video footage of the new apartment has been relocated to a new page. http://members.nbci.com/Smalrus/apartment.html. if you dont have highspeed internet, then watching this video will be a bitch because its 8.5 megs. at the first frame of the video, my window is the upper left corner.

31/03/01-a long update to round out the month...............block, unblock, block, unblock...its weird, i'm not quite sure what i'm doing cause its been two weeks and like, i know that i'd kinda be cool with being friends again, but theres definitely a hint of jealousy i still have for the fact that she played with my mind, i became attached and then just was tossed. i mean i gotta move on and i know that she's jusd doing her thing, prolly getting some other guy (maybe even messing with his mind also) but like, i still miss her, but i know its definitely not the way it was before as a result of everything...

thursday was a nothing day. wednesday night, i wanted to pull an all nighter, but instead, the codeine had me falling asleep at 230am and waking up at noon. not only didnt i get finished the reading i thought i had to do to catch up for class (which i didnt), i didnt get any research for my paper done either. so, i woke up, went to lunch, did more reading, went to a wasted class, and then did some research for an hour before looking at some crappy used furniture. after that was dinner, more putzing around and then survivor. uncle alan called while i was watching survivor, but i didnt have time to call back cause i had to work on my paper. started my paper around 10 pm, went to bed round 3, woke up to my mother's wakeup call at 7am.

friday after the wakeup call, i took forever getting ready and went to the chest clinic at 9am. after waiting a while and doing some editing into my paper (which had to be 8-10 pages, due at 5pm. i started at 10pm the night before). basically, dr. rabinovich saw me, looked at all the medical history i gave him, said wow, thats a lot of prednisone. 100 mg can kill you. yeah yeah, already been established. anywho, no bronchoscopy for me because he said if it was something there, i'd be asthmatic all year round, not just twice a year. instead, he wants me to do a metahcholine challenge. the problem is, its a 2 hr test, plus diagnosis and consulting, and the only time they could book me 3 hrs in a row was may 9. and i'm not here. besides, they're smoking up in kims room. *sidenote* so i scheduled, but i'll have to cancel and do it in CT. i called my dad afterwards and apparently did the challenge with my allergist a long time ago and they found me borderline asthmatic, but that was it. now that could have changed, but again it doesnt explain why twice a year. anywho...i was actually coughing less today, but again, that was until about 7 or 8ish...

after i got home from the chest institute, it was more work on my paper. so i worked and worked, had lunch and worked and finished the paper at 254pm. left here at 310 and handed it in, 2 hours early. 9 page paper in less that 24 hours (11 hrs of total work). its up at http://members.nbci.com/Smalrus/European Union.doc . also signed up for a polisci advising session for next week while i was at leacock. next week applications for arts frosh leaders are due also, so i'm gonna have to submit for that also. after i handed in the paper, i had my 20 subletting flyers with me, so i posted them around campus on billboards, in phone booths, on top of the campus paper stands, etc...hopefully we'll get more takers. came back, ate dinner...chilled online and watched tv, that was about the extent of my night. somehow i didnt end up going to bed til 5 but whatever.

got up today round 1, did nothing again. dave and i cooked some eggs and homemade hashbrowns and today was movie night at molson. so we watched back to the future, they're showing billy madison now, then seven, run lola run, and die hard. but instead of one of those other movies, dave and seth decided to go out and rent back to the future part II, so we'll prolly order in food and watch that later. they didnt feel like going out. besides, i've still got some 2 week old guinness and kilkenny in the fridge (that'd be what i was drinking 2 saturdays ago also). as for tomorrow, who knows what'll happen...

someone decided to put my acting talents to good use and i'm currently in a short film called x-treem². basically, its a documentary about rez life and although the concept of it sounds kinda stupid, its one of those inane things that you have to see to start laughing. basically its filmed by johns friend justin, and starts tim and dave(mcconnell dave) sliding down long railings and falling into huge snowbanks. for example, theres one scene where they're doing slides down the long railing in the metro and there's one guy going up the escalator who's shouting "go habs go, go habs go!" justin actually did some nice camera work (for a camcorder), some nice shots and smooth, not bumpy footage. there's another scene where the tim jumps from second floor douglas down onto a snowbank, a scene where they're jumping off the walk from mcclennan library bout 5 feet into a snowbank and then they do it with their pants pulled down. anywho. so i was crushing a pepsi can (yes, pepsi, we drink beer in bottles here) on my head and they had me do it again and filmed it. so now i'm in the film crushing a pepsi can and if need be, i guess i'll crush more stuff on my head. suffice to say, this film has already been entered in the mcgill students film festival (when its done that is), so i'll have to attend its premiere screening. i'm gonna be a star....

so tonight is daylight savings time in all of canada except saskatchewan. now why they dont do it out there, i have no idea, but those prairie people are weird anyways. what else is going on up here? shawinigate (yeah, the PM actually is getting hounded by the opposition comme bill clinton). they caught the liberals with their pants down thursday when they called a vote and members of parliament had already left. the liberal whip called the airport in ottawa to stop MPs from boarding planes and return to parliament and the major ottawa cab line and if they were carrying an MP to turn around and bring them back for the vote. the things american politics doesnt have...no, american politics is becoming increasingly more republican, which scares me even more because people are actually taking dubya's ideas and whatnot as credible. now come on, two words: kyoto agreement. moron. *duh, there's no such thing as greenhouse effect* this being said as scientists have recently proven it with satellite imaging...utter stupidity...randy johnson hits a dove with a 95 mile per hour pitch during a spring training game. "feathers everywhere." apparently the odds of that (1 in 13 million) are greater than winning the lotto 6/49. who knew? new molson ad premieres tomorrow night on CBC's Talking to Americans with Canadian comedian Rick Mercer. trust me, i saw the ads for this show and it looks hilarious. americans are completely ethnocentric and oblivious to anything other than themselves. "Hey, did you hear Prime Minister Tim Horton got a double double?" *duh...* now any smart person knows the PM is Jean Chretien and Tim Horton is a dunkin donuts-like chain. like i said, ethnocentric. anywho, the ad is supposed to reflect the pro-patriotism that the "i am canadian" ad had last year. this one's supposed to be called "heres to you canada" and talks about geese, pretty girls, open spaces, and canadian multiculturalism. should be good...

