"I wish books had feelings."

"...why?"

"So I could punch [Doctor Faustus] and feel gratified."

Just a photo...

This is Amy and Hannah. They are probably my favourite people on campus. Without joke. That is a fridge. This is our life. All three of us making mundane actions, like that of returning a defunct fridge, fun and enjoyable.

Milkshake finally got his damn milkshake

I meet Amy at her dorm and before anything else happens, she states, "Milkshake wants a milkshake."

"...what?"

"He has called me like twenty times asking to come over, each time I told him I was waiting for you, and he wants to go downtown to get a milkshake."

So we go up to meet Milkshake, Kris, Michelle, Viet, and a rather intoxicated Spencer, but by the time we make it to the bus stop, which is a long time from our initial departure because, wouldn't you know, drunk people are kind of a distraction. There is Shayla who is very anxious about the dance she was rejected from attending because she lives in totem, and then Spencer who was fervently calling someone for a good fifteen minutes.

When we do leave on the bus, our group has been trimmed to just Amy, Milkshake, Viet, and I, which is a good, tight group.

We get to Davie Street without too much issue, but the act of finding the place, the Templeton, proves to be much harder than anticipated. With Viet telling us it is 1068 Davie and hundreds of extravagantly-dressed individuals crowding on a street reminiscent of a street fair minus the vendors plus extra people, it was neigh-impossible to find this damn diner.

It was when we walked back up the street did we see a sign that said 1067. We were close.

So we take our search to the next level: we actually interacted with people. I walked into the closest establishment, which happened to be some Indian, I think, restaurant. I asked if they knew of a "Templeton" anywhere nearby, and, of course, they had no idea. A little defeated, granted we have barely begun our search, we step outside when Amy spots it!

We walk in ... and the sign says 1087. Thanks Viet for your impeccable number-memorizing ability.

It looks just like a 1950s diner (and turns out, it is actually an original 50s diner). We sit, looking over the menus for some foodstuff, knowing full well what drink Milkshake was to get. The conversation that ensued was, well ... interesting. It has some NSFW topics, so I will not discuss them here, but none were too mentally stimulating, we were mostly hungry/craving a milkshake like no other.

It was only after we left that things got interesting. As we are walking towards the bus stop from which we emerged, I noticed that the bus power lines were present only on one side of the street. "Hmm, bizarre, usually they are on both. Eh, whatever, might as well just continue down looking for the bus stop." We come to the realization, with the help of an iPhone (without technology, we probably would still be walking back to UBC), that there is no bus stop on this road. "Oh! It is one-way, duh there are no lines on 'the other side'..." I felt smart.

As we are walking to the stop, we pass by many interestingly-dressed people. Normally, it does not really matter, but there was thing one woman who had a crazy get-up that really was noticeable. Well, it was not the outfit, but really the way she delivered it: a swift spank to my behind. Snookie will be pissed to hear this.

The moment we were out of earshot, people, a little dumb-founded, immediately enquired. "Yes, guys, she did just spank me." As we rapidly walked to the bus stop.

"Which should be on Granville. There are many buses going to UBC from Granville that we can catch."

Old-style music chooser-thing 

Except, my phone said Howe, not Granville. I am trusting my phone, almost like Marsha*. But as we pass a bus stop on our way to Howe, Viet insists that we just missed our stop, to my continued walking to the destination. We get there and we read that the bus [service] stops after  21h00 on weekends. Mind you, we convinced ourselves that it was the service that ends, not that it is the bus stop.

Thinking we needed another bus stop, we run to Granville, to the bus stop that Viet insisted had the 4. Instead, it was the 6. Look, I am blind. Not really, but I have not the best vision. Viet owns and wears glasses. I felt a success there. So, we get to the third bus stop of the night to find that no buses arrive post 21h. "Let's just go back to the first stop".

As we round the corner to the first bus stop (the one my phone told me to go on Howe), we see the bus. We all kind of a flip a little, nearly running under traffic. Instead, we crossed the street wisely, well except for Viet who pulled a Flash and dashed before the light turned red, not wanting to miss the bus that had a nice, plump line outside of its doors, waiting to load the passengers.

