Either Ottawa hates¹ or loves me so much that it really, really wants me have a reason to return, because everything we tried to do today was a no go.

First, we couldn't go to the Diefenbunker as the tour was all booked up when we called to make a reservation. Then, The Green Door was inexplicably closed when we tried to go there for dinner. Bah!

It worked out in the end though. We hung out at Sarah's parents place, where we had lunch, chatted for a bit, and then Sarah's mom gave me three (3!) pairs of shoes²! Then we watched more Veronica Mars and we ended up going to another restaurant, a veggie Thai place, that made most delicious food, for dinner. And, honestly, Sarah & Dave are just fun to hang out with, no matter what you are doing. And now I have an excuse to come back to O-town - 'cuz I totally need to check out the Diefenbunker!

¹Since they put a giant spider in front of the National Gallery, I'm leaning towards the former.
²And you all know how desperately I need more shoes!

These Boots Were Made for Walking

Once upon a time¹ I bought a pair of boots. And so beloved were those boots that I wore them everywhere - to work, to clubs, to job interviews, to a blogging conference. They were an integral part of my last two Halloween costumes. Hell, I even wore them to my Ph.D. defence.

Of late, I have noticed that the beautiful pleather² that gives my boots their shiny goodness was starting to flake off. 'No matter,' I thought, 'It's just flaking a little bit and you have to look quite carefully at them to notice. They're still good, they're still good.'³ But that was before I fell down the stairs. Twice in as many days.

OK, "fell" is probably a little overly dramatic. More like "slid" or "slipped." The first time I was rushing down the stairs at Granville Station to catch a Skytrain⁴. I figured that the stairs were just slippery or something. But then the next day I slid down the stairs at my massage therapist's office, right after getting a nice hour-long massage - and pretty much undoing all the good that the massage had done. 'What the hell?' I thought, 'Why am I suddenly incapable of going down a flight of stairs??'

Then I got a brainstorm: 'Perhaps I should look at the sole of these boots!' Um, ya, so the heels of my boots are *completely* devoid of tread. Like, totally, completely 100% tread-less. So I had to admit to myself that it might, just might, be time to find a new pair of boots, as continuing to wear this pair appears to be hazardous to my health and well-being⁵. So this newfound concern for safety, combined with my jealousy of Stacia's beautiful new boots, led me on The Search for A New Pair of Boots.

Only one small problem. My boots are too cool. I can't find anything even remotely as cool. And I went to every shoe store in downtown Vancouver. I found a pair that, while not as perfect in style as my current boots, I could have been happy with in this shoe clearance place in the basement of where The Bay is downtown, but they only had them in size 8.5 or 10, whereas I wear a size 6 shoe⁶. I found another one in the Shoe Warehouse, but same deal - too big. There were a couple pairs that I tried on at Winners, but they didn't fit properly - either they'd be way too big for my calves, or they'd put your foot in a weird contorted angle that you know would be very, very uncomfortable after about 5 minutes of walking around. The thing with my current boots is that they are super stylish, but also really comfortable.

All in all, I think I only tried about 5 pairs of boots that looked acceptable but turned out to be too big/small/uncomfortable/weird, but this number was completely dwarfed by the number of boots I had trouble even being in the same room as, let alone be willing to try on or, god forbid, consider buying. Apparently the style this season is stiletto heels⁷ and ridiculous pointy toes. And I'm not talking just a little pointed. I'm talking the shoe is so exaggeratedly pointed that the toe of your shoe is in a different time zone than you are.

Heading home, dejected, from the boot store which appears also to stock only stupid pointy toed, stiletto boots this season, the answer to all my problems hit like a stroke of divine inspiration⁸. Where did Beth find her most perfect pair of footwear? eBay, of course! A quick search led me to this pair, the auction for which I just won this morning:

Anyone want to take bets on which will get here first: the eBay boots or the vegetarian marshmallows?

¹A.k.a. November 2005.
²Being a vegetarian, I don't wear leather. Pleather is also way cheaper that leather, but it doesn't last as long.
³I may have been in denial about the impeding demise of my boots.
⁴Which, of course, begs the question that Sarah & Dave asked me on one of their visits to Vancouver: "Why are we going DOWN stairs to get to the SKYtrain?"
⁵Not that I've actually stopped wearing them. I just try not to run down stairs in them.
⁶Which,I was doubly choked that they didn't fit because they were $100 boots that had been marked down to $25!
⁷Read: ridiculous uncomfortable. Who the hell thought that putting an entire person's weight on two millimeter wide sticks was a good idea?
⁸As previously mentioned, my deity⁹ may vary from yours.
⁹and Her sexy shoe obsession.

Did Ya Miss Me?

I'm back from my gallivanting. Too tired to write about it all now¹, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's 2K worth of words for ya...

This is me on Halloween night at, let's say, The Bellagio².