and lastly, i've got a dilemma...see rane on 4/20 at the iron horse, should be a big big show, or see dubya and jose bove at the summit of the americas in quebec city. once in a lifetime chance to observe anti-globalization protests from the front lines. 6,000 police officers on hand and a 3 meter high chainlink fence around the actual area. i'd be interested to see first hand how these things go on...just as an observer, after all, i'm pro-globalization. i dont see how environmental policy (which is social) has to do with economic policy. the link between the two is so vague that its almost irrelevant. globalization and free trade has nothing to do with global warming and pollution any more than isolationist economic measures would. thats my thoughts. so i can get myself there for 15$ round trip with the FTAA group here at mcgill and spend a few days there without having to worry about exam deferrals because i'll already be done on the 18. so...the problem is, it was in the front page of the paper today that canada is blocking bové from all ports of entry into canada from getting to the summit. you may remember bové from his excursions with rotten apples being dumped into a french mcdonalds...thats the one...so i might not even get to see him anyways...nows good just to relax...

28/03/01-today was a nothing day really. got up late cause i was still coughing and actually tired from codeine. so that was that. went to lunch at rvc, and then headed to IR, where he talked a little about the evolution of the european monetary system (which really doesnt have much to do with my term paper. then was straight into religions of east asia where he talked about japanese new religions, defining what a "new" religion was, what cults are, etc...the thing was, i took some more codeine in the morning and i was really drowsy in class. now i know thats what codeine is supposed to do, but normally it never works like that for me. after that was over to leacock for my polisci conference. usually that conference is boring because its basically a survey course of european politics, but today was pretty good. we split up and discussed factors that influence transitions to democratic states, other than political actors themselves. the other group discussed what political actors influence transititions to democratic states. it was actually a pretty good discussion and a lot less dryer than the other conferences where he asks a question, we spit back answers and he doesnt know what more he can get out of us. so after conference, came home and basically didnt do much til dinner, had dinner, came back. and so dave and seth were gonna go out tonight but the best news of the day came when i found that our term papers arent due til 5pm on friday, not 930am. so that gives a good nother half day to work on it, which is good because i think i wasted that half day already. once friday's over though it'll all be good.

so apparently after a long while, andrew decided he doesnt want to be a technical theatre major because its more time than he wants to commit and its no longer enjoyable anymore. so now he doesnt quite know what he wants to do since hes back in the colleges of arts and sciences. this is what i told him about how i came to choose my political science major:

for years i wanted to do medicine. i wasnt squeamish around surgery, my dad and i would always watch those operation shows on TLC...i never particularly had any interest to do surgery myself, but medicine always fascinated me. and i can safely say that yeah, the fact that i had a podiatrist, a dentist, and a veterinarian in my family influenced the way i thought about medicine and possible career paths... people would ask, what do you want to do when you grow up? and i always had it set in my mind that i would just be the next generation of rosses to come out of med school with a degree. partly because i wanted to, partly because there was non-pressure pressure (if you understand that) to follow in family tradition...

and then i got to the high school... took all the core classes, math, science, english, etc...and even though i still had it set that i wanted to be a doctor, my best subjects were the humanities- history, english, french...and my worst subjects were math and sciences...in 6th grade, i was top current events scorer on the team, and second of all time for mr. hausmann's students (behind ari kristan). i was reading the headlines in the newspaper when i was two, then the comics, etc...everymorning while eating breakfast was reading the paper, knowing what's going on in the world...but yet people were asking me freshman, sophomore year, what i wanted to be and by then i was telling them i was thinking biomedical engineering, biomedical research, maybe radiology... junior year came, already thinking about colleges, taking the sat IIs, aps, etc...i took the sat II in biology after not having bio since freshman year. i believe i got a 3something. sucked out completely. believe it or not though, i still thought i'd do medicine...that it was a bad day or whatever. and so every place i applied to school, when they asked my first choice of major, i said biology. including mcgill.

mcgill divides the "college of arts and sciences" into a clearcut faculty of arts, and faculty of sciences. and if you're in one, you're generally not taking courses in the other (even though there is some option to, but then there's prereqs...) and so for a second choice for major at mcgill, i said jewish studies, thinking maybe i'd major in bio and minor in jewish studies. the thing about non-arts schools here is that if you're accepted to that faculty, thats pretty much where you stay. if i was accepted bio, i could change that maybe to chem, but i would pretty much just stay a science student. well obviously, the faculty of science rejected me, but i got into the faculty of arts. now i was thinking, ok, maybe i'd still minor in jewish studies, but majoring in it was not what i wanted. so what was i going to do for an arts major? so here i am dead ended, what am i gonna do. i got a book of courses and i cant really take any science courses cause if i got rejected from science, that's gotta tell me something...science may be what interests me, but that's not what i'm good at...

