in this crazy world in which we live in

This post doesn't really have a main point to convey. It should probably be generic update #7, but I thought of the title on the streetcar today and it made me laugh.

Notice how I used the word "in" 3 times in one sentence.

But yes. Today was a productive day indeed. Some aspects, however, were just plain crap. I got up at 7.30am, which constituted "plain crap". Then Eva gave me a lift to the subway, which acted to quickly restore the equilibrium of my day. I had an interesting lecture about Chinese music upon arrival on campus which added another "good" point to my day, making the score 2-1 in favour of good.

Regarding the previous point: did you know that Chairman (l)Mao's wife started a "cultural revolution" in China in 1966, in which all music, aside from 8 pieces with her seal of approval (8!) were banned? Fascinating.

Notice how I used the word "in" 3 times in that sentence, too.

After my morning lecture I wandered around for a while, trying to see some of Toronto that I hadn't seen yet. I walked through Victoria college and a picturesque cloister, onto Charles Street, which I followed East to Church Street. There was nothing much of note, except a big green building towards which I was walking. Upon reaching Church I turned South, walked along to Carlton Street, and turned West towards Yonge. At Yonge and College I got a streetcar to campus, and walked up to Robarts with the intention of doing something useful.

I browsed a book sale, ate my lunch, tried and subsequently failed to put to paper a comical idea for a cartoon I had earlier, then left because I couldn't think of anything else to do. Once outside I remembered my intention to drop AST210 - Great Moments in Astronomy, and so headed towards Woodsworth College (nearby) to find out how to do so. I was advised to log in to ROSI and do it from there, but unfortunately I'm a cretin: I returned to Woodsworth twice during the day with queries on how ROSI works, until eventually they gave up and did it for me.

I now have one less exam to worry about.

The rest of the 7 hours until my next lecture was passed mostly by wandering around aimlessly. I went to Chinatown to pick up some postcards for people at home and a T-shirt for Finn, and took some more photographs while I was there. I went to the library again to procrastinate online for a while, and realised just how much of a colossal timewaster Facebook is. I tried to recruit James to come study in the library with me, but we quickly realised we'd get more work done alone. I also gave him the response "it's an inquisitive remark. used in that context it's a prompt for an explanation of your previous statement" when he asked what I meant when I said "what".

With my options exhausted, I ended up panicking about how much revision I hadn't done for tomorrow's exam yet and heading home with blatant disregard for my evening lecture.

Since arriving home, I have revised. I have eaten chicken noodles, which were delicious. I have spoken to Bean on Skype, which was great! And replied to a couple of emails (need to do a couple more before bed). I've eaten more chicken noodles, and drank a can of Coke. Currently I'm playing Civ with James, and I intend to be asleep by midnight in order to get up and squeeze in some more revision on the morrow.

That'll be it for now, goodbye!

generic update #6 (sometimes I'm a lazy bastard)

You may have noticed from my recent inclusion of the "posts in progress" box, as well as referring to posts yet unpublished in other posts, that I'm falling a bit behind with my blogging.

Obviously this isn't catastrophic: there are more important things than online recordings of my time in Canada, but I still find it distressing. I have 42 drafts in my posts list, most of which I have removed from the blog or have no intention of publishing at all, but the 6 of those I do intend to publish (at a quick count) are anywhere between half written and not yet started.

I think it's because when I fall behind in something, my immediate reaction is to STOP (!), plan how to catch up, then implement the plan and eventually catch up. Usually however this process takes longer than it would to just sit down and grind whatever it is that needs to be done until it's done, which strikes me as slightly counterproductive. But ah well, that's just how I work I guess.

ANYWAY. That's the end of my rant. It's none of the readers concern how I operate, and I haven't had any desperate post requests (or any whatsoever, in fact), so I guess it's not a huge issue!

Today however, in an effort to undo some of my lazy-bastardness, I got quite a lot done. Despite unfortunately missing today's only lecture (I was at the wrong university when it started).

I read and replied to a few emails that I've been meaning to attend to. It's so nice getting an email from home: it makes me feel all goofy although it makes me wish I was there too...

I also browsed the UofT Clubs Directory once more, and emailled a few societies and clubs, including 2 campus newspapers, the Lego engineering club, and the French and Japanese student societies. I am aware that I am neither French nor Japanese, but they welcome anyone with an interest in the respectively represented cultures.

