I kinda miss Dubai

(picture of part of Jumeira, where I lived)

While I've been procrastinating doing three gigantic assignments that are due tommorrow, I've been checking out blogs. I've discovered a whole bunch of one's from people living in the Middle East in countries that I've been to, It's really fun. This one is from Qatar, a small country that I went with my school on a soccer trip to. Twas fun, anyways, I must share this excerpt about the cold weather, maybe now people will believe me when I say its bloody cold here ! (compared to what I'm was used to)

From QatarCat :

It's so cold outside now.. I don't do cold. I whither, shrivel and suffer. Today when I got in the car the thermometer blinked +15 C° at me. This is inhumane and cruel. Then again, my mom told me that it’s -31 C° where she’s at. No comment. For those who prefer Fahrenheit, I can say only that +15 C° is cold but you can live, but -31 C° is when your nose, fingers and toes fall off and then you die.

Also, she wrote this about a day at work, which made me laugh VERY hard:

I got a laugh of a lifetime today, in the elevator. I pushed the button, waited for about a minute, the elevator arrived, I got in. I was alone. I pressed the button for my floor, doors closed, elevator started moving. Suddenly I heard heavy breathing and then someone said “Uhh, hello. Good morning”. Honestly, I almost wet my pants. But a good mannered girl that I am, in about few seconds when I got to my senses I said “Good morning”. I knew I was alone in the elevator, but I didn’t look around. Then the voice asked “Do you know me?” Ok now THAT was stupid and not scary at all. Besides, by that time I realised that the voice was coming from the speaker. Therefore it must have been some bored security guard in a CCTV control room. And I have a pretty good idea which one! So I answered back “No, do you??” and banged on the speaker/mike with my car keys. I walked out followed by the idiot’s howling. The moral of the story – when you do pranks like that, make sure you don’t use a headset.

Anyways, so this is what I do to distract myself from the fact that I'm up to my ears in school work and also to forget that I work in less that two hours, ARGH.

ALSO, I figured out my New Year's resolutions using a handy little online website. Sounds like we can expect this year to be exciting ! :D

1) Get a pet skunk

2) Eat more chocolate syrup

3) Travel to Australia

4) Study taxidermy

5) Get in shape with ballet

What Should Your New Year's Resoluton Be?

The United States of Canada

Well, now we have a conservative government. It sure was nice to have political and ethical freedom for minorities while it lasted. It's funny how the west, where I live, is celebrating that we have a western PM for once. Greeeat, One who has no respect for women's rights to choose, and for minority rights to be treated as equals of the general population. I'm soo sick of North America, Europe is so much more advanced in terms of social equity. I miss the European way of life too, everything is too big, too loud, and too fast here. Stupid Americans are taking over the entire freaking continent. Well, we all had better start learning the words to the "Star-Spangled Banner", since it seems we will be singing that anthemn eventually.

It's a Baby Girl !

I have a car, her name is Ayame !!

It's soo freaking exciting. No more commuting to Uvic by bus. No more smelling ugly people sitting next to me. No more stupid, angry transit employees. No more missing busses and waiting at stops in pouring rain for the next transfer in like 30 mins.

Glorious Internal Combustion Engine to call my own !

The person with the brand new car is my mom. She has a new black 2006 Honda Civic sedan. It's gorgeous, efficient and comfortably sleek. As a result, I now own my mom's old car, a metallic-beige 1992 Honda Accord. Since it's now new to me, I decided that renaming the car would be perfectly appropriate. I decided on Ayame, which is Japanese for Iris (the flower). I love the name because it respects her Japanese heritage, but is also sleek and meaningful, since Irises are a bit of a family emblem. It's also wonderfully gorgeous.

The only thing I need to do with it is install a new CD or MP3 player. Who listens to tapes anyways ? I also need to clean it out. I bought sleek new black floor mats to replace the worn-out carpet ones. I'm gonna give the car a deep-clean in like a week when I have time from school.

YAY, I can now commute in style !

Co-op !

I got into the Co-op program throught Uvic ! I'm totally stoked. It lets me work in fields related to my actual area of study, in supplement to my Uvic courses. I get credits for each work term, and I get paid by the employer for them ! Each work term is 4 months, the length of a normal school semester, unless the employer wants you for 8 months, which then counts as two terms. They say average pay is $2000 a month, which is a little low, but I don't even have my degree yet, so its just experience-building. My friend, Yuna, got a work term up in Cambell River as a mapmaker for the government and they paid her a housing allowance, cause she was asked to move within a week. I could handle that !