so i start thinking...what can i do that interests me...may not be the most interest to me, but its something i'm good at. well, languages are good, but what can you do with a language major, be an interpreter at the UN? thats an ambitious goal. history is okay, i like learning about it, but where will that get me...i'm not gonna be a historian, i'm not planning on working in a museum or anything like that...management, business communications? stuff like that's in a different faculty and i cant imagine myself as a suit anyways. not to mention we've already established that i'm not the best mathematician, which is why the only economics i'm learning is stuff that i'll need to know for polisci

east asian studies, jewish studies? those things are all nice. they're good courses to learn about something, make yourself more worldly and more knowledgeable, but honestly, where will an undergraduate major in that get you? in todays global market, not too far. and regardless of what anyone says, everyone wants to end up with a job that provides income and security. you almost need to pick something that not only interests you to learn about, but will help you long term careerwise

so i went back, reevaluated and said, you know, law might not be too bad...i've got a decent memory for some details stuff like that, i like music, but i know i wont go anywhere as a *performer*...so why not entertainment law, work in the music business, maybe represent independent artists, maybe small labels, who knows what... now how do i get there? well the good lot of people in law school tend to be political science majors. so i decided, why not? i like current events, i'm forever hitting refresh on the CNN website, keeping up with international and domestic affairs...political science teaches you about government, why it is, how it is, how different types of government functionally exist (ie, why not every country has to have a 3 branch system like the states to function), how the world interacts...sounds interesting...a lot of reading, some paper writing, one of the toughest departments in the faculty of arts...but you know, if i come out with a degree in political science and i dont end up getting into law school, it still leaves me with options...grad school, maybe work as an analyst for a news station...who knows what...but it still interests me. any most politicians are lawyers who've done polisci anyways. who knows if i ever became a politician...(although it'd have to be in canada, cause going to school here might not fly well with the right-wing american voters). and so thats what i did. i decided why not political science, and then when i came in, i scrapped jewish studies and structured my courses around political science. by the time this year is over, i should be 1/3 of the way done with my required major credits. so thats where i am...who knows, maybe i'll minor in history, something else...i'll have credits to spare, but its atleast given me an idea...

after all, who wouldnt want to write a 10 page paper on why i think the european union is not necessarily a federal state but an international regime that has the characteristics of a federal state in the making----due friday at 5pm and i've still the whole thing to write :)

27/03/01- (see above video) of course, i had been laughed at by a group of french guys, one guy asked tu fait une photograph, and a lady begged for change from me...and between the webcam and laptop on location, i looked like quite the spy.

so anyways, monday was getting up early to call my dad and whatnot and then go to class. after class, i headed to mcgill health services to ask a doctor to call the chest institute and make my appt with the rheumologist earlier than apr 9. only when i explained it to one receptionist, she had me see the other receptionist, who had me see the nurse, who had me see the doctor. and to top it off, i blew out a nosebleed in the waiting room. so i see the nurse, he says maybe x-rays. then the doctor (the one i saw in september) says that the problem is the "transition" between seasons, which made no sense because for my biological clock, transition would be 10 degrees out back home and here its still 1 out. thats 0 transition. then he said the problem is normal, he sees it all the time, which makes no sense because no one i've ever been to has seen anything like this. so that was fucked up, and i'm arguing with him cause he's telling me how i am, completely backassed. so then he loses all credibility when he tells me to go to a certified chinese physician for herbal therapy. meanwhile, nothing gets done with the rheumologist. and my dad was also having my doc back home call to get my appt moved up. so instead, this moron of a doctor prescribes me some codeine. so i go looking for it and 2/3 of the places i try are all out of it. go figure. get home and basically do nothing...i think...and then dave and john and i get some pizza, chill, i take more codeine, sit over a pot of boiling water, thats basically it.

today i wake up at 1030 to my dad calling (i thought it was my wakeup calls calling an hour early). so he tells me that he got a hold of dr. tong, who referred me to the rheumologist and that she would be calling me. so i went back to sleep and after what felt like i slept a while, she called me maybe 5 min later. so she was telling me how my dad suggested a bronchoscopy being done (a suggestion that last came up about 7 or 8 years ago, but wasnt acted on). dr. tong says that the chest institute does emergencys on wed and fridays, so i said i'd go friday after my term paper was handed in. she says she thinks i might have something in my lungs that i might have swallowed when i was really small and its never showed up in x-rays thus far. either that or maybe its a polyp and thats whats causing the irritation. i said i had pneumonia when i was two and ever since, i've been like this. she says maybe having something in my lungs was what caused the pneumonia. so now they might be tubing me. woo. it still doesnt explain the sinus infections though, and i've already done nasoscopies. not to mention, it doesnt explain why the problems only seasonal and the rest of the year, its like nothing is wrong with me at all...on the other hand, if not for the shitty health insurance system here, i'd rather have stuff done here. if it ends up where they do a bronchoscopy and i have to have surgery, id much rather it be here. despite the incompetancy of most of mcgill health services, the chest institute is also a medical research facility and i'm sure they're on the cutting edge of medicine in whatever they do (even if they're not for insurance). so i'd rather have it here.

after being awake and redosing myself with all the meds, i still was/am coughing up a storm and was in no condition to sit in class with 30 people in a small room coughing like that. way too distracting. so thats when i got the pic and video of our new apartment. came back, worked it into our summer sublet flyer, printed, xeroxed, had dinner, thats basically where we're at now.

another bombing in israel, two dead... a jewish toddler shot...again, the peace process cracks. its never gonna happen. each side will continue blaming each other and thats just the mentality of the middle east. nothing will get solved. tonight would be a good night to work on my term paper some. i think i've already formulated a thesis idea as to how the paper will be: the european union is not a federal state, but rather, is currently an international regime that is based upon an idea of federalism and is moving towards that eventual goal. i mean based on what i've learned in polisci thus far, thats the conclusion i come to. its not quite a federal state, but a unitary state made up of member nations.

the only thing is, working on the paper is nice, except i've got an adverse effect to codeine plus all the other drugs...i feel more like i'm drunk and hyper instead of wanting to pass out as most people would. what can i say, i'm already a case job...

