| It's that time of year again. It's not a happy time of year, but it's an important date. I'm just cutting and pasting from the past two years, but it's something that I hold close to my heart, and so am posting it again.
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A gunman confronted 60 engineering students during their class at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989. He separated the men from the women and told the men to leave the classroom, threatening them with his .22-calibre rifle. The enraged man began a shooting spree on three floors and in several classrooms, jumping from desk to desk while female students cowered below. He roamed the corridors yelling, "I want women."
Before opening fire in the engineering class, he called the women "une gang de féministes" and said "J'haïs les féministes [I hate feminists]." One person plead that they were not feminists, just students taking engineering. But the gunman didn't listen. He shot the women and then killed himself. (Source: CBC archives)
***
Take a moment of silence today, and remember the fallen women. Not just those that died in 1989, but all those women that are victims of violence.
This year I was a co-organizer of the candle lighting service that my faculty holds every year. There will be more on that at a later date, but I'm very happy with the way it turned out. There was a lot of people that came, which is good for awareness of the event. I got interviewed by the paper as well. We'll see if any quotes make it in. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| | Current Music: | Motion City Soundtrack - The Future Freaks Me Out | | Subject: | In Stereo | | Time: | 10:03 pm |
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| Let me tell you, constructing an 7 foot high / 10 foot long model of headphones is really hard.
Why was I doing that?
To go with the 15 foot high iPod we built.
Why do I volunteer for these things? | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Note to self: Canadian holidays to not require American networks to preempt their shows.
Plan of action: Download West Wing.
Whenever I go to my aunt's cabin, the result is always the same: eat something to tide you over until breakfast, eat breakfast, clean up / wash breakfast dishes, make lunch out of yesterday's dinner, eat lunch, clean up after lunch, make mid-afternoon snack, eat mid-afternoon snack, clean up, make dinner, eat, clean up, have dessert, drink, go to bed.
In between is a little bit of playing with babies, and general relaxing / visiting with the family, but for the most part? I've gained about 7 pounds over 3 days and can barely move. Still.
And my godson continues to just get cuter and cuter. Expect pic-spam any day now. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | my sister singing in the background (?) | | Subject: | Turkey Day! | | Time: | 10:05 am |
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| Since I'm out for the weekend to play with the most adorable kid ever (yes, my godson), I'm sending the other Canadians on my list best wishes for the happiest Thanksgiving weekend ever!
Have a good long weekend! | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| gacked from a real life friend's journal. (what? real life friend? having a journal? wow.)
Comment and...
1. I'll respond with something about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick an adventure that I'd like to have with you.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
you don't have to post it in your journal or anything :) | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| I missed another premiere, and once again I blame my flist. ::looks around with shifty eyes:: Okay, not so much blame my flist, but with all the people that (used) to watch The West Wing, you'd think someone would remind me, right? Not so much, no. Whoops. Doesn't matter, it took less than an hour to download.
( West Wing thoughts ) | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Rita | | Time: | 10:20 pm |
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| I wasn't around for the last hurricane. I mean, I was in existence, but I was on vacation. I was in the maritimes having the vacation of my life, and enjoying every second of it.
Was it selfish to not want to turn on the news in the morning?
I had an idea of what was going on, but never the full picture. I didn't understand the panic or exactly how bad it was. Was it wrong that I didn't buy a newspaper everyday?
And then when I got home, I had to deal with my Grandma's death, the start of school, and making sure that Orientation went off without a hitch. I read some articles and knew about the FEMA disaster, but I got the facts, not the feelings.
Now with Rita coming closer and closer to the areas already under stress, I'm starting to understand how scary it is.
Despite living in the middle of Canada, our gas prices are skyrocketing. It's already $1.20 per litre of gas, and it's going to go up. I'm a poor student; I can't afford this.
But even with my worries about my budget, it doesn't even start to compare with what the people of gulf states have to deal with. Being evacuated for the second time in a month -- being displaced again. Seeing what happened to New Orleans and praying that the same thing doesn't happen to them. The mass exodus, the fear and panic in everyone's eyes...
Is worrying about how I'm going to have to transfer buses downtown at night if I have to start taking bus selfish of me right now? What should I be doing instead?
