The Smalrus

28/10/01(1130pm)-this was a very weird weekend.  basically ive been feeling pretty shitty emotionally.  like theres an overwhelming sense of aloneness ive been feeling as of late.  and yet i cant deny that things are fun.  being at mcgill is great.  i love school, i love montreal,  but yet it always feels like somethings been lacking.  i think for the first time since ive been up here, i feel like id like to go home.  the thing is, i know home doesnt offer all too much anymore other than seeing mom and dad and elise.  which is why i always say i wish my friends would come up here.  not only is there not much down there, but not much to do down there.  i like being here, i just feel alone.  like, im friendly and acquaintainces with a lot of people here, which is okay, but i lack stability with anyone outside this apartment.  its hard to meet people, and its hard to know people.  and its definitely harder to be as strong friends with people here as the ones back home.  the thing is, ive changed and they've changed and thus, my friendships with them are not the same.  altleast less the same than probably two people from south windsor.  its some weird logic that i must be the only person following but oh well.

someone ransacked my site today from near eatontown, nj, and peculiarly looked at only the months of february and march.  hm.  there was a couple hits from uconn, jared threw up a bunch, and a few others.  todays hits was 60, which is possibly an all time high for one given day.  basically i should be getting more because of my polisci papers, but for some reason, nothing is registering in any engines like they said, so no one can even search in through my site.  it sucks.  im gonna have to do something about it.  again, i have a messed up logic.  i want people to come to my site, but all it is is an online journal of how my mood is.  i suppose if i updated the rest of the site more there'd be more draw.  i mean, a lot of people visit my rane site.  thats probably my main draw.

friday was only 2 classes and as usual, economics was kinda a waste, he basically talked about nothing.  and so after that i dunno what happened (again), but that night, me and seth and david went over to kristin and jess' place and so it was all of us and debbie and this guy who's in my macro class, wilson.  so we all headed over to mckibbins, had a couple black velvets, i dunno what else we did, but i found out their open mic is tuesday.  and i was just reading open mic at gerts is tuesday.  im still not ready for it yet so i might have to postpone.  but gerts was fun i guess.  oh, we also decided to have a halloween party here on wed. night since everyone was asking if we were gonna have one.  imagine my place being the place to be :P  see thats the thing,  ive got friends and acquaintances, but no other people really that im stable with other than my roommates.  but even then, theres times when you cant always do things with them, or dont want to.  i dont feel like ive got people who i can call up anytime and ask if they wanna do something.  mainly just my roommates.

saturday was a fun day of laundry.  it invariably takes about 3 hrs to do laundry from sorting to putting back in the drawers.  so by the time that was done was probably dinner time.  and then somehow me and seth got roped into going out with the girls.  seth even more than me because he was just going with me.  the girls all wanted to go out dancing for halloween saturday.  go figure.  so we also needed to dress in costume according to them.  only they said to seth that they'd bring stuff over, only they didnt.  so instead, i used the bowler hat, then was gonna be the guy with the bowler hat with the apple over his face.  but debbie said to put a moustache on (cause ive got it off), and basically i made myself into charlie chaplin.  seth was a guy in pajamas with a robe.  and the girls all dressed as complete and utter sluts with about 15 kilos of makeup.  yeah.  basically the only reason we went was because they told seth that kristy was gonna be coming (by then we already told debbie and kristin about kristy) so seth was supposed to make me go.  but we go out and shes not there.  so basically its wasted for both of us.

the original plan was to walk to saphir, only saphir was goth night (or goth costume night) so we couldnt get in.  and the girls wanted to dance, so we went to tokyo.  i think it was the costumes that allowed us in without having to pay the 8$ cover.  its the first time ive been tokyo cause i like dancing but those sheik clubs are expensive.  this was no different.  where as a regular bar would give me a bottle of smirnoff ice for bout 5$ plus tip, this was 7$ plus tip.  so seth bowed out relatively early, and same with wilson (who was dressed as a nerdy prof).  so it was me and like 9 girls (yeah every guys dreams).  and there was a live band doing rap/hip-hop covers and by then i was gone, so i danced with them all.  woo.  so then they ended up leaving and debbie, kristin, and jess went to mammas and being a gentleman even in a state of drunkenness, i followed them.  and so we got poutines and whatnot, a few of the other girls came later, and then sometime we all left.  i was gonna walk them home, but instead they decided to cab it. so i lent them money for a cab and now im broke :)  i dont get why women dont like gentlemen any more.

today was mainly occupied (or so it seems) with seeing francis ford coppola's apocalypse now redux at parc with seth and nick.  id never seen the original but i heard it was really good.  so i figured redux was just directors cut and might as well see it (still have to see mulholland drive).  again, im horrible at giving my reviews on my review page these days, but id give it 4 out of 5 stars.  you could definitely see how anti-war coppola was in his portrayal. like there were a lot of interesting things for example, early in the movie, they're at the LZ and theres a church or something, and outside it, the chaplain is holding prayer services with a bunch of the men, and meanwhile behind them, the helicopters are shooting missiles into the forest.  its rather graphic, particularly near the end. like theres a definite evolution in all the characters by the end, but it comes though the repetition of all the same things. like battle after battle, most of the movie seems the same, but its not til the end. martin sheen does this weird narration that fits the movie, but im not sure how much it really needed to be there.  theres brief cameos by harrison ford, dennis hopper, marlon brando has this one scene near the end that he was paid outrageously for, i think laurence fishburne was in it (im not sure which one he was, it was in the early days when he was credited as "larry fishburne"), maybe some others. 

and the yankees arent doing so well in the world series.  its weird cause usually when i dont watch, my teams win. but they'll win.  they're the fuckin yankees.  we're talking about another world series.  tomorrow is a test in french, gotta do a few other things plus class, poss. open mic on tues, and studying for a new round of midterms.  if i think of anything new worth writing, i might actually do it.

