La la la

Hey guys! I’ve officially passed my MA thesis and I’m done my summer job and now its time for canoeing and Sauble Beach! Ye-ah, I haven’t tossed the Frisbee around forever, last time was when my brother was home and I was home, and we were all at home playing Frisbee. No one ever accused me of being a good storyteller.

I’ve decided to live in grad housing in Montreal since I’m nauseated by the whole house hunting thing. I think it will be ok, but it will mean me living by myself and going insane for lack of social contact. I’m hoping I’ll have friendly, non-annoying neighbours (since I’m the only annoying neighbour any single floor of a building can handle). This reduces my stress and lets me enjoy the end of my summer such that I might be able to recover from my MA before starting my PhD. Why do I do this to myself? Wait, I know why. I like to see how shocked people are when they find out how “young” I am since they don’t expect a 22 year old to be doing a doctorate. But I’m not just 22, I’m a person too!

I’m going to be home for a while, which means lots of torturing-my-little-brother time. I have big plans, mwhahaha. But I get to see some friends in the Sound and go back to all my old haunts. I’m guessing I will be bored in about 3.27 days, but it’s not like I have a lot to do in Ottawa. (Besides packing and saying goodbye to everyone here… whatever.)

C’est tout.

I woke up this mornin'

My lexical entry of "grow" is intransitive, making it ungrammatical to say "We grew our profits by forfty-eight percent." I would require the causative as a valency increasing operation in such a situation (i.e. "We made our profits grow by forfty-eight percent.")

My roommate and I (girl roommate, that is) have a favourite set of commercials this summer. If they come on TV we call to each other to run in and watch it and to sing along. I think the little farmer dude is adorable.



Ok, I can't find the one where he's in the karaoke bar, but it is also very good. Remember the Ontario foodland song? Let me jog your memory:



This is what childhood memories are made of. That and Heritage minutes. And Polkaroo.

You're going to think less of me

But there's Queen, jazz hands, suspenders, and fuschia and turquoise spandex. What more could you want from a reality show?

Miss Attractions

Well, when did I talk to you last? Right, told you ‘bout my thesis. So I went to Montreal on the weekend and operation find-a-house was unsuccessful. After a few days of moping and feeling super depressed about it I’ve semi convinced myself that its going to be ok. I have to go again this Sunday and check out some more places. If it doesn’t work out this time I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I’ll have to live on the street, because whatever happens I have to go to McGill, that is not debateable. I could try and live in my office until I get caught and then give a whole sob story about my homelessness.

I’m almost done all my stuff here at the University of Ottawa. I might be sad about it if I weren’t so tired and preoccupied with other urgent things. I really like the Linguistics department here, but I will be glad to live somewhere a little more lively than our nation’s capital.

I was going to write more. But I tired. No make sense more.

Degree #2: Check

Or should I say check plus? I handed in my memoir (its really a thesis, but I don't have to defend it) and I'm done my masters degree. I invite you all to call me Master, it is now an appropriate form of address and and will be expected.

Actually, just kidding. Although I'm done the MA grunt work my degree won't actually get conferred until October, but in all praticality its done. Unless they fail me for some reason, that would be super upsetting. But it would be a good excuse to throw a public tantrum....

I know what you're all thinking, "That means you're free for the rest of the summer!" So not even close to true. I'm writing an article with my prof, and I also have a research assistantship this summer. There's linguistics yet to be done. But I'm planning on going easy for August, during which I must move to Montreal, and I think I have to report to McGill on the 26th or something for this "mandatory" introduction session. They told me I had to go.

I'm going to Montreal tomorrow to hopefully find a place to live, yeah, its a little important. Wish me luck! I'm very nervous about finding a place, I just want this to be over. It better be the case that one of the places I visit this weekend is where I'll moving into in August.

Go team Masters!

(All I need now is an MA from CGNU.)

7-7-7

This week I went to see TRANSFORMERS, it was robots-in-disguise-tastic. To be completely honest, I don’t remember that much about the 80’s cartoon, which now makes sense b/c I looked it up on imdb.com and it came out in 1984, and I wasn’t born till later that year, so its not my fault. But yes, friggen awesome, a very fun movie. However, I will say that the movie that I was the most crazy excited about when I left the theatre was V for Vendetta, Transformers didn’t scratch that, but will give it a break. The Wacowski (sp?) bothers were not involved.

Happy July 7^th, 2007 everyone! Isn’t it crazy it landed on a Saturday? Remember last year when a bunch of horror movies opened on June 6^th, 2006? People are so clever.

I started reading War & Peace, I’m like 10 pages in. Expect a post about this time next year when I will either declare that I have finally finished said cliché long book, or will have gone mad with the attempt to do so.

Ling-tastic

Click to make it bigger.

The Village

According to those Heritage minutes, that’s what Canada means. GO TEAM CANADA!!!! Happy Canada Day everyone! (even though it was on Sunday…)

Right, events update. Last week I went with my roommates and some of their friends to see Live Free or Die Hard. I wasn’t going to go, and was instead going to sit at home and do the work I sorely needed to do. Man, would that have been a HUGE mistake – this movie was wildly entertaining. You see the succession of bad guys, and you just sit there and wonder, “What crazy method will Bruce Willis use to kill this guy?” Because they can’t just simply be shot unless there’s a super unimportant character. The best was when he drove over a fire hydrant and the water shot up, taking out the helicopter directly above. AWESOME. I also like Justin Long, he’s funny, and everyone thinks its so appropriate that Mac would be a computer hacker. I’ve never actually seen a Die Hard movie before, but its not like a running plot line, so blonde little me was able to make it through the subtle complexities of the story.

And then it was Canada Day weekend! My mom and brother came and we ate lots of food and joined in festivities. If you do recall I have complained in the past that Ottawa is boring with not a lot going on, and that I miss Toronto. But if you’re going to be in the capital for one day in the year, make it Canada Day b/c it rocks. I’m just sad the rockingness doesn’t transfer to greater portion of the year. Ottawa is very beautiful in the summer, but all that beauty if green and trees, which does not show up in the winter and so I wouldn’t particularly say that winter-Ottawa has the same charm.

Anyway, there were people everywhere (usually the streets are empty, even on the weekends and Friday night and stuff) and there were all kinds of booths and stages on parliament hill and surrounding area. The Via rail tent was cool, b/c they gave everyone a little sapling red maple tree (hmm, I wonder why a red maple?) to plant and a balloon. I specifically requested a blue balloon even though the girl only had red and yellow in her hand, but I saw the blue ones. So we wandered around, met up with my cousins, watched a few jazz numbers and such.

The fireworks were incredible. So worth the millions of Canadian tax payer dollars, dead serious. Really big, really sparkly, there were even these ones that exploded in the shape of hearts. And the crowd was really vocally reactive to the display, you could tell which ones they were really impressed by. Oooh, awww, woah! The final fireworks were these red and glittery white ones, for good ol’ Canada. My favourite fireworks have always been the ones that give off a massive *BANG* and you can feel the force of the sound in your chest, love it.

Also, I got a pair of Chaco’s! For you out of the know, those are completely awesome sandals. We went to MEC and my mom found a pair that were on sale and that were my size (incredible, b/c I have issues with finding shoes the right size, they’re even womens sandals!) so now I have my very own pair. They are very pretty. But now I’ll spend a week or more adjusting the straps until they’re perfect.

Now I have to catch up on the work I didn’t do last week or this weekend. I have until 2pm to get it done, either that or I have to tell my supervisor I need more time. But I did make grand promises of having everything done last time I saw him, I’m not sure why…..

CANADA