This is me and my beloved eBay shoes in, let's say, The Venetian³. This picture was taken especially for you, blog readers, because I know you *love* updates on the adventures of my ebay shoes.

¹Perhaps I'll pull a Dave and write about *my* trip to Vegas 472 days after said trip.
² I have to admit that I have trouble remembering which hotel/casino was which because (a) I saw one hell of a lot of hotels/casinos on this trip, (b) each hotel/casino was more ornate than anything I'd *ever* seen in my life, (c) the hotels/casinos were so friggin' big you could be walking for like half an hour and still be in the same friggin' hotel/casino, meaning that I often didn't know which hotel I was in at any given point in time. Also, (d) they give you free drinks.
³ibid

Three Months Worth of Recycling and My Biennal Apartment Cleaning

Ever wonder what 3 months worth of recycling looks like? Well, wonder no longer:

This is the recycling that has been piling up in my kitchen since the city workers's strike started back in July. They are *finally* going to pick up recycling this week and I can't wait to put this stuff outside and get my kitchen back!!

In other cleaning-up-my-place news, I was struck with my biennial "I feel like cleaning" mood on Friday and did some tidying up and organizing. Apparently there is this new invention that's like a sponge on a stick and you put the sponge part in soapy water and run it across your floor. I believe they call it a "mop." So I tried that out and now have shiny kitchen and bathroom floors¹

Some other features of my newly semi-organized place include taking my shoe collection from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Although I do have to admit that even with a five-story shoe rack, I don't have enough room for all my shoes²

Also, I hung up a whole bunch of stuff on the walls, as seen here:

My two favourite pieces:

"Spirt Bear" by Joseph M. Wilson and
"Haida Killer Whale - Skaana" by Bill Reid

My friend Therese brought these two pieces,
which apparently I have not hung up straight,
back from San Fran for me.

The flower paintings were done by my cousin's husband and given out
as gifts to everyone at their wedding. The gingerbread man cutting board
was given to me by either my mom or my sister (I can't remember which).

This is my bragging wall... or, walls I guess, as I couldn't fit them all on one wall
(Go to the Flickr page if you want to see what each of these degrees/diplomas/awards are).

Of course, there are still piles of paper on various tables, chairs, filing cabinets and other available surfaces (photos not available³), but I'm sure I'll get around to cleaning them up in 2009, when the mood to clean hits me again.

¹Although the tile in my kitchen, like the paint on the walls and all the furniture, is older than me, so it still kinda looks like crap.
²Plus, there are four more pairs in my bedroom that I forgot to take a photo of and I'm too lazy to take a photo and upload it now that I've realized that I didn't take a photo of them.
³Because I don't want to document what a slob I am. Despite my claims to the contrary, I'm really not at all about fair and balanced reporting .

Bus Girl

There's something really strange about wearing clubbing clothes outside of the clubbing district. Like while waiting, in actual daylight, at a bus stop in the sleepy neighborhood in which one lives. And whilst on said bus, once it arrives.

And when you are fond of the type of outlandish footwear that I am, doubly so.

Perhaps the people on this bus with me don't realize that I can see their glares.

Another problem with being a bus girl who lives in a sleepy old person neighborhood who therefore needs to take relatively long bus trips to get to dinner and clubbing venues has to do with the limited purse size that one can reasonably take to a club. Ordinarily when I'm on a bus, say going to work or shopping or meeting a friend for coffee, I take a big canvas bag with me. Said bag will stow such things as my lunch, travel mug and importantly, a book. I do almost all of my reading on the bus. I've trained myself to read books on the bus. But I can't very well bring a big ole canvas bag to a club, now can I? And club purses are minuscule. It's an unspoken rule of clubbing, like that the skankiest girl in the bar will inevitably be the one wearing the white Daisy Duke shorts with stiletto heels¹. My club purse will hold my camera & Treo², but not much else. I can't even fit my wallet into my club purse - I just take the necessary cards³ and some cash. Oh yes, and my iPod and a lipstick. These are all tiny items, especially in comparison to a book.

So what's a girl to do to keep herself occupied on the bus? Write a blog entry on her Treo, of course! On her Treo's wee little keyboard. Boy, she sure wishes that she had this spiffy fold out keyboard that would allow her to type on a full-sized keyboard on her Treo, but yet will fold up so small that it will fit even in her tiniest of club purses. She really hopes that Santa will bring her one for Christmas.

Hint hint.

¹For the record, I don't even *own* a pair of white Daisy Duke shorts.

²my still *nameless* Treo, by the way.

³driver's license, Care Card⁴, credit & debit cards

⁴Clarification for my Ontarian readers, this is the BC equivalent of an OHIP card. For my American readers, we have this thing in Canada called universal health care - you carry around a card and the government pays your medical bills. You should try it out. I always bring my CareCard with me. Being superstitious, I feel it is a talisman against my becoming sick or injured and thus *needing* to have my CareCard with me.

