Just Relax

chamomile (noun)
an aromatic European plant of the daisy family, with white and yellow daisy-like flowers

Okay, so these aren't chamomile flowers (obviously since they don't look like daisies), but they reminded me of the dried chamomile flowers used for tea, only these are bigger. Traditionally, chamomile tea is considered calming and soothing. It's good to drink just before bed because it relaxes you and allows you to fall asleep faster. One of my favourite teas right now is called Dulce & Banana and it's a chamomile based tea with caramelized bananas in it. It's probably a good thing that I like it because calming and relaxing effects are something I need by the the bucketful during the school year.

This is another picture from Saturday's jaunt in the park. I love taking pictures while wandering around outside because it forces me to look at things differently. In particular, I notice the small things, the things that would just get lost in the big picture if I wasn't consciously seeking them out. Walking through nature with my camera in hand is actually a very therapeutic and relaxing experience for me. Almost as good as drinking a mug of chamomile tea.

An Elevator Kind of Day

Today was an elevator kind of day. What does that mean you ask? Well, I will try to attempt to explain. One thing you need to know about me for all of this to make sense is that I generally dislike elevators. I avoid them unless necessary (like when I lived on the 17th floor of a building or when I'm carrying heavy things). But all day I just wanted to take the elevator. Several times I was carrying heavy loads (groceries or ridiculous numbers of books), but the rest of the time I was just tired and didn't have the energy to climb the stairs to 5th floor. This is more than just physical tiredness too, it was a true mental exhaustion.  woke up at 5:30 this morning, so I have been rather exhausted all day. Classes did not go well today. Every little thing that could go wrong seemed to go wrong all day. I have an assignment due tomorrow that I am currently supposed to be working on (I'm just taking a break to post this). In a lovely example of pathetic fallacy it started raining in the wee hours of the morning and continued until mid-afternoon. It was that perfect melancholy kind of rain. So, all in all, it was an elevator kind of day. That might not make sense to anyone but me, but I'm kind of okay with that because the perfection of that statement to capture my day impresses me.

I just took this photo 10 minutes ago in the lobby. Oh the wonderful elevator call button.

Ten Things...Soaked in a golden light

I was in the middle of posting this last night when suddenly my computer decided that there were no wireless networks in range (despite the fact that there were definitely multiple options available). Now the relationship between my computer and the internet has been tenuous at best lately, but normally they get over whatever tiff they are having fairly quickly. Not last night though. No, no. For hours my little laptop persisted in the belief that there was no internet for it to connect to. Eventually I just gave up, went to bed, and decided that no one would die if I posted this week's Ten Things on a Monday.

One of the most delightful things about the weather we have been having lately is the light. Sunset drenches the world in liquid gold and I simply can't help smiling. Light fascinates me. I've talked about that a few times on this blog. It is one of my great frustrations with taking a photo when I can't capture the light. There is something mysterious and magical about light. So, here are ten posts dedicated to sunlight.

1. Brilliant
2. Sunsets
3. Gorgeous
4. Sunset on the Harbour
5. Daydreams of Sunshine
6. Inspiration in Black and White
7. This is Calm
8. Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
9. Picture Perfect Ending
10. The Road Less Traveled By

Welocme Old Friend

I can't remember a time when autumn was not my favourite season. Maybe when I was a kid and kind of thought summer and winter were the only seasons (we have really short springs and autumns here, they are easy to miss). Fall officially began this week, which makes me super happy. The weather also turned from rainy and cold to sunny and warm. I think we have a bit of an indian summer right now, which is super exciting because for a while it looked like we wouldn't get one. It was gorgeously warm today so a couple of my roomies and I took advantage of the weather and went down to Goldbar/Rundell Park to wander amongst the fall foliage of the river valley. It was the perfect time of day for pictures since the sun was just starting to set and casting a beautiful golden hue on all of the beautiful fall colours. This is a picture of one of the birch trees we passed whose leaves have all turned yellow. My one roommate loves birch trees and her face just lit up when we passed this one. It was really a perfect way to spend an hour of the day.