26/03/01(1am)-saturday was complete do nothing during the day. woke up at 12 and hung around online a lot. then around 530, i started asking people if they wanted to go to the habs game with me. no takers. so, having spent 20$ for the two tickets from kim, i decided i'd go anyways myself. so i did. they were blue level seats, not the greatest, but i'm fortunate for any habs game i can go to. i think i've seen more habs games this year (4) then i had when the whalers were in hartford. sinuses were a bitch and i dont think i coulda grabbed more napkins from the concession stand as tissues. and as of today, cough is getting terrible...rheumologists appt has to be moved up. anywho, so kim was supposed to go to the game with her best buddy. best buddies is kinda like, a college student or highschool student or whatever, is paired with a mentally disabled person. now when she told me that, i was expecting children, but it was actually adults. so i was sitting in the section with all the best buddies, jibril was there with his best buddy, a couple other girls i see around rez were there with their buddies...but kim's buddy was going camping so thats why she sold me their tickets...so i sat next to this girl and her buddy, richard. it was kinda cool and kinda inspiring. i might think about doing it next year. the entire first period, i couldnt understand him...he was slurring words into one, speaking fast...but as the game went on, it became easier. funny thing was, i started to feel like he was my buddy. like the first period was waiting til 8pm to take his medicine, then he was asking about the car that shoots the tshirts into the crowds between periods, the midget hockey, near the end of the game he was asking about a backup goalie, so i said jeff hackett, and he was shouting "put in jeff hackett" during the last 5 minutes of the game. that was about when montreal gave up a 2-0 first period lead to lose 3-2...to atlanta!!! so no playoffs for the habs :(. but it was fun because even if i went to the game myself, i really didnt.

after the game i was gonna go to harveys for dinner, but as i walked by la belle province, i saw phil, tristan, jake, and the other guys who went to the game but were in the ex zone. so i walked in, ordered and hung out with them til the walk back. chilled here all night watching snl and snl classic and then when i came back here, nikhil and i were talking from like 3 to 5 in the morning. interesting conversation about drinking and paternalism, different interpretations of mill's harm principle, individual freedoms, why people shouldnt tell people to do (or not do) something if they've never done it themselves, how alcoholics anonymous people are not social workers telling people to say no, but real people with the problem who have hit bottom...realities of the world outside of the little suburban bubble...the difference between friendship and social paths, how our high school friendships may be strong and in tact and may never leave, but our social paths have definitely forked from high school, how what used to be "fun" might not be as "fun" for us anymore, and whats "fun" for us now, wasnt what we'd consider "fun" back then...which for me here has been alcohol, because its a part of my social life. the guys and i are going out, odds are its to a bar. no problems with that, i consider it having fun with the guys now...how the city changes you because things in the city are unpredictible, fast paced, and never stagnant. there's definite contrast between living in a city and living in suburbia, and i think part of me was meant for the city, or definitely needed to have more exposure to the city than just a week's vacation. so much shit happens in the city, so much shit that tourist worry about, but people just go about their daily lives. shit like panhandlers, whom you'd walk by as a tourist, feel bad and maybe even give change, but as a resident, you realize that you cant give change to everyone you see, and need to just do what you have to do. there's a different attitude that comes from living in the city...and i definitely enjoy living in canada...

today i woke up at 3pm, like i said, ridiculous sinuses, and have been coughing all day. did the crossword, but sucked out, talked online a lot, procrastinated like no ones business, and realized i dont have my canadian and quebec income tax returns due til april 30. now, everyone here, the americans that is, is like, why do i need to do tax returns here, i'm an american student, and i've made no money. true, you have no income, but...you paid canadian taxes. now i dont know about anybody else, but if this number is correct in saying i've paid 1650$ in taxes to the canadian gov't, i definitely wouldnt mind getting it back (until i'm a canadian citizen, i'd like my taxes back)...there's 35$ from taxes on second semester books, etc...all these taxes add up, i wouldnt mind them back. so either i'll be so lazy i wont do them, or i may get some canadian tax software they sell at the post office and use that. maybe i'll work on them once i'm done with exams on the 18th and file it electronically. watched the oscars...i think i got about 7 picks right. thing about the oscars is, i cant pick until they're presenting the nominees...i never saw crouching tiger, but the scenes they show when they do the nominees are enough to give me a clue...gladiator was a great picture, even when it came out...i recall writing in my review for it that it would get oscar nominations, to crowe or phoenix, and crowe not only won, but it took best picture. i remember andrew telling me that it was released too early in the year and that even if it got any nominations that the chances of it winning would be rather slim...however it cleaned up pretty well and i was rather satisfied. now as for bob dylan winning grammy for his song. i think it shoulda gone to bjork, or even the crouching tiger one. but bob dylan was definitely stoned when he was singing, the camera was constantly in his face, and i couldnt make out one lyric that he was singing until the last verse. bob dylan or no bob dylan, there was nothing special about that song.

and so, tomorrow brings another day of classes, more polisci, more religions of east asia, more being sick...ive definitely got some reading to do tomorrow night and hopefully some work for my term paper. oh yeah, and someone was playing a complete joke on me, unrecognizably disguising their voice and leaving a message on my answering machine about jewish mail order brides from israel. they left a number and everything. lets just say that international calls do not have 3 digit area codes, not to mention require an international code number, plus they're usually not 7 digits, where the first three start with 398 (which is the mcgill telephone exchange)...ive been bamboozled. anywho...bedtime for me basically. another day, another way...

