Dang cold.

Ohhh my aching head. I have a cold. And while I am grateful that it's just a cold and not the dreaded swine flu, I am still going to complain that I feel downright crummy! I have gone downhill in the past hour to the point now, of wishing I was at home, in bed and being taken care of by my mom. She'd make me tea and toast with cinnamon-sugar cut up into perfect quarters. She'd fawn over me and make me feel important and taken care of. I may be a grown woman but whenever I get sick, I want my mommy.

Bowl of cherries, box of chocolates, lemons into lemonade...why are there so many life metaphors about food?

Ok, so, life is hard. We all know that. I am having one of those days today. Yesterday was also one of those days so I am really hoping it doesn't mean that this is one of those weeks. I am a big believer that life is what you make it. You can make it good or you can make it crappy. I am a fan of making it good. But some days that feels a lot harder to do than other days. I am not giving up on today, it may turn around. If it isn't going to get better then I can work on my attitude because as Abraham Lincoln once said "most people are only as happy as they make up their minds to be".

One of the things weighing on my mind today is that I am feeling like I haven't done much with this life I've been given. I want to make a difference. I want to leave something behind. I want to effect change in this world. I want to inspire others to be the best they can be. The best way I know how to do this is to live my best life and hope that it touches and inspires others to do the same. The catch right now is that I don't feel like I am living my best life. How can I inspire others when I myself am uninspired?
I guess the sheer fact that I am writing this means that I am not uninspired...just maybe feeling blue about not doing much with my inspiration. I have ideas, but they stay ideas. I need to make them real. They aren't doing any good sitting in my head.

A smattering of subjects

I am sitting in a computer lab and one of the computers is completely doing it's own thing. There is no one sitting in front of it and yet the cursor is moving around the screen clicking on things and pulling things up. It's very eerie.

I am going to try and ignore it while I sit here and write...

I could be doing homework but I so don't feel like it. I need to write a critical essay of a short story and interweave it with the broader topic of either feminism or post colonialism. Seriously, right? I am feeling slightly intimidated by this paper and very happy that I am only taking one class right now. My roommate is in 4 classes and feeling quite overwhelmed by all the homework.

....now the computer beside the other one is doing the same thing...it's spreading...

Speaking of spreading, just this week the Hini (I know that's not it, but calling it the heiney (hini) makes me feel better - as though I am mocking it and making it less of a big deal) - so back to what I was saying... just this week the whole hini scare started to creep into my head. I have been pretty convinced that I am not going to be affected by it. I have no intention of getting sick and am confident that I'll get through flu season unscathed. But on Monday a seed of fear somehow snuck into my brain and started to root.

I watered and nurtured the fear all Monday and Tuesday until this morning I realized that I was taking care of a weed instead of a plant and today, I ripped it out by the roots and tossed it aside. How's that for a metaphor? I am back to feeling confident that I am healthy and will stay that way. This isn't to say that I am throwing caution to the wind though, I am an avid hand washer and have gotten pretty good at not touching my face all day long. I am normally an eye toucher - I wear contacts and end up with my fingers in my eyes multiple times a day - so to have cut that back feels like a big deal.

The computers are at it again...it's like a piano that plays itself...seriously creepy.

Speaking of creepy (ahhh such seamless segues) we went on the ghost train last night at Stanley Park. L and J Dub took Lizzie and so ST and I joined them for the fun. Highlights include ST screaming twice and me getting bitten by a guinea pig. Just a nibble, nothing painful. Also a goat named Mickey growled at ST...actually growled. Funny. I love the ghost train and am sorry I missed it for so many years. I had no idea what I was missing.

Speaking of not knowing what I was missing I think it is time for lunch. I am going to eat and then get started on this pesky homework.

Speaking of pesky...

Just kidding

Grandpa

I have no idea how to start this post. I want to write about my grandpa and I would love to do it eloquently but I'm not so sure how to do that right now. Grandpa died on October 10, 2009 and even though we were somewhat prepared, it still happened suddenly and far too quickly.

The Wednesday before he died, I was at work and had forgotten to pack a lunch for my two hour break. On my way to work, I talked to my mom, who was at my grandpa's, and she told me to come over for my break. I could eat there and get in a quick visit with mom and grandpa. It was going to be a full break - driving to grandpa's from the college, having lunch and a visit and then driving back to work in time for my next class but I decided to do it anyways.

I was able to leave my first class a bit early and the drive to grandpa's was super quick and easy. I got to spend about an hour and a half with mom and grandpa. He sat and visited with us and then helped his neighbour Mel, who had come over to grandpa's to fix something of gpa's. As I left, I kissed my grandpa and said "I'll see you soon, Grandpa. Love you." He kissed me back and said "Love you too honey." I had no idea at the time that it would be the last thing my grandpa would say to me.

The next day, Grandpa went into the hospital and right when they got him into the ambulance, grandpa slipped into semi-consciousness. He had been at home with both of his daughters and their husbands, and a couple of grandkids having a birthday dinner for one of my cousins. The last thing he would have been really aware of was family. He was surrounded by people who loved him dearly.

By the time L-Dub and I made it to the hospital that night, Grandpa was fully unconscious and being moved to palliative care. They were keeping him comfortable. For the next day and a half Grandpa was never alone. We sat around his bed, held his hand, kissed his forehead, talked to him, laughed, cried and bore witness to the last days of his life.

In the end, I held grandpa's hand as he took his final breaths and considered it an honour to be at his side as he passed into heaven. We were all there praying over him and for each other. I miss him so much more than I expected to. He was truly a great man and has left quite a hole in my heart.

Love you Grandpa. Miss you.

