Category: Academic

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#031/032: Of procrastination, finals, and snowfall

Currently listening to: “Love Story” – Taylor Swift

I HAVE NOTICED A GRIEVOUS ERROR IN THE NUMBERING OF MY POSTS.
THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE ENTRY NUMBER THIRTY-TWO (32).

Mary’s back in the blogosphere! What have I been doing for the past nine days or so? Well, the answer is quite simple- in a word (or two), epic procrastination of the best sort. I’ve read countless random books (including Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and Lauren Willig’s Napoleonic War romance-intrigue-historicalwhatsits series), grocery-shopped, looped the Hair Original Broadway Cast Recording more times than I can recall, and followed the coalition government news with great passion, but aside from all that….
not that much has been achieved vis-a-vis finals.

It could be worse, of course: out of nine chapters of Psych, I’ve read and annotated seven-and-a-half chapters; one-and-a-half more to go. And of course, I ought to commence some much-needed French prep. That might be nice.

So I took three minutes out of this blogging and went to the UBC LEAP website, looking for past French 122 exams. What, this is nothing at all like what we’re doing? I’m so utterly confused. It is from 2003, which might mean that stuff’s changing. I shall…get around to studying, then worry about it. Oh, typical Mary.

Regarding snow-
I am very, very put out that it is not snowing where I am.

That is all.

Categories
Academic Careers / Work Miscellaneous

#027: Multiple orders of business!

Currently listening to: “Foux de Fafa” – Flight of the Conchords

hello, I am Mary, hear me ramble.

Order of Business Numero UNO:
HEY JAYNE, I HEAR YA. The first thing you learn in Arts One is that you can’t write. Not even for change, baby. Not even Plato can save you. You’re in the cave. And you can’t get out. But I digress, as usual.

Order of Business Numero DEUX:
Twelve-year-olds, IT’S OKAY. You can RELAX. The world is not coming to an end. Yes, the Twilight movie is coming out. IT IS SERIOUSLY ALRIGHT. Don’t forget to breathe. (Or you know…don’t…let’s see…uhm.)

And on the same note, is there any real good reason why is Indigo selling Twilight t-shirts? What are we, the Gap? American freaking Eagle? Are we going to sell out and become the TNA of the book industry? Are we going to start selling tank tops for $50 – NO. WAIT.

I will rephrase that.

It’s really not our fault. We sell books. We’re just doing our job. BUT Twilight has blown out of proportion. A faintly entertaining novel with great potential to be read aloud in a sarcastic manner has been seized and taken hostage by the movie industry, as usual. I actually found the books quite entertaining. I had nothing against them in particular. In typical consummate Hollywood style, the industry is just so desperate to latch onto the next kids’ bestseller, make it into a movie featuring some unknowns, and market their end product (“I’d rather die than stay away from you”? “You are my life now”? WTF? Aren’t they like, seventeen???) to aforementioned hyperventilating twelve-year-olds, rendering themselves, and the kids, absolutely incomprehensible to polite society.

Even more puzzling to me are the 40-year-old women who read the books. I can’t quite imagine why, unless you were a highly worried parent wondering what sort of madness has stricken your poor and unfortunate child in throes of Twilightmania.

Order of Business, Numero TROIS:
T’is the season for wellies!!!!!!!!!

With that, I shall leave you now.
Ta, till the next time!

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#026: Rousseau, Tricot Machine, and other randoms

Currently listening to: “Pas fait en chocolat” – Tricot Machine

So, the Rousseau essay for Arts One is still in progress. Five hundred-ish more words to go! Listening to delightful French ditties while drumming out paragraphs on inequality is quite entertaining but time-consuming. Ah well, at least the Discourse on Inequality was easy and enjoyable enough to read. These essays may be hell to write (or maybe I’m just a procrastinator), but at the end of it all, a rather lovely wave of satisfaction washes over as I beam down at the neatly printed, paper-clipped sheafs of paper. Lovely.