I wasn't around for the first big hurricane this season, and I'm not sure how to react. During Katrina, the big conversation was if the Tragically Hip were going to play one of their most famous songs, "New Orleans is Sinking" at the Rolling Stones concert. (which they didn't)
I'm not quite sure now where I'm supposed to be focusing my energy.
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the hurricanes and I hope for their safety. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| My university has website where you log in, and it will have all your classes listed with announcements, a message board, and all your class's assignments, tutorials and notes. Mine isn't working. It still has all my summer classes on it.
My structural analysis prof tells us last Friday that assignment #1 is now uploaded. Since he told us this on a Friday, you'd assume that he would give a week to do it, right? Well, Michelle told me yesterday at 4:30 PM that it was due today at 10:00 AM. And not only can I not even figure out what questions I need to do from the textbook for the assignment, I don't yet have the textbook.
I call a friend at home to find out what I have to do. First crises, solved.
So I'm thinking that I'll just run up to the library, and take out the text that's on reserve, and photocopy the questions I need to do, except that my department has my student card because they're programming it for access to the civil computer lab. So I can't take out the book.
I'm able to borrow Jane's student card (the picture's old, so we could pass for each other) and race back up to the library. Not only is the book not there, but my prof never submitted it to the library like he said he did.
Okay. I make my way back to my student council office to my computer so I can check to see if I have the $200 it's going to cost me to buy the damn text, but tuition just went through, and a bunch of people decided to cash the cheques that I wrote them months ago now. So I don't have the money to buy the text.
My friend Steve tells me that he knows I'm good for the money, and he'll buy me the text because he knows I need it. But we go to the bookstore and they're sold out. The next order isn't coming until next week.
So I'm making a list of the people in my class, and who I might be able to phone, drive to their house, get the book, photocopy the pages that I need, and make it back to campus by 6:30 PM so I can do my 3 hour shelving shift at the library, when I realize that my friend Michelle is still on campus so she can go to an information session about the concrete toboggan competition. I call her, but her phone doesn't have reception. So I race down to where the meeting is, and burst in right as the meeting is about to start.
"Michelle! Do you still have your structural text on campus?"
"Yeah, it's up in the student council office."
So it was there, the entire time, right in front of my nose. I was able to finish the assignment by 9:45 AM this morning. I think I spent more time looking for the text and worrying about it than I actually spent doing the assignment.
If this is the way my term is going to be, I think I should just crawl under my covers and wait for it to end. Very bad few hours, but the story at the end was kind of fun. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| Broadway on Broadway is tomorrow, and I know that they broadcast it at some point because I've downloaded clips from previous shows in the past. I haven't seen any news on them broadcasting it this time, and I don't see it in my TV guide anywhere.
My totally random question is this: does anyone know any more details on this? Or at least, when I'll be able to find it on bit torrent for download? I figure that the best place to ask would be my flist.
(I've been asking myself the same question over and over again: why don't I live in New York? Or at least somewhere that's within driving distance? GAH!) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I was going to glare at my flist and say that it's everyone else's fault that I missed the Gilmore Girls season premiere, because I count on everyone else to tell me when my season openers are, and even what the good tv shows are this season and what bandwagon I should hopping on this season. My flist has amazing taste, so when someone starts raving about a show, I tend to like it too.
So I was going to yell at all of you for not announcing the GG premiere, but then I realized that it's all over my flist, and I actually just haven't been online yet today. It's also in my iCal, and I have a voicemail from my cousin reminding me not to miss it.
::headdesk:: | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I'm back from the most amazing vacation I've ever been on. There's a million stories to tell, and even more pictures to share, but I'm too exhausted to even figure out where to begin. I actually got back on Sunday, but after being awake for 37 hours straight, I decided to sleep for a day and a half before Orientation started for the Frosh, and this year I'm a group leader.
I'm not ready for university to start again. I'm just not ready.
I sent some of you postcards from the Maritimes, but I realized that I really haven't kept up on where some of you live. If your address has changed in, oh, the past year and a half, could you let me know? Whoops. I know for sure that I sent one postcard to Swift Current... even after I wrote on the postcard that I wasn't sending it until I made sure Kira hadn't moved yet. I'll blame mailing that one on the little amounts of sleep I got.