26/10/01(330am)-i dunno, i go up i go down.  its like some times are cool and chill and othertimes its like im here nor there with people both here and at home and its a struggle to find balance with yourself.  today was one of those days.  like i think i know people here, but i dont.  but then everyone back home just kinda fell off the earth and it all kinda falls apart.  like ive talked to jon maybe 3 times since ive been here, but this summer me and him and scott did shitloads of stuff together.  its weird.  sometimes i think theres really just 2 people i talk to out there.  just before i crashed on the couch last night, i pulled out that tape of the party at andrews before we all left in august of 2000.  i didnt quite get to watch it and i havent seen it since the night before i left, but i was thinking.  do i want to watch it?  it was a weird time when i was on the edge with everyone back home, worrying about things falling apart, yet wanting to hold it together.  and so i crashed and didnt watch it.  its still on hold for the time being.

and so its been about a week and again, i have trouble remembering everything i did last week.  last thursday, i had my french history midterm.  i thought i did miserable cause on the thesis paragraph, the prof wrote "your writing style has much to be desired" and i thought it was good.  but we got them back today.  there were 8 as, 16 bs, 16 cs, and 16fs.  or something like that.  it basically ran the bell curve.  and i thought i failed it for sure, particularly since the prof hated my paragraph (see entry: 11/10/01).  i got a c.  and its only 20% of the final grade, so its not ridiculous that i can do better.  and im still awaiting canadian politics, but ive talked to the ta 3 times out of class and i have a decent feeling about it.  so after the midterm, who knows what, but seth and i went to gerts that night.  it was ladies night as well and it was all good except that we werent dressed or anything else and so it sucked, we left, came home, and then jared stopped by cause he was gonna meet people at bifteck.  and so we went to visit katherine and dave was over there, so we all went out to bifteck.  basically we were there until closing time, which was weird cause i havent actually stuck around a bar that long, but the 4 of us chilling was cool. 

friday was classes and then again who knows what.  a week gets to be too long to remember everything that goes on but friday night, jon and tom had a party at their place, so i went to that and they both had friends up from home, so we all were hangin on the rooftop and there were people inside and played some foosball and i was a little out of it by the time i left, so i just went home and went to bed.

saturday and sunday, im again, not sure what i did.  i do know that i was going to go to see mulholland drive at du parc on saturday, as it was still playing as part of the montreal nouveau films nouveau medias festival, but when i got there, it had been an advance sales sellout.  so there was no way i was getting in.  luckily tomorrow it opens for a regular run (french subtitled unfortunately), so maybe ill get to see it. im not sure if i went out saturday night, but i dont think i did.  i think i watched some hockey and other tv, and then on hockey night in canada classics, they were showing the habs-soviets game from the 70s.  man that was a classic.  the old forum...belliveau...lafleur...the ussr...great game (although the skating and speed was fast, the agressiveness i dont think was in comparison to today. and sunday i dont think i went out either.

monday was more class and also my day to cook.  after last weeks near bust of a blintze souffle (that was a week?) i decided to hit up the web again and i found a recipe for moussaka.  so thats what i made.  whenever i cook, i find it takes me all day to do.  like i start at 6 and its not ready til 9.  i dont get it.  anyway, it was kind of interesting.  eggplant's not my thing, the sauce never thickened, and i didnt think i'd have enough but it still came out okay, though i spent so much time working on preparing other stuff while the meat was cooking, that the meat must have been overcooked by the time i baked it.  and man our stove sucks, cause you could be boiling mere water and it'll be smoking and setting off the alarm.  dinner was good.  didnt get to go with dave to do our weekly pool shoot at bifteck or frappe.  but i think we talked some about girls.  or was that tuesday?  i dunno, but ive got this rash and its only around my joints.  its really itchy, but i dont know where its from and why its my joints only.  so i gotta get it checked out.  im not sure what else was monday.

tueday class.  oh right tuesday.  new music day.  i ended up picking up noir desirs "des figures des visages", the strokes "is this it" and incubus "morning view".  in addition, john let me burn his band's cd- the parka 3.  and so i put it up on the mp3 part of my site.  also tuesday ended up having to meet my french partners to work on our olympic park project.  our original date was last fri, but one of the girls moved it cause she was going home.  but then this friday the other girl is going home.  so we wanted to do it wed if we could.  meaning we had to do the project that night.  so me and julia went to the library to do some work and wait for kristina, but she wasnt coming so we went to julia's apt to work and i walk in and find that her roommate is allison, the hot blond in my canadian government, who also is from westport.  so that was kinda randomly coincidental.  but me and julia were working and finally kristina calls back, apparently things got hairy at the border, so it took her longer, but she cameover and we basically finished the project that night,  in hopes that we were going to present on wednesday.

wednesday was class all day.  woowee.  luckily there was no french history conference, but the rest of classes went okay.  of course luck would have us not presenting.  which was fine with me cause mentally i wasnt ready.  after classes i went back home and debated going to the string cheese incident concert.  and after debating with novick and then talking to kurt about what to do with the 5 camelo cds im selling i finally got to eat dinner and go.

this was one of the first non-rane jam shows ive been to and so i was a little inexperienced with the culture, but i wore my rane shirt and represented.  montreal doesnt really have a jam scene so i wasnt expecting a crowd at the tiny venue and was gonna buy my ticket when i got there.  no one expected that the cheeseheads that follow the tour and the vermonters would take a bus up there.  so it was sold out and i couldnt get my ticket til 2 hrs later, in the first song in the second set.  in the meantime, i brought 2 of my 5 camelo cds im trying to rep up here and thinking it was gonna be a small show, i thought id be able to pass it to the band.  unlikely story with the massive crowd.  in the meantime though, i did some talking with everyone else who was walking around rue st. laurent with a finger in the air for extra tix.  however, in trying to sell my cds, i tried gathering vibes about the magnitude of rane.

a lot of people i tried to sell to either a) didnt have money to buy a cd b)were from vermont.  now granted a sale is a sale, but i only had 2 and i knew there'd be people from further than just vermont that i might try to sell to.  however, most of the vermonters i spoke with had heard/heard of rane either owning the album or having listened to a friends copy and many of them were amazed.  i could see these as the guys we're needing to reach out to more.  and so i passed on ranetides.com and hopefully a few more people will check out shows.

after i got in, i had a couple beers, danced a little, and the place was packed so i couldnt really get closer to the front.  but heres what stoked me.  i was overhearing some older man (50?) who was talking to some other guy and he was saying something about going to a couple SCI shows, and over 250 phish shows, and some other various jam bands shows.  he caught me overhearing, and then offered me a hit.  so after talking to him for a bit, i was able to sell my first camelo cd---to a guy in ottawa.  he was saying
how he knows how you have to make a small band big, and the whole grassroots campaign and that he'll pass it around to people and he knows some guy who used to work in radio, etc...basically im hoping we can get a sound out here.

so i get out of the concert and i see this other kid who was in the front during the beginning of the show waiting with us for a ticket.  i talked to him a bit.  turns out, he's from arkansas, and he said he'd be willing to try a new band.  i wish i brought the other 3 cds last night because i probably could have sold them.  (although i wished i could have brought my discman so they could listen also).

so after all that babbling, id have to sum up by saying the show was a great success.  i passed out on the couch after the show, dont remember any of the music, but ive got the word of rane massively spread out, and the sounds of rane are on their way to infiltrating both CENTRAL CANADA and the MIDWEST!  next stop- the montreal radio stations.

