Almost over!

Things I will do today:

• study for my last exam tomorrow
• use a lot of post-it notes to do so
• go to a cafe to do so
• drink a lot of coffee to do so
• eat a lot of bacon.  This probably will not be conducive to studying but it's a separate plan.

Things I will not do today:

• lie on the grass in the sun being lazy
• watch music videos for hours

At least, this is what I'm aiming for.  Tomorrow at 2 p.m. I have a Jesus of Nazareth exam.  It shouldn't be too hard, but there's a lot of history to learn as well as biblical analysis along the lines of "did Jesus actually do this?"

Ice dream

I went ice cream shopping with my dad.  We went to one shop where they had a lot of fancy kitchenware that wasn't at all to do with ice cream, and there was one freezer with three flavours.  One was called Frozen Chilli Romance, I forget the other two.  So we went to Baskin and Robbins instead.  The shop was beige and completely empty.  Right in front of us there was a man sitting behind a panel of glass, and to the right of us there was a couch area and a huge tv screen.  The idea was to scroll through the ads for ice cream, and tell the number to the man behind the panel who would go get you a scoop from the warehouse.  (When I explained the system to Dad I called it a cupboard, and the man corrected me.)  I sat down to watch the ads.  They were all like perfume ads, or haute couture ads, in that they had nothing to do with ice cream.  All the actors were young beautiful people with very creative makeup, they all seemed to be directed by Tom Ford or Sophia Coppola (circa Marie Antoinette) or Alexander McQueen.  I chose one pineapple-flavoured one after a commercial with lots of tall girls sitting on swings cuddling baby chimps, and I was about to choose a flavour from an ad with younger girls exercising to Valerie by The Zutons.



Then I woke up.

Back home

I've been away a while because I didn't have internet in Toronto.
Toronto was great! I didn't do much, I studied a bit, and ate a lot of pie (lemon meringue), and played the piano.

(only the score I had for it was in F Major)
I visited my godparents for dinner on Monday, after buying a very nice red raincoat at Value Village.  On Tuesday we went for a delicious French dinner and I had scallops in Pernod.  I don't usually like Pernod but this was a good use of it.  And we went to see Barney's Version, which I highly recommend.  On Wednesday I met up with my friend and Culture mentor Amelia at her house - she moved to Toronto for an internship - and she made risotto and a tomato-bread-parmesan-yummy-things bake, and then we baked cookies.  On Thursday I came home, and for some reason the bus ride took from 2:30 til 10 p.m., despite the scheduled arrival being 9:20 even before they took out the rest stop in Kingston (we idled in the station there for easily as long as the rest stop usually is, only this time we weren't allowed to get off and walk around and get coffee and things), and there was no traffic or roadworks or anything, I didn't understand it.
Anyway, Michael met me at the bus stop.  And now I'm back, studying for my exam on Tuesday and eating bacon and cuddling with Eglantine and watching Little Dorrit.  The weather is not very nice, but it's supposed to improve by next week.  Happy Easter!

I found this

Here is a post I found languishing in my drafts. It's an account of most of what I did in New York. I'm not really sure what happened after this post finishes, but I know my last hours in Brooklyn were spent in the back of a convenience store eating fries from the mini diner counter and waiting for the 5 a.m. hot-off-the-press New York Times to arrive. It arrived quite late.

____


I woke up at 6:30 on Tuesday morning, made sandwiches (egg salad and tuna salad) and went over to Emilio's. We had coffee, and got a taxi because it was a special occasion. We got to the station really early for the train, picked up our tickets, and went to the newsagent's. I ate a peanut butter and pear sandwich for breakfast. Gavin and Sheehan arrived, and we got on the train. The journey was soooo long! I...