I started to go through my flist from when I was away, but I actually don't have the energy. I swear, I'll have more energy at some point. One day. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| 1. Atlantic Canada is the most beautiful place in the entire world.
2. 3 spontaneous friends with the right combination of recklessness, sensibility, and luck is the best combination you can have for a not-at-all planned road trip.
3. Back-roading in a Hyundai Accent across New Brunswick is amazing. More stories will come about the Bay of Fundy, Elgin, Green Gables and the Hopewell Rocks.
4. By a total fluke, I'm going to the ROLLING STONES CONCERT in Moncton with THE TRAGICALLY HIP and OUR LADY PEACE!!!
I actually can't love my life more right now... except that I have to leave the Moncton as soon as the concert is done, drive back to Halifax and be at the airport by 5:40 AM so that I can be on my 6:40 flight. ::boggle:: | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Things I've learned on my first day in Halifax:
1. It's a lot better to drop your camera in the Alexander Keith's Brewery than in the Halifax harbour.
2. The Halifax harbour is contaminated. We thought our friend was joking. Then we saw the sign.
3. The Keith's Brewery needs to start exporting Keith's Amber Ale beyond the Maritimes.
4. The Keith's Brewery needs to start bottling their Honey Brown, and sending it to the prairies.
5. My prairie legs are not built for the Halifax hills.
6. If I party for 7 days straight and get no sleep, I get sick.
7. The tour guides on the Harbour Hopper are very, very funny, and tell very, very bad jokes.
8. Joseph Howe's grave has a sign and an arrow. Alexander Keith's does not.
9. McDonalds is the universal sign for washroom.
10. McLobsters are disgusting.
Tomorrow to Peggy's Cove, the next day to PEI and New Brunswick, and more parties to come! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Did I mention I was going to Sherbrooke, Quebec? Because that's totally where I am right now.
Things I've learned so far:
1. My french, despite being really bad, is actually better than I thought.
2. I think it's really good when I've been drinking.
3. It actually gets worse when I've been drinking.
4. Cowboy hats are fun to wear at bars. (Courtesy of Calgary)
5. Despite thinking that they are cool, they really, really aren't.
6. Poutine at 4:30 AM sits really heavy in the stomach.
7. The best place to go for kareoke is a gay bar.
8. French boys are trouble.
So, that's it. To Montreal on Saturday, Halifax on Sunday, and home the following Saturday. Keep having fun without me! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Time: | 08:48 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) chipper |
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| I've been looking at my most recent entries and thinking that I've only really posted lately when I've been upset. Have I just been having a bad week? month? summer?
The truth is, I've actually been having a pretty good summer. I went to northern Saskatchewan, and up to a friend's cottage, and I passed my last math class, so I never have to take another calculus class again! And I've been spending lots of time with my two best friends, and going to parties and council retreats, and folk fest... my summer has been amazing. And I'm going to Sherbrooke on Sunday, and Halifax the week after that. It can only get better.
I went to visit my godson last night, and he's now twenty-six months and is starting to put together full sentences. And he said my name for the first time, and I just melted.
Except he still doesn't have some words right yet. Like when he tries to say, "dump-truck", he says "dumb-fuck".
So, ( picspam of Kobe ) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Since the Today Show last Thursday with the full cast, I've been obsessed. I've been looking at pictures, videos, listening to the soundtrack non stop...
RENT!
It's the musical that opened my mind and shaped my heart, and it's being made into a movie.
It opens in New York, LA, and Toronto on November 11th, yet it doesn't open in the rest of North America until November 23rd.
My question, is why? Why would they only open a movie like that in selected cities? I get the theory -- on movies that normally wouldn't have a strong opening, they stagger it. They get people talking about it, and get a following. Then, when they open nation wide, people are more likely to go because of the reviews already out there.
But does RENT have that small of a following that they can't open up a few theatres in every city? There's some pretty big names in it, do they honestly think that people won't come out to see it?
When a traveling theatre company came through here last October, the theatre was half full. It may have been because it was poorly advertised, or that we went Halloween night... or is it that some people are still not ready for it?
Eight main characters, and four of them are gay. There will be girl on girl kissing, and guy on guy kissing on screen. Maureen and Joanne kiss in the promo, and even though I haven't seen the promo on TV yet, I'm pretty sure that they won't be showing it during TGIF (do they still have TGIF on ABC?) or family oriented programming.
