The Dare I Won Yesterday
Inge and I were at SUB yesterday. As we were talking, a guy and his girlfriend came by holding their pizza slices. The guy did one mistake: He placed his slice dangerously close to — no, not the edge of the table — me. I whispered over to Inge, “You know, I should swipe that piece of pepperoni.”

“No you won’t. Will you?”
“If you dare me to, you know I’d do it.”
“Ok, fine. I dare you to ask that guy for that piece of pepperoni.”

I swiftly turned around and said in my froggish hoarse voice, “Um, excuse me? Do you mind if I take that piece of pepperoni?”
The guy looked flabbergasted, but not wanting to be rude, immediately replied, “Huh? Oh no, go ahead.”

I took and piece and smugly smiled at Inge. Hah — ANA 1, INGE 0. Not only do I win bragging rights to this silly dare, I also win a surprise from Inge in the near future.

Challenge/Dare
I was sitting at work when a bunch of Star Wars nerds walked into the store. They were talking about this lightsabre and that lightsabre held by who-knows-what; it got me thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have your very own lightsabre?” And I’m not talking about those ugly plastic toy ones, I mean design a better one that’s clear, thin, sturdy, eminating a majestic red or green light. I’ve seen it done before. In RvB, a user named MoeParker managed to do it.

Here’s one for all my little engineering friends. I challenge/dare you to design and make a lightsabre. What do you think? Yeah, so it’s not in the same league as the aforementioned Pepperoni Swipe Incident, but meh.

Listening to Old School Love by Divine Brown and Let it Be by The Beatles
Feeling: Sick, but alright; Treated: Chicken soup, tea biscuit, and donut (THANKS INGE!); Visitors: 2 sisters, 2 guy friends; D&D character names thought of: 4; Funniest Revelation: Knull and “Sweatshirt Girl”; Coughs: 100x; Swigs of Cough Med: 3x

Revelation
Knull was making out with this girl and ended up taking her back to the DU house to continue what they began in the back of the bus. She wore this red hoodie and kept most of her face hidden under the face of Knull. For afar and from my drunken vision, Philosophy Mark and I had to agree that she was decent looking.

NO SHE IS NOT.

As we left our Philosophy class, we walked passed some dishevelled snarly girl. She looked and smelled like a bum. She had brown stringy hair that looked like Crisco was smothered in it. Her eyes were seedy and small, accusatory. Her lips were constantly in a pout that’s cute — if she was a cute person. Alas, she is not. Philosophy Mark and I looked at each other.

“Was she — ?”
Mark took a second glance and stammered, “Oh oh oh — I think she is”
“With James?”
“Oh man, I would hate to wake up next to that!”
“Ha ha. Don’t worry, it’s a general rule that whatever happens in Highway stays on Highway”
“Not STDs it doesn’t. Did you SEE that chick? I bet she’s carrying 5 of them, collecting them from the streets.”
“Oh that’s mean, buddy. Ha ha”
“You were thinking the same thing”
“Poor James”
“Man, if I was that chick, I would wear that hoodie and a ski mask.”
“To think that we thought James would be bragging”
“There is NO WAY I would brag about that one. I would spend my time DENYING any relations to her!”

Overheard on the LRT/ETS
Guy #1: I have paprika, salt, pepper, and thyme.
Guy #2: I have just pepper and salt.
Guy #3: You guys serious? I have salt, white pepper, rosemary, thyme, dill, basil, cumin, paprika, mustard, kosher salt, sea salt, basil, garlic salt, black peppercorns — you name it, I got it.
Guy #1: Whoa man, that’s intense.
Guy #2: We gotta see that spice rack of yours.
Guy #1: Definitely, man, definitely.

Ugly 20-something woman sits in the back: low slung jeans, gut flowing over, shamelessly revealling short baby tee with an equally unflattering zip-up. Three 15-16 year olds with t-shirts, greased hair, and baggy jeans with strategic rips enter the bus. Ugly moves to sit and talk behind them. They talk for a while.

