practicalcat

Hello kittens and cupcakes! Long time no blog, but I've got a thing more suited to a journal than to other forms of social media, so it's going ( here under this cut )

Just got back from seeing the Wonder Woman movie on opening day! I need to remember to go to more matinee showings, my ticket was way less expensive than usual.

( Spoilers! )

The Thursday before last, I had an appointment to get my eyes examined, because I figured that I should take advantage of my Canadian coverage before I graduated and went back to the States.

(There was a brief "aw reality, no" period where I realized that I forgot that my Canadian health care was attached to my original student visa, which expired at the end of March. And they only update via snail mail. And I realized this Sunday night, when the following Monday was Victoria Day, so no one was answering phones. But I did get in touch with them Tuesday, and while they still required that I update it through snail mail, I was reminded that vision and dental are covered through my school rather than through my health care. So I didn't have to cancel my glasses appointment or my dental cleaning, and I just need to avoid getting sick or injured badly enough that I can't call someone Stateside to come and get me and take me to a doctor there where I am covered.)

Today, after frustrating shenanigans yesterday, I got my rent money transferred from my US account to my Canadian account. As I was leaving to do that, I got a call saying that my glasses were ready. Yay!



This is the first time I've gotten glasses that don't have wire frames, so I am occasionally distracted by light glinting off of these. It's a big hard to tell in the picture, but the frames are burgundy, so the first thing I thought the first time it happened was "omg LASERS WHAT THE -- oh wait". So I pretty much continue to not be a character in a science fiction story.

I did stagger a bit and feel a bit nauseous because my eyes and brain were like "WHAT IS THIS NEW INPUT HAPPENING HERE", but I think my eyes have adjusted at this point.

As briefly mentioned, I also had a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Well, it was originally a full appointment, but it ended up being just a cleaning because things are a bit haphazard with their scheduling because they are currently in a different location while they're remodeling the usual location. They offered to reschedule the Friday before last (when they kept calling me in class until I figured out how to mute my phone) but they said it would have to be in October. I declined and explained that I would probably no longer be living in Canada at that point.

The cleaning was largely unremarkable, except the point where my hygienist was like "So, Crest Complete has been known to stain some people's teeth". You will note that she didn't ask if I used Crest Complete first. It turns out I do (did), but the point here is that she was able to look at my teeth and determine the whitening toothpaste I was using by the stains it was leaving on my teeth. The whitening toothpaste I specifically bought because I drink tea and wanted to counteract staining.

What. The. Fox Bagel.

On one hand, I guess that'll teach me to just grab any old whitening toothpaste off the shelves. On the other, WHAT KIND OF LICKY-ENDED TROUT GARGLER ADVERTISES A TOOTHPASTE THAT STAINS YOUR TEETH BROWN AS "WHITENING"?!

Needless to say, when I got home and determined that I was indeed using Crest Complete, I tossed it in the garbage.

ETA: Okay, I'm pretty sure I googled "Crest Complete" and found information on staining, but now I'm finding it attached to the Crest Pro-Health rinse. Which is also annoying, because Canada doesn't put fluoride in their water, so I've needed to use a mouth rinse with it, and I bought several bottles of it when it was on sale. Ughhhhhhhhh.

In school news, I have decided that it was a good choice for me to just get a Masters in Library Studies/Science instead of going for the dual program and also getting a Masters in Archival Studies/Science, which my school also offers. For this first summer term, I'm taking Intro to Archives for Librarians and yes, libraries and archives are DEFINITELY DIFFERENT THINGS and wrapping my head around the organization of archives is kind of weird for my librarian brain.

I tried to make some phone calls on Monday (as it is now past midnight so it is officially Tuesday), but since Monday was Victoria Day, that was not going well. So instead I took myself on an ADVENTURE.

I also reorganized my pantry shelf so that I know what I have and what I need to eat up before August (ahhhh, I'm almost done with library school, AHHHH I NEED TO FIND A JOB). And then I did a tea rinse with orange pekoe tea, because supposedly that gives you coppery highlights and I happened to find a box of orange pekoe tea of a brand I don't drink on my shelf. My hair is not noticeably more red than before, so either it doesn't work, I did it wrong, or it's very subtle. But I'm sure you want to hear about the ADVENTURE.

