Daffnee

The government gave me the full right to propel a multi-tonne hunk of metal down various roadways while inebriated this morning. Translation: I got my Class 5 license. Whee!

It was also brought to my attention at my sister's graduation dinner tonight that a) my sister and I look nothing alike, and b) 2 out of 3 teachers regard me as an interesting, yet evil, past specimen. Westwood Plateau's Golf & Country Club also managed to screw up smoked salmon, but everything else was peachy so I suppose the insult to British Columbian cuisine culture shouldn't be taken as hard as it would be otherwise.

I went off my meds about three days ago, and I'm not proud to say the results haven't been good. Today has been repugnantly bad, actually -- I managed to frighten my grandmother, terrorize the rest of my family and stop eating again. I'm obviously glossing over many of the nastier details, but it wasn't pretty. I can be a hideous, hostile, and all-round horrible person in my natural chemical state. I also happen to think I'm irrecoverably ugly when I'm off my meds, which is frankly unproductive.

There aren't any ethical issues surrounding medication for me anymore, no more of that meds-are-bad-because-they-change-who-you-are rhetoric pulled out by people who obviously have never had to endure me without chemical mediation. It's become more like clothing; I wear clothing because it's socially acceptable that I do so. I take meds so that I'm socially presentable to people not blessed with emotional invulnerability. Besides, if I go nuts and snuff myself, the mess would be awful. Better to just take one for the team and keep those serotonin levels steady.

The rest of my family is downstairs watching The Return of the King downstairs, but I discovered that I'd rather iron shirts than eat popcorn and watch. It's not the popcorn, and I don't even think it's a Pauline Kael-esque preference to only watch a film once. Let me try to explain this using literary references!

Remember the My Teacher is an Alien books? The one I'm thinking of in particular is My Teacher Flunked the Planet, when the former leader of the galaxy tells Peter Thompson that he was sacked for giving television technology (highly dangerous, forbidden stuff) to Earth. Humans, apparently, can't cope maturely with its rhetorical power. After my first look at The Simple Life 2 and the latest Canadian Idol, I tend to agree.

Film and TV warp my mind. Maybe I'm just not as rational as everyone else, but I have a really hard time trying not to compare myself and my life to what I see or hear in a movie. It's too much. This going to sound like something right out of The Republic, but how willingly we come to take these moving pictures as the ruler with which to measure our own lives! On the one hand, I enjoy spending time in a dark cinema sympathizing with Frodo, Shrek, or whoever the protagonist of the week is; on the other hand, I'm shocked that a latexed, wigged, and digitally-manipulated Elijah Wood can elicit that kind of emotion for me when I turn a blind (well, nearly blind) eye to the homeless on the street.

There's just something not right about that. I don't like the person I become after I watch these things.

It's completely unlike reading, or even music -- there's some element of distance, where the rhetoric is more obvious and the arguments more abstract. I'll be generous to the film and TV industries by saying it's because I'm not as sophisticated as they expect their viewers to be, but I don't really think that's the case.

I think we're forgetting how to live.

I spent the morning ridding all the computers in the house of bloated instant messaging programs (read: ICQ and MSN) and replacing them with my new discovery, Trillian IM. It integrates 5 major IMs and has the cutest collection of icons I've ever seen. I'm sold. Obviously.

Secondly, I really want to share the fact that we've been unable to get rid of a particular bottle of purple ketchup (remember when the geniuses at Heinz decided that since purple's "cool", the logical next step was to make ketchup purple?) my mother is making purple beef, egg, and tomato stir-fry tonight. I must be unusually visual when it comes to food, because it doesn't seem to bother anyone else. Isn't there a genetic predisposition to NOT like one's meat purple?

In the words of one of my brother's Grade 8 classmates, my two siblings "cleaned the floor" at the annual Awards Night this evening -- I'm so proud of these kids! Especially of the little bro; the little sister's been a bit of an overachiever this year, but she seriously works too hard. The brother, on the other hand, watches TV, has a Neopet, plays his share of PS2 and practices piano/sax/french/etc. once a week.

I think I used to be like that. Am I still like that?

And following all those happy words about giving back, the value of work and of virtue, I had a strange thought about Civ III. It's much, much easier to conquer one's way to an empire than to try to build a nation on the backs of happy citizens, isn't it?