Boy #1: How old are you?
Ugly: 24 years old; how about you fellows?
Boy #1: Wow, we’re all, like, 15 years old; ‘cept for my buddy here, he turned 16 yesterday.
Ugly: Wow, you boys are pretty young.
Boy #2: So I guess you done school, huh?
Ugly: You can say that. I dropped out at Grade 11.
Boy #3: Why? They got a problem with you?
Ugly: I see school as an opportunity to do what I need to do to follow my dreams. They didn’t have what I needed to do to follow my dreams so I dropped it and I’ve been happier since. I don’t got to listen to nobody.
Boy #3: What did you want to be?
Ugly: I wanted to be a model.

This is why I sometimes love and hate being with Joe and Jane Public. She continued to give “advice” to these boys as if she’ll be their savior from her “lifetime of knowledge” she acquired from “living it up”. Yeah right. The only advice I have to give to her is: “Comb your hair. Water is not your enemy; take a decent bath”.

Blurst of Friendships
“It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?! You stupid monkey!” — Montgomery Burns, Simpsons.

I wanted to ease this piece with humor because I didn’t want this to sound like a pile of cheesy goodness. Inge is a close friend of mine that I’ve known since my good ole geeky days of high school to my good present geeky days of now. He’s always been there and seen me at my absolute worst, tonight being one of them as I lazily loll about in my favorite sweatpants and sweatshirt combo, with unkempt hair, with a stuffy nose, with a Vaporubbed smell, and with a bad cough.

He brought me chicken soup, a tea biscuit, and a donut with sprinkles. Hallejulah! As a thank you, here are a few words as an Ode to Inge: Your Mom. And I mean every word to the deepest part of my hollow heart.

Matty G came by later on to hang out and we three shared the best stories of old and new: Broken bones, concussions, worst fake self, the Johnstone charisma enigma, Engineering AutoCAD programs, buildings of artistic merit, lost souls of Art students, skiing/snowboarding stories, etc — I cannot think of two better guys I would love to accompany to go skiing/snowboarding in winter than these two goofballs. Inge, if you plan it, I shall come. Count me in. I’m dragging you to go snowpants shopping. I need to update my current snowjacket with a cool pair of snowpants. (AND, I have been putting money away for a snowboard and gear. I actually was thinking of joining you this year for your ski trips with my own snowboard. It was suppose to be a surprise …)

Hair
I’m bored with my hair. Should I continue to let it grow out into nice layers like they way it is now? Should I color it? If I do color it, should it be wild and spunky or natural and accents? I was actually thinking of dying it with chunks of red and orange stripes, then I thought, “I’m going to look like Pepe LePieu from some screwed up television set with bad color”.

May be a better hair cut is all I need? Then again, I do want to grow my hair. What should I do? Suggestions?

Listening to Baby Grand and Georgia by Ray Charles
Feeling: Sickish; Drinking Cough Syrup in Manner of Shots: 2x

I Must Be Sick
… since I think I agreed to play D&D with Marc and his gang. It was a conversation of sorts on MSN, one topic led to another, and all of a sudden M&M’s going to be talking to his friend Andrew to see if I could join in their campaign. Huh? What did I just agree to?

It’s not like I’ll be doing something cooler to deny the invite; “Sorry guys, I want to finish Kingdom Hearts” or “But I really want to finish my necessary readings for class …” — HA!

Being Sick
I hate being sick. I’m not so sick that I cannot function although it felt like that in the morning. I took two swigs of Dayquil and rubbed some Vaporub on myself and I found myself almost fit as a fiddle. The Vaporub made me a little self-concious of the smell I emitted. I suddenly found myself as the “Stinky Sick Kid” in class.

Vaporub does smell good though. It is the smell of eucalyptus flowers. My mother and my grandma would rub this Chinese oil stuff called, “White Flower” when I was young and it’s the same smell. Mmm. I love Vaporub; I use it for everything. I used to rub the stuff on myself when I had a tummy ache. Or when I had a headache or a backache. Basically any “ache” I had, I would use this stuff and I would be cured instantly! Ha ha. My cure-all would be “Vaporub”.

Some people might find it wierd, but I don’t think so. It’s not unlike Murasaki who successfully concocts strange mixtures of coffee and cough syrup to make a cure-all. I was tempted to try some of them though. It does sound intriguing, but I was more intrigued with Nina’s cure of roasting garlic and eating the cloves as is or drinking it with tea, ginger, and lemon. I didn’t try it because I don’t want to have Industrial-strength bad breath for weeks.