Because I am a strawberry blonde nerd, I slathered sunscreen on my face and neck and legs (my dress was long-sleeved, so I didn't bother with those), put on my sun hat, loaded a water bottle into my owl backpurse (which is about the side of a large purse but can be carried on my back like a backpack) and set out for a place that has essential oils because I spent all day yesterday reading about essential oils and the crafty stuff you can do with them. And because I needed some kind of motivation for my ADVENTURE because otherwise it is difficult to leave the house. I mean, I have to put on clothes and sunscreen and decide how I am carrying my stuff (because the fashion industry does not want to give me cute clothes with pockets. One day, I will destroy them); and really, the internet is RIGHT THERE. There is always more internet.

Anyway, I had a place I was going that may or may not be closed because Victoria Day, but it's also in an area that has other shops that are probably open and WHATEVER, it doesn't matter because I just need a goal to motivate me to get through all the necessary "leaving the house" stuff. Which it did, obviously, because otherwise this post wouldn't be titled ADVENTURE.

My end location for this adventure is, according to Google Maps, about 2 kilometers away from where I started. But since I was going on an ADVENTURE, I was not looking for the most efficient route. I pretty much just stopped at each intersection and decided if I wanted to go south or east for this block while keeping in mind that I didn't want to get as far as 41st because I've walked along 41st multiple times now and I am on an ADVENTURE which means not doing what I've already done multiple times.

Mind you, I do not have any sort of internal compass, nor am I particularly familiar with street names where I do not regularly meet or get off of buses.

But I was on an ADVENTURE, so that didn't matter! I merrily wandered about, looking at all the pretty houses and keeping track of what number the east-west streets were. At one point, I saw that the road ahead of me appeared to be a dead end. I was disappointed to have to back track, but I decided to continue forward so I could look at the houses. I mean, I'd just have to look at the houses on the other side of the street on the way back, right?

But then, SURPRISE! The road was only a dead end for cars! Pedestrians could go around behind to a little pathway. I reminded myself to check the cross streets at the next intersection so I could come back again to follow the trail in the direction I didn't take, and happily skipped on through feeling most pleased with my decision to not back track just because it looked like a dead end. Insert metaphorical moral of the story here.

I left the pedestrian path and proceeded toward the intersection I was supposed to memorize. But then I was distracted by a FRIGGIN' CASTLE. Look, it had a stone-looking exterior and battlements like you see on the castles kids draw, and it had a huge gate with a giant tree on it, it was a FRIGGIN' CASTLE. Just small. I decided that it was actually a faerie castle and it just looked like a large-ish stone house with battlements and a really cool gate with an awesome pathway leading down to the recessed door, and skipped on about my merry way forgetting to look at the street signs because FAERIE CASTLE Y'ALL.

This was in a hilly area, and for some reason a lot of people had their garages open -- you know, the ones that open onto the street when the house itself is further up and back? You see them in cities. Anyway, there were a lot of open garages and I was disappointed to discover that they're not actually attached to the house in any way. They're just boxes for cars. No tunnels from the house, which seems like a waste. Tunnels are AWESOME.

I hit another dead end that was actually a dead end, but there was a pedestrian walkway leading away from it at a right angle, so I was again pleased with my decision to follow that road all the way down. I was bemused to find myself crossing what looked like trolley tracks, since I was unaware of any trolleys, but continued on never the less.

I continued on, looking for the named street that my end goal was on, but mostly enjoying my ADVENTURE and the pretty houses. Then I found myself on Granville, which is about half a kilometer further east than where I was going. So I went south a block and then followed one of the numbered streets back east. Then the road got a bit twisty and weird and I ended up on 41st anyway, but from the direction I don't usually walk, so that was acceptable for the ADVENTURE. I walked a block, crossed East Boulevard, and tripped over the trolley tracks again. Oh yeah, I said to myself, there are trolley tracks between East and West Boulevard. Doy. So that was one mystery solved.

The store I was going to was closed, because Victoria Day. Oh well. However, the drugstore nearby was open AND THEY HAD JELLY BABIES. This resulted in the following texts to my significant other:

Guess who has 2 thumbs & a girlfriend who just bought him jellybabies?

Assuming you haven't had some sort of epic kitchen accident, I mean

(He had not had an epic kitchen accident. He just has to wait until next time we see each other to get his jelly babies.)