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day

Or at least I have a sunflower. The sun finally came out in full force today. Even though it was still a bit chilly out, it was a welcome respite from the relentless rain. And it is supposed to be warm and sunny and indian summer-like for the next while. Yay! This picture is appropriate for today for more than just that. Yesterday was rough. Today was also a rather unpleasant day, so by the time I got to work I was grouchy and was worried that work would just make it worse. Instead it actually brightened my day. Now if I have told you work stories or you have worked where I work (not that a lot of my work colleagues read this...or any of them) then you know that this is something akin to a miracle. Normally the office is not the most uplifting of places; it tends to be rather stressful, especially on Thursday nights when I don't start work until 6.30 (3 hours later than a typical weekday shift). Maybe it was just the combination of people who were working tonight, but somehow it wasn't as insane as a typical Thursday and I actually had some fun joking around with some of the guys. So nice after two days of grossness. So there you have it, literal and metaphorical sunshine today.

This is yet another picture from Lacombe (I took a lot). The sunflowers in this garder were ridiculously tall and huge. I have never seen sunflowers like that before. They were really pretty though, with their bright yellow petals standing out against the grey sky. Love it!

This picture makes me smile when I'm having a bad day

So, I am currently working on an assignment that is due tomorrow afternoon. In theory it should be a quick sit down and type it up in a couple hours kind of thing since it is only supposed to be four pages long, but for some reason I am having incredible levels of difficulty organizing my thoughts. This means that instead of simply sitting down and cranking it out, I've been staring at the screen, typing one sentence at a time and trying desperately to make things coherent and connected. As the night wears on I am getting more and more frustrated by this. However, I am sitting at my desk and next to me is a bunch of hydrangeas that I bought myself on Monday. I can never decide if it is odd to by yourself flowers, but I do it fairly frequently. I adore hydrangeas so much and every time I look at them they make me smile. This is probably the only thing saving my sanity at this moment. I thought I would share a picture of them with you. Hopefully they can brighten your day a bit too. I realized after I uploaded this picture that it is composed in a very similar manner to yesterday's. Oh well. I really do love this particular composition. I also really like how the light is in this photo. It was rainy the day that I took this picture so the light is soft and diffused as it comes in the window. There is something romantic, wistful and dreamy about this image. It makes me smile.

In case you are wondering, the title of this post comes from the song "This Picture" by a local Edmonton singer/songwriter, Jesse Crowley. I saw him perform live several years ago and to be honest I don't know what he has been up to recently. I bought a cd of rough cuts of some of his songs when I saw him perform and it is one of those albums that I kind of forgot about for a while. I rediscovered it last week though and have rapidly fallen in love with it again. I am definitely a fan of his stuff.

An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Everyone around me is getting sick. Well, okay, that is a bit of an overstatement, but it certainly seems as if an unusually large number of people are ill at the moment. Since I have next to no immune system (if someone I spend time with gets sick I am almost guaranteed to get whatever they have) this concerns me. I've already been sick once this semester so I have no real desire to get another cold. Maybe I'll be lucky and whatever is going around right now is what I already had.

I'm allergic to apples though, so this particular adage doesn't really help me out too much. But it does make for a decent blog post. I took this picture in Lacombe and am rather fond of it. I enjoy playing around with different ways of framing things, and find that I am a particular fan of having the focus of a picture off to the side or in a corner. That's definitely one of the reasons that I like this picture. I also like that it is a slightly different subject than I typically photograph. Any time I take a lot of pictures you can almost guarantee that most of them will be of flowers, and although this isn't the biggest departure from that (still being a plant and in a garden and all) I like having some different things to photograph.

An Autumn Rain-scene

An Autumn Rain-scene

Thomas Hardy

There trudges one to a merry-making

With a sturdy swing,

On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament

Is another bent,

On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall

Ere ill befall,

On whom the rain comes down.

This bears his missives of life and death

WIth quickening breath,

On whome the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war

From the hill afar,

On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gain a shelter or none,

Unhired moves one,

On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall

Upon him at all,

On whom the rain comes down.

It is still rainy. Although I will admit that after posting yesterday's ten things and talking about how much the rainy weather reminds me of Nova Scotia I truly enjoyed the weather today. Anyway, I was trying to find something to post with this photo because I am not feeling too verbose tonight and came across this poem. The title just seemed too perfect for the weather lately to pass it up. I took this picture on my Lacombe outing. I seriously love it.