There's a chance that I may be able to contribute content to the student newspapers I mentioned, too, which would be cool. I submitted some of my photos, as well as a link to this very blog, so that the higher-ups may get a taste of my, well, photography and writing.

Also on my list of things to do was tidy up my room, which I half did, and do my laundry, which I half did as well.

I presume I'll do the other half of both things tomorrow, or on Sunday at the latest.

Now, however, I'm going to bed. It's Thanksgiving weekend this weekend, and Eva has invited me to her family's celebration, which I'm looking forward to greatly! I need to be up and ready in 12 hours, and I've got a lay in planned.

I'll leave you with this invitation to participate in a research study that I found on the Psychology Society's main page.

"We are currently seeking volunteers to take part in a positron emission tomography (PET) study at CAMH. Persons eligible for a screening interview must meet the following criteria:

• [Be] 18 to 35 years of age
• Use [...] cannabis/marijuana at least three times per week and hear voices or feel paranoid while using"

It seems to me to rely heavily on the trust of potential participants. I hope for their sake that they remain anonymous, otherwise there isn't much incentive to take part!

Keelite out night

I got an email a couple of weeks ago about the upcoming travel plans of a Keele professor. He was coming to Canada to help set up an exchange program, and wanted to meet the Keele students here on exchange at the time.

Me, Tom, Abi and Sammy arranged to meet aforementioned professor (Wynn) at York University yesterday evening, and to have a meal afterwards. We were going to go downtown but decided against it, because we still hadn't decided on a restaurant the day before we were supposed to go.

Unfortunately I arrived late, half way through the main course to be precise, but it was still nice. We spoke about Keele, England, and all the problems we've all had since arriving, then Wynn paid the bill and said he had to go. We all thanked him for the meal, said goodbye, then talked amongst ourselves for a while.

We decided to go to a Blacklight party at a club on the campus, and so headed there. We got VIP tickets for $2, but unfortunately they weren't valid for non-York students (i.e. me). I had to upgrade my ticket (and the cost), and also persuade the bouncers that my ID wasn't fake just because it wasn't Canadian. After showing 3 separate photo IDs they let me in, where I was fully frisked, charged a $15 cover, and forced to leave my jacket in the cloakroom ($3).

So, $22 later and we were inside!

We headed to the bar, got some drinks, then found a booth and sat talking for a while. Some of their friends arrived shortly after, and I was introduced, then they were incorporated into our conversation. We were given glowsticks before we came in, so we were messing around with those, and more drinks were bought.

After a while most people headed off to dance, but me and Sammy sat at the table. Bouncers came around periodically to check we still had our wristbands (apparently someone was shot in the club last year, which is why the security is so tight), and my visitor wristband attracted some sour looks. The night went on like this 'til just before 2, when everyone regrouped and we headed out.

I'd inadvertently missed the last bus from campus, and even the security advised me against walking up to Keele and Finch to get a bus from there. Thankfully Abi and Sammy's friend Areeb offered to let me crash in his room. We met him, then headed over there. It was in a big confusing building (which proved difficult to get out of the next day), and I had to sign in at the reception as a guest and was given a temporary guest permit accordingly. We then got in the lift and went up to his room.

I was given the bed, despite my insistence that he should have it, so I got a good nights sleep and headed out at around 10.30am to try and find my way back home. I wandered around for a long time looking for the bus stop, got some pancakes, then finally found it and ate them on the bus home.

generic update #5 (Beethoven and Coke)

This is in the same vein as generic update #3, in that a large portion of it is about my Beethoven lecture. It's also been edited since I first posted it, so if you're reading it for the second, third or any other subsequent time, you may notice a few changes (for the better I hope).

Firstly, and nerdily, I'd like to explain my recent blogging tendencies. I introduced the "generic update" posts to cover any posts made up of a collection of smaller things that don't really warrant full posts. I feel generic updates #1 through #4 were successful, however as of this one (#5) I'll be adding subtitles to hopefully make the title (and subsequently the posts) slightly more appealing.

Now, the (delete as applicable: boring/nerdy/riveting) stuff is out of the way:

It's getting really busy here at the moment. All of my exams bar one are over the next two weeks (the aforementioned one was this week), and revision / panicking have ensued. I've spent two late night sessions in the library; both have been quite fun however due to the combination of working and video games.

