Daffnee

Linked Patti, who was good enough to phone and force me to get this Victoria road trip I've been mumbling about in gear, not to mention being a darling person in generally and inviting me to her wedding. I do wish I wouldn't turn into an NHL defenceman on the phone (i.e. unenunciated sentences spoken through a mouthguard-restricted jaw), though.

Am at the epilogue portion of One L, by Scott Turow, which I will comment on extensively as soon as I'm done. *rubs hands with glee*

My convocation's at 1600h today, and I'm more concerned that I'm pulling my siblings from school in the middle of the day than getting my degree. My thesis supervisor calls it the "capstone mentality" and finds it equally annoying -- the expectation that the grand culmination of four years (or however may) of higher education should inspire some sense of awe, triumph, chariots riding into the sunset, etc. I will give UBc this small concession, though: it broke down a girl who was brash, angry, and full of contempt, and churned out a kid with conventional twenty-something angst, self-doubt, and futility added to her list of past experiences.

Chris and I took Introduction to Critical Theory -- English 121 -- together in my first year, and it only took two weeks of class before we started wondering how professors and the academically-inclined could learn to take pleasure in simple things (like reading) any more. I wonder: do people with university degrees get paid "more" not because of their exceptional skills, but because they are the ones that have to live with the burden of doubt?

I've been home for three weeks now, and there's no doubt here, only a sense of slow stasis. I don't have to think. After the things that simply need to be done -- subsistence maintenance, if you will -- all that's left over is getting to the next save point without getting totalled by an Iron Giant or Ruby Dragon.

What happened to feminazi Daphne? The day's activities run as such: reading, ironing, vacuuming, sewing, New York Times crossword. My mother calls those middle three activities "life skills", which is really her polite way of calling them things-that-only-lazy-people-pay-money-for-other-people-to-do -- comforting, considering that I'm undergoing job anxiety at the moment and that these life skills give me enough to occupy me so that by the time I come around to the debate of whether to even get a job for 2 months it's too late to actually do anything until tomorrow. So, until then, I cook, clean, and bide my time till August while reading the rather coffee-stained copy of the New York University Environmental Law Journal I got in the mail today.

For room and board downtown this weekend, my aunt commissioned me to make my grandmother's apartment literally look as though "no one lived there" -- ironic considering I was living there, but apparently prospective clients have a difficult time imagining an apartment as their space if there's Chinese newspapers strewn around. It's odd, picking up the odds and ends that define the presence of another person's life: little piles of bread tabs, scribbles on notepads, slouching piles of magazines and collections of greeting cards. A part of me wanted to stand by my grandma's clutter, but it's hard to go against the woman that generously agreed to put me up, feed me for three days on a few hours' notice, and seems generally well-dispositioned when I drop by to use the Internet at 8 AM.

On a less positive note, however, I think I'm binging again (quite opposite to what Linger does). It used to be always to compensate for something -- I'd starve before I knew I had to go out for dinner, or would eat pure junk on the weekend when I went home when I was trying to get my weight back up -- but now it seems like my way of dealing with excess, unstructured, and unproductive free time. I hate feeing useless. It's easier to forget I have nothing to do when I'm in the city and people are always going somewhere; at home, the trees and the house remain static unless the septic or water system decides to take a holiday. I took out Fundamentals of American Law from VPL and happily agreed to write an overview of BC Forestry Law for Gordon to make work for myself. Gardening, pruning, and weeding an acre's worth of plants is another way.

I want to be useful.

I didn't mention this earlier because it was way too early to talk about life, the universe, and everything, but it's later now and five hours of sleep is a great way to approach stuff like this.

