Daffnee

Oh, never mind. I realised I'm just grumpy because my roommate was watching TV and I missed Law & Order.

Who's idea of a joke is it to build up my two decades of life as a preamble in order to produce an essay on Milton's atypical portrayl of Eve's procreative punishments?! It's at points like these when I hear the "is anybody out there...out there..." echoing in my head, and I realise that a phrase like that is a) only funny to a depraved sort of physics refugee, of which there is only one, and b) the likely beginning of bizarre theological euphemisms. I'm thinking theological euphemisms might also be coined whilst in a wholly frustrating seminar consisting of 18 undergraduates attempting to take up 2 hours of scheduled time, seeing as the professor seems to think that "overdosing on vitamin C" -- no joke -- is excuse enough to sit in a corner and not talk, every week, since the beginning of January. Those would be rather dissonant euphemisms, I think.

I don't want to lose respect for smart people, but it's starting to look like the whole world can be stupid.

Cocky young 'un, aren't I?

Chinese Cynic: "Hey, is this a misprint? This guy's writing looks like mine, only his is in a Norton Anthology and mine's on Blogger."

Grumpy Prof: "Austin's writing carries a kind of Oxford-don, essential English humour about it."

Chinese Cynic: "Merciful mushrooms, can it be that I have mastered British comedy? Has the day come when I can hold my head up high while professing my major?"

Grumpy Prof: "It's a patriarchal and Anglo-centric style that some, such as myself, find...irritating."

Chinese Cynic: "Quiet, I'm still envisioning myself on the writing team for Red Dwarf and as heir apparent to Douglas Adams."

CNU of the day: Pioneer 10, launched in 1972, has finally left the building. The satellite carrying the famous "gold plaque" (the one with the naked people and a vinyl record imprint of "hello" in various languages) sent its last received message to NASA on January 22nd, and was the first human satellite to leave the solar system. A heads-up to Microsoft: this hunk of seventies technology, with less computing power than probably your optical mouse, lasted 31 years -- well beyond its 21-day mission. These days, you'd be lucky if your mouse lasted that long.

I can't help but keep looking up, physics or no. Reaching, always reaching.

Vancouver has said YES to the 2010 Olympic bid! Hopefully I'll still be (or be back to) living here to take advantage of it, if we get chosen -- and hopefully global warming won't have reduced Whistler to a tropical island resort at that point too, I suppose. It's perhaps apt that the last Winter Games concluded one year less a day ago (Sunday, February 24, 2002):



The closing ceremonies from Salt Lake City, which I missed due to Japanese food and something entirely, and wonderfully, unexpected.

Here's a CNU (Cynical News Update -- yes, I made that up) for this week: another recent study (because who cares if it's not recent?) found that while Canadians spend about the same amount on food as they did eight year ago, the proportion of money spent eating out rose from $0.26 to $0.30 for each dollar spent. Why, you ask, does such a innocuous finding find itself as the focus of yours truly's ire? Simply put, I spent ten minutes in the cold last night attempting to extricate a dollar from my grocery cart. To be more eloquent and bardlike, I spent ten minutes trying to get my shopping cart into the next one with the assistance of a frustrated (yet polite) Honger boy in order to make the relatively simple mechanism of the cart release work, since another consciencious shopper had declined to do so and left the streamlined row of shopping carts with an unsightly tail end of unaligned vehicles. The gripe is thus -- how is that in Richmond, the heart of Vancouver's eat-out community, I can still be foiled by grocery shoppers? Never mind that the gripe I was initially going to tackle -- that of people eating out period, instead of investing time in the self-sustaining act of making oneself food -- seems more philosophical; buy groceries! use shopping baskets! avoid beans! Wait, that last one was Empedocles: "Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!" Professor Shirley Sullivan, you're wonderful.

What exactly do oats look like? And why are they rolled?

The theme of the day was employment, or lack thereof; I mistakenly thought that making (rather short) lists of past accomplishments and attempting to find gainful employment for the 4 sunniest months of the year would be preferable to more usual forms of cerebral self-torture. As per usual, I was wrong, and this is why I have something to write about. Here goes the bourgeois rant, as though the prospect of unfulfilling employment was even half the worry of billions of others out there; why support groups haven't been set up for student prostituting themselves to economic cycles is beyond me, if only other than the obvious reasons that a) everyone would be there, and b) all potential funding has gone towards rehabilitating all those people who live life through the 56 support group websites for pet loss, or something equally bizarre. (What can I say, I'm a callous person; I came back from a orchestra retreat -- not band camp, you sick people -- to seven dead goldfish, and I guess I'm going somewhere nasty after death for not mourning each of their fishy lives, but I'm better adjusted for it.)