personally, im saddened with my friends back home.  actually im still not sure who they are sometimes.  like repping for rane is my deal, i like the music, i like the message, i think its very powerful.  but even if i tell people to go to shows, no one ever listens to me.  like im expected to care about anyone elses interests if they dont care about mine.  take for instance, theres a free concert saturday at uconn.  now this theoretically works well for a few levels.  first, most of my friends are at uconn.  rane doesnt really play uconn that much, let alone my friends wouldnt have to travel but to the student union to see the show.  second of all its free and only for uconn students.  depending on the show, you have to pay to get in.  equator shows cost me 8$.  this is free.  third, its a friday night.  its not midweek we're talking.  considering theres not much to do at uconn, even on the weekends, this is free, live entertainment.  and yet i know that not one person will go to this show, if anything else but to get me off their backs.  and it disappoints me.  im trying to sell discs to people from central canada and the midwest, and yet i cant even get my own friends to see a show on their own campus.  its sad.  and so i guess i started out my day with that attitude already.  after last night, i was psyched for the sales to strangers.  but then i cant even get my friends to a free show.  so does that mean if were ever to get to be their legal representative, that my friends would basically start disavowing any knowledge of who i am?  

i dunno, like i said in the beginning, im confused, im here nor there, and sometimes i just wish right now that i had something or someone stable in my life.  i wish i knew where i was going and not just trying to follow where everyone else is.  

"Ok, I like a lot of bands from almost any music genre, but after seeing Rane last night, I figured I'd put in another plug for the local scene. I saw Rane w/Margaret last night at the Equator club. A band under the same label, Renata, opened for them. They were really good, had a harmonicist, which gave a different flavor, and their music was good, but I often found the lyrics lacking. Nonetheless, the sound was something worth buying their demo CD. Rane came on bout an hour later, and they were great. I'd heard them twice before live in accoustic shows, so this was my first time seeing them play electric. They played for an hour and a half straight, and were still playing when we had to leave. Apparently they've almost sold out copies of their second CD. This is a band that, following in the footsteps of another locally originated band, Angry Salad, will probably get signed by a major label. Anyways...they played a bunch of new songs from the new album, which will be out later this year, and a couple of songs from their first few albums. Rane is a jam band. But they do it well. They know who's doing what, they let him do his stuff, a couple of dramatic stop-on-a-dime pauses. Really tight playing, some trippy stuff, you can see where their influences lie (DMB, Phish, etc...). I highly recommend it and urge people to support the local music scene by checking out acts like Rane and Renata. You might find their worth your while."
                     ~somewhere around march of 99

it really makes me wonder sometimes...

anyways, today was class- us politics talking about federalism, french history talking about the reformation and luther and calvin.  and then was talking about the cabinet in conference.  once i came home after converence, i think it was mainly just hanging out here.  dani came over for dinner and so that was cool, we all ended up watching mystery, alaska as well.  not a bad movie.  man movies coming out are great.  theres mulholland drive, apocalypse now redux, next week is monsters, inc, then terry gilliam's brazil is playing du parc next week...and windows xp came out today.  i wish my laptop wasnt shit and had a bigger hard drive.  id definitely get it for a multitude of reasons, two being the layout and design, and the fact that its been claimed repeatedly to be the most stable OS yet.   so as for whatever else goes on this weekend, its probably laundry and reading, whatever else...probably not being able to remember what i did. we might have a party for halloween cause everyone keeps asking if w are and everyones afraid everyone else is having one.

not really in the mood to discuss anything political today.  news is starting to become pointless.  all i really need is a headlines ticker and actual worthwhile breaking news stories.  and judging by the fact that i spent an hour and a half writing about stuff and not remembering the  gaps between class and dinner...its enough time and wasted ramble for me.

17/10/01(815pm)-might as well update now since tomorrow is another exam in french history. 

monday i basically woke up late and then went to the library to do some studying for my canadian politics midterm that night.  basically reading it all was just like lectures and conferences.  i have no idea how i did though because i ran out of time.  but i put a lot down and even looking around, i saw a bunch of the first years writing 2 line IDs and i was trying to be thorough.  like i knew all the answers and ive got notes jotted down on my test sheet, but i just didnt get to put everything in the test booklet.  so we'll see how that goes.  i ran into my ta today and we were talking about it and he understood and maybe when he looks at it hell keep that in mind.  exam basically went something like this:

part 1: identify 8 of the following: legislative refining, reservation, section 52, first-past-the-post, section 9 of the constitution act of 1867, senate floor rule, entrenched law, ombudsman, suspensive veto, 1849, balfour declaration

part 2: identify 4 of the following: senate speaker, continuous election campaign, conventions, short-term amateurs, executive-centrd, imperial officer, simultanous election

part 3: "The Governor-General has no power in our system of government." -Former G.-G. Romeo LeBlanc
Write a response to this statement

part 4: "Parliament has many faults.  It is also central to the use of power in society."-C.E.S. Franks
Discuss.

tuesday was standard fare i think.  went to us politics.  he gave us topics for our term papers due march 14.  papers have to be 30 pages long.  fun term paper eh?  well i suppose that of the 3 pages worth of topics he gave us, it cant be so hard to find info.  i thinnk though, that im going to ask prof waller if he'll let me write my paper on the ronald reagan analysis that i proposed here a few days ago.  the thing is, he wants less focus on foreign policy than the actual government and politics behind things.  so it might be doable, but tough because there's a lot of policy involved.  and basically then he moved onto discussing more about some constitutional cases.  then was onto french history, where prof boulle covered in one lecture what hotchkiss took 3 months to cover, including barbara tuchman's a distant mirror.  but it was an interesting lecture nonetheless and i had a good question about the college of the cardinals in relation to the papal schism.  tomorrow's my midterm in that class so....

after yesterday's classes, i went to hmv to get the new noir desir album, which was supposed to come out in canada then, but they said it was pushed back a week.  but, they were also selling the phantom menace on dvd, and it was supposed to be an excellent dvd (as well as the first star wars on dvd).  so i got that, came home and watched til dinner. also talked to mom and dad and elise and that was about it i think.

today was kinda boring too,  went to french, got my test back with an A, which im happy about since its my first A here and dad thought that by being placed higher in french, id do worse, but i think im in just the right level.  whatever, i cant complain with an a.  then we listened to a presentation about place-des-arts, which didnt really matter much to me, since i live like 5 blocks from it.  we got our presentation moved til next fri, so i cant complain, i think we're gonna work tuesday on it.  then went to lunch, hung around with nick, and that was cool cause we talked somethings over, tried figuring people out, etc...i then went to indigo, bought the oxford dictionary of politics, which has a lot of good definitions for political terminology that will come in handy for sure.  and then i got dad his birthday present.  bill watterson just came out with an "exhibition catalogue" called Calvin and Hobbes: Sunday Pages 1985-1995 and basically the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library was putting together an exhibition on calvin and hobbes from 10 september 2001 to 16 january 2002, and watterson wrote a foreword and annotated various strips over the run.  so dad being a calvin fan like the rest of us, always wants a calvin book for his birthday and since this one just came out, i got it.  the other book i got is by benjamin r. barber called jihad vs. mcworld.  seems rather topical and very much along the lines of what thomas friedman wrote in the lexus and the olive tree, which i enjoyed immensely.  maybe something will help in my thesis paper also.