23/02/01-been a few days since last time...interestingly, mother nature has left us a nice march present. its been snowing almost 36 hrs straight now and we've got about 2 more feet of snow on the ground. the beginning of the week was a nice 8 degree heat wave and now its about 0 degrees and snowing. like mother nature pulled out her 36" louisville slugger and gave everyone a good whack upside the head. this is march, not december. i wanted snow when i didnt have to worry about work as much and could go skiing, not now...

so monday, it ended up being me, dave, seth, and the twin sister of this girl from dave's jewish history class, karen, her friend here at mcgill, jen, and their friend dave. they were all from amherst/lexington, ma. so it turns out karen knows my second cousins from that area. what can i say, we got the jew connection going on. :) ended up going to this place on st. denis, st. sulpice. so dave asks the bartender whats on tap since the taps were behind the bar and they had dos equis (which is a mexican beer thats rare enough to get anyways, let alone on tap). so we got a pitcher of that and its probably one of the best, smoothest tasting beers i've had, not as much aftertaste, good flavour. so by the time the night was over though, all four of us guys had each drank about a pitcher of the stuff. XX beer...i've not even had a pitcher of export or dry or bleue, let alone dos equis. ah well, we had a good time trying to shoot pool.

tuesday was the same ol, i think but then i had to study for my polisci second midterm for wed. ended up going out with christine, nicole, and rachel and we met emma, at upstairs to see matt and his jazz combo group, bernie's barrelful of jazzers play at upstairs (there's no actual bernie). they played really well, its the third time ive seen them at upstairs but they're just a mcgill combo group, i dont think they play outside anywhere. they get adjudicated for their performance though and tuesday they were really tight. unfortunately i didnt get to actually watch them nor get anything to drink because i had to study for my exam. we stopped at BK on the way back and then i worked on studying. studying was a good part of the night and i skipped class in the morning, went to the midterm.

basically, i must say that i'm enjoying polisci and i have no regrets for it being my major. i think if i was to do a concentration in the major, i would lean towards comparative politics, but we got time for that...basically, i dislike the prof in that class, but you do what you gotta do and hopefully i did better than the first midterm which he marked my grade down considerably from what the TA had, also dropping my overall polisci avg a bit (right now its like a 69, which is borderline B-). like i say, arts is subjectively graded and if you dont have what they want, you're screwed. but the 3 out of 5 ids i did were comparative advantage, the stolper-samuelson model, and non-tariff barriers (exclusive import-stubstitution industrialization and the cruzado plan). and the essay i did was comparing the current international monetary regime to the gold standard. i thought it went well, a lot more focused and organized than the first midterm, but its now in the hands of my TA (and maybe even my prof again :P). after the midterm was religions of e. asia, where prof hori talked about pure land buddhism in prep for our learning cell. i think i registered for classes when i came home and didnt do much at night. atleast i didnt think so...:/

thursday i got up late and ended up reading for class and fell asleep and missed the class, oh well. all he does is re-go over what was in the book. hes interesting, but not really. i'd rather just read the book. so i dont know what i did the rest of thursday either, but there was some decent procrastination for my learning cell and finally i started work on it around 1am. took me the whole fucking night to read 50 pages. what the hell was that about? so i pulled an all nighter, went to breakfast for the first time this semester, came back from breakfast, wrote up the learning cell (which will be on my lit site). went to class, boring discussion. went to the library after class. first time i actually used the mcclennan library. had to get books for my term paper on the EU. still looking forward to working on it. will probably procrastinate more, but its definitely a topic of interest that struck me right away from that list of 30. saw a kid from my conference for that class, i think he said he's doing his on the voting stats for different countries. got 7 books, checked them out from the cool little do it yourself machine so i'm set for that.

so i came back, napped for 2 hours, then dave woke me up, we were gonna go to the hillel shabbat dinner. but the snow and slush was too much so we were gonna cab, but the line was busy at all the places and then the one place he got through to never dispatched. so we started walking, but it was already 10 min late, so we punted and went to just noodles for some decent chinese. talked for a while, came back. meanwhile, i still dont have a date for tomorrow's hockey game against atlanta that kim sold me her 20$ tix for. on top of that, my sickness is lapsing back and forth and the chest institute couldnt book me with the rhumologist until apr 9. some good that is. still not sure how to deal with megan. i think the stage i'm at now is withdrawl and since i know she obviously wants no relationship with me, i'd have to move on from that, but then again, there's a nice big scar on any friendship. and as much as she likes to think that she's not to blame for that and ignores what i'd have to say because she's started seeming like the kind that could drop you like a fly when you have a beef and blame her, playing around with my mind is a blamable offence. i miss her friendship, but then again, there's a certain skepticism that would come with reconciliation because of what she's done for so long. who's to say what her next move would be. *sigh* if she didnt make it so difficult.

anywho... i'm way behind on album reviews, i've got to review the coldplay album, the new daft punk album, the renata album review is way overdue...but this weekend could use to do some work on my term paper, on filing my tax return, on doing some more catch up reading...haha, basically everything i had to do last weekend :) tomorrow night is the hockey game...if i cant get a date (which knowing my luck), i'll just ask phil cause he's a big habs fan, then could use to go out after the game, have a few, relieve the stresses of life...oh yeah, and sleep would be nice too....

19/03/01-well last night my mom called and i think for the first time in months, i actually felt like my parents werent just acting as parents but as friends as well. she tried calming me down about the megan scenario (which was the first time she heard anything about megan since almost september so it came as a little surprise to her). still, it was good to have her to talk to, rather than her even yelling at me. so now i'm trying to pick up the pieces, move on, roll em out...definitely its gonna take some time to heal for me, to repair the damage she's caused before i can even consider going back to being friends again in quite the same way as what she considered "amazing." but even though it wasnt really a cheering up kinda talk, it was a comforting talk, the kind that i really could never get with any of my friends. *sigh* cant say i feel better, just a little less volatile, and a little bit on the moving on tip... other than that, yesterday was relatively dead and i might be going out to bifteck with dave and seth a bit later for a drink or so...they all had papers due today...seth had about 18 pages worth and dave had about 6...and mine's not due til the 30th.

margaret came home today so thats cool. there was a fire in our apartment, so they gotta work on fixing it before we move in...we might be able to move in a day or so early if the landlord is ready and will let us, because there was some pipe damage and so the guys there now had to move out. tomorrow i gotta call the rhumologist again, see if the chest doctors can figure out whats wrong...doubt it...they'll prolly toss me to yet another specialist. luckily i've been seeing reports of a new drug called xolair, which is supposed to help severe asthma and allergy patients, and reduce the amount of corticosteroids they have to take because corticosteroids have so many negative side effects. yeah, no shit. i know 60mg of prednisone is a lot, dr. tong, but look on the pulmonologist's report, thats what he said...

so in light of the fact that i need advising and need to pick my courses since they're capping them all next year, i've tentatively picked a schedule for next semester. we'll see what the advisor says though..

