old friends and old habits visited

2 weeks off school and off to Boston I went, where muwciers supposedly hid nearby…only they’d mostly left for homeland.

To start off the break, I stayed in Wellesley College with Rif and Manni. Because they still had finals and papers due, I was left more or less to myself, which wasn’t bad and I did lots more drawing and walked the streets of Boston, thinking and speaking to myself. I had many a discussion, even heated debates. The college is very pretty, the old buildings mixed with the new block-ish stuff. Frozen lake and fancy street lamps added to the yumminess to mine eyes. Topping it all off with a bit of icing from the sky, a snowstorm went by the first day of my stay, and I went traying (sliding downhill on “borrowed” cafeteria trays) with friends of friends, while the two stayed to work. It was too much fun (and so began the abuse of the word “too”, the first habit to return)! Everything was just toooo good. Of course, nights were spent talking to sleep, like the good old days, of what seems like a past life now, with my good old friends.

Slater, as everyone refers to it by, quite affectionately too, is the old house by the lake for international kids. The caretaker/manager/boss lady had kindly stocked up the place with food for the kids staying through winter. And such greatness is her mind, to have stocked it with a variety of yummies, even marmite. And I was the one to first taste from that little jar of black ooze. It is a very nice old house, in which the radiators seemed to clank tonk wonkwonkwonk tink konk in conversation. They were very musical and rhythmic.

Later in the week, Rif leaves for home, and Mannat and I are in New York city with her brother and cousin. The city really doesn’t sleep. First night I arrived, I was welcomed very warmly to a Romanian Christmas eve dinner, friends of Rattan’s. Good food, company and laughter. We leave the place midnight, but the streets had showed no signs of shutting down yet. Christmas day, we made a gnormous amount of food. Let’s see…Daal enough to feed an army (but we were 5), Bhindi, Cucumber raita, salad, fish with mustard and ginger, cranberry fruit and nut bread, turron from eSpain, Rasamalais (yummm) and Fruit chaat. Plus flowery tea and sparkly red wine. Moving after this was quite a task, but we did, and went to the cinema. Returning home at around 1am, the street showed no difference in liveliness. The next day, I spent in the museum of modern art followed by the Gugenheim show on Kandinsky which were both too cool. I love art museums. That night we went again for drinks at the Romanian house. This time, we arrived home around 2.30am and still the streets were just as alive. New York got the right idea I guess. I don’t like cities much but NY is, as far as cities go, great.

I would also like to add, before moving on, that the functionings of Mannat’s family is to me, too amazing. Such fun, understanding and friendly fighting that I greatly admire. Magnified by the comically exaggerated difference in size between the two siblings.

Ending my trip in Wellesley. Mannat worked in the day while I slept, read, wrote etc.Nights we cooked: A-Z soup, A-Z pizza (which looked like a volcano after emerging from the oven) instant noodles too. Leftovers made lunch. Spent one last day in Boston, going through Chinatown and the MFA, another art museum. New Year’s eve was dinner at Bubur Chacha (malaysian restaurant) and standing frozen by the wharf watching the fireworks.

That more or less concluded my 2 week break. I will miss pronouncing my “th” with “thh” and abusing the “too” and listening to Mannat talk about Hegel, Benjamin and all those other thinkers.

For now, I’m back at SFU, moved and unpacked into my new room with a kitchen and all. First day of school gone and on to the next.

Semester End Fall 09

One down. 5 more to go, doesn’t sound like too much. Putting it down before I move on:

The term started out a little shaky as some might have noticed, for me at least, it was quite an emotional ride, finding my feet and my head. But it all eventually got ridden out, and all turned to a slow pace. At first this change was a welcome, of feeling relaxed, but it turned into boredom. 8.3o math class, too much free time and no extracurricular going-ons on regular basis. Friends I made, I love, but my impatience is there too, I want family from them. Too demanding, I know.

Intertidal Marine (invertebrate) Biology (IMB) at the Vancouver aquarium was my weekly escape from school. It’s an education programme run by the aquarium for high school kids, grade 11 mostly. They come in for 2 hours of bio info download on invertebrates from the local intertidal ecosystem. The programme is run in a lab, affectionately known as the wetlab, with little tanks full of live specimen, microscopes, props and infoboards. My task is to tell them about the biology of these creatures, point it out, put them in their hands and so on, encouraging questions and the want to touch. This is such a relief for me every week, to go and get a new group of students, each time, with very different group and individual personalities. Keeps my mind alive. Some groups just don’t want to be there, which leaves me feeling bummed after the programme, whilst others are so into the whole thing, that they can happify my mood for the whole day. Apart from that, I love hanging out with the other volunteers and staff. They are too friendly. Jake, a guy from my usual Thursday escapes, took me cross country skiing and kayak rolling. I get weekly geeky updates from the aquarium, brilliant! The animals there are also too adorable. esp the otters. One night, a bunch of us went at low tide to the nearby intertidal zone to find some specimens for the lab. Wet, cold and dark. It was so much fun though.