They have asked me for a list of my top four places that I most want to work, and a description of my dream job, which is proving to be a harder task than it sounds. Part of the reason I applied into the program was so that I could figure out what I want to do for a career. I want to do at least one work term at a government position, hopefully in policy analysis or research. OMG, research would be freaking awesome.

Amazing Film

I watched this amazing dream-like Japanese film called Nausicaa on tv last night. It's apparently from the same Director/Film Company as Spirited Away, which won an Academy Award last year. The moment I changed the channel to watch it, I could not leave my room, it drew you into the story and was so amazingly fascinating. That never happens to me. The anime and visual efects were beautiful. Not like North American cartoon films, it was actually artistic and creative. The plot was a little hard to follow at first and really confused me, since I started watching half-way through. But after a bit I understood the storyline. It had some wonderful messages and lessons to be learned. After the movie, I felt like I had just come out of a deep meditation. The ending was magical, although I felt it was abrupt. Since all of our stories here seem to always come to nice cleanly explained endings, it just ended, much like a real story would. It was a beatiful story with some great teachings.

"It's In The Rain"

Every time
The rain comes down,
Close my eyes and listen.
I can hear the lonesome sound
Of the sky as it cries.

Listen to the rain
Here it comes again
Hear it in the rain

Feel the touch
Of tears that fall
...They won't fall forever
In the way the day will flow
All things come,
All things go.

Listen to the rain
...The rain...
Here it comes again...
...Again...
Hear it in the rain
...The rain...

Late at night
I drift away -
I can hear you calling,
And my name
Is in the rain,
Leaves on trees whispering,
Deep blue sea's mysteries.

Even when
This moment ends,
Can't let go this feeling.
Everything
Will come again
In the sound,
Falling down,
Of the sky as it cries.
Hear my name in the rain.

It's In The Rain, Enya

Worst day EVER

I just want the day to end, which appears to be happening sooner than expected cause the clouds are dark and the sky is looking more sinister than normal.

Today started like any other back-to-school day. I woke up at 6am, for a 7:10 bus, which gets me to Uvic at about 8:15, ust in time for me to run to my 8:30 lecture. My mom makes me some lunch, which was a sweet gesture, also badly needed because I think she an tell I was running late. I barely catch the bus and off I go to the day of hell.

After being on the bus for only a couple of minutes, my head starts to hurt. Then my nose begins to run. So there I am sniffling with my head pounding, when I realise that I have forgotten my print-out that tells me what buildings and rooms all my classes are in for the day, crap ! I call mom and luckily she hasn't left to take my brother to school yet. She reads the paper to me, and I write it all down. After doing my transfer to another bus, the headache dies down. My nose is still running but whatever.

I'm sitting in the middle of my first class, which is Math 103, Mathematics and Matrix Algebra for Economics, when my nose starts to run more. I instinctively get a kleenex from my bag and blow it. Bad idea. Turns out I'm having a nose bleed. First day, right in the middle of class, my nose is pouring blood like the waters of the Nile. I stay in class and insist upon writing down notes and being as conspicious about stopping the raging waters. Eventually it stops, but not after getting some weird glares from other people in the class. What's their problem ??

So I have a break and meet some friends for breakfast, mmm cafeteria food, gah. I then head off to my 4 hours straight of lecture. In the middle of my third hour, my head starts ringing. It hurts so bad and immediately I know that I have a migraine comming on. I go to take 3 advil, which is normally a good way to nip those in the bud. Guess what ?! I only have two pills left. So, I take those, which leave me wit a dull pain, which I then have to live with for about 4 hours, till I get home.

Speaking of home, the bus ride was the best part. I finally get out of class, and rush to the busses, catching the first one I can find, and not caring about the transfer. I talk to Steph as it pulls out, with a strong feeling that I've forgotten something. The first bus was fine. I have to run for the second bus, on which the driver-lady barks something at me about them not suppose to wait that long or us. I get to the top of the double-decker and sit listenig to music. A loud yell distrupts me, and upon glancing around, I see an all-black clad, stud wearing, skin-head, very fat man sitting right behind me. He has decided that it would be best to point out and freak out about every little thing along our 45 minute journey. He even yells about how he can see, from his upstairs vantage point, down girl's tops when they board the bus, much to his girlfriend's annoyance. This was just great to listen to, even with my ipod on, I could hear his yelling.

