Yule Ball

Yesterday, my boss asked me if I was interested to work for the winter camp, which takes place from December 21st to January 2nd or something, except for Christmas day and New Year. As much as I need the money, especially since I wouldn’t be working at all during this time, I’m not sure I want to work during the holidays.

And I just found out that the Fifth Annual Yule Ball, which I’d really like to attend since last year’s was SO awesome, is going to be on December 20th, the day before the first day of the camp. Which means that if I decide to work for the camp, I can’t go to Boston for the show. And one of the reasons why I wanted to work was to get money to go to that Yule Ball.

So I’m torn between what’s good for my wallet, or what’s good for myself. And what’s good for my wallet is also good for myself, that’s what’s hard about it.

Last Exam!

I’m leaving in a few minutes to take my last exam of the semester. Because I’m a procrastinator and one of my teachers extended the deadline for a paper, I’ll still have that to do after tonight, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Hopefully, because the exam in that class didn’t go too well yesterday.

This semester, the last exam also means that I’m going to start my field experience fairly soon. I’m going to the Centre des Sciences de Montréal tomorrow – it’ll be my first time meeting with the students. Then Friday, and a few other days next week, I’m going to the school to observe them and plan what I’m going to do with them. I’m pretty nervous.

And field experience means that I’m going to be living at my mum’s again, at least during the week. I’ll miss my own bed.

I’m leaving now. Wish me luck!

Good Day, Average Night

Today started and I didn’t even notice it, too absorbed doing the presentation of a big paper done in team. I went to sleep at 3:30, which isn’t so good, but I didn’t have any class this morning so I could sleep in a bit. I was meeting a teammate at 12:30 and we went to get it binded and handed it in. Then I had a class at 2:00, but since it was the last class of the semester, it was mostly to answer our questions. It ended at 3:00, so my uni friends and I stayed a bit to chat. It was cool. End-of-term sillyness and fun (and one of my friends started to make Triforces out of torn agenda corners and a Zelda fangirl moment ensued). Then I went to watch hockey at my mum’s and the Canadiens won 5-1.

I’d decided to come back to sleep at my appartment even if it was kind of late (was tired because of the short night), for many reasons that would be too boring to enumerate here. So I took the 10:08 bus. It arrived a few minutes late at the stop – I was afraid I had missed it. There was a lot of traffic on the bridge (I think only one lane was open or something), so I arrived at the station 10 minutes later than planned. Then I walk to the metro – it’s down. Half the orange line isn’t working. How am I supposed to get home at this hour?? A security agent (I think?) gave me some basic directions to walk to the green line. I started to follow them, but very quickly outside I knew I would get lost, and I didn’t want to be lost, alone, downtown Montreal, at 11:30. I went back to the bus station and called home, but my cellphone battery didn’t have enough life. I used the old way – public phone. I thought nobody would be asleep yet – turns out they were, but my brother picked up anyways. He Googled the directions for me. Now, my brother is very, very bad at giving any kind of explanation. I was getting angry at him when we were younger and he was trying to explain a math problem to me. Imagine how good it can be over the phone, when I can’t walk along with his directions (being stuck at the public phone booth), and he’s half-asleep. I think I made him repeat five times. Then I went outside again, and saw that I kind of recognised the place. I didn’t follow my brother’s directions because I wasn’t sure I could walk on a street he’d told me to take, and I was sure I’d already taken another path that was way more welcoming. I ended up finding the other street I was supposed to take after the other one, so I continued from there. I walked. Some places were familiar (Peel Pub!!), but I never pay attention to the directions when I’m with people who know where they’re going, so I had no idea if I was close to the station or not. Then I came across the Cinéma Banque Scotia, where there’s always the midnight showing of the HP movies. I knew how to get to the station from the underground there! I tried some doors by the cinema to the underground and they were locked. Then I went in the cinema, since I knew it would still be open at this hour, to ask for directions. After that, I finally managed to find the station (thanks, cinema guy!). After the ride, there was still the 10-minutes walk to the appartment that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I think the neighbourhood is relatively safe, but I’m still very new to this living-in-the-city thing. I was not feeling safe. I tried to make as little noise as possible to be unnoticed. Fall being fall, there were obvisouly a lot of very noise-making leaves on the sidewalk. I was afraid the weird guy from the other day would be there and talk to me again. I think I saw someone sitting in the stairs close to the KFC, but I didn’t want to stare, that may just be my imagination. I also imagined that an electricity post was a person…

I finally arrived here safely. Germain was awake, lights were still on. It was midnight. Not that late, after all. Everything is so much worse when you’re on your own.

Matt Lewis Likes Hockey!

A follow-up of this article from a looong time ago (BEDA!). The title was “Matt Lewis Watched Heroes!!” and I was talking about Twitter and its power over the fans, etc.