On the bus on the way to work today, it occurred to me that I am wearing the same outfit that I wore out clubbing two Saturdays ago. Same tank top, same skirt. Same necklace even. The only difference is that I'm wearing sandals instead of my beloved boots. I'm not sure if this means that I dress too skanky for work, or not skanky enough when I go clubbing.

My radio feed over the internet has wigged out on me (I think I just need to re-boot my computer - that usually fixes things), but the silence has made me aware that there is a freaking weird noise coming out of the radiator in my office. I'm actually somewhat terrified that it may be one of those hissing wolf spiders I've heard about. Dear god, don't let it be a hissing wolf spider! I'm up on the 6th floor - there shouldn't be spiders this high up, should there?

And speaking of being on the 6th floor, by the time I leave today, I will have walked up 23 flights of stairs, and down 23 flights of stairs. So that should make up for my complete lack of half marathon training, right?

My First Ever Sangeet!

Last night I attended my first ever Sangeet (or Ladies Party, as it is also called). And I must say that you have not partied until you have danced to a mash up of "My Humps" + Hindi music.

OK, maybe I should back up a little. Since this is my first ever Indian wedding, when Shalu gave me my invitation (which, by the way, is the most gorgeous invitation I've ever seen!), I had to have her walk me through what the heck everything was, since my invitation had FOUR invitations in it!¹ The invitation to the Sangeet indicated that there would be Appetizers, followed by Chunni & Tilak, then dinner & dancing. Appies, dinner & dancing I am familiar with, but chunni & tilak, not so much. Around about the time that we were waiting for our ride to pick us up, Shalu's friend, Mina (who I met at the wedding shower last weekend and arranged to carpool with) and I decided to Wikipedia² those terms to see what we could expect. Chunni, as near as we could tell from Wikipedia, is a piece of red fabric the groom's family puts on the bride's head. Tilak is a mark on the forehead.

Here's a pic of the happy couple after the Chunni & Tilak part of the night. As you can see, Shalu bears both the chunni and the tilak. Wikipedia did not steer us wrong!

Don't they look amazing??

OK, a few highlights of the night:

• the food. omg, so delish! I *love* Indian food. Plus, it was all vegetarian!
  
• everyone's outfits - they were soooo beautiful! Shalu looked radiant in her beautiful green dress and Deepak was dashing in his blue outfit.
  
  
• 



• the music! As I mentioned at the start of the post, it was Hindi music mixed with pop. Billie Jean, plus Hindi. Sexy Back, plus Hindi. It went surprisingly well together and had a great beat, which made for great fun dancing.
• And speaking of dancing, I got a few compliments on my dancing abilities. Now, I've never danced to Indian music before, so I just sort of looked at what other people were doing and tried to imitate it... just feel the beat and go with it! I think people were surprised to see the only white girl there dancing to the Indian
  
• And speaking of dancing, the DJ told us that "this next song will be the last song of the night" about 6 times. At once point, they had turned the lights up for the "last song", but we kept on dancing, so they turned the lights back down and kept playing music! After the actual last song, we decided we still needed to dance some more, so a bunch of us headed to Ginger Sixty-Two. Deepak told us it was Indian Night there, which we didn't believe, as Deepak likes to make things up just to see if you will believe them. But he turned out to be telling the truth, because when we got there, they were, in fact, playing Indian music! Of course, Shalu & her "entourage" (as the DJ there called it) were the only ones wearing Indian outfits, which everyone there thought was very cool.
  
  
  
  
  Here are Shalu & Deepak outside of Ginger Sixty-Two. Party like a rock star.
  

• We stayed 'til Ginger Sixty-Two closed (for those of you who are counting, that's right, we stayed right to the end of *two* parties last night... ya, we are that hardcore!) By then, I was pretty much unable to walk due to my feet deforming shoes. In my defence, the shoes are very pretty. Some peeps headed off for pizza, but me, Andrea & Mina decided that it was time, since it was after 2 am and Andrea had to work in a few hours, to head home.
  

OK, that's enough with the writing. But I'll give you a few more pictures, what with them being worth a thousand words and all.

Me, Radha (sister of the groom) and Mina (friend of Shalu's (and now my friend too!))

Mina, me & Ritu in the back row. Deepak & Shalu in the middle. Meenu up front.

At Ginger Sixty-Two.

Stay tuned for more exciting wedding events next week. Next up, the wedding tradition of Mehndi on Wednesday!

¹See here for a brief description of the different events.

²I also discovered through Wikipedia that Shalu's name is also the name of a "special type of sari."