It's not all work and no play however: tonight for example I'm meeting Abi, Sam and Tom (fellow Keelites studying at York University (North of Toronto)) to go to dinner with a visiting Keele professor, which should be nice. I'm not sure where we're eating yet, but I'm looking forward to it anyway. The professor is here to help set up an exchange program with the school of nursing, from what I can gather.

I'm pleased to say that my budget is still holding up. Sort of. I moved from a daily budget to a weekly budget because it's easier to keep track of, but I may have to move to a monthly budget soon as I've spent over my weeks budget this week and I need to get back in the swing of things. There's so much to do here though it's hard to conserve money! Luckily most museums are free on certain days, there's a lot of free / cheap stuff on and around campus (including sports), and the city is still new and interesting enough to wander aimlessly around without spending a penny (in the financial sense at least).

Now, the large portion of this post related to my Beethoven lecture follows:

MUS202 - Beethoven, is my favourite course here at UofT. It's the only one (shamefully) of which I've attended all the lectures, and also the only one I find it truly interesting. If you hadn't guessed from the title, it's all about Beethoven's life, music, and interaction thereof. The lecturer gets really involved, and is really quirky as well.

Good (or at least weirdly intriguing) things seem to happen before/in/after the lectures, too. Last week was the woman invading the mens toilet incident, and this week a vending machine malfunction gave me 2 bottles of Coke for $1.75 which delighted me to no end (and therefore falls into the "good" category of things that have happened before/in/after MUS202).

This week's lecture was not hindered even by a long winded exam talk, in which hints were given as to the possible content of the upcoming midterm. This may have been due to the (theoretically) free Coke I was enjoying, or due to the fact that I feel strangely prepared for the exam after reading half of the course text in one sitting (a freak occurrence by my standards), I'm not quite sure.

One thing I do know, however, is that I feel like a bit of an ignoramus for only just learning which of Beethoven's symphonies is which...

first exam!

As the cryptic title of this post suggests, I had my first exam today! It was for PSY240 - Introduction to Abnormal Psychology, and so consisted of questions about how to detect, diagnose and treat disorders of the mind.

Luckily for me, most of the stuff covered I'd studied (or at least been introduced to) at Keele last year. This fact, combined with two intense (ha!) research sessions beforehand and 74% on a mock exam lead me to believe I did fairly well.

I realised immediately after the exam, however, that I'd mixed up two basic principles (Operant and Classical Conditioning, for anyone of a Psychological persuasion). This made me feel intensely stupid, and probably knocked about 5-7% off of my result.

The exam format was favourable. It was a 60 question multiple choice exam, which we had 75 minutes to complete. Me and most others left after about 30 though. The response sheets were so much cooler than those at Keele, if only for the name: Scanotron. Or something along those lines. It felt like sitting an exam in the future.

After the exam, traditional post-exam celebrations were conducted. I met Alex and James at Huron at 8ish (I think that's how I'm going to refer to it from now on by the way, instead of Alex and Neil's house, or any other similar description), and we walked to the bar we went to on the day we met. Last time we were here they were advertising 25c chicken wings, and we were interested in seeing if a) the offer was still on b) the price was accurate c) the wings were worth the price and d) how many chicken wings it's humanly possible to consume in one sitting.

Unfortunately our progress was hindered at a): the offer was no longer on, and so subsequent events b), c) and d) were nullified.

Darn.

We bought a pitcher between us to be polite, drank it, then went back to Huron via Sam's Supermarket (I think) with the intention of some combination of the following: eating fast food, playing poker, watching The IT Crowd and drinking beer.

A pepperoni, ham, red onion and topping I've forgotten pizza was ordered, along with 10 chicken wings and 4 cans of pop as part of a deal. The IT Crowd was watched while we waited for the food, then we moved upstairs for a casual game of poker afterwards.

All in all it was a good evening, apart from the fact that Alex bought up the fact that I look like a snake. I wasn't insulted, just really confused...

generic update #4

A lot has happened in the 4 days since my last post, and so my post frequency has decreased. This is not a problem for me because I've been having a great time, but it may be problematic for my (possibly) devoted readers.

I've just added a "posts in progress" box to my page, which you should be able to see on the right just beneath the title bar. As you may have deduced from the name, this box will show posts that are in progress but are yet to be published.

Keep checking back for them!

Anyway, this post is just a general summary of what's going on; I won't be giving any sneak previews to my posts in progress, so you'll just have to wait for those.