* slept
* ate crackers, sandwiches, cookies
* read The Lover by Margaret Dumas, which is beautiful
* watched about 15 minutes of Amelie but it didn't really hold my attention
* chatted and did crosswords with the others

we got to New York about 9:30pm. It was raining outside, the subway had puddles all over. By the time we got to Aaron's apartment and dumped all our stuff it was about 11. But I didn't realise it was so late, so consented to go downtown to find dinner. Emilio refused to go to Times Square on principle, so we ended up somewhere else, not sure where exactly, but nothing was open and we were very hungry and the weather was horrible. We met up with Kady, who's the other layout editor at the Daily, and eventually found a Greek place and got souvlaki. It was delicious, and there was a great, odd assortment of people there. Well, it was about 2am. Gavin and I went home, and Sheehan and Emilio took Kady back to her hotel. I woke up at 6am when Sheehan and Emilio banged on the window of Aaron's apartment, let them in, and fell asleep straight away. When we all eventually got up at about 9 or 10, they said they'd come back at around 3 but didn't want to wake anyone up, so they'd wandered around trying to find all-night pharmacies or diners to hang out in. The weather on Wednesday was much nicer, not rainy and not too cold. Gavin and I went with Aaron and some of his friends to a diner for breakfast and I had waffles, then we wandered around. We were at Union Square station, which is on a part of Broadway near the NYU campus, and the Strand bookstore. We found a vintage store with some amazing stuff, but I didn't buy anything. I almost bought a tooled-leather handbag that said 'Jesus is Lord' but it was $30. Then we went to the Met! I met Mayumi there. I only had time for about one wing, but it was all beautiful. All the paintings they have are amazing, it makes me realise how limited Montreal is! The quality of stuff at the Musee des Beaux-Arts just doesn't live up. I got a hot dog from a street vendor. Then I sort of forget what happened. Maybe it's better if I make a list of things that happened.
-- One night we got sushi, it was sort of expensive, but good (although the platter we got was sort of dull)
-- On Thursday it snowed snowed snowed, almost a foot. Sheehan and I wandered around Smith Street, where there were lots of great little independent stores. I got some fur-lined wellies and my feet were very happy. We stopped at a Cuban restaurant for lunch, and I got a delicious crab sandwich. Then we went home, then went back out to this discount store Filene's Basement. I found a beautiful alpaca coat ($70 instead of $500). Then we walked to the Strand bookstore, and met Emilio, and I got some good cheap books. We walked up Broadway and did some more shopping, especially at Uniqlo because I went to Muji but it was closed.
-- Thursday evening I sort of forget. I suppose I must have eaten, but I don't remember it.
-- Friday I woke up early, and went for a wander around Chinatown because it was the bit I got to know best while I was there. I had coffee and a bagel for breakfast, and went to Topshop and Muji. I got home around 12, and it was good timing because people were just waking up. I went with Emilio to P.S.1, part of MoMA in Queens. There was a great exhibit based around 1969, and the building itself was really neat (an old school). We went to the subway, but it was the wrong one, so we tried to go to the other one but we weren't allowed in because we had to wait 20 minutes to use our card again. So we wandered around Queens finding the next stop on the line, and took it to Chelsea. We went to a really overpriced diner, decided to leave, told the waitress we were finding an ATM and would be back soon, and ran away. There was another diner with tv on in Spanish and burgers for $3.75, and it was incredibly good. Nearby was a street full of independent galleries, so we went to a few and they were great. Then we went on to the MoMA, and I looked around the 1880-1940 wing.

_____

Here are some photos I found of the trip.

On my way

On the bus to Toronto.  Stopped in Kingston and it's the same cigarette-voiced lady on the till, but I bought bottled water this time instead of chocolate milk.  Three-and-a-half-more-hours-to-go.

I'm going to eat my sandwich.

I've been thinking about birds and colours a lot recently

Apologies to Edward Lear.

Like watching paint dry

I'm waiting for water to boil.  It doesn't actually take as long as paint takes to dry.  I'm making sweet potato soup.  It was going to be sweet potato and roasted red pepper soup but I opened the jar of roasted red peppers and there was a hiss and a pop and a substantial wisp of gas floated out, but no genie.  I don't know what to call it because it obviously wasn't smoke or steam, peppers don't generate either of those.  Unless they're on fire.  Anyway I threw the peppers away, and now it'll be sweet potato curry soup I suppose, because I put garam masala in.  I am currently wondering whether adding desiccated coconut before I puree it would be a good idea or a bad one.

Earlier today I was exhausted because the final Daily meeting forever (for me) took four hours and was very cramped.  There was too much food for everybody and I consequently did not eat lunch because I wasn't hungry after eating an egg tart then a slice of salami then an orange then a scone with nutella then some grapes and chai tea.

Waiting for music to download though, that does take as long as paint takes to dry.



Michael describes this as "shoegaze symphonies for sad french teenagers."