Free Stuff

So, on Sunday I got a bit of a surprise when I ventured out to the cheap Broadway produce stores in search of fresh veggies with which to cook up a bunch of delicious meals for the week. Broadway was closed to traffic as, apparently, it was Greek Day. And there were lots of vendors in the street. If this Greek Day is any indication, I'm pretty sure that Greece is a country full of nothing but restaurants, as pretty much every vendor there was selling food. And there were TONNES of people out, despite the fact that it was on and off raining the whole time. Weaving my way around the slow moving crowds on my quest for produce¹, I spied a non-food booth. And at this booth you could apply for a Vancity Enviro VISA⁴. And, as it so happens, I was in the market for a Vancity Enviro VISA. I recently switched from the bank I'd been at for years (I've only kept my student loan accounts there) to Vancity, as I really do feel that I'm more of a credit union kind of girl. And I'd been meaning to apply for one of their Enviro VISAs (5% of the profits go to environmental projects), but what with all the optometrist visits/dentist visits⁵/softball games/climbing of mountains⁶/etc., I hadn't quite gotten around to it. So I talked to the woman at the booth and she was like, "fill out this application form and I'll give you a bunch of free stuff." And you know how I feel about free stuff! As hard as I try to avoid my pack rat tendencies, I can't turn down freebies. So, for signing up for a VISA that I was planning to sign up for anyway, I got:

• a baseball cap - it's plain black with the words "Vancity Enviro VISA" in small red letters on the side (very subtle)... and I needed a new baseball hat!
  
• a ruler with a calculator in it - who couldn't use one of those?
  
• a water bottle - you can never have enough water bottles, imho
  
• a free pen - I don't believe in buying pens... people are always giving them away for free to advertise something or another, so buying pens seems crazy to me.
  
• another, even cooler free pen - this one is made from biodegradable plastic and biodegradable ink and when you are done with the pen you plant it in the ground and IT GROWS INTO A TREE 'cuz there is a seed inside!!⁷

So, that's my story about the free stuff.

In other news, I'm still sick. I was coughing and sneezing all freakin' day at work. I'm pretty sure that I must have the plague. Or possibly Ebola. Or possibly plague-infested Ebola viruses.

¹OK, I admit it. Produce and shoes. I bought a pair of "pewter" ²coloured flats³ at the Shoe Warehouse. Adorable!

²Not "silver", but "pewter". 'cuz there is *such* a difference!

³That's right, I said "flats." I was able to overcome my love of 27 inch heels and buy a pair of flats. For variety.

⁴I have *no idea* what Vancity has to do with Greek Day.

⁵oh ya, in case you were wondering, it turns out, as Dave so wisely predicted, I do not have oral cancer. In case you were worried.

⁶Crap. It just occurred to me that I never blogged about my recent trip up the Grouse Grind. Here I am writing about applying for a freaking VISA card (*yawn*) and neglecting to mention that I climbed a mountain that is 1.5X the height of the CN Tower. D'oh! Anyhoo, I climbed Grouse Mountain on Friday! Pictures to follow, hopefully... unless I forget to blog it again. I swear, I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached!

⁷sure, I'm a renter and will be for the forseeable future and so have place to plant a tree. But no matter! Minor details! I love my tree pen!

What Happens In Seattle When I Avoid the 1511

4 intrepid young women.

Drive 230 km.

To buy 7 pairs of shoes.

50 points to the first person who correctly identifies which 2 of these are mine.

¹for a recounting of what happens in Seattle when I don't avoid the 151, see here.

Binaries

I was at a women's health event on Thursday and we spent most of the morning talking about the defintions of "sex" and "gender." Sex and gender, you may be surprised to hear¹, are not the same thing.

Sex is a biological construct - based on our genes/hormones/anatomy/physiology, we are classified as "male" or "female," although research shows that things are not quite as clear cut as this. For example, we tend to think of sex chromosomes as being XX = female, XY = male, but there are people with different chromosomal combinations (e.g., XO, XXX, XXY, XYY); similarly, we think of vagina = female, penis = male, but there are people born with indeterminate genitalia, or both sets, or incongruous external and internal anatomy.

Gender is a social construct, something that we humans create. We can think of "gender roles" (the way that society expects us to behave) and "gender identities" (what gender we personally identify ourselves with). We talked a lot about how there are many genders, not just "male" or "female", and even within the groups "male" and "female", there really are multiple "masculinities" and "feminities)².

We spent a considerable amount of time exploring these concepts of multiple and complex sexes and genders, specifically regarding how this complexity affects our research.

What happened at the break after this enriching and thoughtful discussion really struck me as rather funyy. The women's health field is, not surprisingly, dominanted by women researchers. The group at this event was made up of probably 100 or so participants, of which there were maybe 2 or 3 males. At the break, many participants, myself included, headed to the bathroom. As I walked down the hall, I noticed a large lineup of women at the door to the "women's" washroom, and no one going into the men's washroom. Hadn't we just discussed that "male" and "female" is a false binary??

