The count down begins: T minus 4 days :) Wednesday morning I head back to the S-dot. I'm pretty sick of cooking for myself and grocery shopping and dealing with the drama of relating to people I barely know on a daily basis. A lot of people I know are really reluctant on going home but I guess I just have a really strong relationship with my family. Plus, my shower at home is so much better. You never realize how important water pressure is until you have a significant lack of it. "You never realize how important water pressure is"? F, man. I'm such a fool. I think I'm gonna go now before I say anything else that makes me wish I was a two-limber.

AHHHHHHHH!!!! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I went to see Ani last night. I've thinking about how I can convey this experience to you, dear reader, ("dear, read" is a palendrome) all day but I just can't. I had an oral exam in Italian today where my teacher inquired about the concert and all I could say was "Non ho le parole" (I don't have the words.) She asked me if I could discribe it in English, to which I replied, "Non ho le parole ad Englese". I seriously have no idea how to explain the bliss I experienced. Swift and Karen went with me, so I was the residence expert but it didn't matter because she play like 50% new stuff, 25% revelling and Reckoning, which I don't know as well as say Out of Range or Not a Pretty Girl. The new stuff was SO good. I can't wait for a new album. EEEEE!! I'm still on cloud 86 about that. (Cloud 9 was surpassed with the Tori concert and this just took me out of orbit.) It was fuckin' magnificant!! *content sigh*

*Flash*

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to pinpoint the moment when everything changes? This past year I unintentionally ceased contact with my bestfriend since I was 8, Jenny. I really don't know what happened. It wasn't like one day I woke up and said "I think Jenny and I should stop this whole 'being friends' thing". But it wasn't all that gradual, either. In the first semester of first year, we still talked and went out when I came home. Even during second semester we still had contact. I came home for the summer and nothing. I think I talked to her like three time, and I think they were all about or during the Amnesty show. It isn't even that we lead dissimilar lives. I heard through the system of relations that she's going to school now. Jen, congratulations. What happened? Was it the boyfriend? I don't think so. It seems like sometime in April something just cracked in us that caused this great divide. Who are you now? Every seven years our cells completely regenerate; I saw Jen become a whole new person, but who is that now. I'm almost to the point where there is a whole new person where I used to be, and that's making me wonder who that I is. Where was the click? Was it more like a spark? I've always viewed friendship as a woven basket, but that's changing. I don't know how to look at it now. Don't be scurd, but I'm starting to question the validity of friendship. I had a friend tell me that friendship is just people using each other to fill in their cracks like plaster of paris. Of course I disagreed and subsequently, we agreed to the whole disagreeing thing, but the re-pondering has begun as my rememory kicks in of all the times I had memories of Jenny. No matter how much I ponder though, I keep coming back to that same question, how do you isolate the departure of love?

If you want to see a movie that will make you sit back at the end, speechless from wonder Waking Life is the movie for you. I still can't talk about it because it left me in such wonder. I'm revelling in it as I type. Freakin' brilliant.

OH, WOW!!!

I went to see Tori Amos at the Sear's Theatre and it was freakin' BRILLANT!! Well, actually, first me and three friends went to the Tori meet and greet at the ACC. I arrived in Toronto at about 2 but my friends had been waiting in the crappy Toronto cold since 10. There were some people who had been there since like 8. The meet and greet was such an amazing experience, aside from the obvious Tori meeting, because the other Tori fans were so great. Other than a few crabapples, we were all joking, looking at the gifts and crazy things people had made. One girl made a Tori sockpuppet, which she had Tori sign. Another guy made a Scarlett geneology, which I thought was extremely creative. It was pretty well done, too. My good buddy Karen got Tori to sign her Little Earthquakes song book and asked her to play Winter, her favorite song, which she had never heard in concert.

The concert itself was freaking brilliant. She started with Wampum Prayer, then A Sorta Fairytale. A most excellent version of Cornflake Girl, followed by Scarlet's Walk. "No, she's not playing this! WOOOOOO!!" Take to the Sky, then my favourite "grrrr...what the fuck was I thinking" song Precious Things. Another of the new album Strange, juxtaposed rightly with Crucify from LE, then a little more from SW, Wednesday. That was all with the band. Tori then went to just her and the Bos in the -Roadside Cafe-, where she played Cloud on my tongue, which I, like a fool, thought was Winter for about the first six bars. I just wanted to hear Winter SO bad. Oh, what's that? Oh, here's Winter. Fuckin' brilliant that was, mates. The funny thing was that Tori started playing Cloud on my tongue again. Even she's confused about the two. :) She then followed with Marianne which is rarely played in concert. YEAH! Oh, here's the band back for Your Cloud. "That is not Concertina. IT IS!! WOOOOOO!!" (I did a lot of Wooooing. How could I not?) Sweet Sangria to Lust, which I wasn't expectin at all. I was expecting much from To Venus and Back so Concertina and Lust was a pleasant surprise. WHOA, choirgirl Hotel, Hotel, followed by a chilling version of I can't see new york. That song is really fuckin' beautiful. Spring haze was the last song of the night. Oh no, the encore started with Pancake from the new album then went to (Whooooo, yeah!!!) Past the Mission. She ended the encore with Horses from Boys for Pelee. Encore 2 (Whoooo, yeah!!) started with Taxi Ride, which wasn't on the original set list, and it was STUNNING. I really do enjoy that song. She finished with Playboy Mommy which was another pleasant surprise. Great show, mates. If you ever get the chance to see this phenomenal woman, don't hesitate a moment. It's worth every single cent.