Ten Things...Rain, Fog, and Longing

It has been a grey, rainy, cold autumn here in Edmonton. It makes sense given that we also had a cold, rainy summer, but it is still kind of odd. I honestly don't remember the last time it was quite so rainy all the time. This is probably because I've grown up during drought years so everybody is always talking about how we don't have enough rain. Now suddenly it is raining all the time. I probably say this every time I talk about rain or fog or grey days, but this is the kind of weather that makes me think of Nova Scotia and Ireland. Even though it definitely gets a little bit depressing after a while, there is something that I kind of love about it. This week's Ten Things is an homage to this kind of weather.

1. Let it Rain
2. Oblivion
3. Drip, drip, drop, little [June] shower
4. Rain, rain on my face
5. "Water makes many beds"
6. Lost in the Fog
7. Splish splash drip drop goosh goosh goosh TIDAL WAVE
8. The Barra MacNeils
9. On the Inside Looking Out
10. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

When words fail

I was talking with someone at work tonight about vacation spots and favourite places to travel. When I told him that my favourite place in the country is Cape Breton he asked me to describe it, and to be honest I could hardly do it. It's green and foggy and rainy. The air is salty and the landscape is often rocky. It is just exquisitely beautiful. Whenever I think about Cape Breton I always think about boats and rough waters and weather-worn wooden buildings. And, yes, I do realize that not every part of Cape Breton is like that and the weather is not always damp (there were beautifully sunny days while we were out there too), but those are the things I think of and the things that draw me to the island. But there is something about describing places that stumps me. There is a quality to each place, I suppose you could call it an "aura" or an "energy", but that just sounds so hokey, that is completely indescibable. You have to go there to experience it. That's one of the things I love about at and photography. I think visual arts somehow manage to capture bits of the indescribable. Obviously you can't smell or feel the air, but the colours of a place, the shapes of the buildings, the lay of the land are all so important and are often captured so much more effectively in visual mediums. I love words, but sometimes they simply fall short.

Alias Grace

     "In this new dream, I dreamt I was walking in a place I had never been before, with high walls all around made of stone, grey and bleak as the stones of the village where I was born, back across on the other side of the ocean. On the ground there were loose grey pebbles, and out of the gravel there were peonies growing. They came up with just the buds on them, small and hard like unripe apples, and then they opened, and there were huge dark-red flowers with glossy petals, like satin; and then they burst in the wind and fell to the ground.
     "Except for being red, they wer elike the peonies in the front garden on the first day I came to Mr. Kinnear's, when Nancy was cutting the last of them; and I was her in the dream, just as she was then, in her pale dress with the pink rosebuds and the triple-flounced skirt, and her straw bonnet that hid her face. She was carrying a flat basket, to put hte flowers in; and then she turned , and put her hand up to her throat as if startled.
     "Then I was back in the stone yard, walking, with the toes of my shoes going in and out under the hem of my skirt, which was blue and white stripes. I knew I'd never had a skirt like that before, and at the sight of it I felt a great heaviness and desolation. But the peonies were still coming up from the stones; and I knew they shouldn't be there. I reached out my hand to touch one and it hada dry feel, and I knew it was made of cloth.
     "Then up ahead I saw Nancy, on her knees, with her hair fallen over and the blood running down into her eyes. Around her neck was a white cotton kerchief printed with blue flowers, love-in-a-mist, and it was mine. She was holding out her hands to me for mercy; in ehr ears were the little gold earrings I used to envy. I wanted to run to her and help her, but I could not and my feet kep walking at the same steady pace, as though they were not my own feet at all. When I was almost up to Nancy, to where she was kneeling, she smiled. Only the mouth, her eyes wer hidden by th blood and hair, and then she came apart into patches of colour, she scattered, a drift of red and white cloth petals across the stones." (Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace 374-5)

I'm reading Alias Grace for one of my courses right now. It is a thoroughly engrossing book. It's based on an actually murder trial that occurred in Kingston, Ontario in 1843. In Alias Grace, Atwood explores the story of Grace Marks, who was convicted of murder at the age of 16 and sentenced to life in prison. If you don't know anything about the Kinnear-Montgomery trials then you should really look up some stuff about them because it is utterly fascinating. It was never known for certain if Grace Marks was actually a murderess, and it is debated whether she was actually insane or not. Atwood's novel is and incredible exploration of Grace and although it doesn't come down one way or the other on the issues of Grace's guilt and sanity, it draws readers into a complex web of events and people and is truly a compelling read. The passage above is the last thing I read today and the imagery stuck with me because it is so vivid and unusual and disturbing. This is Grace's account (as Atwood has imagined it) of a dream she had the night before the murders took place. That last image of Nancy dissolving into white petals that float amongst the blood-red peonies...it's chilling. It made me think of this photo though. I'm not sure whether this is actually a peony; it is in the peony gardens at Fort Edmonton, but it looks more like a giant poppy to me. Either way I love the intensity of the colour. I also like that it is kind of in the early stages of dying. It just makes it so much more interesting and gives it a different kind of beauty.