I hope all dead cows go to heaven, because they sure suffer ridiculously and taste great while they're here.

I fried the monitor on our desktop at around 1 AM last night, which apparently went over fairly well with everyone else the next morning. It seemed like the whole family had seen the explanatory Post-It note I left on the monitor excusing the burning smell.

On a happier note, I liberated the car from my parents for the first time (yes, ever) and went to Mark's annual barbeque, where his random acquaintances meet on his back deck and try to bond over cheese hot dogs (somebody explain that to me, please) and copious amounts of meat. Lots of good news from Roly, Simon, and Syl, and I got to release the inner child by nearly emptying my dinner after a little while on the swings near his house. Even got to dispense a few free hugs to a nice-smelling boy on my way home.

Google is a far too dangerous weapon with a kid with too much time and curiosity. In less than 10 minutes, not only was I able to find out my soon-to-be-flatmate's alma mater, but also what she did last summer, what she looks like, and that her Mandarin is much, much, MUCH better than mine. I even found streaming video of one of her Chinese assignments. She speaks Mandarin better than my mother does, with all due credit to her!

Lucky for me, Googling my name only really yields the Spiked Cranberries' stats from last season. Whew.

So it turns out that my soon-to-be roommate at D'Agostino Hall in NYC is another 21-year-old Chinese-speaking West Coaster (from Seattle). Did NYU set this up, or is this just one of those quirky things that make people tip their heads and give a what-the expression? We've had first contact, initiated by yours truly after I received advice to tone down my usual writing style to avoid any undue freaking out -- it must have seemed safe to respond, in any case, and she did me the honour of giving a brief bio and her phone number in Washington.

In a moment of weakness, I responded true to Daphne-form, and ended up giving a bio that made clear my tendency to kneel or stand while typing, love of thrift stores, mild addiction to tea and papayas, and attraction to Final Fantasy characters with big swords. I figure that last one isn't as bad as Pete Sampras, her current fixation. (To be honest, I'm trying to convince myself of that, and it's not going so well.) Let's face it -- Daphne generally sucks at making first impressions.

The thing I really focused on, though, was the fact that I don't travel well. My future roomie seems to love travel -- she's excited about moving, loves travelling, etc. Maybe that's just cheery hyperbole, but as a homebody, the thought of having to move my worldly possessions across three time zones and somehow develop a social(!) network once I get there just plain stinks, in my mind. Self-defeating attitude? Yes! Justin's party at Enigma -- Happy Birthday, Justin! -- was a case in point; I had a great time chatting with Patti and Quinton, but the art of mingling is something yet to be perfected. (My grandfather was apparently a stellar bartender, which put me on the train of thought that perhaps the best way to get a non-drinker involved in an alcoholic social scene is to be the one getting money for the booze -- and who knows, maybe good bartending skills are genetic.)

But the whatever-doesn't-kill-you-will-make-you-stronger mentality fights back with the assertion that if you're going to go away for school anyway, you might as well toss any sense of patriotism in the trash can and force yourself to experience something radically different to what you've been used to. This tactic backfired once before (i.e. physics), actually. Well, what's done is done, so here's a short list of some of the things I want to do in the next decade:

> learn how to be a competent horseback rider;
> work for the UN;
> adopt an animal;
> donate a body part;
> volunteer overseas;
> learn to sing;
> learn to dance;
> climb a really big tree; and
> visit China.

I went to a curriculum development night at my old primary/elementary/high school tonight after promising my mother I wouldn't make a ruckus or embarass her in any way. I guess I tend to get rather opinionated and loud when I hear about proposed IB or AP additions and an "integrated laptop curriculum" for junior high school kids. As if they didn't know more about the machines than their teachers did, and be able to type it four times faster. It's a Toshiba scam, I swear.

I ended up leaving during the computer portion of the talk anyway and going to chat with my elementary school science teacher, the most energetic and upbeat personality I had encountered then and since. She teaches slowly -- we spent an entire term on the Bohr atom -- but does she give it her all each time. She's also one of those inspirational yet nutty people who take a few weeks each year to volunteer overseas to "recharge" and "get back in touch with the things that matter". This summer, it's Kenya. The last time I checked in, it was swamp draining in South America. I'm practically converted to the cause.