These flowering weeds of secrets
That sneak through my garden
Besieging the fertile soil,
Threatening to overcome
What is left of my wilting half truths,
Have pushed past the heart of my lips
Through my fingers.

Check out the new link, y'all. I know you see it, so go to it.

The plight of cooking for yourself

I am currently sitting at my computer starving, but I can't be bothered to cook for myself. I'm a pretty proficient cook but it just takes so long. I just got back from campus where I got a crapload of stuff done, including going to class and handing in an 8-page term paper I wrought last night. I’m beat and all I feel like doing is sitting right here. I don’t feel like chopping, dicing, sautéing or boiling. This would be one of those times when I wish I had a subservient husband who I could call over and say “cook for me, boy.” OH, the hunger pains are mounting. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. The sick thing is that when it gets like this I know it’s mac and cheese with hotdogs time. December 2nd I’m back in the S-town with Mamma/Da’s home cookin’. Oh, sweet mamma, I wish they were here right now. Mac & cheese here I come. *blech*

(O friend,
while the moon's bad,
and the kings gone,
and the queen's at her wit's end
the bar fly ought to sing!)

Exerpt from Anne Sexton's "Sylvia's Death"

As always, I have to plug a friend's website. His name is Damien R. I can't spell his last name but he can't spell my first so I think he'll let it slide. :)

See as I am a university student, I'm always looking for new and exciting ways to waste my time. Also, I'm always looking for some new dance moves. Nooch.

Our Greatest Fear

Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Speech

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is out light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. These is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Here's why I'll speak out in class, why I'll say how I feel, why I'll sing out of my soul. Because of the glory in us all.

Curses!

WLU posted their exam schedule on the first of November, which is surprising considering that my school is still on strike. The problem is in the posting for my Romantic Lit course: Thursday December 7th at 2 pm. Does anyone else see a problem with that? The strike just may account for the discrepancy, but it is crucial for me to know which on it is because of a time honoured family tradition: the Santa Clause parade. If the exam is on the Thursday, then I can participate in the festivities that my family plans for the Sarnia Santa Clause parade. If the exam is on the Saturday, then there is no way I could get back to Sarnia in time to enjoy the parade, which is at 6. I guess I’ll find out on Tuesday, when I clarify the problem with the prof, who is a total ass ninja, by the way.

There is so much I want to share, but it's just not time yet. I've just got a bit more thinking to do...

What a good life

I really lucked out when the roommate gods were making decisions last year, perhaps because of the initial injustice they dealt me. Last year, I had the most incompatible roommate possible. She was everything that I took a stand against, which is a list too numerous to elaborate here. She was a stranger and, unfortunately, one who was simply adverse to the idea of me; I was everything she hated, as well. This year, I was scared that the same situation would befall me. I barely knew the girls I was moving in with; I didn't even know their last names. Last night, Halloween, showed me that sometimes being thrown into a situation by necessity, which was how I came to live with these girls, doesn't have to kill you mind, body and soul.

I wasn't planning on going out for Halloween. In my Shakespeare's Comedies class, I had a Performance Proposal due that day and I was thinking I'd stay home and get caught up in my other classes, if at all possible. The actor in me has always loved Halloween and, since I'm 76.7% actor, the idea of not going out for Halloween was a little disheartening but I thought it was what I had to do. The girls I lived with had coming home on Tuesday with their costumes and they were telling me about this tiger costume which sounded like it suited me quite well, considering that I face painted for a summer and have the natural grace of a tiger. (Nooch.) Needless to say, I was dissuaded from my original plan, which was a hard sell considering where the girls were going: The Turret. The Turret is the nightclub on campus, which caters to the "let's get drunk and make out with someone, anyone" crowd, also known as the "not at all Alysia's crowd" crowd. I had hoped to get through the duration of my university career without having to go The Turret, but I had agreed with a yes, not a maybe, so there was no backing out. As it turned out I had a great time. My roommates were cool with the fact that I constantly felt the need to prowl and walk like I was from the musical "Cats", which was about how well my makeup was done. They had a friend in a gorilla suit so we were constantly like "Jungle, represent!". Also, I shook my little booty right off and my roommates didn't make fun of me, except when I made a fool of myself, which is an acceptable time to laugh. All in all I had an amazing time, THANKS to my roommates. Sometimes, I'm quite the lucky gal.