The ritual of "picking up" siblings at school for the express purpose of checking out how the Board has decided to misappropriate money this year -- a charming new library, resplete with new furniture, an official opening worthy of the Cannes, and the same fifteen books, is the latest addition -- proved rewarding, yet again. How discomforting it is to realise that all high school teachers would much rather be somewhere else. Makes for good conversation, granted, but when your Calculus 12 teacher (with an Honours degree in Applied Mathematics from Waterloo) would rather go live on a kubbutz (in Israel, in the middle of another Middle Eastern conflict, for six months) rather than return for another year of work, even wheels as rusty as mine start to clank.

Anybody want to crash a high school dance?



Somebody recap the first half hour of West Wing for me, please -- I've been away for so long that it took thirty-odd "SAM!!"s before I clued in that Rob Lowe was back, albiet slightly shaggier (do Hollywood types only get haircuts if they're paid for by a production compay?). That's a weak ending, so look! I taught myself enough HTML to make links. Sharp as a tack, this one...

Oof...no one ever said Superstore oatmeal cookies were good for you -- how can they be, they don't even have oatmeal chew -- but I figure that oatmeal is a great way to start and end a day, so my manic tendency to eat everything in sight is working overtime this reading break. Home breeds such gluttony. Sentimental tagline: Home is where the heart is. Realistic tagline: Home is where nothing gets done slower than you ever thought possible, all while consuming vast amounts of butter-and-flour creations reminiscent of more festive times and reverting to stay-at-home-mom middle age-edness. It's kind of fun, actually, but I'd rather be 35 in the fifteen years' grace I've been given till then.

Mind-blowingly incoherent. Manke tanya tuula? *sigh*

After 10 hours of sleep, I am officially debate-free -- though it's going to take a lot more than 10 hours to get debate out of my system, not to mention all the sushi from the eat-off at Saturday's banquet.

Living and breathing debate at PACCup cannot be a healthy thing (for a nutritional run-down for those who care, Saturday's menu: 1.5 bagels, 3 cups coffee, 2 cans Coke, 2 pitas, innumerable pieces of suspicious-looking fruit, bad bad BAD Superstore cookies, 50 pieces of sushi, 2 bowls of ice cream and a grapefruit juice) but it was done. Remind me to be wary of billeting people at the last minute in the future, because my cynicism was insufficient to warn me that the people left unbilletted two days before a tournament are likely without a place to stay because no one wants them. *sigh* Even Kevin tried to warn me. That's the point where one should give the gut feeling that humanity is inherently good a thorough thrashing.

Why the heck do I debate? There was a reason I stayed away for three years, after a thorough disillusionment in high school -- I suck at it, and there are a lot of aggressive egos in that particular pool of fish. Besides which, the entire enterprise compromises my newly-reinvented, highly-aestheticised self. (I'm kidding.) Incidentally, I still haven't come to the idea that Starcraft and Final Fantasy *aren't* shameful things to talk about, unless shameful entails being thrust into an endless conversation beginning with Nikita recaps and ending with an insightful commentary on junction systems. My geekiness precedes me, I apologise. In any case, it was exhausting, gastronomically disastrous, socially confusing and really bad for my sleeping habits. The best part of the weekend were the hugs (and towels -- thank you!!) from someone who hadn't spent the last five years of his life trying to make a foolproof case about nuclear missile defence systems.

An electronic hug to the guy in the Arts A/V room that had my laptop power adapter. You saved my life as I know it. Thank you.

I'm going to run a deficit for filial piety this year, if the amount of time I've spent home so far has anything to do with it; it's reading break, and for the first lousy time in three years I'm going to spend it reading. What a crock. That urban legend that reading week was implemented because student suicide rates were highest at this time seems stupid in light of my personal frustrations at school right now, because I can see suicidal tendencies escalating as a result of this. They feed us the illusion of freedom while making us prisoners in our own home, giving our families only the most fleeting of glimpses as we hunker down to work while Vancouver forgets it's supposed to be in the middle of winter now (thanks to the weed, no doubt) and leaps right into spring by the end of January.

Ending on a more positive note: two thumbs up to Egyptian cotton. Diola lle, Dan'amin!

Ha! This is what I do for a "living": www.arcticmedia.ca/chinesecynic/E359/presentation.htm
What a hack degree -- *sob*!