Finally, I get off the bus and arrive home. upon entry, I am greeted by a question posed by my mom. You see, I was suppose to pick up some books from the library for her, to help with some research. I told her I had simply forgotten, and I felt soo bad. She just marches off and proclaims that that is "fucking great". I freaked. The combination of everything of the last 9 hours built up, I slammed my door shut, changed into comfy clothes and fell asleep for 30 mins. Upon waking I sat down and began to write this blog.

I'm sure I've had worse days, but today was pretty crappy as far as the average day goes.

Inner Beauty

I saw the Doctor today. She said she notices that my acne has diministed. I ahven't had any new break-outs in like 3 weeks. I now just need to wait for it to take care of all the scaring I have. I can't wait, my biggest desire since I was 16 was to have clear skin.

On another note, I downloaded all the top 50 best dance/electronic songs of this year as rated by my favourite radio station c89.5 from Seattle. I love music, it has the ability to transform your mood and elevate your soul. I have been spending so much time with my best friends, the people that make me feel good and happy about the world and myself. I now refuse to ever involve myself with negative people or people who are negative powers in my life. I guess that's my New Year's Resolution !

Well, I'm off to go car shopping again, prolly going to test-drive a Mazda 3 and a Honda Civic Coupe, both 2006.

I Heart New Year's

Best New Year's partying ever ! So, I'm completely random, and it worked out soo well tonight, well this morning. I'm currently freaking hyper on drugs. I simply can't go to bed, so why even try? But first, the story...

So, I went to my friend Elaine's appartment, where I met her boyfriend and some of her coworkers I previously knew. We played Cranium and hung out talking until midnight, when we had some champagne and shared our New Year's resolutions. Then my friends Nassim and Kara came over. Kara is also an ex-raver, although she was waaay more into the scene than I ever was. Yes, I'm a little jealous. Anyways, it turns out she used to spin every once in a while and when she gave it up, her friend got all her old amps, records and such. So, he and some other people she knew were hosting a grand New Year's party (a.k.a. rave). I simply had to go. Leaving my car at Elaine's guest parking, we all jumped into Nassim's car, and the journey began...

Nassim agreed to come as well, even though due to religious beliefs, she cannot drink or do any sort of drugs. We first went to the party at a bar here called Soprano's, it had been completely transformed into the best party ever, it was suppose to be $25 cover, but we got in for like $10 each. I drank excessive amounts and danced my ass off. I made eyes with a hot guy dancing without a shirt, and we did dance a bit. But alas, I decided that because I was with other people, I wouldn't try to sleep with him. Kara had a small supply of drugs from both her doctor and dealers. I decided against the E, and took a Ritalin instead. I wanted to have energy, but not as much as E would create. We partied on until 4am. Here's the kicker: the party was suppose to go to 6am, but because of licensing issues and police stopping by, they ended it at 4am. That is effectively like 8pm in rave-time, most of the ones I've been to don't finish off until like 8am. We knew from contacts that there was to be an after party, and so the second part continues....

We went back to Nassim's car and drove, using instructions given to us hurriedly, to a warehouse along the water near Esquimalt. It was pretty seedy, but whatever. At this point I was high and cold and just wanted to dance. Because the first party was suppose to end at 6am, not 4am, the second place wasn't set up yet. So, in reward for waiving the $15 cover, we helped set up speakers and such. This translated into standing around looking pretty, since we had no fucking clue what to do. We then hung around until about 5:30am, at which point hunger and sore legs won over, also the drugs were losing their effect. We then said our goodbyes, and headed to Nassim's house, where I had some of the best Persian rice and meat ever.. mmmm.

Having then satisfied my hunger, and feeling weary, I drove home. I am still buzzed, so I'm writing this in an effort to keep me occupied until it wears off.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote.

I will try and find some of the photos from the event, I should have taken my camera. I'm forgetting how to be a raver, GAWD. I think I'm going to get back into the scene a bit. If not to just have some fun every once a month or so.