The term “midterm” is a lie. Everything it suggests, just forget it. It is perpetual and not limited to “mid-”. The test kept coming till the very last day of classes, followed immediately by the finals. I dreaded the finals period. When it came, I was feeling unmotivated to read what I’ve read before in those thick texts. In my struggle to, I came to the conclusion that I must not fight, so I relaxed. Instead of reading/working with 1.5 hour break intervals, I had free time with 1.5 hour read/work breaks. Which proved to have worked well in this term. What did I do in my free time then? Some amount spent on wondering if this whole plan was a bad idea, another portion on watching movies I borrowed from the library. Quite a large chunk was spent on wandering around, walking to the park, around campus, to town, despite the cold. I knit some, in fact, the day before Calculus finals I completed my half finished hat, in a spur of inspired procrastination. A lot of time was also spent on drawing. I wouldn’t dare say art. I think I’ve spent too much time away from that which had made me happy as a kid, drawing and painting. Most of the instinct I have lost, I need to think of what to draw, I need to justify what I draw. But that wasn’t what it was before, so I practised during the finals period to ‘just draw’. Very productive period I had too, finished one sketch book with pretty nice stuff.

Next term, I will be in a townhouse, and that will be a whole new world..with a kitchen.

After all that stress, of not doing what I should be but I’m having fun, I was going to put myself on a jetplane to Boston, Wellesley.

Halloween at The Aquarium

For the week before Halloween, the aquarium where I volunteer at has special programmes planned. Bug-eating, slime and bats! Hell yes I say.

Today, I stood for  an hour and a half by a table with jars of baked crickets and a tank of beetle larvae. “Feeling brave? Wanna try a bug? It’s bacon and cheese flavoured. No? What about BBQ beetle larvae? Or would you just like to touch the live ones?” And encountered some pretty enthusiastic kids. “Can I have one more?” I couldn’t say no to that tone and those tiny outstrectched hands! “Thank you, Mrs Bug lady!Bye!” I also had to pop some myself. Taste like slightly cheesed sesame seeds. “I’ll eat one if you eat one” was also a common response, either directed at me or the parents. One kid crie and apologised, but I swear I didn’t make him eat it.

There was also a station for Hagfish. Boy, are they gross. Slime shooting blind scavengers. To think they were thinking of replacing egg whites with hagfish slime…eek.

I can’t remember the last time I had fun with little kids. They always frighten me by the way I frightened them. But this time, I wasn’t frightening because I had crayons and paper bats. Some kids are pretty creative and non-confrming. Some couldn’t imagine and were bound by realism. Craft-making is so fun. I wish I could haven shown them how to make pop-up cards.

And so, I spent one Sunday. Better than studying for that darned Chemistry test tomorrow.

So far so good

People ask me if I’m adjusting to this place alright. I feel there is nothing difficult about it! Nothing could be more difficult than that, no? Different language, different understanding of the word ‘organised’, different toilet system… Going from ’sab kuch milega’ and conservative people (I now it’s slightly contradictory),  to seriously organised and liberal was pretty easy.

Small things that make me smile at the change:

Buses that go regularly from school and transits that take me everywhere. The little LED sign in the bus that tells me where it’s going to stop next. Hellos and byes and thanks shouted through the train like bus to the driver. Bus drivers that say Have a good day. The buses here have buke racks and a hydraulic system that makes it go hissssss, and lower its doors for the elderly and disabled, like a humble creature. Old people. Galore! It makes me happy to see them going around so much, on transit, with their walking sticks or electric wheelchairs. Elderly and disabled friendly is most things. It was also very sweet to walk across a bridge with engraved tiles that read (not exactly): Marge and Deb..10 years and strong. It’s nice that people can be with anyone they want, hold hands, and picnic.Thrift stores. Yes, I am not cashed enough to go to normal shops. But it is amazing the wealth of stuff to find. Some things are brand new and go for so little. It becomes a game to find something nice and cheap. It’s also nice I can drink out of almost every tap.

So, it’s been good so far. Got an awesome volunteer job at the local Aquarium, so I’m learning loads of stuff. Trying to learn as much as I can about local issues with the environment.

One thing I can’t get used to. Not yet. Is the sudden greyness of the sky and bone chilling drizzle.