after that, went to american politics confrence, which was not only lacking in students, but prof. waller took over today.  fun is.  and today was a shitty day out, so it was raining.  tonight is more studying for french history exam tomorrow.  oh right, i gotta ask nick...he was supposed to talk to andrew about kristy.  the plan is for him to ask andrew if kristy was flirting with my on friday or is interested cause andrew wasnt there to know and if he asks kristy, maybe it'll get things rolling again for me.  who knows, im jumping the gun again.  nick's trying out to replace the bassist in this band from mcgill, jai guru, so im hoping he gets it, cause it'll be cool.  i wanna start a band, but i dont have a drummer.  i could get jared to play bass though.  maybe ill have to put out an ad.  i do want to start a band sometime in my 3 years after all...  anywho.  so tomorrow is exam, and then i plan on celebrating after since that'll be it for me for exams til first week of november.  seth has open bar at gerts tomorrow, which means shit for me, but ive also got 4 bottles of sleemans left, so oh well.  and friday?  i havent even though about that yet cause ive only got 2 classes then and who knows what'll happen in the evening.  all i know is dave's gone this weekend, so...

in news today, israeli tourism minister, rehavam zeevi was shot 3 times in the neck and head by members of the PFLP.  the irony was, zeevi, a hardline right-winger from the moldelet party, was set to hand in his resignation today in response to opposition of right-wing likud prime minister sharon and his dealings with the PA.  israel immediately suspended contact with the PA.  basically, my bias being towards israel is that this will have nearly permanently divided the conflict into somethng unsolvable.  it was said that in clintons last day of office, he told arafat the reason he failed in his presidency was because of arafat.  this is a man, who all he has to do is lock up hamas, and pflp members, and he would have a fairly decent chance at getting the israeli government to set up diplomatic negotiations.  instead, he cant.  he cant prevent his own people from suicide bombings and assassinations.  and because of that, israel will never concede to the palestinians.  arafat its doing it to his own people.  israeli colonialism is the fault of arafat.  and when you assassinate political officials, you cross a new threshhold.  the bush administration acknowledges a palestinian state was always in the plan, and i can even agree to it, but then they're being hypocritical if they want to eradicate and knock countries who permit terrorism but will say its okay for arafat to allow hamas to continue promoting anti-israeli terror.  things will now need radical change to get back on track.

the other big news now is the us anthrax scare.  seth and i were talking yesterday and he was saying hes glad hes not still back home interning for his us representative, cause they'd be going nuts.  and then i was thinking, if i was working at the bank, what about money.  money circulates like water, and i dont know enough about microbiology, but what if its possible to spread anthrax through circulating money?  im not sure if it could stick to bills, so thats one problem.  but if it could be done, it would be rapid fire and everyone could get it?  so i told dad to tell randy since he's at the Dept of Pub. Health.  cause now its 5 years jail and 3$ million fine if you create an anthrax hoax.  and lord knows i dont need attorney general ashcroft thinking im making a threat about anthrax when im just suggesting that maybe we're over looking an obvious and important part of society.  we never thought aobut the mail and thats how cases  have been starting.  so if no one thought about the money, why not?  

anyway, its pissing me off, cnn is pissing me off.  first off, cnn was asked through al-jazeera by al qaeda to ask 3 questions that would be passed on to bin laden.  in reading the questions, as if he's gonna answer that he's got nukes, or if hes got any part in the anthrax attacks, etc...personally, they be better off not wasting their time cause even if he answers, its gonna be enigmatic anyway.  even if he answers doesnt mean hes gonna be captured, and hes not gonna be captured anyway, because he'd rathr commit suicide than to die in the hands of the enemy, thats the mentality.  cnn is starting to get annoying, they spend hours analysing old news with not much new to say.  a press conference today at the capitol building had the doctor saying they had no information on anything.  so why give the fucking conference if theres nothing to say?  show headlines once an hour, be done.  i used to like watching cnn and everything, but now its getting annoying because its showing about 5% new and relevant material every hour with about 95% commentary thats repeated over and over by specialists and analysts (which is kinda hypocritical of me cause if law doesnt end up happening, id love to be a political analysis for a newspaper or tv show.)  and not only that, but most of whats being said is some watered down jabble that tells the american public shit about what they need to know, what the geopolitical effects of situations are, and relevant information.  they spend shitloads of time yakking about anthrax, what it is, what to do, where it was found, how much was found, what the potency was, etc...people just need to wash their hands.  and any anthrax thats out there is out there, no one can do too much (contrary to what they'll say).  what the hell point is there in creating media paranoia if its the main problem to begin with.  and not only that, but the coverage is so watered down that the american people become more paranoid than they would if they realised that realistically, if there is a greater threat, then its already out of their control.  but as hotchkiss always said, average american doesnt know jack, so thats why 24 hours of cnn is filled with about 20-21 hours of worthless commentary to soften up the public...i guess im just tired of american idealism finally having to realise that theres a terror out there and its alot more blunter than things like "shining the light of justice in their shadows" and other stupid analogies that bush says.  just the facts, please.

thats it for me, writing more about the news media pissing me off is pissing me off.  im just hoping that things with kristy go upwards...

15/10/01(1230am)-2 people have been going apeshit with my site right now, but since no one ever bothers to email feedback, then what the hell, eh?

back track to thursday, er wednesday.  right, theres the list of things i wanted to write about, but i guess ill mention them more in brief.  dealing with the montreal anthrax scare- jared, tom, and i were walking to hurleys and there was firetrucks racing down sherbrooke.  now usually in the city here, the firetrucks only turn the sirens on when they need the people to move out,  which doesnt always mean its a continuous siren.  but this time it was.  a couple blocks later, we saw the firemen in front of the building.  when we went home, they were talking on the news how an unexpected package from the tabloid company in florida that contracted the anthrax vaccine had been mailed from its sister company here in montreal and they were worried about it possibly having anthrax.  luckily it turned out negative, but people around are definitely paranoid.  i can only imagine the states right now.  apparently the company that makes the anti-anthrax antibiotic, bayer, wants to offer advertisement on the band, anthrax's, web site.  besides i was on antibiotics for 9 out of 5 days.  not only is my cough still not the best, but im so uncontagious because all bacteria has bee completely eradicated from my body.  aint no way i got anthrax.

wednesday and thursday were great conference days.  in us politics, i was able to compare american federalism to canadian federalism.  and in canadian politics, i did just the same.  so we were talking about how in the states, due to symmetrical federalism, the states have more enumerated powers than in canada, an asymmetrical federation, where the government has more enumerated powers than the provinces.  its interesting particularly when you talk about stuff like why certain features of american government couldnt work for a canadian government and vice versa.  we think ours is the best, but only ours could work for us,  an american republic couldnt necessarily work for another country.  french history paper?  thats self explanatory...