Then I sat down and downed all my water and read a book for awhile. I also ate the entire bag of fruitsnacks I'd bought for myself, oops. Then I got myself some dinner (while reading my book. I kind of enjoy eating out with a book) and ambled on back home. I saw more neat houses and saw some forget-me-nots (which are one of my favorite flowers) and probably confused some people by standing in front of their house with my eyes closed for several minutes (in my defense I was smelling the wisteria they had growing all over their front gate/surrounding fence). I also walked a block further west than I had to so that I could minimize the amount of "places I've walked before" on the ADVENTURE.

To cap off the ADVENTURE, I took out the recycling. That's not the capping off part, that part was on my way back in when I saw a crow try to eat a mouse. I didn't know crows did that, but I guess I'm not too surprised. However, the mouse was having none of it, and scampered into the grass along the fence to the yard of the house where I live. I don't know if it crawled under the fence or not, but it would explain why my roommate's cat refused to come in with me if it did. He didn't bring the mouse inside though, so it's just ended up an uncertainty principle kind of thing.

So that was my five hour ADVENTURE. And it's been another hour writing it up, so I think I'll wrap it here.

It turns out, it's easier to be responsible when I immediately get up and take a shower instead of just tooling around on my computer in bed. Making a "To Do" list probably didn't hurt either.

So, it's over halfway through the term now. I will be attending each class I have seven more times. I'm not entirely certain how that happened, but I shall be taking this "get up and shower instead of sitting around in your bed" and "make to do lists" knowledge and applying it. Hopefully I will be able to school more effectively. On the other hand, the "screw it" principle has been working out pretty well, both in class and in krav maga. "Haha, no" is going to keep me in class longer than trying to do something that frustrates me (as demonstrated by the time I had to leave krav maga about half an hour in because my chest hurt and I couldn't focus and had to go cry in the SLAIS lounge). But since I've got anxiety-brain messing with me, and my grades no longer matter as long as I don't flunk, I'm trying to use "screw it" more.

On the recommendation of one of the other students in my Open Knowledge course, I checked out a book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. It's a really fascinating look into how the human brain works. I'm hoping I can use it to get myself to exercise more -- I'd really like to work on my core muscles, as I have never done a sit-up in my life. Not for lack of trying mind you, I just...apparently don't have the core strength. Hopefully improving my core will also improve my posture without me having to strap boards to my back and shoulders.

My iPod stopped being acknowledged by my computer around the beginning of the month. Didn't even show up as a drive in "My Computer" when I plugged it in, much less by iTunes. At first it was okay, because there was still music on it, and I was super-busy. Finally, the music went away when I was trying to fix the damn thing, so that sucked. But I got it repaired today! I also called two whole locations without getting phone anxiety, woot. The repair guy wasn't entirely sure he could fix it, because I've had this thing for about nine years at this point and he hadn't worked on a first gen in awhile. But it's working now! I didn't have to buy a new thing and mess with my iTunes or anything! Yaaaaaaaaay!

In other news, I made goat stew because I found bone-in, skin-on frozen goat chunks at an Asian market and decided "why not?" It didn't work out that well, possibly because I cooked it with the skin still on. Kinda greasy. But then I put a curry mix into it and it was great! And burny. So much delicious burning.

I signed up for Krav Maga again! And, once again, I have to rush from Krav Maga to a 6PM class. Oh well, I did it just fine this time last year!

We had warm-ups I'd never done before at this session. Both were partner warm-ups. One had one partner lie on their back while the other person did something that was a cross between an upright plank at a trust-fall: they basically held themselves stiff and leaned back so that the first partner was supporting them with their feet, and held it while the first partner did leg-presses using the second partner as a weight.

Like I said, trust-fall.

The second had one person doing a plank while the other person laid their feet across the first's back and did ten push-ups. I have awful core strength, so the only reason I made it was that I planked from my knees instead of my feet. I've enlisted a friend to remind me to roll out my yoga mat and plank every day. I'm going to build up some core strength, and maybe one day soon I will be able to do sit-ups. Or something.

I should see if I still have the instructions another friend wrote up for some of the stuff she did in boot camp...

Nothing of particular interest has happened lately, hence the lack of blogging. But we did release the new version of the UBC Copyright website that I've been working on since January (and the rest of the office was working on before January), so you should check it out and tell me how pretty and easy to use it is.