It's Monday afternoon, the first Monday in October in fact, and while my contemporaries back home have only just started lectures, I have my first exam tomorrow. I'm not too worried, it's a 60 question multiple choice exam based on the first 5 chapters of the course text, but it's still slightly disorientating to be thrust so quickly into exams (I also have 4 others over the next two weeks).

Currently I'm supposed to be in the library revising for aforementioned exam, but there's only 1 copy of the book and someone seems to be using it. I had a look in the University Bookstore but it cost over $100 for the book, which I refuse to pay (mainly because that's 2 weeks budget for me!).

I've just returned from a brief visit to the Toronto Music Garden; a permanent installation at the harbour front based on Bach's Suites for Unaccompanied Cellos. It seemed nice, but it's designed to follow the pictorial elements of the pieces, and so I was unable to appreciate it fully without a tour. Luckily there are weekly tours and I intend to go back at some point and join one.

That's it for now, anyway. I'm going back to the library in an attempt to track down the elusive course text. I may also get a can of Orange Crush on the way (it's kind of addictive!).

Nuit Blanche

Toronto's Nuit Blanche, the "all night contemporary art thing", is an offshoot of the European all night art festivals of the same name, whose exact origins are disputed. They began in 1997 in either Paris, St Petersburg or Berlin, and have since spread around the world, arriving at Toronto in 2006.

Me and a group of friends went to Toronto's fourth annual Nuit Blanche yesterday. I missed nearly all of Bea and Belén's pre-festival party because of the Anishinaabe Fall Ceremonies, which was a shame.

I planned to write a proper post about the event, but it's getting longer and longer overdue, so I've decided to just post some pictures of the art instead:

This is a giant silver rabbit shaped helium balloon. I'm not sure what it's called, who it's by or what it represents (it's the same with most of the art shown from here onwards unfortunately), but it was striking. It was also bloody hard to take a good picture of because of it's size. Luckily Windows Live Photo Gallery is good at stitching separate photos together.

This is the "4 Letter Word Machine". Based on the name, I'm sure you can figure out what it does without an in-depth description on my part. Throughout the course of the evening, I saw it say numerous words. Some got better reactions than others, some had people cheering, some were phrases and had people chanting along, but the most notable for me was "fart".

This was the weirdest piece of "art" I saw. It was a 39 man last man standing wrestling match, and as if that isn't weird enough, it was exhibited in a bus station. On one side of the building the cross-country bus service was operating as normal, and on the other, 39 sweaty latex clad men were interacting with each other in a very homo erotic fashion.

After watching the wrestlers prance about for a while, we walked South and saw a guy (presumably with some kind of inferiority complex) juggling an active chainsaw, a hand grenade, and a meat cleaver on the way. The crowd was surprisingly close to him considering his choice of juggling implements...

Towards the Financial District, the art gradually became harder to understand. Outside the head offices of the banks, someone had put funfair rides. This juxtaposition of work and play was enough to constitute art, apparently. The rides were free though, so we tested the Fun Slide and found the description to be fairly accurate.

Another challenging piece, further pushing the boundaries of what can be considered "art", was this:

A pool of 80 proof vodka, in a bank lobby.

For some reason, as is with any substantial body of water (or vodka) in a public place, people were compelled to throw money into it. There were coins EVERYWHERE. People were trying to skim them across the surface, they were throwing handfuls at a time, some threw them so hard that the coins ended up across the other side of the building. I guess it's both good and bad for the artists, though: they make some money out of it but they can't drink it afterwards.

At this point, my camera died, so the photos will end now.

Throughout the rest of the night, we saw Monopoly being played with real money (by C-List celebrities), a presentation on how your hand shape can help you win the lottery, a lot of radio receivers hanging from the ceiling of a lobby (the feedback combined with the aesthetic was the art), and a really interesting interactive music thing. There were areas marked out by neon duct tape, and cameras high above that picked up when people crossed the tape. When the cameras detected someone, it was processed by a laptop, and triggered a sound. All the sounds together didn't sound too great, but the exhibit itself was really interesting. People were trying to figure out how it worked, and dancing around like maniacs in the process.

After a game of chess in a posh hotel lobby at around 4am, and a while spent wandering aimlessly, the crowds began to dissipate. So too did our group, until it was just me and Alex left at around 6am. We went to the famed exhibit whose name I forget (which had been too busy to get to for the rest of the evening), saw inside, felt disappointed, then went our separate ways. I went home to bed.