Monthly Archives: November 2014

Saskatoon

So I am in Saskatoon.  Grandma is still alive, but she is very sleepy and tired and her memory is all over the place.  Today she said I was going to move to Southern Alberta.  Which I haven’t ever considered! I think it’s getting harder for her to stay alive, but who knows right?

I am still trying to finish school!  I have kept up with all my assignments so far, I have written my first draft of my extended narrative tonight and hopefully that is good enough for now.  I have an essay I need to get done by Thursday so that is the next tricky thing.  I’m a little stressed out, because it’s that time of year, the end of the semester time of year.  I hope I can pass this semester even though I am so far away.

I had a dream a friend told me she was single and that she thought we should go on a date and then she kissed me.  It wasn’t a tonguey kiss though, but it was still really sweet and my dreaming head made it all very romantic.  Silly.

The dogs are here with me.  It was Posey’s first birthday today, so she got pork twists with sweet potato and then her and the pups got a special gourmet dog food made with buffalo and more sweet potatoes.

I finally got the school to confirm my enrollment, so that was Monday and they said in five business days I would get my student loan.  I hesitate to believe it.  The loans people said I might have to pay interest, which would be around 16 dollars.  And AFTER they recieved it THEN I would get my loan.  So I really don’t know when I will get my loan.  I wish they would just take the 16 dollars off of my loan because I have not much money anyway and most of it is borrowed and FOR GOD’S SAKES!  Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

So will it be Friday or two and a half weeks from now?  I don’t know.

My money!  And I owe so many people money!

Grandma

My Grandma is dying.  The doctor says she has between hours and days to live.  I moved to Ontario knowing my Grandma didn’t have a lot longer, and it’s weighed heavily on me.  I don’t talk about it much because I don’t want my Grandpa to read this and worry, but he is worried already and I am heading home this weekend to be with the family.  And hopefully I will get to see my Grandma and hold her hand and kiss her cheek.  Or something.  If she passes before then that is okay too, I don’t want her to hang on when she’s ready to go.

Grandma has been pretty influential in my life.  She taught me how to read.  She baked with me, cupcakes and cinnamon buns and hot cross buns.  She and I went camping once just the two of us.  Since Mom was a single parent, Grandma and Grandpa picked up the slack and looked after my sister and I when Mom was too busy or too tired.  Grandma had a library of childrens books, and my favorites were the Amelia Bedelia books.  Amelia Bedelia was always getting into trouble for taking instuctions literally, and then she would ALWAYS get fired and then suddenly rehired when she baked something particularly delicious.

Grandma was a peace activist.  During the Cold War (which coincided with my childhood), we went to a lot of anti-nuke demonstrations together.  She also was an NDP member and was involved with the Anglican church since her husband, Grandpa, was a minister.  She often managed to convince me to go to Vacation Bible School, even though I wasn’t Christian.  Later in my life when I started going to Anglican services at Easter and Christmas, I think she felt like she had made some kind of spiritual difference for me.  When I came out to her and Grandpa as a teenager they were supportive, and later wore rainbow crosses to church to quietly promote LGBT inclusion in the Anglican church.

Grandma was a snap champion.  My cousin Luke and I would play snap with her and she was extremely competitive, and her snap slaps were the stuff of legend!  She wasn’t kidding around and she wasn’t going to give us an easy time just because we were kids.  She loved gardening and bird watching, and often when we went up north to the cabin she would check her bird book and identify all the birds we saw.  She grew strawberries in her back yard and once set a wasp nest on fire just in case my sister got stung by them while she babysat us.

Grandma was pretty much the ultimate Grandma.  She knitted for a long time, making her grandchildren mittens and scarves and sweaters.  She kept a notebook with her grandchildrens hand outlines, labeled with their names and ages.  She made me the ultimate pair of mittens once, and I still have one of them.  They were lavender and on the inside had a softer pink layer.  Double layered mittens!  They were the best.

Grandma got a little crankier when she got older and couldn’t do all the things she used to do, but she would still do silly things like tickle me and my mom when we visited her in her bed, and she still got excited about seasonal fruits and pieces of pie I would bring her.

I really love my Grandma, and I think a lot of other people do too, just people she met in her life.  I’m gonna miss her.

Canadian Horror Story: Student Loans

There are three weeks left of the semester.  And I still don’t have my student loan money.  Sigh!  I called late last week and they said to call again on Monday and find out where in the process they are with my money.  Apparently it wasn’t until last Wednesday that they sent a request for confirmation of my enrollment in University.  So slow!  Why the fuck are student loans so slow???  I HATE IT!  🙁

And then I read somewhere else that it’s 7 business days after they get electronic confirmation from my university.  I hope that’s not true.  I hope it’s a lot faster!  I counted my change and I have nine dollars.  And $2.67 in my bank account.  And I would like to pay rent, phone bill, pay people back.  Sigh.

SIGH!

Posey is being super cute today.  She was throwing around her little rawhide chewy, and she threw it on the floor and then Little Mister got it.

Little Mister was happier on our walk today because he didn’t have to walk in the rain.  He hates the rain!

I bought dog poop bags that are lavender scented and it is kind of disturbing.  I don’t think it’s natural.

I missed chatting with Robin because I was on the bus heading for St. Clair West station and then on to Kensington Market.  Too bad!  But I got to visit Louis and that was nice.

I should go to sleep I guess.  It’s 11:30.  I watched the fourth episode of American Horror Story Freak Show and got grossed out by some gory things.  I hate gore, but this is the first time I’ve sort of kept up with a television show since I left mom and her cable behind.  So I’m gonna stick with it!  And maybe watch the other seasons.

Smelly Blankets

I just wrote my first paper for grad school.  Yay.  It really stressed me out!  My back is all hunched up and tense.  At a certain point my knees kind of locked up and when I stood up they reminded me of the Tin Man when he’s going “Oil can!”  My ass hurt from sitting so still for so long.  UGH!

Little Mister and Posey and I went on a walk in the rain today and Little Mister HATED it!  He was walking behind us so slow like a wet turtle, I was practically pulling him along.  Poor dude.  I got so mad but I know it’s just because he doesn’t like getting that wet.  He should be glad I don’t want to move back to Vancouver or he’d be really miserable.  Poor grump!

This blanket smells.

I have class tomorrow.  My long day.  Two classes back to back!

I really hope my student loans come in tomorrow.  It’s now way past midterms, we are heading into the last stretch of school, I’m broke and frustrated and still owe 258 in rent and utilities, AND owe phone company money.  Like, a lot of money.  🙁  MONEY HURRY UP! I’m so annoyed.

I didn’t keep up with my readings for my afternoon class tomorrow, I sort of sacrificed it for that paper.  Oh well.  I hope he doesn’t ask me any specific questions.

It’s funny, I always wanted to be, like, the PERFECT student in grad school.  Like get to classes on time and stuff.

Today I went to class through a different building and got lost and I was so annoyed and I was gonna just go home but NO!  Not when I came all that way!  So I continued going through the labyrinth that is Kerr Hall and FINALLY found my class.  AND THEN!  There was about 20 minutes of new information and then the rest of the class was all about the differences between sole proprietorship, partnerships, and corporations.  And I already learned that in Praxis, so I was super bored.  Thinking to myself “Ugh!  Just get through these slides already!”

This blanket still smells.

The one good thing about class today was she told us how we should think of just getting through each six week block.  First six weeks, then reading week, next six weeks, month off for Christmas, six weeks again, reading week, then LAST SIX WEEKS!  And we are done.  So that is an encouraging way to look at it.

I threw that blanket in the corner because it really did smell too much.

I’m meeting with my Grad advisor on Thursday and I don’t have much to say to him, except I did figure out some things about my story, so that’s good? I was hoping to have a beat sheet for him, but nope.  One of my other profs made me feel better though because he said a lot of people don’t really start their projects until the beginning of second semester.

But then my prof today made me worry because I have to have a proposal approved by him by the end of this semester otherwise we go on academic probation.  UGH!  There are so many pitfalls to this getting educated thing!

I’ll be ok.  I was really worried about this other class, but I think I’ll be ok.  Maybe.  I haven’t FAILED anything yet anyway.  I really want to get done in three semesters so that I can go to Scotland for that residency when I am done!  My Mom and Auntie want to come with me for a couple weeks before the residency starts and travel around Scotland again.  Auntie has never been.  And we could go to Stromness again, in the Orkneys.  Stromness was really nice.

I’m so glad that blanket isn’t on the bed anymore.

Old timer’s luck!

Just the other day I saw a timehop about winning money on Lotto Max.  We had won $130 bucks.  Today I thought I won ten dollars on 649, so I went and checked it and I won $80.90!  And this time I got to keep it! (Mom mostly took my winnings the time before because I owed her money).  Anyway, so far I have gotten pancakes and some more lottery tickets.

I went to the doctor’s this morning for a physical.  She was very thorough!  Everything got checked, swabbed, probed, and it climaxed with a flu shot.  She seemed kind of flustered, I have a feeling she is a new doctor.  She’s very nice anyway.

Posey and Little Mister and I went for a walk, they both spotted a squirrel running across the street and strained trying to get me to let them chase it.  But of course I couldn’t, because that’s ridiculously dangerous.  Anyway, Posey yip yipped her protesting cry!

I went to school to talk about what I am doing in my “module.”  I’m supposed to be working on Adobe After Effects.  I should do that.

Chubb Rubb was really quiet, not many people showed up.  Halloween was more exciting because we went to Church Street and they blocked off the street so everyone could walk around in their outfits.  There were some good outfits!

+++++absense of a few hours++++++

I’m back!  Was trying to work on my essay.  I found out I only have one essay due this week, so that was really nice to know.  I’ve now got three pages, but probably one page is just copies of citations.  I signed up for Jstor because I was going nuts trying to get this one article and I couldn’t access it through the Jstor Ryerson has, I could only access it through this one Jstor thing that I needed a special account for.  So now I have it.  Short article too! Whew! Freaking Jstor!

I’m tired.  I took my night meds at 9 and they are kicking in.  I have to get up early tomorrow for school, so I should sleep soon.  Posey is warming my feet under the covers.  Little Mister is snoozing too.

Someone close to me is depressed and it’s kind of rubbing off on me.  I am gonna try and see a counselor at the school.  Also my hair is a mess and I need to get it cut.  I might do that tomorrow.  Also I haven’t painted my nails in a really long time, and I think that might help me feel better, more myself anyway.  I should really just do a bunch of self care stuff.  And pace myself with all this school stuff.