So I knocked on the door to the "men's" room (because I realize that societal norms do dictate that it would be "strange" for a woman to walk in on a man at the urinal and that might make some men uncomfortable), and getting no response, I said something nonchalant to the women lined up for the "ladies's room" and marched on into the unoccupied "men's" washroom. I'm not sure if any of the other women saw the poignancy of my actions and certainly no one followed me. I guess it's easier to talk the talk than walk the walk sometimes.

Wow, this posting turned out far more cerebral than what I usually post here. It's almost like something you'd expect to see here or here or here. Perhaps I should nerdify it a bit by adding in a few more big words⁴ and post it on my "professional" blog... yup, I've started a professional blog for work/education purposes... I'm trying to inform others of the benefits of blogging for reflective practice/educational purposes/community building, so I figured that I should be practising what I preach and blogging my own reflections on my professional practice. But I'm not linking it to this blog which, if you know what I did for a living, would probably make a lot of sense to you.

¹or maybe not, depending on your background.

²As an aside, this issue of "masculinities" and "feminities" got me thinking about how I have never really felt that I fit into any predefined gender roles - when asked "are you a girly girl or a tom boy?"³, I've basically come to the point of giving the answer "I'm a tom boy who likes to dress like a girly girl." In many ways, I have some very stereotypically "male" characteristics. I love both watching and playing sports, although I think it is somewhat outside of the "male" gender role to want to bed your favourite NHL hockey player. Another example - I'm very career focussed, but I like to wear short skirts and high heels while I go about my career. Hell, I wore CFM boots to my PhD defence!! I like pretty, sparkly jewellry and wearing makeup, which I think contrasts nicely with my pig-sty of an apartment and my trucker mouth. We are all aware of my obsession with pretty shoes , but are you aware that I will wear my pretty shoes to watch action and horror movies but wouldn't be caught dead watching a chick flick? It's never actually bothered me that don't fit into some stereotypically "female" roles, while I do partake of other "girly" behaviours that would make some feminists look down their nose at me... I actually like picking and choosing my behaviours regardless of what society feels I should do. But it was an interesting phenomenon to think about in a group of predominantly feminist scholars and strengthened my confidence in being who I am, regardless of whether mainstream society accepts it or not.

³Which I've been asked more times that you'd believe.

⁴and remove the part about bedding Taylor Pyatt.

Having a PhD Can and Will Be Held Against Me

There's a lot of pressure that comes with having a Ph.D. People expect you to know stuff. And they expect that you won't go around doing stupid things. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to do airheaded things... often. For example, I discovered yesterday that I had made a pot of tea the day before and then forgot to drink it. Apparently, I just made a pot of tea and then it completely slipped my mind not only that I had made the tea, but that I had even wanted the tea to begin with! I regularly go to the kitchen and then forget why I went in there. Or I open up a computer program and then can't remember what I opened it for.

Other airheaded things I have done of late* include:

• I lost an entire year's worth of photos, somewhere in my apartment.
  
• I lost my food guide record today. I looked everywhere for it. It turned out that it was on my desk, pretty much right in front of my face.
• I got hit in the head with my own surfboard.
• I took some friends who were visiting Vancouver for a walk in Pacific Spirit Park and got us lost for almost 2 hours.
  
• This one time, I cut my finger on my own hair.

And anytime I do one of these airheaded things, someone will inevitably say, "Ph.D., eh? I guess they give those out to just anyone!" So, for the record, I hereby present a list of things that I do not have my Ph.D. in:

• remembering who I have told certain stories, even if I've already told them said story 3 or more times
• remembering people's names
• direction, sense thereof
• maturity
• acting my age
• looking my age
• English grammar*

Also, here is a list of things that I should have a Ph.D. in:

• sexy shoe-ology
• emailing
• history of magical education
• charm
• blogging
  

*if anyone can remember other airheaded things that I've done, please feel free to share in the comment section!
**so get off my back about using the word "ain't", Mom!

A few unrelated things

(a) So, I went out for a run today. Just a little 14 K*. In a torrential downpour. Believe it or not, I actually really enjoy running in the rain... You get awfully warm running and the rain is delightfully cool. There are only two drawbacks: (1) I get a lot of water in my shoes when the puddles are too large to jump (which they certainly were today) and having wet feet kinda sucks, (2) my hair turns into a knotted rat's nest if it gets anywhere near rain. How knotted, you ask? Take this for example - after my run, I was applying a half a bottle of conditioner to try to work out the knots in my hair. And apparently, in addition to not being trusted with knives, I should also not be trusted with my own hair. Check out the wound I received from trying to run my fingers through my knotty, knotty hair:



That's a hell of a hunk flesh to be ripped from one's finger!! My poor, poor finger!!