873 words down, 127 words to go -- I don't understand, draft #1 was well over the word limit! *sob* Stupid modern theorists with their stupid botanical metaphors! I have to say, when I thought about the "challenges" of university three years ago, writing an essay about trees and rhizomes for an ENGLISH CLASS never really came up. The ironic thing is, my roommate two doors down is writing an essay on the same topic, only she doesn't have to muck around with these annoyingly theoretical plants. Again, anyone with insight into Lacan and/or Deleuze and Guattari is invited to e-mail chinesecynic@yahoo.co.uk.

The pre-hard-drive-crash site is now at www.arcticmedia.ca/chinesecynic/old.htm

No strike! Not that I was going to respect picket lines anyway -- I'm spending *way* too much money to be here -- but at least this means I get to spend a hour freezing outside the SUB trying to promote yet another university programme. Woohoo!

Just when you thought you could count on university-run meetings to be an infinite source of free food, people all of a sudden develop appetities -- why aren't you people all dieting, and leaving food to me? Well, me and my dependents, of course. Yet another reason I can add to my list tabulating all the reasons I should leave already 'temperate' Vancouver for California, or some other place where watching my hands turn interesting shades of white, grey and purple won't be a daily occurence. That being said, the Free-The-Chinese-Cynic fund probably listened to its equivalent of a motivational speaker today, thanks to an unlooked for chat with a hand-rolled cigarette-smoking radio sports journalist from Blaine, Washington (?). He went to school in Arizona. Arizona was starting to look mighty fine. [Cue Bring it On cheerleading sequence -- I'll do a review on that someday, I promise, just as soon as I waste cold, hard cash on renting it so I can remember all the classic details. Ha!]

And here's the controversial, self-absorbed capitalist tirade of the day: why the heck do we still have unions in country with universal Medicare, welfare and all manner of socialist social programs? Considering that workers now have the legal behemoth of the WCB and all manner of rabid poverty activists on their side, making it virtually impossible to miss a meal, never mind starve or be overworked to death, what are unions in this day and age but a cover for a pro-Communist movement? (Some people may consider this a good thing; as an unjustified receiver of all the benefits of capitalist society, self-preservation and homeostasis are my selfish concerns!) And considering the success of Communist movements in the past, I bite my thumb at everyone groaning over the failure that is Medicare and who think that liver transplants are a dime a dozen. CT scans aren't even a dime a dozen -- look at how much the average Canadian pays to develop photos in a year! And photos of your shortened trip to Florida (thanks to the sickly Canadian dollar, no pun intended) don't require a radiologist or a machine that physics students only start to learn about in fourth year -- that last bit I can vouch for, if nothing else. BAH. To anyone who wants to gripe about politics, get a grip on reality -- money doesn't come from nowhere. And if you are a socialist or a well-meaning citizen with huge issues with my opinions, welcome to the site. E-mail me, and I'll be glad to direct you to some far more cynical modern theorists that are much crankier than I am!

Foo to AMS referendums, activists roommates, and pay equity. (Pay equity?! Just because you chose to study the obscure area of Irish Literature at the only university in Canada that offers it means you should be paid the same as everyone else out there? I'm in Arts, so I can complain -- I'm not going to get a job when I graduate either, but at least I recognise that!) Yay to vente-sized coffee, the Internet, and metallic purple lipstick.

Great, I'm grumpy now. Time to shower!

It has returned to me, smaller, withdrawn, and strangely noisy, but Cerebro's come home! I suppose I can't call my computer by the same name anymore -- the personalised touches are gone, as are 8 GB of hard drive space -- so a rechristening is in order; from now on, my companion and guide to the electronic world shall henceforth be known as Cerebro the White.

I've done so much family bonding this week I'm worried I'm breaking incest laws, and this is even after I scrubbed the last of the gluey residue I picked up from the library computers from my fingers. Lucky for me I like food, and doubly lucky that the very action of sitting down to food with an family double-counts as filial piety and a curious form of grace. Also funny how dreams provoked by restlessness manage to take up residence in the columbarium of my brain, Hannibal-style; I should be more careful with my metaphors. They could rupture on me -- har, har. *sigh*

Why is the act of listening to centuries-old music such a codified and revered past-time? I never know how to behave at the symphony -- do I disguise the fact that I'm on a babysitting mission with my teenage, cello-fanatic sister? make as though the poor man on the stage, who has no doubt spent his entire lifetime learning how to make nifty music with some horsehair and a bit of wood, managed to give me a epiphany on Dvorak when the rule of the gut feeling says otherwise? do I smile and nod? who would care? why did the usher choose to accuse me, of all people, of having a flash camera? (must be something to do with the delicate decor of the Orpheum) -- but I did come to the conclusion that being a middle-aged Chinese woman can't be all bad, if it means that you can get a pre-ordered balcony ticket from a fairly incompetent ticket holder without ID or money. And all this time we've been trying to perfect English; why did we never see the power of imperfect speech?