Why did I ever lose touch with these old mentors of mine? The woman has taught everything, and manages to save orphaned animals, raise praying mantises, keep Grade 4s under control and make every kid who's ever known her love her. She's amazing. (This is my version of hero-worship.) I feel like I should board a plane on Saturday and go teach English in Mongolia for 2 weeks. (I can, too, according to http://www.vfp.org)

And now, two completely unrelated asides:

1. Does anyone have any recommendations or horror stories regarding fairly portable (i.e. less than 6 lb.) notebooks they'd like to share? I'm looking for a replacement for next year, as mandated by Evil American Law School.

2. I'm also trying to catch up on reading this summer. Does anyone have any favourites they'd like to mention to me?

Patti, Quinton, Lucy, Justin and I went to Victoria on Friday to visit Tammy and check out the Island culture that managed to keep her there far past the original six months. We did a bit of beachcombing, hiking (real and urban), and a lot of exasperated map (and later GPS) checking. I'll put up some pictures when I find the camera cable -- shouldn't be hard to find considering I'm home, seeing as I can just ask Mum.

Among the more publishable of my thoughts on the trip, there are:

1. The privatization of Crown corporations is a great thing. I hold up my Bread Garden sandwich and White Spot fries as testament to improved service.
2. Though cool, compact cars truly are compact and next time I will endeavor to either arrange for us to find a van when transporting 5 adult-sized people, or simply only invite people half my size.
3. We (collectively or individually) stopped at a Tim Horton's four times during a 12-hour trip.
4. Final Fantasy has brainwashed me to the extent that I no longer feel any shame in admitting that I have a strong attraction for taciturn guys with very big swords.
5. We may be the most numerous and arguably the longest-running, but I think that Chinese knick-knacks will be the lasting testament of my cultural heritage four centuries from now. I'm thinking brocade coin purses and bamboo coasters particularly, which seem to be the main economic contributor in Victoria's one-street Chinatown.
6. The next time I play rummy I'm playing by mah-jongg rules.

Back home, I watched Legally Blonde again yesterday, hard on the heels of finishing Scott Turow's One L (his first year experience in mid-19707s Harvard Law School). I'll admit that One L had me slightly freaked for awhile -- has anyone heard of the Socratics method? -- until I realised that most of the people Turow talk about simply give themselves tons of grief for not being at the head of the class of the US's snobbiest institution. Silly, silly. Much better to resign oneself and devote more time to learning other useful skills, such as modern dance, horseback riding, and yogic flying.

I'm wondering if I need to tutor today; ever since Janet got a rather badly-behaved puppy and moved, things have been a bit sketchy. Fine by me, actually. With her, tutoring is one-half academic support, one-half emotional backing. A pretty good deal, methinks.

Seemed like a good time for a change.

There's nothing like a new e-mail address and university ID to reinforce the sense that change is coming, especially when you have to go from the already-not-too-slick "dsdsds" (UBC) to "dws254" (NYU). I get quite a bit of webspace too, though, so I guess the money private universities suck up from tuition do go towards some good -- this means I can cut my web dependence on the ex-Boy, in any case!

I spent most of the day punching holes in the ozone layer while chauffering my grandfather (aged 92, I think) to and from his opthamologist's appointment. He's the exception to the rule that must drive health researchers nuts: he eats out twice a day (greasy Chinese banquet food, usually), was born into a fairly impoverished Shanghai family, and still walks an hour a day even though he had a pacemaker put in two years ago. He went almost nine decades without needing glasses, and has the phone numbers of most Chinese restaurants in the Vancouver area memorised. My mum's started to notice that he's aging, though. He doesn't hear as well as he used to; his vision has deteriorated so much (and so quickly) that he's getting surgery at the end of June. It's all happened in the past year or so, and I guess he doesn't seem as invincible as he used to. It's like watching a legend become undone.

Today could have been lifted from four years ago. I decided to wear a pair of ancient (and bigger) pair of jeans because of all the driving I'd be doing today, and realised I'm growing into the idea of being happy with the way I was before I started going crazy. I feel like I've finally come to a boundary -- not here or there -- and can have the satisfaction of sitting on the fence for awhile, and enjoying the view of both sides. It's like for a little time, I can stop justifying myself to anyone at all.

I haven't felt this way for years.