On our way home, we did have some stimulating conversation. It began with linguistics, moved to the ability, or lack thereof, to communicate with truly alien species, grazing cross-species communication here on Earth, and finishing on a good note.

It was nice to get home and unwind.

*Future story about my parent's GPS named Marsha.

Procrastination

I am a terrible procrastinator. Actually, this post is an attempt to procrastinate both my doing homework and the act of getting food.

I think it is a disease.

Anyways, I was on Facebook talking to a friend about not doing an essay when I compared my productivity levels with the proximity to my room. So, instead of sitting down and writing a thesis for a paper due on Monday (or even the actual paper itself), I drew this chart:

...I am thinking I should at least drag myself down to the caf to get some food. I mean, I did just put some pants on... only six hours after I woke up.

UPDATE: I have narrowed down my life [before an assignment is due] to three parts, they are: eating, complaining about my work, or browsing the internet.

It is a wonder I ever get any work done at all.

My Girlfriend is Snookie.

To start: I am writing this two, three, maybe four weeks later, so details could be fuzzy.

For llama dinner before Halloween (wow, that was a long time ago already...), we decided to go to PlayLand. Any idea what PlayLand is? No? Well, good, we are in the same boat (or were). It is this amusement park in the middle of Vancouver, like a mix of Castle Park and Six Flags (Castle Park is this tiny, ghetto park in Southern California. I am about 99% sure an inspector had not entered either PlayLand or Castle Park for about a decade, but whatever.).

Since it is Halloween, it was all decked out to be creepy, but we only found that after we took a nice, long roundabout journey along the perimeter of the park when we arrived. Our sense of direction is, without a doubt, the best, especially since the bus drops us off at the entrance to the park, the entrance that we managed to miss...

Coming in, I had never been entirely upside down on a ride. In other words, I still held my upside-down V-card. First things first, though, the chair swing. We had to start off slow.

So, we climb up, nearly crapping our pants in excitement, when the ride begins it's spinning. Chair swings are never the most exciting ride, but with the amount of energy we had cooped up, we did not care. It was even better since we were the sole people on the ride, screaming our heads off.

Does that say "Help"?

When we got off, Hannah and I bolted to the singing ship-like ride that spins. No one else particularly cared for that ride, so it was just Hannah and I. Mind you, my only experiences with amusement parks are Disneyland and Castle Park, neither really vying for the top thrilling experience, and I remember once flipping the eff out on a swinging ship ride, but that was when I was young and dumb.

We sit down, essentially vibrating from the excitement we could not contain. I am honestly surprised people were not gawking at our apparent lack of sanity. Anyways, the ride started, and it was incredibly fun, not the scary death-trap I remember. It was so fun, in fact, that as we swung nearly upside-down, Hannah and I turned to each other and, laughing, start talking about Plato's Republic and Machiavelli's The Prince. Only us...

...this is where my memory gets foggy, which is funny because about here in the night was when Hannah and I played in the fog machines. Actually, we were having a blast, until the security guard, probably sure we were high as kites, told us to move away from the fog machines. Has anyone else been around a fog machine? They are so much fun! Whatever, that guard just does not know what is up...

I cannot remember which rides happened before the Haunted House, so I will just skip to the Haunted House. So, Hannah did not want to go into the Haunted House, well, neither did Amy, but we made sure she did. Adam decided to go off with Hannah while Amy, Emely, Breanna, and I waited in line. While in line, we somehow got on the topic about how excité does not mean excited but, rather, horny. Breanna and Emely protested a little, saying that je suis excité does mean I am excited not I am horny, but I reassured them, telling them a story:

My French class had the same reaction, except when I told them, they definitely protested, everyone in my group saying that I was wrong. So, I sat in the class, waiting for Mme. Simpson to get to our translated phrase. When she came to ours, she gave out a tiny chuckle and asked the class if that was right. I sat holding my poker face, I wanted to see it play out, I was curious; I was not sure if, perhaps, excité in Quebecois could mean excited. Someone on the other side of the room mentioned excité, and Mme. Simpson immediately was like, "right! Excité does not really mean happy... What is 'happy'?" "Heureux," I say. "Yes! Excité, well, umm, means horny." My groups' face plunged into redness. I sat there smugly.