"In the face of sixteenth-century Christian reformation, a council of clergymen convened in the French city of Poissy to discuss various ecumenical schisms developing between the Catholic Church of France and members of various Protestant sects.  This conference, which set the tone for almost thirty years of civil conflict, is best depicted in Jean-Jacques Pérrissin and Jacques Tortorel’s engraving, “Le Colloque de Poissy.”  Pérrissin and Tortorel’s process of engraving a print was a technique that was largely borrowed from the Italian Renaissance, and used for an accurate portrayal of a specific moment in time- easily reproducible and available for mass distribution.  In this particular engraving, one of the most recognizable Protestant preachers, Theodore de Bèze, is illustrated addressing the clergy council with a raised hand.  The minute detail included in the engraving makes it evident that nearly all members of the council were attentative to Bèze’s speech.  Although the colloquy had dismissed in failure of its task to reconcile “the chasm in Christendom” (Nugent 2), the scene that Pérrissin and Tortorel render in “Le Colloque de Poissy” does not fail to explain the events foreshadowing the history in the aftermath of the colloquy. "

i think margaret was lost when i sent it to her to read around 4am on thurs.   it feels kinda funny writing about the history of france in english.  i mean i have the option of writing it in french or english, as do i exams, and the prof is french, but any non-french language assignment to be written by me would be an exercise in grammar futility, not a historical paper. :P

 wednesday, i tried figuring out how to get erin on her birthday.  see last year i called her, but this uear i wanted to play a trick since she was turning 18.  so i thought id call her and tell her that the stripper was coming later.  but that metamorphed into calling her as the stripping agency, then telling her the stripper was coming, then into having my roommate make the call.  so by the time i had it in place, was round 4ish.  so i had nick call her and had this whole scripted thing for him to say, that he was calling from "manchester escort services, ltd" and that the stripper would be over at 11.  but then he left a message with her roommate.  but he was sounding really official and everything.  after hoping that some shock sat in with the girls, i had nick call back around 1045.  when the person picked up and nick asked if it was erin, she pretended to be erin.  we found out later it was erins roommate again.   nick was telling her the stripper was running late and would be there at 12. so we thought erin must have been freaking, and nick just kept going with it, about how there was not much we could do about it, the stripper was coming from being tested negative for anthrax, about how his name was jack and hes got this policeman routine, and its 200$ an hour to her charge but theres a 75$ cancellation fee, etc....according to nick, the girls in the background were laughing.  myself, i had to leave the room several times while nick was talking because he did such a good job leading them on on the spot and i couldnt help from cracking up.  we thought it was cause we were really embarassing erin.  about 20 min later, i get this im from "sarah's friend" asking if i was the manchester escort service.  so i called erin and they were all laughing cause they were expecting it.  apparently, it wasnt erin that nick was talking to, it was her roommate, and she was leading nick on as well.  funny, eh?  i had them going but sarah said something after the first time nick called like "oh man, i didnt think he'd do it" and then after the second time she got sarah to say that i was calling from canada, and thus they inferred it to be me.  still a great joke though.  apparently there were several people at st. anselem who didnt get it was a joke and thought the stripper was coming.  i said that means next year im gonna have to get a real one...:P

so thursday, i cant remember much of what happened.  went to politics, talked more about madisonian federalism and tyranny of the majority in the federalist papers, mcculloch v. maryland, etc...then was french history and talking about the 100 years war.  then it was canadian politics where i find ive got a lot to say.  my midterm in that class is at 6 pm tomorrow so that should be fun.  no seriously, canadian politics is interesting.  what else i did? oh, after class, i went back to archambault, got myself 2 sets of new strings for my guitars for open mic, and a hand grip for musicians to improve finger strength, control, and dexterity.  im hoping itll help me. seth and dave went to gerts at night and since i still wasnt drinking, i stayed home and nick and i watched a few hockey games.  i think this year, ive definitely gotten more involved with keeping tabs on hockey, more so than most years.  part of that is cause seth and nick follow sports a little more closely, so i figure to follow atleast my favourite sport and my own team more.  i mean ive already gone to 3 games this year so thats been pretty good.  

friday on the other hand, was a great day.  i think thats also when i started to grow my beard back in full.  like i say, i think my facial hair is my achilles heel.  side note, i think the third song im gonna do for open mic would be something off third eye blind's blue.  i havent listened to the album in a long time, but i just pulled it out, its still good and im tossing up between "anything" "wounded" and "farther."  so thats that, the rane song, and the travis song.  oh, and its probably gonna be october 29 at mckibbins.  but again, im lucky if the roomies come and thats it.  anywho, back to friday.   friday was no canadian politics lecture, a rather mediocre french class, lunch, and a mediocre macro class.  the guy sitting next to me, the aussie that jared and i sit with, he left early as did a couple other people cause it was starting to get lame.  after class was heading home, and i dont know what i did directly after class.  i cleaned my room and jess called me about a question about hubs and routers. but dr. volpe called on my own line and basically told me to up my inhaler usage, drop the antibiotics, and that was about it.  nothing new, basically ivestill got a cough, but i suppose its been worse for longer in the past.  so then i relayed it to my dad and then did some more research on hubs and routers.  im still a little confused about it all.  im convinced you need a router and a hub, or a multiport router, but kristin called me back and i still had no answer.  again, im a polisci major, not a computer science major.  i tinker around a lot, i read a bunch about stuff, but i dont specialise.

so we hung around here and everything and then at night they came over with a bunch of people and we all went out for kristin and jess' birthday. (it was also angela's birthday friday).  jess' was friday and kristin's was saturday (i think thats right), and they're roommates so it was one big birthday bash.  so we were gonna go to blue dog, but it was full, so eventually we made it back to frappe and chilled there for the rest of the night.  good nights fun in a long time.  me,nick, seth, dave, kristin, jess, debbie, and a bunch of other guys and girls.  the two birthday girls definitely seemed to have a good time.  kristin challenged my gin and tonic to a double, so i got the both of us one cause she didnt think i could handle it.  a bit strong, but not too bad.  and from there on it was mainly  long island ice teas.  took a while to warm up, but we were all good.  there was this girl there that was also at their place for thanksgiving dinner.  i think her name was kristy but we never officially introduced ourselves and i didnt get to talk to her as much as i should have.  shes quite cute though.  definitely im gonna have to arrange something cause i think ill see her again sometime.  seth and nick said they'd arrange something if i want it...hm...anywho, by the end of the night, kristin had apparently puked a few times and i dunno if passed out, but she was really really gone.  two cabs wouldnt take them home (they live on the other side of campus).  but eventually they got one.  and so dave and i walked kristy home cause shes about a 10 min walk from our place.  shes more into the plateau than we are, so it was pretty nice.  i wish i had thought to do it and went myself instead of following with dave.  seth says he was banging his head on the wall at frappe so we could start talking and he would leave.   but he was too drunk to leave and kept banging his head.  im not sure how to read her, im definitely lacking on reading girls, cause ive caught her eyeing me sometimes, but that means shit.  and if seth and dave had those intentions, maybe somethings up.  who knows, it shouldnt matter anyway.  i shouldnt make the mistake again next time.

