The Red Queen Effect

So these days I'm running to stand still, but isn't that what makes life exciting? Yes. The answer is yes. I am behind on my blog, I am aware, and I am sorry. Much has happened since we had our last discourse. Let's see. . . . I wanted to write a lot about the boxed wine party. It was pretty crazy. I think that's the blurriest things have ever been. A good piece of evidence in favour of this that on the way home britton walked me through the drive thru at Mickey D's. I haven't had McDonald's in literally 6 years. I broke the streak with a Big Mac and fries. Here's to another 6 motherfuckers! Britt's brother Tye showed up which was a welcome surprise. He taught us all a tradition shown him by the great Blake Anderson. It's called shakeface. The premise is pretty simple: When someone takes your picture with a flash - you shake your face. See Tye's demonstration. Yeah he has a black eye. That's from a giant beam of wood hitting him in the face, in a completely unrelated incident. Try shakeface today!

In the interim much has occurred, but let's fast forward to 2 nights ago. Porch climbers part II. The night was envigorating. We spend over $500 on alcohol. Jeez. We would've broken even too, but for some reason there were a number of no-shows. For future reference: When you say you are coming to a porchclimber, that is a promise that you are going to give us $10 for the alcohol we are buying you. . . Anyway, we did some damage control by taking back $100 worth of liquor, so we were only $22 in the hole each. Peanuts for a night of hard drinking. We also had food and prizes, and most importantly every one had a blast. Odin just ran by my window, he looks like a little rocket zipping around just above the lawn out there.

A lawn which up until a couple of days ago was dusted with stupid stupid snow.

Fuck that.

In lieu of the warm weather I will abscond with a few pairs of shorts and a camera. In two days I fly to Costa Rica. I haven't had contact with Yank for a week or so. . . his parents should be town there right now, so I imagine he doesn't have much time for internet related things. Understandable! I will email him anyway. I would like a ride to wherever they're hanging out from San Jose. I am very stoked for my trip, but I'm in the common headspace now where I'm not sure I believe I'm going. I'm just going through the motions of getting ready, and it's not till I see the jungle slipping by under the wing that I will understand where I am. I kind of like it that way though.

In other news: I sat down with my biomed supervisor the other day and was told (somewhat to my temporary chagrin) that I would not be able to continue with this program I'm switching into until the fall! I think he was about to offer me a job, but I could see the wheels turning in his head with regard to my lack of interest in being trapped inside in the summer, just before he opened his mouth and said "but you probaby want to go canoeing or something like that right?". He had me figured out. . . it was a few tense days of waiting, but I called Dave at camp and managed to score an explorer trip. So that's 25 days on some northern river somewhere in some month of the summer. Don't know the details, except here I am going back to camp. No worries though. Called Kilmer, found out he's going back too. We couldnt' stop laughing. This is a strange thing to do at this point in life for both of us. I've spent the year coping with the idea of not going back!

Bill, who I led the Attawapiskat with last year, also made it down for the porchclimber, which made my weekend. It was great to catch up. Bill will also be back, and we toyed with the idea of another trip together. We do have an understanding after all. Bill suggested we just take the names from last year's kids and apply them to the new kids, just to make things easier. I think that's a great idea. Unfortunately that means a couple of kids will get the short end of the stick, as they won't be too popular with us from the get go, regardless of their real names. . . but life isn't fair right? :)

So now I am looking into getting my WRT (whitewater rescue technician) but the course is full and offered at a bad time, but there's a chance it's required for this summer . Arg. Why a bad time? Well Now that spring is free, I am thinking of calling village camps in the Ardeche and seeing if there's any space. . . I wouldn't mind another stint in France for the spring, but that could be quite a long shot. I was looking at flights and they start at around $738. . . after taxes. That's quite reasonable! Very temping you know?

So that's what happens when I take big breaks from blogging. Instead of the idle observational comedy that you've come to know and love, you get a real life update which is probably horribly boring. I apologize for this.

How about this? One of my students who is an absolute DOUCHEBAG didn't like the mark he got on his paper. He sent it back to the prof (my supervisor) full of angry comments, berating my skill as a marker. It was actually full of insults. We've all read it over in this house (It's already been marked and submitted, that's allowed now) and we had such a great laugh over it. He frequently tries to tell me he DIDN'T misspell or misuse a word, and that he should get 5/5 on grammar and spelling. He went so far as to suggest that I didn't have a dictionary present when I marked his paper. The best part is that I did. I did and I made sure I used it, which means he looks like an absolute fool, standing there staunch and stalwart behind his bad desicions. He looks so silly defending his confused definitions of words. I have to say there's nothing more annoying to me either than people who use a word just to use it, not because it's actually appropriate. The epitome of this annoyance for me lies with those who do it with words they don't actually know. This guy is fantastic. In the words of Deb "If this guy spent half as much time writing his paper as he did these comments, he'd have gotten an A." So true Deb, so true.

So the dildo ended his little tirade with a little sob story about how busy he is. We KNOW, undergrad, we know. We all went through it. The supervisor you're crying to has a BSc, MSc, DVM, and a PhD. I too have finished my undergrad and am working on a second degree, where the fuck exactly do you think the sympathy will come from? We have all been as busy as you. He went so far as to write that he didn't have time for this "re-re-evaluation." By the end I was so steaming mad that I couldnt' mark it objectively, so I passed it back to my supervisor. I don't think he deserves a single mark, but that could be rage talking, so I sent it back. I was considering just taking one mark off and sending it back, just to hit him in the proverbial scrotum. Anyway, I think his plan was to turn my supervisor against me - he didn't really believe I'd ever see the comments. Funny thing is I did, and he's shot himself in the foot. So that's a little idle observational comedy for you. . . even though it wasn't idle. Or observational (maybe a bit). Or comedy.

It's time to sort my life the hell out. I have to take out some travel insurance among other critical things. . . I have to say this beats slicing rat brains!

Also, I turned 26 this morning. . .yyyyyyyikes.