Cuteness!
My sister’s cat is the cutest thing ever. CUTEST!

I am sick. I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I thought to myself, “Hm, this is just a slight headache. I’ll sleep it off and then read those reviews for my JAPAN 330 class. Yuppers!” Hours past by and my throbbing head couldn’t find rest. Finally, it was 10:30pm, so I decided to sleep and read the stuff during work. I couldn’t get to sleep.

I had the shivers. Everything to anything I did was either too hot or too cold. I couldn’t get comfortable. My pillows suddenly felt like bricks. My eyes feel sunken in with fatigue. I cough. My head still feels like a ton and my neck is about to break from the weight.

Today is Tuesday making it my extremely busy day where my day doesn’t end until 8pm. I go to class from 9:30 - 10:50 followed by work from 11-4:45pm, then off back to school for my JAPAN 330 class from 5-8pm. I have two essays due — one for each class — and I can’t afford NOT to go to work. Yeah, I know — I’m committing suicide by doing this. Don’t you all worry. I’ll be taking extra good care of myself today to make sure I don’t do anything completely exhausting.

Right after class, I’ll walk over to the 24 hour Shopper’s Drug Mart and get some medicine. This is frickin’ ridiculous.

Ok, my right middle finger is definitely swollen. I woke up this morning with a bigger lump on my throat from an impending sore throat and to find that my finger looks like a pulsating mini Twinkie.

I was stung yesterday for the first time by a wasp. I didn’t even deserve it. I was walking along — la la la — and then WHAMO — I get this sudden piercing pain shoot up my arm. I quickly glanced down in alarm to see the thin black and yellow culprit buzz away. That little … Grrr.

I think my previous post about Highway 2 Hell is more exciting, but I can’t help but write about this because it is physically constraining. One more day and if this still keeps up, I’ll go to a doctor. Damn you insects.

Getting Sick
I am getting sick. I can tell. I have this small throbbing pain in my head, a sore throat that doesn’t seem to be getting better, porky fingers — well, finger — and a runny nose to add to the list. I can’t afford to get sick until Sunday; even then, I’m trying to get someone to switch so I can work on Sunday. This week is a week of hellish assignments and mini-quizzes. I can’t afford to get sick. This Saturday is the wedding of my cousin. I can’t afford to get sick; I have shoes I want to buy!

Shoes
I need new nice black shoes. Not just any shoes, rounded toe high heels. Those are the shoes I want to buy. Now that Klein is going to be giving away approx. $400 to everyone because of this magicial ’surplus’, I can afford to splurge a little. (Then again, I’m known now to splurge “a little”.)

I’m due in for some new high heels. My last pair was bought for my grade 9 GRAD!

if I did, I know exactly what kind of character I would be. My name would be Alcyone or “Queen who wards off [storms]” in Greek and my character would be based on her. Alcyone is the main and biggest star — big cold blue and silver star — amongst the famous star cluster, the Pleiades or “The Seven Sisters”. The story of her’s is a sad one and is also one of my favorite stories of love and devotion in Greek mythology. (It’s kind of pansy-ish. You can read it here.) She was always been associated with wind and winter so I always thought, if I were a magician or wizard of some sort, my character would primarily have some sort of Aero power or Ice power. Since it takes place in the Greek times, I wouldn’t rely heavily on armour; light armour and small melee weapons would suffice for my character.

As for personality, I would make her not so much the “weep weep, I have no reason to live now that my husband is gone” version of Alcyone. I would make my character more rougish and mischievous — a total opposite of the “weep weep” version. I would make sure that I was Queen of something or, at least, good at warding off evil … and not attacking the darkness.

I would be so cool if I was a fantasy character. Alcyone. I always thought that name was cool.

Late at night, after reading, I have strange thoughts. Very strange my friend.

Operative
Special Agent Foxhound
Objectives
1) Steal a cowboy hat
2) Procure as many free drinks from men

Notes:
Mission was a success. Despite lack of funds due to impromptu acceptance of the mission, Agent Foxhound was able to procure many drinks from random targets using her feminine wiles. Giggity. However, was unable to secure a cowboy hat for more than 45 minutes despite many attempts. Will disavow all memories of the night.