There's also a throw-down potentially about to go down over in the UK about whether or not a monkey's selfie is copyright of the photographer who had his camera stolen by the monkey or whether it's in the public domain.

The copyright holder of a photograph is generally owned by the person who takes the photo (so, technically, when you ask someone to take a picture of your family when you're on vacation and you post it to the 'net? Copyright violation! At least in Canada and the U.S. and, presumably, Britain), unless it's work-for-hire. But monkeys can't own copyright because us humans say they don't. So the counter-argument to the photographer's claim of "I'm a professional and I went there to take pictures of monkeys, it's mine, stop using it or pay me royalties" is "the monkey took the picture, but monkeys can't own copyright, therefore it's in the public domain and I can use it how I want".

Props to the monkey, though. Selfies are surprisingly hard to do without it turning into a blurry smear. Or maybe I'm just terrible with my cellphone camera...

My supervisor is off at a conference in Victoria today! Also tomorrow. And Wednesday. And Thursday and Friday as well. We both figured that I could handle being alone in the office for a week; call it a test run for when I'm going to be doing the same thing in August. I've been told that I can talk to the head of Permissions if I've got questions and that my supervisor will try to check his email.

...So, naturally, today I get three questions. Please keep in mind that between the day I started up again (May 5th) and last Friday, I've answered twelve questions (not that we've only had twelve questions, it's just that a lot of people contact my supervisor directly rather than using the general account they should). Two of these questions I ultimately forwarded on to my supervisor to deal with when he gets back. The other came over the phone, and you all know how I love doing stuff on the phone. I ultimately ended up sending that one instructions via email, because I had a write-up already that he could use, so yay me. Still, kind of a "WAUGH" start to my week 'alone' in the office.

I've been consuming a lot of the response to the Isla Vista shootings. It could just be where I'm looking, but I'm seeing a lot of people (not just women, which is gratifying) talking about the toxic sexism embedded in our culture, specifically the strains in the MRA communities. I hope we continue to talk about that rather than getting derailed by people blaming it on his being neuroatypical.

And speaking of the U.S., let's have a moment of silence for the people who've died serving in our armed forces. And then a lot of noise to get those who've come back the support and help that they need.

Saturday I did nothing at all and it was glorious.

Sunday I was vaguely responsible and took everything off my shelf in the pantry and put it back in an organized fashion so that I know what I do and don't have on that shelf. So far, it has not devolved back to chaos. So far. I also went out for Ethiopian food (which was delicious) with some friends (who were, as always, awesome), and we all went and caught a double-feature of Akira and Paprika. I'm not entirely sure that I understood the former. I think I need to read up on Japanese storytelling and then watch it again. Paprika was pretty good, though.

Monday, I attempted to take initiative with an answer to a follow-up question I got. My supervisor's been telling me that I don't need to run things past him if the question is just "you said this, so I do this, right?" Weeeeell, I incorrectly worded a thing. Fortunately, he was in the office at the time, so he saw it right away and came over to talk to me about it, and I whipped up a more correct version of what I'd said and sent it off. So, embarrassing, but I'm going to keep trying. Yaaaaaay.

I also spent yesterday after work having an ADVENTURE. By which I mean I bought new tinted moisturizer and then took the bus all the way to the Value Village so I could take advantage of the sale going on to finish up my costume for the Dawn of Steam release party. I found a brown-ish shirt (okay, it's more like "on the brownish side of off-white", but I found a "leather" vest that's definitely brown; and really, all the elements are there. As long as I'm wearing the boots and the hat (Jeff found me a hat that will at least work for the day), and the rest of my outfit gives off an impression of "brown", I'm sure everyone will be satisfied. I may trawl some dollar stores for toy knives, but I'm kind of lazy.

Today, I finally concluded that it is just too damn warm for me to wear my long black coat. Even with the inner warm bits taken out. Too hot. This makes me sad, because my warm weather pocket-bearing clothing isn't nearly as cape-like.

I also created a LinkedIn account today. I was trying to find someone's email, and I thought it was available on their account, and since I needed to eventually make one anyway...

Now I have to fill it out so that it's not just my name. Bleh.

Also considering whether or not tea can be used as a marinade. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this. Also, red wine and mustard seems like it should be a thing. Is it a thing?

TO GOOGLE!