saturday woke up late, did i dont know what.  who knows where.  but seth and i went to the devils-habs game cause hes a devils fan.  and we got there 10 min into the first period and missed the first goal, but it was an excellent game.  we got 2 goals in 20 seconds in the third period and the empty netter to win 3-1 and go undefeated, best streak for us since 1981.  cant complain.  we're eyeing the stanley cup...

today i woke up, made some breakfast for once.  then was gonna go to the park, but i dont know what happened.  then i got roped into doing this weeks grocery shopping.  yeah, 50 lbs of groceries for 10 blocks.  fun is.  and then since tomorrow night's my midterm and i couldnt cook (atleast not to have dinner ready before 10), i switched with nick and cooked some simple spaghetti and meat sauce.  ooh.

so basically thats my backtrack, and somehow i always figure out how to remember a bunch of stuff that i thought i forgot.  tomorrow is some classes, then is my canadian politics midterm at night.  tuesday and wednesday im not sure, and thursday is french history midterm, friday is supposed to be my oral presentation, but im not sure how that works cause some people were supposed to go last friday but never did.  so we're already one presentation behind, unless i got it wrong.  so anyway, that might be friday.  and then its another weekend.  and weekends are good, but i dont have a calendar, so i never know what weekend it is.

and that is because im lacking in women, and hopefully i'll get that to change...soon

10/10/01(1015pm)-more later on...the erin birthday prank, madison and federalism, antibiotics, dying from cough, the french history thesis paragraph i have to write tonight (wouldnt it seem fitting to be able to write a french history paper in french?) and the montreal anthrax scare...

i forgot to mention in my earlier update that ive named my ronald regan theory "The Theoretical Analysis of the Afghan Conflict in Accordance to Ronald Regan."  very political science sounding.  however, in the theory i dont take into account external factors such as the soviet war in chechnya as well as soviet investment in arabic interests, post-cold war americanization of the east, developments in the arab-israeli conflicts such as the oslo accords, the creation of the third way and moderation in the politics of north atlantic powers such as the u.k., the u.s., and canada, and a variety of other possible external factors.  on a simplistic level however, the "Ronald Regan Analysis" still fits a logical pattern of events.

more tomorrow.

10/10/01(130am)-i think i keep forgetting to change the date on the top of my page.  oh well, as long as my journal entries are dated.

right now i guess im in that bitter/cynical state i was in all weekend.  yesterday i got up and tried doing some more work before shopping for groceries for my dinner.  i went looking for blintzes, but no one had them, so i ended up having to buy crepes and make the blintzes myself.  dinner was another mediocre one.  my mom faxed me her blintze souffle recipe, but it wasnt as good as hers.  my guess is there was two reasons.  the first was i didnt have frozen blintzes, i had to make them myself, so the blintzes themselves werent as good.  the second was that since the blintzes were abnormally shaped, they didnt all fit in one pan and the souffle mixture was made for the original recipe.  so instead, i ran out of souffle mixture between the two pans, so it wasnt as good.  and then i tried doing more work and went to bed somewhat earlier than usual.  im not sure what else i did yesterday except there was one thing.  we were talking about heating since the weathers getting cold and our rooms are chilling too.  now supposedly, since our heat is electric and included in electricity, we're all set.  and we've got a fixed rate on our electric bill.  however, we dont know what it costs to run the apartment during the winter, so they're assuming that if the electricity is on a lot, then the fixed rate will increase and thus if i keep the heat on in my room, the electricity bill will skyrocket.  so im talking about turning the heat on in my room and dave says something to the effect of not turning my heat on because itll be more expensive and that maybe since he and john are "poorer" than me that i could please not turn it on.

i guess what really bothered me about the comment was dave's assumption that i'm richer than him or john, or maybe even my other roommates.  maybe its because i dont need to be on loan for school, maybe its because i spend money for different reasons than he would, i dont know, but i dont profess to be richer than anyone, particularly since they dont know how much we make and i dont know how much they make.  but like, its not the first time dave's brought up prices of things to me, and this one really started to bother me.  when i came back from the hockey game on saturday night, we were talking and i was saying how it was a 2-2 tie, and the first thing he asks was "dont you think its a waste of your money?" and not thinking i heard the question right because ive never heard that asked, i asked him to repeat.   and then it really didnt make sense.  i paid 30$ to see a hockey game, enjoy myself while im there, and rout for my team.  just because neither team won, i dont think my money was wasted, i accomplished my goals whether they won or not, how is that a waste of money?  so it brings me back to where i was thinking.  im not richer than anyone, im not poorer than anyone, i dont profess to be either.  often times i think dave, in his head, tries to put me in some socio-economic class because i spend my money differently.  like, if theres something i can do and just pay 3$ more for convenience than to go through the hassle of doing it for free, theres only so much im willing to do.  in economics, they call it utility.  and utility has a great deal to do with consumer demand and purchasing power, not just the mere price of the object and whether its a good or bad price.  

so that brings me back to the heating.  if im paying my rent, i should be entitled to turn on the heat in my room if im cold.  and its a card id been looking not to pull, but its one that fits in this situation.  of the 5 of us, i pay the most rent.  and i dont bring that point up because i think i should have more say in things in the apartment.  i say that as a pratical point.  my room has a lot of space and its got a brick wall, which obviously doesnt reflect heat into the large room well.  being that we collectively decided to price the rooms and this room became the most expensive one, shouldnt it fit that because of those problems, i be allowed to heat my room?  the premise of electric heat is that the room heats up to a certain temp and once that temp is reached, the heat turns off until a certain low temp is reached.  so even if the heat is on, its not always on.  anyways, its not just the fact that they dont want me putting the heat on, its moreso the fact that they (or moreso dave) thinks that me willing to put out money for different things classifies me as being richer than him.  because i cant say i am, i cant say im not.  and it shouldnt be relevant to a lot of things.  im debating saying anything for now, but i think if it continues bothering me like this, im probably going to have to.