Other:
- Has successfuly humilated a group of naive Delta Gamma (DG) fraternity girls by goading them to hit on incredibly cute Delta Upsilon (DU) Scott. Scott is gay.
- Found one tall dark handsome man in BAR ONE who turned not to be so tall, dark, nor handsome in BAR TWO. (Damn you/Thank you sobriety!)
- Found different tall, dark, handsome man in BAR THREE who really is tall, dark, and handsome. HIs name: Tyler Chapman. I lost him on the bus.
- 13 1/2 drinks and 1 beer from 13 different men

Side Note:
To clarify, I am not a drunk. In fact, I prefer not to drink in parties; I am, however, a social drinker. The last time I found myself wasted-drunk was months ago. Every party since then, I have not found the need to drink. When people find this out they assume that I have quit drinking, which is not the case. I just chose to let fate decide when I should drink. This is my own version of AA; my philosophy being, “I won’t drink, unless I do”. Just surrender myself to the higher-ups, leaving it to God, Jesus, or the like to decide the appropriate time. “WWJD”: When Would Jesus Drink? should have been my fashion bracelet.

When H2H came rolling by, I was adament not to drink until the second bar. However, fate would not let me have it. In walks in Beatrice and her main man Jacob (aka. “Jesus” amongst his fraternity breathern) who offered me my first drink of the night. It was downhill from there.

Jesus: (referring to drinks, implying he would treat me to a second) What would you like?
Ana: More, but I can find my own. *wink*

Ok, so once people hear this, they might think it sounds cliche or an excuse. People may flame, people may also sympathize or empathize or whatever the case may be. What I have done so far was smack mself at the side of the head and thought to myself, “Oh, silly me. I should have known”. Think whatever you like, dear reader, but the verdict stands as the following:

“I”m looking more for a best friend …”

Sure, it’s a bit of a disappointment, but he answered straight-forward and honestly. That was all I needed: an indication of where I stood so I knew what lines not to cross. Well, I can’t do anything but move on. That ends that mini-chapter. THE END.

Richers
Seven years and the emails are still going. It’s been a seven year friendship for Richers and I, 4 of those have been kept via the Internet. He sent me an email today to update his current situation and to ask for my sister’s services.

What could I say about Richard? He’s cool. He has brown hair. He’s also one of the few friends I was friends with in high school and out of high school. He also publishes a magazine with his friend called, Dog Fuck Check it out if you want..

Listening to Strong Enough by Sheryl Crow, Fading like a Flower by Roxette, Time After Time by Everything But the Girl
Feeling: Gitty like a schoolgirl; Tea: Vanilla Green; Confessions: 1; Scholarships: 1; Texts not bought: 1

Cowardly?
I did a classic Cinderella Act: I left a shoe (ie. obvious statement, hint, or article of clothing) and then left, leaving me with no responsibility to the aftermath. Was this a cowardly or bold act?

So there’s this guy who I went out for tea with …
To cut a long story short, he drives me home and we listen to a couple songs before I decide I should leave. By this time, I’m already kicking myself mentally because I have done absolutely NOTHING. So in a quick rush of inspiration, I turned around and said, “Oh by the way …”, and kissed him on the cheek. I hoisted my bag to my shoulders and hurriedly said, “I think I am falling for you — just to put that out there”. Then, I left. I, red-faced with a silly grin on my face, ran — well, trotted? Power-walked? — inside to my condo complex, turned the key, and then did a little dance.

I was filled with this over-powering sense of accomplishment. But as I calmed myself down, I can’t help but think, “Wow. Did I just do that? Hmm, bold?” I rarely put myself out there unless I am expecting a return. He just manages to surprise me in small ways. I wonder if I managed to surprise him this time around? La la la. I’ll just continue humming.

Scholarship and Interview Results
Ana,

Congratulations. The committee is pleased to support your application to
study in Japan next year.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Who’s going to Japan for three months? ME! This chickie-baby is going to Japan for three months, all expenses paid, to do intensive Japanese language studying in OSAKA! Weeee! I’m so excited. I am in this euphoria. La la la. I’ll just be humming here as well.

Highway 2 Hell
To go or not to go? That is the question. Opinions?