The Bee

Like Trains of cars on Tracks of Plush
I hear the level Bee -
A Jar across the Flowers goes
Their Velvet Masonry

Withstands until the sweet Asault
Their Chivalry consumes -
While He, victorious tilts away
To vanquish other Blooms

-- Emily Dickinson


His Feet are shod with Gauze -
His Helmet, is of Gold,
His Breast, a single Onys
With Chrysophras, inlaid -

His Labor is a Chant -
His Idleness - a Tune -
Oh, for a Bee's experience
Of Clovers, and of Noon!

--Emily Dickinson

For some reason these poems are often smashed together into one. In reality the second one here was written in 1865 while the first one was written in 1871. I don't know when or why they came to be put together (particularly given that they weren't assembled in chronological order so it seems unlikely that Dickinson herself was intending to expand on one or the other). I am a big fan of Emily Dickinson. I finally broke down this summer and bought The Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by R.W. Franklin. It is a gorgeous hardcover collection of all of her work. So lovely.

I don't have a particular reason for sharing a picture of a bee today. I was just looking through the photos I took in Lacombe and this one struck my fancy. I have an affinity for bees. This isn't because I really like them. In fact, despite having never been stung, I am rather skittish whenever I hear buzzing near my head. Rather, my nickname in high school was Bee. Some of my best friends still call me that. Now one cannot have a nickname like that and not be associated with the insect, so I have recieved many cards with bees or little knick knacky bee items with phrases like "bee happy" and "bee yourself". As a result I have a bit of an affection for bees. And to be quite honest, they do look pretty cool. Plus I think these tiny purple flowers are adorable and very very pretty.

Sometimes I feel I've got to run away, I've got to get away

That's right, I just quoted Soft Cell in my title.

I mentioned yesterday that I spent Saturday at my roommates farm in Lacombe. It was the perfect getaway. I didn't take any homework with me, instead I spent a lovely afternoon wandering through their gorgeous gardens and around the grounds taking pictures. After the crazy week I had last week I really needed the breathing space that this trip provided. As much as I am a city girl through and through, I sincerly love spending time on farms and in small towns. There is something wonderfully relaxing about them even if you are only there for a few hours. Maybe it has to do with simply having space around you. The air is cleaner and it is just easier to think and breathe. It was a drizzly day and the air smelled so clean and fresh. It was that cool, crisp autumn air that is so refreshing to breathe in. Just thinking about it makes me smile. I think this picture captures a bit of that relaxed state of mind.

Let the Rain

Let the Rain
Sara Bareilles

I wish I were pretty

I wish I were brave

If I owned this city

I'd make it behave

If I were fearless

Then I'd speak my truth

And the world would hear this

That's what I wish I'd do

If my hands could hold them you'd see

I'd take all these secrets in me

And I'd move and mold them to be

Something I'd set free

I want to darken in the skies

Open the floodgates up

I want to change my mind

I want to be enough

I want the water in my eyes

I want to cry until the end of time

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down tonight

I hold on to worry so tight

It's safe in here right next to my heart

Who now shouts at the top of her voice

Let me go, let me out, this was not my choice

And I always felt it before

That the world was filled with much more

Than the drowning soul I've learned to be

I just need the rain to remind me

I want to darken in the skies

Open the floodgates up

I want to change my mind

I want to be enough

I want the water in my eyes

I want to cry until the end of time

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Tonight

Sara Bareilles released her second album, Kaleidoscope Heart, a week ago. Since I positively adore her music I purchased it the day it came out and have been listening it to obsessively ever since. Let me tell you, it was totally worth the wait. Gorgeous vocals, incredible instrumental arrangements and lyrics that, like all good music, capture things that are inexplicable for most of us and put them into poignant words. Plus there is a bit of an irreverence, a certain cheekiness and who-cares-what-you-say attitude, in some of her songs that is just so excellent and empowering. Anyway, "Let the Rain" has quickly become one of my favourite songs on the album. It expresses so perfectly the way that I often feel and have been feeling a bit the past week. Also, it suits the weather here in Edmonton since lately it has been grey and rainy.