I spent an hour Tuesday afternoon looking for Christina's headstone at Capilano Cemetery with Justin (such a good sport, that guy) before we gave up and decided to ask for directions, but ran across some interesting people in that time. (I liked Kent Castle -- is he a person or a palace? -- and the Broadfoots that are two rows and a few plots over from the Underhills.) Cemeteries used to frighten me when I was smaller and before my overactive imagination was resolutely killed off, but now I know I creep people out when I say I find them comforting; after all, no one in this life can screw up so badly that they won't end up in the same place as everyone else, right? Having a tasteful headstone helps, of course -- Chris' is classy! -- and with six billion people waiting to be interred at some point in the future, something of a luxury.

Is it a horrible thing to not have many expectations for the future any more? People keep asking me if I'm excited about going to New York; Justin asked me if I was afraid of dying young. In both cases, I feel thoroughly resigned: not ecstatic, not dismissive, just accepting. It's the direct opposite of carpe diem. The next question is whether this tranquility I'm affecting is a result of inner peace or the drugs that I'm on (and keep forgetting to take).

And on a completely unrelated train of thought, everyone should have a USB memory key. Give me geek chic over Hello Kitty cellphone ornaments or plushie keychains any day.

Enneagram results, which someone out there was asking about.



Not very flattering, is it? But then again, serves me right for being insecure enough to think that an online personality test can tell me anything about myself.

Meh!

I thoroughly disapprove of Blogger's new "user-friendly" format. Clown font and big bubbly icons are demeaning and an unneeded assault on my already-low self-esteem. Why?

The Good: My defence was yesterday morning, and I passed. Thus, this girl might actually graduate in 2 weeks, and have a little "H" after her B.A. to boot.

The Bad: The hour and five minutes I spent trying to defend my apparently inconsistent thesis was basically a slaughter session with two very theoretically-inclined professors chewing me out over everything I said.

The Ugly: I'm living in my grandmother's yuppie downtown apartment because she and my uncle prefer to say in their house in Coquitlam. So it's not the ugly -- but no one told me late-night traffic sounds could be so soothing.

My world will never be the same again.

Has anyone seen the new face of TD Waterhouse ("the alternative for your 401(k)")? My first thought was that it's a travesty wrapped up in sacrilege, but it turns out that Law & Order and TD Waterhouse have enjoyed an interesting relationship over the past little while -- according to gothamist, who I assume is much more in the know about this than I am, TD Waterhouse's old spokeperson was Steven Hill (a.k.a. District Attorney Adam Schiff).

I can't say I want to invest with TD any more than I did before, but I'm definitely wigged out.

I feel like the most recent addition to my family's stock and bond portfolio, after making them incur a ridiculous amout of debt on my behalf and having no gurantee on their 'investment' beyond filial piety and a commercial life insurance policy. I don't think I would have told them to go for it if I was their investment advisor, to be honest, but that's probably why parents never ask their children for financial advice. There were a few pipe-dreams of being a New York district attorney -- TV's always been a strong influence on my life -- but six figures of debt kind of makes a convincing argument to become a corporate law whore, no? My mother is slowly trying to reconcile me with the idea of going into global finance or international tax law. This is ironic, because she worked in foreign exchange for years before I was born and considers accountants bankers to be generally evil.

When I was small, I also thought money was generally evil and that the bartering system, as I understood it (namely as explained to me by my father, always the more sketchy of sources), was a fantastic idea we should go back to. Chickens for medical services seemed brilliant, and was also where I figured all the chocolates my Dad brought home from work came from. The day I found out about Medicare, income tax, equity and bond investments, mortgages, and the real meaning of Monopoly was a sad day indeed.

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet (though it certainly looks like Eug has). I've re-discovered the genius of Sid Meier and Civilization 3. I would prefer if everyone would address me as her Majesty Queen Cleopatra from now on, or at least until I finish ridding my continent of Greeks and Romans.

So, in lieu of any updates about my real life -- nobody wants to know about ICBC injury claim legal letters, do they? -- I've decided to provide updates on my much-more exciting life as the greatest Queen of the Egyptians until my real life starts shaping up.

Year: 1555 AD
Newest Unit: Knight, Cannon
Treasury: 1000+ gold
Researching: Chivalry