Fall 2001
160-221A MWF 930-1030 Government of Canada
135-220A MWF 1030-1130 Introductory Hebrew (full year)
154-209A MWF 1230-1330 Macroeconomics
160-325D T J 1130-1300 Government and Politics of the United States (full year)
101-225A T J 1300-1430 History of France to 1789

Winter 2002
135-220A MWF 1030-1130 Introductory Hebrew (continued)
101-219B MWF 1330-1430 Jewish History 1000-2000
160-325D T J 1130-1300 Government and Politics of the United States (continued)
101-326B T J 1300-1430 Russia From 1905 to Present
160-323B T J 1430-1600 Developing Areas/China and Japan

so that was a headache for a few hours. glad its over, hopefully it wont be a headache much longer in advising. big sigh of relief...still a busy week ahead, who knows (right, the line i give when i'm too lazy to keep typing stuff thats irrelevant)...

18/03/01-
Clouds
(Prindle, Veniscofsky)

Help yourself to me
But that's what you do any how
Maybe if nothing else
Help me find myself.
In the end when you're done with me
I know that’s what you want to do
These clouds fill my mind
These clouds fill my mind

When the clouds outside my head
Ripping me up inside
When the clouds outside my head
I don’t know what to do

Goodbye I say
Goodbye I say
Goodbye I say
To my life.

I don’t know, can you see my heart
Missing you, so far from home
I don’t know, can you see my eyes
Missing you, so far from home

well it appears to be over. any chance of there being a me and megan...and what she calls an "amazing friendship." i'm not quite sure where amazing friendships come out of playing with peoples minds and their emotions. you just dont do that to people and expect everything to end up hunkydory. i'm caught between pissed and upset because i dont know why she was on and off with her emotions with me and then decided to "try" with me until i failed her test. kinda makes you annoyed that you were just going through a test when she didnt care for anything to begin with. i believe its called being played for a sucker. i was digging through the past reflections (good thing i archive them), and we go back all the way to mid july. i remember being excited to talk to her because of all the mcgill people i talked to online over the summer, i connected with her the most. apparently i didnt connect with her in quite the same way...

when we started talking online in july, we were pretty good friends and over the summer had talked about all kinds of things including religion and relationships and there was talk at one point of hooking up when we got to mcgill, but we decided against it because we didnt want to limit ourselves when we came in....

so we got to mcgill and met, blah blah blah...that first week of orientation stuff, i was meeting people, but i struggled with alcohol. i did stuff with the frosh group but i didnt know why i was doing it other than being a follower cause there was nothing else for me to do and going to the frosh events was the only way i was gonna meet people. but not being accepting of alcohol in the beginning cost me making friendships with people that i might have been friends with if not for alcohol. so during frosh week, i tried to hang out with megan cause she was the only one i knew- i crashed at her place during the mcconnell party...and i started asking her to do stuff because she was all i knew here. i was just looking for a friend, but she took it as something more and didnt want to lead me on. so she blocked my screen name for 4 months til almost winter break, and i never heard from her

she unblocked me just before break and started talking to me again like nothings happened and thats when she and dave and i went shopping just before we left for the airport and we ended up taking a cab to the shuttle. so we were talking and talking, i invited her to do stuff, come up here and watch a dvd, go to the movies, sometimes with the guys or whatever, as to not seem like a date date and she started giving signals like she's interested again...

after giving long debate in my mind about how i wanted to pursue something, being that we both knew my stance on religion, i finally tell her about the second week of february after the battle of the bands that i'm interested. and theres the infamous "430am phone call" where i said that she said "i had waited a long time to hear you say that" so as soon as i said that, things started to take a different spin and after a few weeks we went out one night and decided to do the "more than friends, but not boyfriend and girlfriend" bit

that was about 2 1/2 weeks ago. since then everythings gone downhill. basically she used it as a test to see how much i was interested, and me, not knowing exactly how to define the relationship didnt know what to do. but i'd invite her to do stuff, she'd either have excuses, or something i did wasnt good enough whatever. i was continually getting in trouble with her for no reason other than thats the way she wanted it. the last week in particular, since the guys from usy/URI were here and i was trying to balance hanging with them and hanging with her...it was hell. wed night, the guys and i were gonna go out because it was the last time i was gonna see them before they left, so i invited her out with us....the whole night was back and forth miscommunication and she wasnt talking to me and i wasnt talking to her...but after i bought her two drinks and she still wasnt talking to me, i was drunk myself and got mad that she was talking to the guy next to her but not me, i got fed up and left...that was the last straw for me...

after sending that long email on wed, i basically got no response from her, she wouldnt answer ims, blocked me again, wouldnt answer my phone message, wouldnt answer my handwritten note on her whiteboard. so i call her up yesterday and said. we need to talk, etc....

finally i go down to talk, i bring my guitar with me, i'm all set to sing the song i had written for her last monday. we start talking...turns out this is her story from the beginning: she was interested and when we met, didnt think there was chemistry so she didnt want to lead me on and thats why she blocked me. then she unblocked me and started becoming interested but i didnt seem interested to she figured there wasnt anything. and then when i said i was interested, it was too late, but she decided to give it a try and then since then was a test and i apparently failed, even though she wasnt interested anyways. she said, "we had an amazing friendship and i think thats really all there is. we werent fighting or any of this. i think we should go back to that." so after just sitting there with my head bowed, i left. nothing more to say, she had played me for a fool all this time. she had passed the ultimate test of being a bitch and thats pretty much the end of the story.