When my two best friends and I went in October, the people sitting next to me left at intermission.
I don't want to live in a 'tolerant' society.
I want EVERYONE to be able to have an open mind and enjoy this masterpiece. I want every young person to see it and challenge the views that their parents and grandparents have expressed over the years.
And mostly, I don't want to wait a week and a half to see a movie that Toronto gets to see on the opening day. ::stomps feet:: | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| There should be a function built into iCal so that when I enter things in wrong, it reach out and smack me in the head.
I don't think I have a single birthday right in the whole month of August. And there's a lot.
And so, today is NOT, as I previously thought, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kiss_me_cassie's birthday, which was two days ago. It's cherryice's birthday!
So, happy birthday sweetie!
And, in honour of the big 2-0, I'm posting a small excerpt from my own journal when I turned 20. A whole 2 years ago. ::g::
( when I was just a little girl... )
So enjoy! Even though you're miles from home (btw, is Saskatoon home now? Or still the town you grew up in?), blow out some birthday candles, even if you have to light them yourself. 'cause we're all with you in thoughts, even if we're not in body. Love ya! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| So, because I'm a complete dunce and have the date written down wrong, I'm sending a large belated happy birthday to kiss_me_cassie!!!
and now for my whining.
When growing up I was always placed into a large number of lessons. I danced ballet from the time I was 3 until I was 16 (when I had to quit because of knee injuries), I did pointe for three years (which caused the knee injury!), jazz for about 6 years, musical theatre from the time I was 10 until I was 18 -- and I was in the invitational workshop class and was a teacher's assistant for 3 classes...
and I did competitive speed swimming until I was 11, and played softball until I was 10, and did gymnastics when I was REALLY little, and I was ALWAYS in piano lessons even though I never ever did get very good.
And for that I am grateful -- but none of the things I did were cultural. While my Scottish side never really cared much about their heritage, my maternal Grandmother was extremely Ukrainian. I'm Ukrainian Catholic, but my parents never put me in the language classes or even visited the cultural centre with me.
Yesterday I worked at a wedding where the bride was a Ukrainian that was immersed the culture, and belonged to the dance group in the city that is so good that they went to Ukraine to compete in a worldwide competition, and WON. They are world renown dancers, and they were all there at the wedding. And so at midnight they carried the bride and groom around the room in their chairs, put them at the front of the dance floor, and as the music was playing they all -- in a non planned event -- performed for them.
It was so amazing and reminded me of the culture that I never learned, and never bothered to really look into. I love to dance, and it is one more thing that I wanted to learn. Winnipeg is such a multicultural city, but somewhere along the lines I learned more about other people's culture than my own.
I want to change that, and I don't even know where to start. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| 1. Where did all the comics go? I noticed that they were gone a while ago, but everyday I still expect to see Doonsberry and Non Sequitar on my flist.
2. I've been sitting at my computer all day for the past 3 days at work doing data entry of all the sample results that I've been taking all summer. I've been studying for my final exam that's on saturday all night for the past 4 days as well.
3. I took a walk today at lunch instead of studying because I was afraid my legs were getting atrophied. They were so stiff!
4. I've been spoiled with lost-media.com and alias-media.com. If I want to see a video clip of the last appearence on a talk show, it's pretty much guarenteed to be there. The cast of RENT was on the Today Show yesterday morning, and I want to see it! I've tried looking for it, and I can't find it! Sure, the internet has everything at my fingertips... finding something is another story.
5. Since there's now 8 people in my temporary office, which is one big room, I'm becoming more and more convinced that no on on this campus actually does any work. I've made it a game to only work when I see my boss work... so far today I've played on LJ, read the news sites, studied math, and done more data entry despite the fact that he's still just surfing the net.
6. Student loans are pissing me off -- I have to fill out all this documentation because they think I've been in school too long. WTF? and I still have, like, 2.5 years left because I didn't go straight into my program! If I don't get that aid, I won't have any money to pay tution! I've spent all the money I've made this getting out of debt, and paying for my trip! All those speeding tickets I got ealier this year really took a long time to pay off. :( Stupid credit card, getting the better of me. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
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