So I was checking Twitter and I saw this :

Mattdavelewis Tonight I shall be attending the Boston Bruins vs. Nashville Predators NHL game. I support Lowell Devils so haven’t picked a team yet.
about 4 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis I kinda follow LA Kings too since I saw them smash the Blackhawks in January. But the Devils were the first team I ever saw so it’s them.
about 5 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis I was in Calgary during the playoffs a few months ago. I think they got beat. Badly. And yes I mean Minor League Lowell Devils!
about 4 hours ago from web

Mattdavelewis It’s gotta be the Bruins! http://yfrog.com/5mekaj
5 minutes ago from Tweetie

…..I got super excited that he was talking about the NHL, but then he picked the Bruins. Evil, Matt Lewis, evil.

This Early Is Still Late

I was so much into a not-going-to-finish-this-paper-until-2-am mind that, when I finished it a few minutes ago, I was all happy, thinking I still had a few hours to myself (because I was obviously not going to start working on anything else tonight). It’s 11. I should probably be happy to get to sleep “early”, but it’s still a disappointment that I can’t do other stuff, because this early is still late.

I don’t even know what I would have done with those few hours.

Rejected

Anyone knows how Facebook works for accepting friend requests? Does the ”Add as friend” friend come back after some time if the person hasn’t replied, or does the person have to ignore the request for it to appear again?

I tried to add someone (you might guess who it is) a few weeks ago, and whenever I went to check his profile (which is private, by the way, *sigh*), it said “Awaiting reply” or something like that. I just went to look and the “Add as friend” is available again, like I’d never tried to add him. Either he rejected me, or Facebook gives me the right to request again because it’s been a long time. I honestly think it’s not Facebook, but I can’t see how he would still ignore me on purpose. Like, in public, you can ignore someone by pretending you didn’t see them, but to ignore someone on Facebook, you have to click a button that says “Ignore”. It’s not as easy. He chose not to ignore the “Ignore” button.

On a totally unrelated note (well, it’s related to Facebook, but other than that…), there’s something that’s kind of awkward. There’s a girl from uni that added me as a friend. I’ve never spoken to her (maybe a “hi!” or two, but no conversation). I accepted her request because I know who she is and she seems nice, but I still don’t talk to her at school. This week-end she posted some pictures and they’d been taken in the city where my mum was born, so I had to comment on them.

Is it weird that I don’t find it awkward to meet someone IRL when I’ve met them online before, but it’s awkward to talk to someone online when you’ve only met them IRL? You know we, Internet people, see the web differently than those who only use it casually. When you meet someone IRL and they ask for your e-mail address or add you on Facebook, do you write to them the same way you would write to someone you’ve met online? I’m always shy when I use the first “lol” on a web convo with someone I know IRL. They’ll probably know what it means (hopefully), but what does “lol” mean to them? I mean, for some people, “lol” is a real geek word and they might stereotype my as a real geek. I’m not ashamed of being a geek, but I don’t want to be stereotyped. Also, I use “lol” sort-of as punctuation sometimes, a bad habit I got back when I was a pre-teen. Will they think I’m really laughing out loud (maybe at them?) or do they use it the same way as I do? What I mean by all of this is that, when you speak online to someone you’ve met IRL, you never know if they, too, are an “Internet person”. It’s also like that when you meet someone who says they’re a Harry Potter fan. Most of the time, I get excited for nothing because they just like HP. They’re still Muggles.

(I’m not sure any of that made sense, but I really have to get some work done so I can’t re-read. Sorry.)

That Was Supposed to Be Posted on Twitter

When it happened, I was walking and I didn’t want to text as I was walking, and then I was on the metro where I have no reception. And then I forgot. Now it’s a bit too late, because Twitter is supposed to be “What-I’m-doing-RIGHT-NOW”, so I’m posting it here instead.

So yeah, last night I was walking on the street to the metro, it was dark but only 7:00 or 7:30. A random guy, on the other side of the street, starts asking me, in English, if I have a cigarette. I say no, of course, because I don’t smoke and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d have given one to a stranger like this. By the time I’d answered, he’d crossed the street, so I walked right past him, and after a few seconds, he says, behind my back: “Why don’t you talk to me? You never talk to me…” I stopped, a bit panicking because it was dark, I was alone and I had a lot of money on me (what I never do, by the way). When he finished his speech saying how I was never talking to him (wtf, I don’t talk to you because I don’t know you! I don’t even remember seeing you anywhere before!), I looked at him in puzzlement, and all I thought of saying was: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English.” HA. He continued, even with a few words of French that I could hardly understand, by saying that nobody liked him and he didn’t have any friends… I repeated again that I didn’t understand. I started moving again, not turning around until I was sure he wasn’t going to follow me, and then a lady that was passing by asked me (in French) if I was okay. I said that I was, and then the guy left. So I walked towards the metro again, not daring to look back to see where he’d gone.

Sometimes I’m really glad to live in a bilingual city and to speak both languages.

That was a bit sad, though.  He was not all there, for sure, and didn’t have anyone to talk to. He must be really lonely.

Guilty

Wow, I’m posting a lot lately. Is it BEDA yet?

This is what my bed looks like tonight, after hours of laundry last night and putting back my quilt into its cover: http://twitpic.com/kbhc7. No damage done, except one spot on my quilt that didn’t disappear entirely, but it’s hidden by the cover anyway, so that’s not a problem. Phew.