this morning i woke up to a brit who was trying to fax something to john at 915.  i felt bad, i kept getting disconnected and then couldnt call him back, but atleast the fax came through.  between then and 12, i just muddled around, read the paper, etc...finally left for class around 1215, got some lunch, then who knows what before going to my french history class.  after class, i was slated to run my errands and go to the library to do some work, but that kinda fell apart.  i was walking down and saw jared.  he'd just finished giving his big presentation on salamanders for some comparative bio class, so we were waiting for tom and then went to hurleys.  after hurleys we went to some guitar shop, tom got strings and i got pics.  then i was gonna go to the bank to deposit seth's check only i was 20 min late.  banks. go figure.  so i ended up getting a birthday card for angela cause fridays her bday and then to the post office to mail it, but it sucks cause canada post takes like a week to get to the states.  ridiculous.  oh and i got the oysterhead cd, but im still busy to review it.  one day im actually gonna resume some of my cd reviews.  suffice to say, its viciously funky and i kinda wish it wasnt les claypool singing.

came back, hung til dinner, the habs beat the mighty ducks, 3-1.  that maks us 2-0-1, and i can see visions of the cup.  and so now is now and ive got work to do.  oh, and margaret called me cause she needed help for her economics exam, some stuff from micro wasnt explained in her macro book, and since i already had a book, i was happy to oblige.  actually, having someone call me was quite refreshing.  since this weekend, ive been a bit more depressed and im not sure why but its like, theres a lot of work to be done, im still not sure about rane, i hate my cough (day 7 out of 5 on antibiotics has done nothing), and my computer sucks, its too slow for what it should be doing, and the fan always oes off.  and the bigger thing is im feelin kinda lonely.  yeah, it goes back to the my friends wont visit bit.  like i love here, i love the apartment, but apartment life is definitely isolating.  its harder to meet people when you're just in the apartment.  if im not at class, im probably at the apartment.  and who is at the apartment other than my roommates?  no one.  so not getting the chance to meet people is kinda sucking out, and its gonna be worse in the winter months when winter depresses you by default anyway.  makes me wish i actually had a girl to pursue.  i always say it adds more meaning and variety to life.  fuck, my fan is going off for the second time in a minute.  i hate this.  so yeah, im good and depressed and angry and i just want to write a song or something, but none of the lyrics i write work together, they're just unstrung fragments.  ive been suffering from lyrical block for over 6 months now.

today was day three of attacks on afghan territory.  like i said, i dont see them doing anything either way.  4 un workers were killed by the missiles and already people are saying how unjust it is that civilians were killed.  how the food rations that the us is dumping is barely a scrape to get by and not everyone gets them.  that the refugee problem is increasing near the borders and many afghans see the us as a way out of the taliban regime.  that killing osama bin laden will rid the world of terrorism, or start at the root and work up.  im not convinced of any of it.  the us has declared a state of war and in an ideal state of war, there is no ideal state of war.  war has no rules, thats why its called a war.  how can you make claim between taking a military life vs. a civilian life?  one life is justified and the other isnt?  i dont see that as a reasonable justification for killing military personel.  but then, theres a realistic, logical impracticality in that thought because no war is impossible (as long as someone opposes something, it brings potential grounds for war, even civil war) and we've already established that there're no rules in war.   we do the best we can to minimize loss of civilian life but the feasibility of no civilian lives lost is none.  interestingly, the reason we got osama bin ladin pissed at the us was because of saddam hussein.  bin laden makes the threat of action unless "islamic land is rid of americans."  this points directly to bin ladins disdain of american troops in saudi arabia.  why were troops in saudi arabia? to protect the area from the likes of saddam hussein.  why were we protecting from saddam hussein?  because saddam hussein is the leader of iraq.  how did saddam get to be leader of iraq?  because the us backed saddam in iraq's struggle with iran and post iranian conflict.  and now, we have the entire problems of the present day.  so in essence, we can blame today on the actions of the latter part of jimmy carter's presidency, ronald regan and the republican party.  if we start backing the northern alliance, we may do the same thing in afghanistan that we did in iraq by putting saddam hussein in power.  while the taliban is conceded as a radical government by us western outsiders, there are many who still support this form of government.  i dont endorse the taliban, but we assume that all of the afghans are against the taliban.  if this were the case, anti-american demonstrations wouldnt be taking place in the streets of kabul.  why hate the states if you hate your government?  not reasonable.  and killing osama bin laden isnt going to do a thing.  the man would rather die than be taken alive.  if they ever found him, he'd commit suicide, not die at the hands of the enemy.  its a mindset that no one understands because no one has to live it.  i think that last week's west wing episode (the first episode ive watched), was probably many westerners first cracks into what these types of people think.  you dont even have to be a political science major.  the average american doesnt know much, barely reads the paper, sometimes watches cnn, and thinks irrationally, based on emotions from tragedy.  they see something on cnn and react accordingly, not thinking about how things are affected on the geopolitical-historical scale.  not taking into account regional ideologies, politics, historical backgrounds, etc.  and watching cnn analysts down once a week doesnt necessarily help all that either.  i guess its just starting to get interesting because this is the kind of stuff that's always interested me, going all the way back even to 6th grade and mr. hausmann's current events game, where i was one of the top 2 players of all time.   i guess if i didnt do law, id love to be a political analyst.  i think its interesting to compare what people think of the world vs. what the reality of the world is, one day at a time.

anywho, im gonna do some work now.

08/10/01(330am)-ok, momentarily was a stretch.  someone from mcgill's been reading my website using their das account.  actually i think there's a couple people, which kinda sucks cause i dont know who they are and no one's emailed me.  the person who is living in the room i lived in last year, molson 530, also visited, just no ones emailed me...but then of course, how did they know who i was or where my site was...?

anywho, backtracking a bit. monday was my cook day again and i made stuffed boneless chicken breast, candied carrots, and potatoes.  not one of my finer meals.  i think im gonna make a blintze souffle tomorrow since its just me, seth, dave, and poss. john.  tuesday, seth and i went to us. govt and pol. but forgot he cancelled lecture.  so that was wasted, i then went to lunch, and after went to french history.  yet another tues.  but i think it might have been tuesday that dave and i went to frappe for our weekly pool shoot/beer.  some games were good, others weren't.  but its kinda fun just going out at round midnight, splitting a pitcher and honing my skills.