In other news, Tricot Machine is my new music obsession.

I’ve been listening to their debut album – it’s never really struck a chord with me before, but the more I listen to it, the better it gets. Take a listen to “Pas fait en chocolat” and the super-adorable “L’ours”. Their music videos are absolutely delightful- whimsy abounds! Dripping with eclectic goodness! Lomography-inspired! You don’t see videos like that every day.

And since I’m constantly playing word association in my mind. On the topic of music, does anyone have any entertaining British rap to recommend? It never fails to make me chuckle. Oh witty Brit-rap, how I adore thee.

More one-liners:
– cannot believe that first semester is almost over, and finals are upon us! Le gasp.
– needs to buy Virginia Woolfe’s Orlando
– is 1/7th to goal to fund next year’s cross-North America trip and pay next year’s rent
– needs wellies! Splish splash.
– Christmas drinks at Starbucks! Now I feel guilty.

Ta for now, me lads and lasses.

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#019: Miscellaneous prattle.

Currently listening to: an inane conversation I’m eavesdropping on

I’m currently hovering in the foyer of Swing, waiting for Psych to start in a little over half an hour. After getting up early to surprise a friend for her birthday, and a delightful cup of coffee, I find myself returning to update this blog. Life has been madness of late. I realize fully that, of course, means that I’ve been neglecting this space, and feeding it tidbits of junk when I can spare a moment. It’s momentarily filling, but essentially unsubstantial. But honestly, that’s what life can seem like at times. Great to be living in the moment, but upon introspection and retrospect, not quite whole.

Two seconds of thoughtfulness later (it never quite lasts), let’s skim the surface of comings and goings of late.

1. WPNCUP (basically, the Western Canada regional conference for the Canadian University Press) is THIS WEEKEND, and I am super excited! Essentially, it’s a chance for student journalists from across Western Canada to meet, attend interesting and informative sessions on reporting, covering various events, etc, and talk to people in the business…it all sounds terribly interesting and I’ll keep you updated on how that goes! In the same vein, a friend of mine who lives in Edmonton will be here for that, so that‘s fabulous too. In a nutshell, lots of general goodness going around on that front.

2. Midterm fever: Psych midterm went relatively quietly – it’s come and gone, and nobody really knows where it’s snuck off to, the tricky blighter. The Arts One in-class essay on Plato’s Republic appears to have disappeared into oblivion. No, not really. It’s tomorrow, after much madness and postponing. Whoo-hooooooooooooo. Let’s hope my brain doesn’t disappear into the Cave never to return again…that might just be a slight problem.

3. I miss acting something terrible ): Work has become such a major thing in my life and it really doesn’t leave very much time for theatre. Which, of course, means that I’m ending up spending lots on watching shows and such. Ironic, no? The time which could be otherwise spent doing shows is used for work…and the money from work is used to watch shows…and rendering my penniless again…it’s a vicious cycle, what can I say? On that note of shows and theatre, I’ve been looping the AVENUE Q CAST RECORDING lately. Rah rah rah.

Psych is starting in a bit. More soon, hopefully. Ta for now!

Categories
Academic Miscellaneous

#018: Lovelovelove.

Currently listening to: “Nine People’s Favourite Thing” – [title of show]

So [title of show] has closed on Broadway, but their music lives on!
This officially-released music video of the [currently listening to] track brings on a wave of the sniffles.

Watch it, go watch it, it’s brilliant, I swear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtdgvmYUuuA

“I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing
Than a hundred peoples ninth favorite thing

Nine people’s favorite thing
Than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing

Those nine people will tell nine people
Then we’ll have eighteen people loving the show
Then eighteen people could grow into
Five-hundred and twenty-five-thousand, six-hundred people
Loving our show!”

D’aaaaaw.

In other news, my Psych 100 midterm seems to have gone rather alright; we shall wait and see. Now, on to reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses! Ta for now!

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