(b) On Friday night, I went to see a talk by Nobel Laureate, Carl Weimann. He talked about his research for which he won the Nobel Prize (he and his colleagues produced the first true Bose-Einstein condensate). Here is a picture of the "velocity-distribution data of a gas of rubidium atoms, confirming the discovery of a new phase of matter, the Bose–Einstein condensate." (taken from Wikipedia... I'm just including it here 'cuz (1) it looks cool and (2) it's in the public domain, so I can).

He also talked a lot about science education, as that is what he was recruited to UBC to study. The best part of the whole talk was when this completely belligerent audience member asked a series of long and rambling questions, including a diatribe about how he didn't believe any of what Dr. Weimann said about what makes an effective educator since we all know that being a dynamic speaker is the only thing that matters to being a good teacher, "SO ANSWER THAT MR. NOBEL LAUREATE!"**... to which Dr. Weimann responded there is plenty of solid data to support what he's said about education and so, "You can either say that you don't believe evidence or you can say that I'm right." Ha ha! Take that, belligerent audience member! Here's a pic I snapped at the talk - Dr. Weimann is the guy on the right:

(3) I bought a wicked pair of news shoes. For work. Ha ha... I just love saying that. Work. As in a job. As in employment, with a paycheque and benefits and challenging responsibilities and the need for appropriate footwear. I decided to buy a simple pair of black heels, ones that will go with pretty much any outfit I might wear to work. But, being the sexy shoe-obsessed girl that I am, I bought really shiny black shoes that are ever so slightly too high to be exactly considered conservative. Yes, I'm edgy like that.

After I bought my shoes at the trusty Payless, I strolled around Kingsgate Mall (I'd never been there before) and stumbled upon a shoe store that must have fallen from heaven***. Never before had I seen so many platform boots! Boots that make my boots look like nun's shoes. I was also very pleased to see that cork wedge heels are in fashion for another year... my eBay shoes will come out of mothballs once the rain, rain goes away!

(4) Damn, I was sure I had something else I wanted to blog about, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. I'm going to blame the trauma of my above mentioned hand injury for this lapse in memory.

*That's over 8.5 miles for my American readers.
**I'm not even joking... the audience member actually yelled that, while pointing emphatically in Dr. Weimann's general direction.
***The "heaven" in my world my vary from yours.

Wow. I nearly missed my blogging today. I'm actually blogging at a party, just to make sure I don't break my New Year's Resolution. Yes, yes, I really am that cool.

As for my job, I think it's best to avoid specifics here in blogland (translate: if someone Googles my work, I don't want them to find this blog). Suffice it to say that this job is wicked cool, combines my interests in research, education and nerdy tech stuff. And completely justifies my desire to buy new shoes.

OK, now back to my regularly scheduled party.

P.S. I <3 poutine.

Northern Voice '07 - Post #2

Home from the conference now. Sitting in my toasty warm bed with my laptop (we got spoiled with a beautiful sunny day yesterday, but today it was rainy and freezing and this is the first chance I've had all day to warm up!), trying to process all the stuff I learned today! It might take a little while for me to do said processing, so you can expect a more insightful post once I've had a chance to check out the blogs of the cool people I've met over the past two days and to review my notes. Yes, I took notes.

In the meantime, here are a few photos to entertain you. First, I thought y'all would like to see that I wore my favourite boots* today:


And speaking of footwear, one of my new-found blogging friends can be found over at wanderingshoes.wordpress.com and I have to give her props 'cuz I stole this cool camera angle from her:

Oh ya, if you'd like to check out all the photos from the event, go to Flickr and look at the "nv07" tag. As I type this, there are 1,312 photos from the conference, and people are still uploading stuff. This is what happens when you put 300 techies and their multitude of cameras in a wifi-enabled area for 2 days!

*And hopefully people were looking at my boots because, based on these photos, the rest of me looked like crap today. I looked much better yesterday.

Meez

Darren got himself a Meez avatar and, like everyone else who reads his blog, I just had to have one.

I had made a cool one of me doing some wicked stick handling, but then discovered that I would have to pay "5 Coinz" to have my Meez hold a hockey stick. Kind of surprising, given that I didn't think Americans were all that into hockey, so I wouldn't imagine that it would be a popular item that they'd want to charge for. Perhaps they had to pay a Canadian to tell them what the heck a hockey is?

Also, most of the animations made the avatar look like they are having a seizure, so I chose this relatively low key "drinking coffee" animation. And I also happen to drink a lot of coffee. I couldn't figure out how to change the hair colour (I'm sure it was right there in front of me, but I couldn't find it), so I just left it with brown hair, even though my hair is more red now since I tried to dye it blonde).

Oh ya, and I'd like to point out that I'm wearing platform shoes.

Update: I figured out the hair colour thing (as you can see, I know have my red hair). I know you must all be terribly relieved by this.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. And a Thousand Pictures are Worth Something Too.

So, a while back I promised to blog some more about my graduation ceremony. And since I took soooo many photos during grad, and during my mom & sister's trip in general (they were here for my grad, plus a few more days after that), I figured I can do a lot less typing if I just show some pretty pictures. I'm lazy like that.

You already saw a picture of me and my mom at my grad. Here's one of my & my sister:


This was before the ceremony, where they make you pick up your grad gown an hour and a half before the ceremony, so that you can then stand around in it doing nothing for a long time, before the part where the grads all had to line up in order (i.e., the previously described gong show).

This next one is me walking across the stage during the grad ceremony. Damn, I'm short! Of course, it doesn't help that the Dean (the guy standing at the podium behind me is about 6'8" tall!). He was actually one of my supervisory committee members, so it was kind of cool that he was the one reading out our names.


Here I am shaking hands with the President of UBC. He said, "Congratulations, Doctor. All the hard work is done!" and I said, "Ya, thank god!" Which made him laugh. He must get bored saying "congratulations" over and over and over again.


What you may notice in the above picture (if you zoom in really close) is that I have awesome shoes. Let's take a closer look at those shoes, shall we?


Damn, those are some fine shoes! I bought them at the Salvation Army thrift store. Yes, the same Salvation Army thrift store where the crazies go on Wednesday morning. But these weren't in the Wednesday window, so I could just hand over my hard earned $6.99 and walk away with the shoes, unscathed.

This next photo is of me with the macebearer. He bears the mace.


Here is a photo of Kalev, me & Danielle. By this point in the night, my hat (which is way too big for me) has really started to weigh down on my head. So it looks even more ridiculous than it did at the start of the event.

Since it was raining pretty hard, we snapped a few quick picks and then I returned my robe so that we could head off to dinner. And forturnately, I remembered my parking level! Go purple turtle*!

We went to Indian Oven for dinner, since Indian is my absolute favourite food. Each graduate only gets 4 tickets to the grad ceremony (so my mom, sister, Danielle & Kalev were able to attend), but I invited a few more people to dinner. As evidenced by this photo:


This picture represents the first picture that Erika and I have where she actually has her eyes opened. Big time red eye from hell, yes, but at least her eyes are open!

After dinner, my sister really, really wanted to try a deep fried Mars bar. So we headed to the Templeton, which is conveniently located next to a sex shop:



And here is the deep friend Mars bar. 'Cuz nothing says, "I have a PhD in Nutrition" like deep fried chocolate.


Doesn't that look digusting??

After dessert, my mom, sister & I retired to our room at the Fairmont Waterfront. Here are my sister and I in our luxurious Fairmont robes**.

We spent the next day shopping*** and then went to the Body Worlds exhibit at Science World at Telus World of Science****.

Here are my sister & mom - don't they look happy to be at Science World at Telus World of Science???

And here's me. I saw a sign that said "stay off the stage." So, naturally, I jumped on the stage and said, "Take my picture!!!"


The reason I'm all dressed up in this photo was not that I felt the need to dress up to see dead, plastinated bodies, but because we went to Lumiere for dinner. It was my mom's 60th birthday earlier this month, so we***** wanted to take her somewhere really nice. And since my mom loves celebrity chefs, I thought Lumiere would be perfect. We didn't tell her we were going there and thought it would be great surprise. When we get there, I'm all excited... and my mom has no idea what Lumiere is. I'm like "Rob Feenie! Iron Chef!!" and she's like "Nope, never heard of him!******" But the food was unbelievably good, so it didn't matter. We didn't take any pictures in Lumiere because it's mostly rich people in there and we didn't want to let on that we are poor people in a rich person restaurant*******.

The next day we headed to Victoria, because my mom wanted to go to the Empress for Afternoon Tea. Yes, we drove half an hour to the ferry terminal, took an hour and a half ferry, then drove another half an hour into Victoria... to have a cup of tea. And some sandwiches. And strawberries and pastries. On the plus side, Victoria wasn't under a boil water advisory like Vancouver was. Of course, we were having tea, so this is rather a moot point.

Here is me, eating some strawberries which had, presumably, been washed in E. coli-free water:

And here are all three of us:

And, for the record, I bought that shirt at the Sally Ann thrift store. They have some really good stuff for cheap (as long as you don't mind dealing with the crazies there).

Then we went on the ferry back to Vancouver. And it was rush hour. So it took us twice as long to get back to the hotel from the ferry terminal than it did to get there in the morning. And my sister and I went to Tojo's for dinner. And I got them to make yam tempura rolls for me, even though they weren't on the menu. Because I am special like that.

And the next day, my mom & my sister flew back home. And it was lucky that their flight was in the a.m., because that night was had a blizzard and flights were delayed/cancelled out of YVR. Because it was my neice's birthday party in Toronto the next day and it would be highly disappointing if her own mom was stuck in Vancouver!

*We were parked in the Rose Garden parkade. Which evidentally thinks that we need cute cartoony animals to help us remember where we parked. We were in Purple Turtle. Not to be mistakend for Pink Bunny Rabbit, or Blue Hippopotamus. And Yellow Elephant never forgets his parking level!

**Those robes were so not luxurious. Highly disappointing in the luxuriousness department.

***Not very exciting, other than that my mom bought me a new coat (mine had a hole in it), a new purse (as I was, apparently, carrying a summer purse around - the horror, the horror!)

****No, that's not a typo. That's actually the real name. I can just see a board room full of suits sitting around saying, "I think we need to include the word "Science" in their twice, so they know it's science-y... but then we'd also need to include the word "World" in there twice too!"

*****And by "we" I mean, my sister, as I have no money.

******Of course, when she got home and saw a picture of him, she knew who it was.

*******I'm pretty sure they knew.

Edumucation and Gradumuation

So I graduated yesterday*! I got to wear the ridiculous puffy hat and hideous pink robe that distinguishes those crazy enough to do a Ph.D. at UBC. And I would LOVE to post some photos of me in said robe and hat, but I'm on my sister's Mac laptop at the Fairmont Waterfront hotel* and Macs make no sense to me, so I cannot for the life of me figure out how to shrink my photos to a reasonable size in order to upload them on Blogger. So you'll have to wait until I get home for the photographic evidence. But trust me - pink, hideous.

I'd also like to point out that lining up a bunch of graduates to proceed onto a stage to be granted their degrees was much like trying to line up a bunch of kindergarteners to go into school after recess. There was much "can you re-fold my hood, maam? I dropped it again!" and "we weren't supposed to bring our coats? wear do I put my coat?" and "What did he say? Where are we supposed to walk? What's going on??" There was a set of fairly simple instructions... like, (1) go on the stage and hand your name card to the Dean, (2) stand on the X and face the photographer, (3) walk over to the Chancellcor and shake hands when you hear your name announced, (4) take off your hat so the President can put the hood over your head. And there were people looking in the exact opposite direction from the photographer; walking right past the Chancellor (the Chancellor being the dude who actually grants you the degree... you know, the only reason that you are even in the auditorium wearing such a stupid robe in the first place!) or standing next to the President, looking out into the audience like an idiot and wondering why the President isn't putting the hood over their head.... because they hadn't taken their hat off!!)

Wait a sec! Just as I was typing this, Blogger finally saw fit to upload my photos! Sweet! Now you will get treated to my photography goodness! Lucky you!!

Other highlights of the day included: our graduation "procession" from the Graduate Student Centre (wear we were robed and lined up) to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts (where the actual ceremony was held) included a trip through the parkade. Yes, the parkade. Because we didn't feel ridiculous enough in our "academic regalia" (read: clown suits), we needed to juxtapose these outfits with concrete and exhaust fumes. Also, my hat was too big for my head. Even though they gave me the extra small hat. So most of my photos make me look like a total mushroom head. You know you are jealous.

OK, perhaps I should actually show you this robe at which I scoff. Here is one of the few decent pics of me in my wicked cool regalia, with my mommy:

I would like to point out that I have some smoking hot shoes.

The next picture is to prove that I did, in fact, get my Ph.Dizzle:


And finally, a pose that I have been waiting to do for the past 4 years, even since I saw a photo of a UBC grad who posed this way on their graduation day:

Dr. Beth... she robs from the rich and gives to the poor.

OK, I'd like to tell you more about my action-packed grad day, but I'm super tired and my mom and sister, who refuse to even set their watches from Toronto time to Vancouver time will undoubtedly wake me up at the crack of dawn, so I best get to bed. I'll tell ya more stories once the fam has gone home. And when I can get the photos from my roommate's camera... 'cuz she took to best photos of the day anyway!

LONG LIVE THE PUFFY HAT!!

*You may be wondering why this is the first you have heard about my graduation ceremony, being that this is ostensibly a blog about me writing my thesis. Well, as you may or may not recall, I am a highly superstitious person. I have a fear that if I tell people about something that is supposed to happen, there will be some screw up and it won't happen, because I've jinxed myself (e.g., my defence that got postponed and my job that evaporated). As you can imagine, this makes planning things somewhat problematic for me. But given that so many things have gone wrong for me in this past year, I had this terrible feeling that I'd show up at graduation and they'd say, "Oh, didn't you get our email? You forgot to fill out the TPS form in triplicate, so you don't qualify to graduation." So I avoided mentioning my upcoming grad on here until it was over. And I have my degree. I'm pretty sure they can't take away now (can they?).

**my mom and sister came to Vancouver for my grad and we staying at the swanky Fairmont Waterfront.