wed was my full day.  i think i skipped gov't of canada lecture to study for the french test.  french test was really not that bad although she purposefully wrote the test for longer than the amount of time she was giving us.  i finished it though, so im not sure what that means.  then it was meeting nick for lunch at shatner and then economics.  vicas actally gave a decent lecture this time.  then french history conference, but i didnt realise the material was on the webct, so i didnt have it.  and after that was us govt and pol conference where we talked about the supreme court and the federalist papers.  not the best day and i cant even remember what happened that evening other than i think thats when i started my antibiotics because my cough picked up again from where it left off 3 weeks ago.  oh right, and they started filming this tv show right outside our apartment.  i sat for about 3 hours and watched them film this one 3 minute scene.  and theres all the lights, sound people, camera people, makeup, etc...and they're shouting in english and french.  we later found out that it was for this "women's erotica" (different from men's porn in that its supposed to be more feminine and artistic) series, "Bliss" (aka "Exposed"), which would be airing sometime in january or february on the Showcase Channel.

thursday was a really good day.  i woke up and slept right through the filming people.  they came to use our terrace to film from from about 7-9 am.  and we got paid the next day about 300$ cash.  not bad.  very exciting.  so i woke up around 1030, got ready for class and went with seth to us govt and pol.  good class, we basically zipped right through the bill of rights and amendments.  after that was french history, and boulle was talking more about the french feudalist culture, which was slightly more interesting than the actual history itself.  then was canadian politics conference which went really well and i applied a lot of american politics in discussing multipartisanism, lobbying, collegial vs. adversarial legislative systems, and the whole bit.  then was searching through the library for materials on le colloque de poissy, some meeting of the french clerics to discuss church reformation on the eve of protestantism.  ive got to write an essay on this picture here.  good thing i can read french cause some of my source material is french.  who would have thought that knowing another language would double your research resources.  maybe i should learn more languages.  hey, i hear they're paying well for arabic, farsi, and urdu translators...

friday was no canadian politics lecture, a smaller french class due to the three day thanksgiving weekend, and another semi-decent economics lecture.  oh, and i had gotten the second travis cd, the man who, as well as st. germains first cd (from like 95), boulevard, definitely not as good as tourist, but still somewhat worthy of listening to.  the travis cd is really good though.  the both are.  at lunch, nick and i established that im having a nationality identity crisis.  i think it was the fact that i woke up friday morning remembering my dream about a lake-side party with several MPs from the house of commons.  there was jean chretien, joe clark, and of course stockwell day was riding around the lake on his jet skis like last years elections.  man if dreaming about canadian politics isn't some sort of indication of something, i dont know what is.

friday night,  john left for dc and dave seth nick and i went out for dinner only dave ended up taking a nick joke the wrong way and left us.  so the 3 of us went and got calzones.  more rain.  i fell asleep early around midnight.

saturday, i ended up waking up late and  spent most of the afternoon doing laundry before the game.  woo for clean clothes.  then was the habs-leafs home opener, as well as the 50th anniversary of north america's longest running shows, hockey night in canada.  great game, excellently played, although karl dykhuis should have scored in overtime.  instead the game tied 2-2.  which sucked cause it was the habs-leafs and we should have kicked their asses back to toronto along with their fan contingency.  but i guess it was good.  it was fun yes.  and they gave saku koivu a 7 min standing ovation of 23000+ people.  koivu's cancer has been big news up here and he just gave his first press conference on friday after one cycle of treatment for non-hodgkin's lymphoma.  im thinking of having his name and number  put on my jersey. 

after the game i headed over to kristin and jess' place for thanksgiving.  i guess they all heard about my dream, so my canadianism was talked about...i kinda missed the food, but just chilling around with everyone was fun.  and apparently the redmen beat uconn at hockey 5-1.  but im sure no one caught that game.  and then on tv afterwards was michigan vs. mich state, the largest attended hockey game ever at 73,000+ people.  hey, you can do that if you have the rink put on the football field for the day.  but i just kept pointing out mike komisarek cause he was playing and he'll be playing for the habs when he's out of umich...

today i got up, did who knows what with who knows who...they launched missiles at afghanistan.  to be honest, im not surprised.  im also not surprised if theres a terrorist attack sometime soon in the us.  im ambivalent about the attacks.  theres debate over who supports them and who dont, and whether they were justified or not.  or did they hit civillians or military personel, what their effectiveness is...theres really not much comment on my end (which dave was surprised, particularly me being me, and me being a polisci major).   i dont think they're just, i dont think they're injust.  i dont think its gonna do anything for terrorism, i dont think there was any real outcome.  it was only the first attack, but really didnt do anything but strengthen ideological lines.  those who are pro-islamic jihad and pro-taliban are only strengthened, those who think we should bomb the afghans are only strengthened, and the american people are only binding in this attack because they hear the watered down versions and watered down analysis through cnn, because the average person doesn't take into consideration any factors other than raw emotion.  all these senators that appear on larry king and what not, they all say the same thing, offer the american people nothing other than goals, goals and more goals, without offering to the american people political motivations/ramifications behind all the actions,  ideological differences, etc.  its like they're trying to convince the american people that its not gonna be a conventional war and people might die, but ive been saying that in more blunter terms.  true, you can only be so blunt, but then again, thats why the average american cant tell you where afghanistan is on the map.  or is that georgie?  hotchkiss was always right.  anyways, that is why i really cant say anything positive or negative to say, because it just doesnt make a difference at this juncture i dont believe.

this weekend kinda was lame in a way.   basically i get one day off of class between labour day and dec 20 (if you exclude the gaps between my exams), and so nothing really happened.  no one called here either, and now they've got the advent of internet phone to save on long distance calls and whatnot and no one will talk to me.  jon and i had talked at the end of the summer about maybe him coming up, but i havent talked much to jon lately cause he's never around, so that evidently kinda fell through, and the weather was rainy and cold (its about -3°C here now), and dark, so that made it more depressing cause people either left to go home, or people have friends coming up sometime, and i keep wondering if any of my friends would ever decide that montréal isnt as far as they think and that its a great place to go visit.  the way i see it, where im living now is basically untoppable particularly in comparison to some places ive seen, so if anyone was to visit, this year would be ideal.  but somehow, i cant forsee any of my friends coming up here.  kinda depressing when you think about it that i wont get to show any of my friends mcgill nor montréal...

yeah, another self-pity trip but in a ways its true. theres not gonna be much else to do during the winter other than stay in the apartment with the guys unless i figure how to meet more people, but im still shy with introducing myself to people i dont know (i was honestly convinced the bank fixed me of that problem)...so i guess it kinda balances all of it out.  everyone kept saying i try too hard say, with girls, so i decided since the end of last year just to sit back and not do anything and basically thats what ive done and doing nothing has meant nothing has come of it, and im more bored and still single.  and so, that all said, this weekend has made me grumpily depressed.  winter here we come...

03/10/01(1030pm)-updates of the tv movie being filmed in front of our apartment and on our terrace coming soon. (woooooo!!!! movie sets, actors, makeup, lighting, directors, oh my! all on location in front of and using our apartment!).  also todays the french test, cooking week 4, le colloquy de poissy, some french babble, and why i-phone exists and no one uses it.  update coming momentarily...

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