I am ashamed that the 24 hour McDonald's on Granville has not renovated to the Whistler chateau-esque interiors I have come to expect from that bastion of American culinary achievement. For shame! Symphony-goers expect to be able to consume their vanilla milkshakes in comparable elegance to the Starbucks across the street, you know.

Ok, here's gripe time: ai, we're growing up. The first dinner out I've ever had with my sister, and we talk about special relativity. Over coconut curry and tofu. On Robson. What happened to that kid that I used to trip on purpose and bought shirts with rhinestones on them? She even thinks I turned out OK at this point -- to the protestations to the contrary by my parents in the front seat. Grandparents are suddenly cool, uncles avuncular, and brothers -- well, brothers are the same.

Can we say twilight zone? Or just senility? I miss my edge.

[To all religious types, avert your eyes...]

Goddamn it!! My room has suffered from a definitive lack of LCD lighting for four days, and I'm going ballistic. Well, more ballistic than normal -- but four days a long, long time away from the love of your life. *sigh* At least the love of my life is still covered by a comprehensive warranty until August, giving me next-business-day-on-site-maintenance . Pilgrimaging to computer labs was fun for awhile, especially when I could play at being yuppie by working on G4s and changing all desktops schemes to a signature green, but I'm in Main Library now and these spiffy black keyboards smell. I kid you not. The prospect of typing over the grease of the last user's Sun Chips or kimchee residue is only marginally less palatable than giving my 99-cent gloves the final wash that will secure their fate as Salvation Army rejects forever, so stinky hands it is. *sigh*

That being said, I had lunch with grandparents today, so what am I complaining about? Woohoo, Cantonese practice; because I need the reminder that no matter how I might excel at being all those cornerstones of the ideal Chinese daughter, I will never be able to a) speak without an accent, and b) wear Hong Kong clothing. [Sidebar to Clio, should she ever read this: Clio, I don't mind being "bloodthirsty" -- even with the demise of Buffy, I'm always trying to cultivate a demonic edge -- but that little word "big" might close my protein window again. Ask Dan for clarification, if only to make him look uncomfortable; it's a good story!] I will never be a tab, so I guess I have to settle for making stew out of them -- kind of like the Aztecs and chiuauas, come to think of it. Mm.

I cannot stand technology!! If I have to grapple with blogger.com with every post and reiterate how I can't work under these conditions, I will explode in a blast of greasy Chinese food. I kid you not. Be careful, those green tea pumpkin seeds can be lethal when half-digested and aimed towards your eye.

And to get this off to a better start: happy chinese new year! My mother and I couldn't decide whether the appropriate translation ought to be "sheep" or "ram", but the family unanimously decided that "goat" was altogether undignified, and that the Chinese zodiac was badly off enough with the inclusion of the rat to not even hazard including an animal that licks tin cans. In any case, I managed not to offend a single family member, senior or otherwise, on the most important day of the Chinese year, so I figure this year (lunar year, for those nitpickers out there) is starting off decently. Besides, my grandmother had these awesome beef jerky/candy things that reaffirms my faith in Shanghai cuisine -- not to mention those aforementioned green tea pumpkin seeds, but that was my other grandmother, and best not to confuse the two especially when food is involved.

Leaving out all the sappy family bits that no one besides me holds dear, I have to say my faith in capitalist oppression has been reinstated with twice the vigor as before. Blame the culprit, the "Sunlife Chinese New Year Festival" at the PNE (and when *are* they going to tear that thing down? the suspense kills me) and infrequent leaves of absence from the Ivory Tower of the university. I'll warrant a bunch of Chinese merchants and random families stuffed into a small space describes the everyday interactions of over a billion people, but as I remarked to my father, it proved a telling reminder of how true Agent Smith got it: we are a parasitic race, a disease of this earth, and morality will only get in the way. Looking around (mostly at a sea of black hair, thanks to my towering five-foot-six), one feels how easy and natural capitalist exploitation is -- completely undoing the work of 3 theory/philosophy courses and putting my leftist leanings into retirement for awhile. I felt so sinister. My siblings and I formed a pact to one day command the Fortune 500. I wanted to take over the world by buying out small, nuclear-capable countries. Selling out never looked so good.

A last thought about the Colombia disaster -- the space junkie in me hasn't died yet, which surprised me -- before signing off; I wish I could stay in that constant state of wonder enjoyed only by small children, grandparents, and physicists. Now that I'm none of those, it takes disasters to capture my attention -- and past dreams.

Here's to a new year, and everything we ever left behind.