BE QUIET!

I just logged on to a computer at work to write a tribute to my grandpa and right when I started composing something a bunch of noisy girls walked into the room and now I am completely unable to concentrate.

I am tempted to shush them or at least glare at the back of their heads in a passive aggressive attempt to let someone know how annoyed I am by them. Yes, yes, it's ridiculous, I know, but I am having a hard time today. I just feel sad. And a little angry too. I miss my grandpa and he's not coming back.

The tribute will have to come later...I have to do something mindless right now lest I throw a book at some chatty Cathy's head.

Thinking peaceful loving thoughts. thinking peaceful loving thoughts. thinking peaceful loving thoughts. thinking peaceful loving thoughts. thinking peaceful loving thoughts. ahhhhhhhhhh

Where the elite meet to eat reheated meaty treats.

Oh my! What a night we had last night. It wasn't wild and crazy, just a little weird. And by a little weird, I mean bizarre.

A group of us went out for drinks as a goodbye for one of our friends who is being kicked out of the country. I am not sure who picked the venue for said drinking but we ended up at Sand*bar. I had heard that it was the hot spot for the older women/younger men set. (I refuse to use the word you're all expecting from me right now) I thought I might feel a little out of place for a) not being an older woman and b) having no interest in meeting a younger guy who is out trolling for an older woman.

Well let me tell you, this description of the scene was way off. This isn't an older woman/younger man bar at all. It's a den of anything goes. The average age of woman seemed to be late 40's and there was absolutely no average age for the men - they ranged from mid-twenties to in their seventies and they were all eyes and hands. The women were not so much on the prowl as in a fishbowl with the men circling them and moving in for the kill. It was like watching the nature channel.

The women were dressed well and on display for the men who were outnumbered and a hot commodity. We saw an older (65ish) gentlemen approach a younger (48ish) woman at the bar and put his arm around her and she picked up his arm and removed it from her shoulder and shooed him away. I think she had her eye on the young (35ish) guy sitting across the bar from her and grandpa was cramping her style. I have to add that grandpa was the whitest-haired and reddest-faced man I have ever seen in my entire life. I had a slight urge to ask if he required medical care or a tube of aloe vera.

As I made my way to the dance floor to get right in the mix and have a better look and a dance (because one thing I did relate to was the music, it was so much better than what they are playing at the cool-kids clubs these days. I would rather be shaking my groove thing to Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson and George Michael over most of anything on the top 40 right now) I was pretty much eye-groped by one older gentleman (I use the term 'gentleman' VERY loosely here) and it made me feel a little trashy. I also felt like I'd asked for it just by being there, being dressed up and by choosing to walk through the throngs to get to the dance floor. Not really the environment or the feeling I want when I go out into the world.

The dance floor almost warrants it's own post. It was like zooming right in on the action. The women were just givin'er on the dance floor and the men stood around it, watching. A few women were dancing with wild abandon, shaking and bouncing and wreaking havoc all around them. More than once, TT and I had our elbows accidentally collide with the heads of these two tiny, short woman who were only a blur to us for how much they were bouncing around. There were men dancing but too few to really comment on.

We stayed as late as we could. Us younguns were worn out by about 12:30 and the scene was in full swing. All in all it was a good night - entertaining for sure but I don't imagine I'll be going back anytime soon.

First assignment.

I got my first assignment back yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised. I say surprised because I really had no idea how I was going to do. It was the first college paper I had written in more than 7 years and I thought I might be a bit rusty at it.

The assignment was to write a critical paragraph on a short story we'd read in class. Before we got our papers back, the instructor wanted to go over some grammar rules and common mistakes that students had made. She wrote the 5 most common mistakes on the board and I thought to myself "Oh God, I don't even know what 3 of those mean." A comma splice?! What the hell is a comma splice? Or a pronoun antecedent? How about an ellipses? No clue! Gulp and double gulp.

As she went over the 5 things, I realized that I knew exactly what each one of those things was. I just never knew the names for them. Even better though, was that it also turns out that not only do I know what they are but I mostly know how to use them! Whoo hoo!

She handed our papers back and mine had very few marks or comments on the front. A couple of check marks, a 'nice' written above one of my observations (yay) and a little arrow telling me to indent the 2nd line of my bibliography. And that was it. I flipped the paper over to see her additional comments and they took up a full page. My eyes jumped to the mark at the bottom and it was good. Then I read her comments.

"The area for you to continue to develop is content... I really like your discussion; however, it needs further development...you might consider exploring this with a bit more depth."

But the kicker, the part that actually got me a little teary (yes, I really got a little teary) was her first sentence to me... "This is quite well done for a first paragraph. You write well and your ideas are cohesive and your examples good."

And then at the bottom of the page, in a breakdown on how she marked us, she wrote "Writing style - strong"

Writing style - strong! Yay! I blinked my watery eyes trying to keep the tears from actually falling and silently rejoiced. Writing style - strong. I had no idea I was going to react that way. I think I had been nervous that maybe I didn't have what it was going to take to make it as a dancer. (ok sorry, it's an old Three's Company line that I couldn't resist throwing in there. From the episode where Janet wants to be a dancer and her instructor tells her how great she is so he can sleep with her and then when she turns him down he tells her that she never had what it takes to make it as a dancer. For Janet, her passion was dancing and for me it's writing.) I was worried that maybe I had no natural ability to write and writing is so what I need to be doing. To get such positive feedback meant a lot to me.

My next assignment is an in-class critical essay. I am familiar with the short story we'll be writing on and I have a pretty good idea on the topic so I am going to write a practice essay this weekend to prepare myself. When on earth did I get so grown up and responsible??