I took this picture on an excursion to Lacombe a couple days ago. I went down with one of my roommates who was picking some stuff up from home. They live on a farm and have some awesome gardens. I spent a good chunck of time wandering around the grounds taking pictures, so you will probably be seeing quite a few of them on here. It was spitting on and off on Saturday so there were lovely little water droplets clinging to all of the plants. I really like how they look against the dark leaves.

Daydreams of Paris

I feel like I am constantly apologizing for the lack of posts on here, but yet again I seem to have gone for a week as the world's most unreliable blogger. This was a crazy busy week. Not only was I back in school full time, but I also worked 5 days a week. Once I got through class, work, and homework it was typically the next day, and all I could manage was to pull on some pjs and crawl into bed. Fortunately my life returns to a slightly less hectic pace beginning tomorrow. Hopefully that, combined with the fact that we now have normal internet again, means that my blog posting will become more regular again.

I was trying to think of pictures to post that related to the busyness of my week. Of course the first thing that came to my head was bees because of the phrase "busy like a bee". However, due to the flighty nature of bees and the fact that they kind of freak me out, I actually don't have any pictures of them. The next thing that came to my head was the image of a busy city street. Now despite having sat through my share of traffic jams, I don't typically bust out my camera in order to document the experience. However, I do love taking street shots when I'm travelling. These photos from Paris are some of my favourites, and even though they aren't particularly busy streets they make me remember that trip, and trust me the majority of the streets were busy. Paris is a truly beautiful city. There is simply nothing like walking through cities full of old buildings. That is one of the reasons I love Europe so much. Paris though has a particular look and feel about it that is different from other cities I've been to. Now, during the day it is kind of dirty and crowded, but at night...simply gorgeous. Paris also photographs really well in black and white, a quality which basically sells me on any location.

Perhaps another reason I'm posting pictures from Paris is the fact that when I get busy I tend to start daydreaming about jumping on a plane and going somewhere. In fact, the busier I get, the more I daydream about vacationing. Of course that doesn't help my jam packed schedule since it means that things take even longer to get done. Does anyone else have that problem?

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare...

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be. -- Hubert H. Humphrey

One of the classes I am taking this semester is called "The Self in the Novel". Intriguing, no? As I've been plowing my way through the first novel on the reading list (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens), one of the recurring themes I have encountered is the connection between a name and an identity. This quote showed up in my quotes of the day email (yes, I do subscribe to a quotes of the day email) today and just seemed to fit the novel so well. I certainly think that there is a link between the name and the self. Think about how different it is when someone calls you by a nickname versus your full name, or one nickname rather than another. I know that I associate certain nicknames with certain periods in my life and they really only sound right when used by specific people. I think that is telling. I might not act like a totally different person around these various groups of people, but there are certainly differences. Plus, each of my nicknames has come from a very different time in my life, when I was a very different person in many ways. Just an intriguing thing for you to contemplate. Or to promptly forget as soon as you stop reading this.

I figured that since the Shakespeare Mr. Humphrey is referring to is Juliet's famous rose speech (which I have previously posted with another rose picture here) that I ought to pair this rumination with a lovely, traditional kind of rose picture. I love the color of this particular bloom. Taken at the Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island.

Ten Things...Back to School

In honour of school being back in session this edition of "Ten Things..." is dedicated to the wonderful world of academia. Some of these posts actually pertain to school, but many of them simply reveal various aspects of my nerdiness, whether it be my love of old books, my musings on what makes great poetry, my reflections on art, or my love of school supply shopping. I hope you enjoy!