now that shes consumed my mind for the past few months, stressed me out, made me happy and then miserable, i dont know what to do other than move on. she obviously doesnt care about me, if she set out to hurt me like that. so i'm running the gamut of negative emotions now. the relationship was never meant to be because in her eyes, it was never meant to be to begin with.

ive liked what we've been learning in religions of east asia this past week. its been about zen buddhism and basically zen deals with existence and the duality and nonduality and the nonduality of duality of existence. basically stuff i coulda written on in my senior thesis(see lit site). this is the stuff that fascinates me. example, nothing exists. why? because things are only temporary. take a cardboard box. at one point the box did not exist. why? it used to be a tree, then it was cut down, pulped, turned into cardboard, and there it is. but in another 5? 10? years, it will have biodegraded and the box wont exist. the cardboard in its box state was only temporary. so what does that say about the universe? i think my prof was a zen monk, or studied with zen monks or whatever. he was also teaching us about zen meditation and koans...he leads a weekday 7am meditation session, and if i could ever get my ass up in time, i'd probably go. it would help destress and feel better about things...right now, i could use that.

apparently there was a fire in our apartment so repairs are gonna be done. dont know much about that...i could really stand to do some reading today. my last final is exactly a month from today so thats cool. gotta work on filling out my quebec income tax return so i can get my money back from tuition taxes...there's always the crossword puzzle to be done, and i've repulled out the piano music for smashing pumpkins "mellon collie and the infinite sadness" and after not touching the piano in 7 months, it didnt take me more than twice through to get it sounding pretty damn good. probably even better than when i played it for my senior midterm (see lit site). i'm thinking of sitting back down and fleshing out my own song agian...i've wanted to write a simple song on the piano for a while. not like do re mi songs, which i did when i was like 10, but a simple song...and of course, theres course selection to start thinking about...to do to do, to get my mind off her....

16/03/01(2am)-i dont get women, i dont get women i dont get women i dont get women, why does my sex life suck with women? i dont get it...i just dont get it. i dont understand women. i dont understand her. why is she doing it to me. and why am i such a fool and she is so worth it that i continually get hurt by her...if she isnt worth it, then why am i letting myself get hurt like this? if she wasnt worth it, how come i'm not just giving up and moving on? there's been enough other girls that have said no to me that i've just moved on from, why is she special enough that i do this? the last couple of days have been miserable and all thats been on my mind is megan. last night i went out with the guys and megan comes with us. she doesnt really talk to me, barely thanks me for the drinks i bought her, and instead, talks to other guys. i, already drunk, become fairly belligerent for the first time and tire of her talking to other guys but not me. in a drunken anger (rage, maybe) walk out of the bar...walk home by myself drunk, and then write an extensive letter to her, explaining why i was pissed, why i care about her, how i think we should be together, how i feel about her, etc...basically in my vulnerable state of drunkenness, i let my guard down about what i really think of us. and how even though she keeps hurting me, sometimes there's things worth that risk...mainly, i started off angry for what she's done, and ended on the good note that she means more to me than she realizes. which is true. everyone wants to know why i bother, is she worth it...and i say yes, even if she doesnt believe it. last night truly was probably one of the most socially hellish nights of the year, yet still...and now, her away message reads that shes out dancing and drinking...as my luck would guess, she's probably picking up more guys. i dont know, we're more than friends, but not going out, yet she continuously...argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so in light of events, i've since written a song and a poem. i'm thinking of submitting one or both to the campus paper's literary contest. looking for any input on making them better...check them out on my literary site...

i dont know what to do with megan, i'm torn between some sort of sociosexual masochism and just saying i dont understand you, but if thats how you want it....just someone, toss me a line.....i think the music of rane applies though-

"every world we pass through/and the bonds that we create/haven't been a passing chance/or a simple twist of fate" (rane lyrics by wade wilby, "new england song" c. 2000)

12/03/01-well its been sometime since i last wrote, ive just been so busy in the last few days. as is, im not updating the other part of my site now cause ive got stuff that comes before the news briefs. here's a rundown of the extra curricular events around the mcgill campus over the last days...

the month thus far has basically echoed around megan. the first was the a capella competition at redpath hall. it was gonna be me, dave, and john but the show was a sellout and we didnt even get in through the waiting list. so after walking all over the place looking for moozoo to get drinks and play board games, we couldnt find it, so we watched snl's best of chris farley on the dvd i got, and then clockwork orange. and so instead of coming over, megan decided to go to gerts and then make me jealous by telling me she picked up 4 guys. that saturday was chillin around and she went out to chinatown and instead of coming back afterwards to watch ponette with me, she got trashed and came home at 330am. sunday was a bum around day and monday and tuesday were school days....

in the meantime, my cough came back and here it is now...again what is there to say about the canadian health care system? you see a drop-in doctor for 20 min and never see them again. and the only way you can be seen right away is with the drop in doctor, who hears your story for 20 min and cant diagnose 18 1/2 years of your personal health history. ah well, atleast ive got drugs this time and started on the antibiotics today. we'll see how that goes. the pharmacist at jean coutu must think i'm crazy, i went in and out of the store every day, a bottle of robitussin one kind, one kind another, the antibiotics for the conjunctivtis....speaking of drugs....and i learned why cough medicine makes me trippy. see, it contains a medicine called dextromethorphan or dxm. dxm is a psychoactive (psychadelic) drug...if taken in enough quantities, you start tripping almost like if you were on shrooms, but physically its not the same chemical reaction as shrooms. if you take enough dxm, in druggie circles, there's different amounts that bring you to different levels, or plateaus as they call it, of trippyness...basically for a normal size adult like me, 6 tsps of extra strength robitussin will take you to the first plateau. no wonder i'm always weird for half the year...