Did I ever post in here about that concept map I had to do for one of my classes? That was all over Twitter and Facebook, I think, but anyways. Before I was done, I was thinking that I really had too much work to do, and I didn’t see how I would find time to do everything. Then I was done, and I realised that it’s not that bad. I do have a lot of stuff, all due before the end of the month (last exam is on October 28), but I basically took the week-end off. I’ll probably want to kill myself later for that, but that wouldn’t be the first time. I feel guilty though. I went to the uni library today to find some books to start researching for a team project. I spent some time there, reading the books and I got good stuff, but I didn’t actually start the research then. I borrowed the books and called my mum: “Hey, what’s for dinner?” I had dinner with my mum and brother (chinese food! yes!), then I felt like watching some TV with them but there was nothing to watch. My mum told me she didn’t mind seeing that “Deal or No Deal - Montreal Canadiens” special again and I hadn’t seen it, so I watched it. Then she drove me home. It was still early, I could have started getting some info in those books I borrowed, but I watched the Glee and Dollhouse episodes from this week (my mum can’t watch them cause they’re in English, that’s why I was saying there was nothing but Deal or No Deal that I could watch when I was there).

I just missed my family, I guess. I wanted to be with them all weekend – and I’ve been most of the time when I wasn’t at work (or doing laundry or getting books at the library). It felt good. I like living on my own, I really do, but I miss them so much. It’s also so different from my other “living-away-from-home” experience. I was living farther away (an hour and a half car ride, two hours bus ride) with crappy roommates. Whenever I was there, I wanted to be home, but not because I missed it – because I wanted to be away from there. When I was home, I was missing the freedom of living on my own, and sometimes my mum and my brother even got on my nerves. I was never totally satisfied. Now it’s just so different. I like both lives. I don’t know if I would go back to live full-time with my mum if, for example, my roommates both decided to leave and I still had enough money to pay rent, but I’d probably like to live a little closer. Lately I’ve been thinking how awesome it would be if I had a car (obviously I can’t afford that and it’d be kind of stupid since I live close to the metro – I wouldn’t even take it to go to uni), because I could go see them whenever I wanted. It’s a 20 minutes drive (if there’s no traffic), but an hour or more in public transport. …*sigh*

And to say I used to be thinking of studying abroad or go work very far away from home. Now I realise that I couldn’t. Maybe I could have, a few years ago, but now it’d be too hard. I guess I’m stuck here, then. Oh well. That doesn’t keep me from travelling. The best part of travelling is that I can take people with me.

Lost Comments

While looking to see if I could make better lists on my blog, I saw that I had “35 comments in spamming queue” or something like that. I almost didn’t go check. Turns out there were 3 comments – 2 from Marzieh and one from Lindsay – that somehow got stuck in there. They’re pretty old, so I’ll link you to them as an apology for not approving them earlier. ♥

Marzieh’s and Lindsay’s comments on “LeakyCon – Day 1″ – May 31st (so now we know what happened to that comment!)

Marzieh’s comment on “It Seems Like Forever” – July 4th

Sorry girls!

My Day Was Average

I decided to start this as a sort of regular series of articles. It probably won’t be regular, but I already have 2 articles of this kind and they’re fun to make. I’ll try to find out how to make lists without having the text too painful to read… In the meantime, here’s the third (and officially first) “Average Day” article.

• I thought I was getting paid this week, but it turns out I got paid last week. Oops.
• My boss asked me to go to the inauguration of the new center on Monday night for two hours. I said I’d go, thinking I would be paid, but as he kept telling me that there would be some food and stuff, I realised that he would have said so if I were to be paid. So I probably won’t be.
• It’s still hell with that pre-K kid. His behaviour is better, but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just not qualified for this. And if I say that to my boss, he’ll just tell me to hang in there and if I’m able to come through this, I’ll be a better teacher and blah-blah. I’m sad for the parents who are paying for this. They could get a better job done with this money.
• I finally got my hair cut. About time. My mum paid for it. Awesome mum.
• It’s not very different. Not sure if it’s good or bad. I didn’t want a big change, I just wanted it to stop being a pain.
• My fringe was so long and annoying that I was using a pin to hold it back, but not that it’s shorter, I can’t do it anymore and the (now shorter) fringe is annoying.
• I went at the drug store to get random things, and spotted a flat iron at $20 instead of $70!
• It scares me a bit because it’s not electricity powered – it’s butane (weird I know) – …
• …but the good part is that it makes it wireless :)
• This was actually yesterday.
• It’s so cold! And rainy.

And the best part:

• Cats peed on my bed. On five different spots. I’m saying plural because I don’t know which one did it or if it’s the two of them. I don’t get angry very easily, and I’m at the very edge of it.
• My bedroom smells like cat pee.
• Fortunately, I have some Febreeze.
• Scent of orange/citrus thing. Mmm.
• I’m spending my Saturday night doing laundry.
• Instead of watching hockey.
• ^That rhymed.
• My mattress seems untouched. This is relieving.
• I get to switch to my “comfort” sheet set a bit early. I was planning to wait a bit, but since I have to undo my bed to wash everything, might as well make the change.

12 annoying things and 9 (relatively) good things. This day wasn’t average, it was annoying.