I'm not too old for this!

These girls all want fierce, and I can't pull it off.

Other things I can't pull off:
- leggings
- tapered jeans
- red lipstick

There goes my social life.

...when we wake up we'll still be who we are...

My skin felt tight to bursting last night, so frustrated and hyper. We the People went to the G, I drank too much but not enough.

I wanted artificial happiness, chemical comfort. I wanted a distraction from someone who is affecting me very strongly. I want to pretend that I'm interested in everything and everyone else to eventually convince myself. So I speak French over the counter with a Maggie girl, while keeping my eye on the boy beside her. He hugged me when I first came in; she said I must have been dying inside and I was but not because of that but because of what pushed me to go there in the first place. Distraction boy bought me a drink then, and offered me more. Everyone was generous, the love is enormous. I turned down the first hit, thinking impulses shouldn't always be followed. The second came a couple hours later, when I wasn't thinking as clearly, he said "you want?" and I said... "yeah. I do".

I do I do I do.