wednesday was a full day of classes and the big day...apartment day. yes thats right, we signed the lease for our apartment, we move in may 1. its me, dave, john, seth, and nick in a 10 1/2. rent is 2100$ a month but we kinda adjusted around the different qualities of different rooms. its awesome. the second and third floors over an ice cream shop in the plateau. right on the edge of the french section of montreal, so we might be able to use it more next year. its got 5 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, a kitchen, some storage room, a living room, and a balcony over the street. and its prince arthur st. so its all pedestrians. during the summer it'll be great to sit on the balcony and watch people eating their ice creams. one of the few streets in north america that you can walk and drink booze without brown bagging it, and the restaurants that line the street are the cafe-in-the-summer types that are bring your own wine... and its got that european parisian stone architecture with purple and yellow wood trim around the ice cream shop. its really sweet and we just figured out rooms, so i got the one that looks kinda like a loft with one wall thats brick. its just gonna be so great. my room in the apartment from what i recall is actually bigger than my south windsor room, its so phat, i wish i could live here and work over the summer here, but i cant because i cant work in canada. wooooooooooo, i think we're all psyched for the apartment. i wasnt wild about rooming 5, but its turning out well and i was basically left with no other option. and now, people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get apts but we already got ours. apparently we beat out some girls that knew the guys who are living there now. we must have just been home at the right time to get the landlord's call. there is so much room, its gonna be so great, i'm imploring people to come visit next year. if i thought this year was good, next year will be so much more ass kicking, 5 guys, mad fun lots of room....almost like our own house. sweeet.......................................i'll have to take a picture and then post it or something... the new address for next year is

Spencer Ross
127 rue Prince Arthur Est
Montreal, PQ H2X 1B6
CANADA

so we pass megan on the way down the apt and she says for us to stop by on the way back, but on the way back, we go get some pizza and head up pine. i get in and my parents call and by the time i'm off with them, i remember megan and call her and then we're fighting again. of course, i had to write a 12 page term paper on the dead sea scrolls, and i start it 48 hrs before its due, so i'm workin like a fiend, but i finished finally and it came out not bad at all. http://members.nbci.com/Smalrus/The Dead Sea Scrolls.doc hand it in and leave because i'm coughing, so then i go back and putz around until at night when i go to megans from 1230-530am. megan's got a 4-5 page paper thats just about to hit the late deadline and i got a test the next day that i have to read for, so we've both got work and there's a lot of tension in the atmosphere and finally i go and take the test the next day on the shinto religion. and having been tested on sake, i pick up some at the saq along with some booze. sake is interesting. tastes sweet and salty, has no aftertaste, and goes down your chest like rum. its only one word: interesting. so friday night is the mcconnell crystal cocktail lounge and i invite megan but i need a mad load of laundry done, my parents call, and i have to clean my room badly for the guys. so i'm 1 1/2 hrs late and get paranoid cause the guys are coming up and i dont want them hanging with no clue. so thats when i have to skip out of the bar line and leave, but get yelled at by megan for my actions on thursday and friday (or lack thereof)...and so the guys come around 1230am on saturday, about 45 min later than i was expecting.

so its brian from usy, his friend from URI, matt, his friend from west hartford who goes to american u, JJ, JJ's girlfriend lindsey, and lindsey's friend julia. but the girls were somewhere else. so the guys all managed a tight fit in my room and then we chilled til we went to sleep. the next morning, we met up with the girls at the metro station, and i walked them around for a few hours across the entire downtown area. finally stopped for more booze and i picked up a rose for megan and gave it to her on the way back. nothing....but, i introduced her to everyone. we came back to my room hung for a few min, and then went to molson stadium to watch the rest of the orgy set from jam des neiges sponsored by musiqueplus. i swear, ive seen some freaks in this city, but the jam des neiges was like a big cesspool of the freakiest montrealers...oh well, still better than in the states. orgy was interesting live because it thought it'd suck more, but in fact, it was even better. orgy tries to be like an 80s band gone 90s hard rock, and its hard to tell that on the album. on the album its more 90s synth hard rock, but live, they sounded really good and had all the fx coming out of the amps that made it sound good...

after orgy, we went to mammas for dinner so i could introduce the guys to poutine, except jj, who's dad went to med school here, so he's got some idea of canadianism...after i loaded the guys with mammas, we went back to the room and chilled a long while. and matt, brian, julia and i all drank, probably consuming about 400ml of hard liquor each. a lot. so we decide we're going out (even though jj and lindsey were staying sober). so we go to megans with the quarter of a liter bottle of finlandia vodka and give it to her, but she didnt want to go out with us, so after i was being a whiny drunk, we left for le swimming, but only made it to ny pizza on st. laurent before i puked a few times...we then came back and passed out. woke up the next morning and got out to meet the girls at the metro stop again. went to nickels for lunch and then jj and lindsey left us and i took matt, brian, and julia through the underground and to the montreal museum of contemporary art. we prolly spent a good 3 hrs there, there was some really neat paintings and matt and i walked through the gagnon exhibit commenting on his change in style. duclos woulda loved it, daddy woulda hated it (our analyses of each painting, that is). so after thatwe goofed around, tried to get in touch with megan but unsuccessfully and so the four of us went to peel for dinner. got done with dinner, left julia to go back to where she was staying, and i took the guys around campus, where we walked around and then came back.

just chilled around the dorm and then the guys and i had a house meeting to determine who gets what rooms next year and after a lot of math, formulas, and an hour and a half, we finally sorted it out, just in time for the brian, matt, and i to start getting ready for bed.

woke up this am, showed the guys out, went to classes, grabbed a new course book for next year, a nap, lunch, more classes, then home and putzing around trying to figure out why megan had me on block. now she claims it was cause she needed to study...oh well, i like this girl a lot, but i dont understand her. one minute we're fighting, the next its like there's gotta be something to fill the gap. will never understand women....

Past reflections: