Kat’s Pause 

Well what do you know. I abandon you here for another few days while I skip off to Ning’s house in Oakville, and I come back to find that some generous soul has not only kept you green, but also trimmed off your dead parts. On a dorm floor with some of the least conscientious people I’ve ever met, the mystery of humankind never fails to surprise.

Since then you’ve been as happy as anything, and you’re looking marvelous. You’re almost ready to come back home to my room, prodigal son you, but until I get you some insecticide, you’re staying out in the hallway.

I bought you some new plant food — 20/20/20, a mix that WikiHow recommends for roses. So how about those blooms, eh? Maybe? Yeah?

Love Kat

During the last weekend of reading week, I went to Pacific Mall with Ning and his family. For those who don’t know, Pacific Mall is set up like an Asian street marketplace, complete with avenue names and haggling and delicious egg waffles mmmmm.

Ning bought me a pretty rose quartz necklace I’ve wanted since seeing things like it there last year, and I bought some clothes, including some unmistakably Chinese shirts. (Technically he paid for one, a grand red Imperial number he adored at first sight.) When we got back to his house, he showed me off in them to his parents, who oo’d and clapped most appreciatively. We took some pictures in the gorgeous sitting room, but the lighting was poor and they didn’t turn out well. So when we got back to Waterloo, we took some more pictures in my dorm room, which has become a familiar and thus more easily controlled setting.

Because my computer hasn’t been able to load DA for several days now, here are some of the shots I liked, uploaded to my Flickr account.

To Be a Princess, part 1
To Be a Princess, part 2
Playing (for lack of a better title)

I finished the PoP bath scene I’d been neglecting for a while. You can read it here.

You continue to perplex and amaze me. I left you here last Friday and came back last night to what I assumed was your dry, plasmolyzed corpse, but I watered you anyway — just for the fun of it. Lo and Behold, new shoots today.

You are crazy.

Maybe if you behave, I’ll think about killing the bugs that insist on enshrouding your leaves. Maybe.

Love Kat

PS: I guess you’re tougher than I thought. Well start blooming, then.

Today I went to Black’s and printed out some photos to submit to Laurier’s upcoming Women’s Art Show. It’s exciting seeing my stuff all printed and pretty. I hope they like some of them.

I also applied for a job at Black’s — gave them a resume and (on their advice) applied online. That location is hiring a sales associate. The idea of working in a specialty shop appeals to me for some reason — maybe to my inner elitist? I don’t know. The location isn’t the greatest (30-45 minute bus ride away) so we’ll see.

Doing more resumes tomorrow. Summer job, here I come.

You confuse the hell out of me. I put you out into the hallway to die, and you start forming new shoots? It’s COLD there, and probably not as sunny as my window. But hey, the bugs making creepy webs through your leaves are still kicking around, so maybe it’s not such a bad place after all.

Also I forgot to water you for a few days… sorry. I figured the draft would finish you off before that. But no, your leaves are green and pretty again, not sickly yellow and falling off like they were in my room.

Next thing I know you’ll start blooming. Freak.

Love,
Kat

[rough compilation]

All three pictures are full-sized 8.5×11s — the closeup is only smaller because it was convenient. Any comments will be muchly appreciated.

Your life was short but deliciously dramatic.

My roses have been relegated to the hallway window after I discovered some kind of tiny bug infestation which had spread to my desk immediately around the flower pot. I have no doubt that my poor plant will die there. Seems to be what it’s wanted all along anyway.

Today was wonderfully sunny but ferociously cold. Around the student housing, there was apparently too much snow to shovel, so by afternoon the students had packed it into a four-inch-thick white carpet covering the sidewalk, a little valley wide enough to walk through single file. We got a lot of snow, but not enough for a snow day, so I finished my essay this morning and handed it in at my tutorial as planned. Now I have time for some guilt-free Photoshopping before I start studying for Friday’s lab exam.

Essay on “Ode on a Grecian Urn” due tomorrow at 3:30. Have class 11:30-12:20, then Ning is coming over. So yeah, I kind of need to write this tonight, because waking up early in the morning to write is not fun.

Every time I type “urn” in Word it looks like “um.” My essay is stuttering, hurr.

So, it’s technically Valentine’s Day now. I remember being little and finding out that we didn’t get a day off school for V-Day. I was shocked — what kind of holiday is that? A stupid useless one, as it turns out.

Brain tired, wanna sleep, should’ve written this essay earlier. And not taken so many pictures tonight. Curse your seductive opportunities for expression, photography.

Baby’s first. I want a Mac right about now.

Important files are backed up onto my USB flash drive, I’ve been running AVG constantly, blah blah.

So if someone on MSN sends you a link with “emo” and your MSN name in the url, preceded by the text “not cool” …yeah, don’t click it.

My friend tried on a wedding dress today. She’s my age, got engaged in December. We were all getting wedding-excited even though she won’t be getting married for years. But something about the whole thing made me vaguely uncomfortable… maybe because my own relationship has been rocky since December, or maybe because she and her fiance have been having a difficult time of it from their parents, or maybe just because I knew I was supposed to be writing my philosophy paper rather than hanging out in a bridal shop.

I was never the type of girl to plan my wedding day before puberty or melt over white dresses or any of that. I want a tiny wedding with very few people (say, 2). But this is the sort of thing that makes you think about relationships and futures — rather than philosophize about personal identity, at least. And with that, I guess I’ll be getting back to Hume.

A telemarketer called and asked for me. I told her me wasn’t available. Now I am laughing. Heeheehee.

I hate getting telemarketer calls because I know it’s a tough job and I can’t stand being rude to them, but I also want to be left alone, so I usually hang around uncomfortably, repeating “no” in ways that don’t make them feel bad. It turns out lying is much easier.

But damn this guilt complex holding itself over from my Christian years.

Dear roses of mine,

Why must you always look as if you’re about to die? I water you constantly. I even bought you plant food. My peace plant never got that treatment, but you don’t see it complaining. Are you really that much of an attention whore? GROW UP. And start blooming again — I didn’t buy you for your leaves.

Love,
Your puzzled and pink-thumbed owner

PS: If it’s because I moved you down from the sunny windowsill, you shouldn’t have complained about the draft by going all suicidal on me. It’s not my fault my windows suck.

Yes, ladies, 12:15am is the perfect time to start blasting your music.

My supplementary application will arrive at McMaster sometime tomorrow — theoretically. I have a tracking number with which to stalk it, and I fully intend to do so.

As far as I know, that was the last step in the application process. Now it’s just a matter of sitting back and crossing my fingers, preferably not until June.

Just a few minutes ago — good riddance. No more morning lectures I haven’t been attending anyway; no more 45% exam! No more trying to do work during labs and having everyone’s computer crash.

I’m now short half a credit, though. Still not sure what I’m going to do with regards to registration for next year… I was planning to take some Laurier distance ed courses in the summer, but does that still make sense?

I’ve been turning into a punky girl lately. Not merely a punk, no, a punky girl. Today I bought a hair straightener slash curling iron (and used it on my freshly razored tresses). I’ve never taken time to do my hair before, beyond slicking it with pink goop so that it dries faster. My eyes have been graced with eyeliner every day as of late. I am sitting here in a pretty top and new jeans with impractical boots resting by the door. (They’re suede in snowy Waterloo winter.) I wear lip gloss despite the freezing winds whipping my hair into the stickiness. I shaved my legs yesterday.

(We’ll not mention the “emo” glasses right now because as far as I’m concerned, they’re NOT emo — they’re art student glasses.)

What’s happening to me? I hope it’s just a phase. I’m probably just bored, right? I’ll grow out of it. Still, my affinity for dramatic change sometimes unnerves me.

My computer is like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz: thinking, thinking, always thinking about how much it would be thinking if it only had some RAM.

Taking all suggestions, both vg and non-vg. Humour is welcome but not necessary.

My application has been submitted, paid for with my shiny new credit card. I applied to psychology (Honours BA) as well as nursing because my 100-odd bucks gets me three applications and I figured I might as well use what I’m paying for. Unfortunately it’s a struggle to find scientific programs that are challenging enough but do not require tons of math and physics, so I didn’t settle on a third program. I can add one later if I find it.

Things left to do:
- fill out and mail the supplementary application, including the questionnaire (”Describe how the unique approach to learning at McMaster will help your learning”).
- ask my high school to mail Mac a copy of my transcript
- talk to a McMaster dean or somebody about some courses I’m missing for the admission requirements and how I can catch up (conditional acceptance with summer classes would be just lovely)

I’m seriously considering transferring to McMaster for nursing. The level of seriousness referred to here has me with my cursor on the “Submit” button of my OUAC application, which once pressed will cost me almost $180. Fairly steep considering that despite being accepted to nursing before skipping off to Laurier, my chances of getting in next year are by no means guaranteed.

So why am I spending my money and frustration on this? My primary reason, and the one I will tell most people at Laurier, is hinted at in the title: I want a job after I graduate. McDonalds does not count. As an English major who doesn’t want to teach, this goal is perhaps far less likely than the combined probability of getting into nursing and finding employment afterward.

Now for the other reasons. To be fair, my experience with Laurier has not been a bad experience so much as frequently less than optimal. Outside of biology and psychology, there’s not a lot I haven’t learned in high school or couldn’t teach myself from one of the more reputable web pages out there, a la Hawk’s strategy. Not to mention all Laurier technology hates me — have I gone into this yet? My email doesn’t work, my student drive thing won’t sync up, and my card doesn’t let me into computer labs. I think the gremlins would be happy if I left.

But seriously. The bottom line is, I don’t feel challenged enough here. Maybe I’m not justified in this because I’m not getting 100% in all my courses, but the truth is, I didn’t come to university to get spectacular marks; I came to learn and hopefully — as bonus, you see — put that knowledge toward earning some money. I told myself I would be okay with being less financially secure upon graduation if I could be really happy learning something I love, but if neither condition is being met, why am I handing them thousands upon thousands of dollars every year?

This is all very reminiscent of when I skipped grade 8. I know how arrogant it sounds, but frankly I’m tired of being smarter than the people around me, of not having to try very hard. Things worked out nicely when I went off to high school a year early: sometimes it was hard, but for the most part it felt right. Now I bemoan my high school victory lap for landing me in with my peers again. As always, they’re nice people and I love many of them dearly, but I don’t mesh with them. The only girl I’ve really connected with since coming here (the marvellous Lindsay) is turning 20 this month.

More than anything, I wish I could go back to grade 12, do my damn homework, and go on to nursing or health sciences the normal, easy, less expensive way. I know, I know, everyone makes mistakes, but did I really have to make such an expensive and troublesome one?