(Yes, I know, Capt. Morgan, but, honest, I am not generally smug or boastful, but this one time, since the entire group was sure that in their translation, I wanted my minute of smugness.)

Jeez, it is like a surf story*

So, in line, telling this story, a girl comes up to me, taps my shoulder, and asks if I speak French. I tell her I do. She runs to grab her friend. Immediately, this girl comes up to me and asks,

"Tu parles français?"

"Oui."

"Ben, tu es d'où?"

"Californie du Sud, et toi?"

"Paris"

"Oh, Paris! J'aime Paris! Je le visitais cette été passé."

"Oh, vraiment, mais Californie, comment est-ce que tu parles français?"

"Bon, ma grand-mère et d'où Belge."

"Où?"

"Belge."

"Mais, comment est-ce que tu parles français?"

"...ma grand-mère est belge"

"Ok. Tu as combien ans?"

"Uh, 18 ans."

"Tu vas à l'école ici?"

"Oui, l'UBC"

"Oh, c'est cool. Mais, quand tu as le dix-neuf ans?"

"Uhh, août.."

"Oh, cool, donc tu devrais m'appeler. Qu'est-ce que c'est ton numéro?"

"Ben, uhh..."

"Oh, tu as le Blackberry?"

"Non..."

"Bon, je te donnerai mon numéro. Voici..."

"Merci."

UPDATE: I just realised not everyone can speak French, so, rough translation: Hi. Hi. Where are you from. Paris. SoCal. How do you know French? My grandma. How? Grandma. Why? Grandma. How old are you? 18. When do you turn 19? August. Call me then ;)

Except there were some English parts and so much slur. I was essentially getting drunk off of her breath. Anyways, that is how I got a girl's number. And somewhere it came up that she was 25, I think. It is funny that this happens just two days after I was walking down the street with friends, and a passing woman spanks my ass.

Both were kind of awkward.

Actually, it became much more awkward when we were in line for a ride talking about her, when we saw her sitting down. That was when the connection was made that "my girlfriend" looked like a Parisienne Snookie. Brilliant. So, in line, I just pretended that I had with Amy, Hannah, or Emely as my girlfriend(s) and made no eye contact. I am pretty sure she did not see me, luckily.

The "roller-coaster"

After that great bit of adventure and some other possible stuff, we went on a roller coaster that went upside-down, except it was barely a roller coaster (there was little thrill) and going upside down was kind of a let down. Eh, I still have time to find a thrilling amusement park.

OH! And also, Hannah and I went on the circular coaster-thing that was sketch as heck. You board the little cabin, one or two person: I was going with Hannah, no questions asked. We sat down, and I clamped, it was scary. This little cabin swung ever so gently, and the doors barely shut. It was creepy, not going to lie, but, it turned out to be loads of fun, actually.

By the end of the night, we were toast. Like dead, burnt toast. The bus ride was long and tiring, and our beds that night felt so nice. All in all, it was an adventure, a great one.

Thank you llamas!

("LLAMAS! MAAHHH!")

That is one fabulous skeleton!

Adam, Emely or Breanna, and Hannah on the left.

"Yeah, what now?"

*Remind me one day to tell you a surf story.

Let's do the Time Warp again...

... that was the flash mob. And we were all ill-prepared.

Now, I will not say that we were ill-prepared for the actual screening but truth is, we were. I bought hair dye, legitimate hair dye, only a few hours before the film began, and at that point we had not found boots for Hannah or my glasses. It was just a little disaster.

But in the end it worked: I got my hair-dyed (which is still a bizarre feeling that my hair is brown), we all pulled off Frank-N-Furter, Brad, and Janet VERY well, and we arrived before the beginning of the movie, way more than enough time to allot before I propose to Frances (in character as Brad to her Janet).


So, here are some photos of the successful, very fun night:

Brad and Frank-N-Furter

"Dammit, Janet, I love you."

"Oh Janet!" "Yes, Brad?"

The ensemble "cast"

Hannah rocked her Frank-N-Furter!

The great debacle that is rearranging a room.

One would think that rearranging a room is not that big of a deal. Well, they would be wrong. At least if they lived in Hannah's room.