1. After 17 pages I have a rough draft...
2. La belle dame sans merci
3. Motiveless Malignant
4. It's the most wonderful time of the year
5. Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and a Love of Art
6. Burning the Midnight Oil
7. The Sensation of Art
8. I'm a nerd, and proud of it!
9. Literary Aspirations
10. Art History

Sink or Swim

So, I have had three days of classes and I already feel like I am behind on my reading. Apparently this is a sentiment shared by many of my fellow fourth years, who seem to be just as flabbergasted by the amount of work we have already been assigned as I am. Seriously. I know I wrote about this on Wednesday, but apparently once you get to fourth year you no longer get a grace period at the beginning of the semester. Normally the first couple weeks of school are pretty light. You'll get some readings, but assignments don't usually rolling in until mid-September, and any of the insane reading loads don't show up until October or so. Definitely not the case this year. I am already overwhelmed. Instead of letting the waters of academia thaw after the break and warm up to a decent temperature they just chuck you into the icy cold water of academics and your only choice is to thrash wildly in order to keep yourself from drowning. Oi vey. And yes I realize that seasonally that imagery doesn't make sense since water is actually getting colder and more frozen this time of year, but it just is so perfect for my current experience. I am trying very hard to not get too stressed out yet. And actually, despite the frantic tone of this entry, I am doing pretty well at it. If you know me then you know that this is a MAJOR accomplishment. This picture is exactly what it feels like I am being thrown into: a half frozen lake. And I can't swim.

So that is my rant. I feel like I can now stop talking about this. I should also clarify that I am still glad to be back at school. I'm just a tad overwhelmed.

Liquid Comfort

If alcohol is liquid courage then tea is liquid comfort. I've been fighting a cold since Tuesday, and, as it is with all immune battles, the cold is winning and I am losing. Fortuantely it actually hasn't been that bad. At least during the day. It definitely gets worse at night. I also am getting to that point where I sound awful because I am all stuffed up and my throat is on fire. Seriously. If I was a man this would be attractive, but since I am not a man it is just sad. I've also started to develop a cough, which just makes everything sound that much better. Anyway. As a way to counteract the firey throat I have been drinking a lot of tea. I normally drink quite a bit of tea, but this is even more than average. There is just something inherently comforting in a warm mug of tea. Wrapping my hands around the mug and holding it up to my face so that I breathe in the steam is one of my favourite things to to when I'm feeling down or sick.

I thought it was only appropriate to share a tea-themed picture with all of you. This is actually quite an old picture. I took it on my Christmas break in 2007 on a trip to Steeps with some of my friends.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Today was the first day back at school. I absolutely love this time of year. Everyone is still excited to see each other, classes haven't started to get stressful yet, it's autumn so the weather is lovely and the fashion is awesome, there are new books and notebooks and pens...everything about this part of the year makes me smile. I know I'm a dork, but I'm totally okay with that. Besides, someone has to be excited about academics. Although apparently once you get into senior level classes the profs stop taking it easy the first few days. In first year classes the first day is usually just going through the syllabus, maybe having a minor class discussion, but that is pretty much it. Second year is similar. By third year you usually have to stay for the full class time and have an actual intellectual discussion. But in fourth year they apparently start assigning homework on the first day. It's like the profs figure you've been at this long enough that you no longer need an adjustment period. For example, in the one class I had today I was informed that I need to read all of Great Expectations and write a one page reflection on the character of Pip by next Wednesday. Crikey.

Funny story from class today. Well, I think it is funny at least. So since I'm at a small school and there are not that many four year English majors, we pretty much all know each other (there are only nine people in the class I had today). We are all sitting there at the start of class and our prof (who we also know really well) comes in and jokingly says "Well, you guys don't know each other at all! You should really introduce yourselves." We are all laughing about this when suddenly some random guy walks into the class. I turned to the girl next to me and asked "How is there someone in this class we don't know?" and you could see that everyone else was asking each other the same thing. We were floored. Turns out he was a first year who was lost and looking for his intro English class. I would have felt bad for the guy except that when he discovered he was in the wrong class he made it seem like it was somehow our fault for being in that classroom. That attitude lost him my sympathy. I just thought the timing of that was too great not to share though.

In honour of back-to-school, I have here a picture of an apple. A crab apple on my parents' neighbours' tree to be specific. How did apples get associated with teachers anyway? Whenever I think about apples the first thing that pops into my head is "An apple a day keeps the doctor away". So why is it traditional to give your teacher an apple? Why are there so many ridiculous knick knacky gifts for teacher that are apple shaped or have pictures of apples on them? Intriguing...

By the way, sorry about the sparse posting lately. Since moving I've been dealing with unpacking, catching up with people, slow internet (the thought of uploading pictures scares me, although this situation should be remedied on Saturday when we get our high-speed installed), working Regestration Confirmation and the ensuing exhaustion, and a delightful cold to top it all off. Hopefully I will soon be resuming a more normal posting schedule.