People with singles are decided to move their bed to be parallel with the window, which is indeed a nice change, and Hannah is no different. And we decided to tackle the rearranging problem head-on.

The first step, of course, was to move her desk out of the way. ...which lead to many things falling. Oops. Then, we had to start putting things, like her "heaven" (warm, nice, cozy space under her bead as a sitting/sleeping area) and all of the rest of her shit. 

But, where do we put it?

We asked ourselves that very question. Actually, no, that is a lie. In reality, I just started to throw everything that Hannah handed to me into the hallway. Boy, in retrospect, I sure am glad there was no fire.

Anyways, once there is mostly an empty husk of a room, we decide to move the bed. But, to move the bed, we had to move everything out of the room first. Everything.

In the moving of the bed, we accidentally broke the plug (if UBC reads this, this is a lie. This is a falsified photo, and we never broke anything).

And we kind of made it so that it was very, very difficult to get outside of the room...

And this damn wardrobe kept opening itself RIGHT when we started to push it. It cause several bruised shins.

The hallway essentially became a fire hazard and a second room for Hannah during this whole debacle.

And in the end I sat there playing with the Christmas lights...

UPDATE: I realized after the fact that maybe a before and after photo would be good, but since I have neither (well, I could get an after photo, but I truthfully do not care that much), you can use your imagination. Have fun.

Cultural Differences

There are some things here in Canada that I never thought about before August 16, the day I landed in Vancouver.

Of course, I knew that Canadians use celsius, something I have been using for about two years now, as well as the metric system. I knew they said "sore-y", "eh", and "aboot". I also knew that they are still loyal to the English Monarchy. Yet, there are some things that one does not realize before arriving in a foreign country and living there for a while.

I would have to say the most prevalent difference is the difference in cultural ... assumptions? No, I guess just cultural differences. Coming from the United States, being the only country that matters in the world, I have grown used to certain examples being used, certain 'constants' per se. I started noticing the difference in my economics 101 class, but it has been getting more and more obvious. Back in the States, to give an example, the professor would use New York, Massachusetts, the FDA, and Chipotle. Here, though, they use Québec, Saskatchewan, the Crown, and Tim Horton's. "Let's say the Crown has developed a new law that sets a price ceiling on apartments," or "Nous avons pris un train au Saskatchewan."  It is not confusing at all, it is just different and very new.

Well, actually, it can be confusing. For example, in my Arts One class, one of my classmates used a law put into motion by the Crown (I cannot quite remember what law it was now). Immediately, everyone began discussing it as I sat there looking clueless. Of course, I might not have even known its equivalent in the States because, granted, I did not pay much attention in US History, but there are certain assumptions professors make that their students know Canadian history that tends to throw me a little.

None of this is saying that I hate being here, god no, nor is this a complaint that I am confused and ill-equipped to be in another country. I absolutely love being here (yes, I am saying it even though I still love Columbia University, I think I will stay here at the top 22nd university in the world!). Canada is almost not as distinct and different as I would have hoped, but it is certainly great.

Now that I got that off my mind, I must get working on a history paper that I have been putting off...

Llamas!

Happy llama, sad llama, totally rad llama...

It comes up easily four to five times a week, mostly on a Wednesday night. It has become our theme-song, so to speak, adopted randomly after a movie night.

...super llama, drama llama, big, fat momma llama...

I was not part of the original llama grouping, which is a sad moment indeed. It began with Emely, Hannah, Adam, Amy, and Aditya when someone put their hand up in the form of a wolf, to which Adam immediately interjected that it was no wolf but, rather, a llama! Since then, that group, minus Aditya the Defector, has been the llamas.

I, personally, was included several days later on a bus ride to the night market.

...tall llama, short llama, child support llama...

Recently, we decided to form a weekly meeting, our llama dinner. Every Wednesday, we are to meet together and have a grand ol' time. The moment we meet on a Wednesday, hands shoot up in our pseudo-salute followed by singing our llama song.

The past dinner, at the Point Grill–which was awesome by the way, good food at reasonable prices: win–we decided to add more to the song. The third verse is the culmination of a night of crazy laughing, delicious french fries, a great waiter ("So guys, should we tip this guys like 84% or what?"), and more that would be lost on you without context. Now, the tradition has been set. Our llamas are a group forever.

LLAMAS! ...out!

The Adventure Continues ... Amazingly

Yes, after last night, I still had an adventure!

It was decided that I was to get to the station via Kirby's roommate's moped. Both of us were to ride helmet-less with all of my luggage (a suitcase [think early twentieth century leather handheld suitcase] and my very full satchel). Eh, we survived an exploding kitchen, how much crazier could this be?

We get on, I am holding my suitcase out over the left hand side; my satchel is weighing down on the right. As we start going, it is obvious that the moped is struggling. On any good day with one passenger, a moped is sort of speedy. Well, it had two passengers and luggage. We were inching along at probably under 10km/h. Maybe just a little faster... downhill. The entire time, Laura and I are laughing hysterically. If there were bicyclists, they would gave passed us easily. The drivers were looking at us like we were insane, and we probably are.

Most of the time we stuck to the sidewalks (I mean, heck, we were going slower than bicyclists), but we needed to take a left hand turn, meaning we would have to go into the left turn lane. Neither of us know the area particularly well and start to take a left on a street before the one we need. So, there we are: two university students, with loads of luggage, on a crawling moped swerving from the right hand side, to the centre of the street, back to the right lane. It was a red light so we stopped and found that we needed to take a left at the next intersection. So, the light turned green, and we started off, watching the car ahead of us accelerate leaving the hill in the intersection visible. The moped was barely moving on level ground... We try half accelerating, half pushing with our feet, all the time laughing, trying to get out of the way for the rest of the cars.

We finally took that left, but in front of us was a large hill (think small hill in San Francisco). We just gave up at that point and ran it to the top. Hopping back on, we took a detour through a parking lot, all the while saying how this is "all kinds of illegal".

In the end, I got to the station about 15 minutes early with yet another story to bring home with me. Thank you everyone and thank you Gonzaga University, this was the most perfect first Thanksgiving away from home.

Laura and her moped!

I Survived the Coughlin Fire of 2011

Well my Thanksgiving turned out to be a lot more interesting then I imagined.

To begin, a couple of my new Gonzaga University friends and I were cooking. I do not know exactly what they were cooking (zucchini stuff), but I was making french fries, rice-stuffed bell peppers, pasta, and salad.

So, one of them was going to make fried zucchini, so she set the oil on the stove. A while later she decided to take the top off. Apparently something hit the oil, it caught fire. We were all like "shitshitshitshitshitshit" and screaming. First reaction was to put water on it. I learned at one time never to do that, but of course I forgot completely. Water on burning oil is THE worst thing to do. It exploded (explosion number 1). A ball of fire came up immediately. The fire was about a meter away from our faces, not even. So I go to grab the fire extinguisher as people start running to the fire (they heard the screaming). They try to help by throwing water on it (explosion 2) and then my spraying it with water (larger explosion 3). I am wrestling with the fire extinguisher, unable to figure it out (a wild, out of control fire is raging in fits and bursts and I have held a fire extinguisher once, so I probably could have figured it out under any other, normal circumstances, but...). Then, one guy takes the flaming pot and pours it into the sink, the sink where the running water is. That causes the last explosion (explosion 4), which become a flaming column. Thankfully somebody got the fire extinguisher and puts out the flames or else the whole place would have caught.

Firetrucks outside of Coughlin.

We all are immediately ushered downstairs outside. Many people are just stumbling outdoors, not really caring. I get calls from Mariah and Kirby (telling them immediately it is a fire and to leave). Standing outside, we are telling everyone the story. My cousin, Brigid, takes out her camera and looks through... and finds three photos of the fire. The first two are the smaller, little flame, which is still kind of crazy, but then she pans to the last one and nearly the entire shot in enveloped in flame. She got a great shot of the flames (later, campus security saw the shot and flipped, immediately asking for an email of it).

They let the few people who were cooking back inside to retrieve stuff, and boy it was a mess! The ceiling was black, there was either soot or white, extinguisher powder everywhere. It was like a warzone.

The scorched ceiling.

Kirby holding the saved Zucchini.

So there you have it, my Thanksgiving meal with friends and family.