i am in class blogging again. it feels good to be back. i am sorry that Lisa was not as in to her souvenir as i would have hoped. maybe if she finds her marionettes things will look up. Bryan appeared to like his Dutch cigars, no surprise there.
on another front, beyond the everyday latin and taking Lisa out for a Birthday Lunch (yum), Steve's dad had a heart attack yesterday. He is only 49, so you can imagine the shock. He is still in the hospital, but is supposed to be going to recover. i imagine there will be some dieting going on. i don't know much else, so i will leave the topic until i have more information.
our plane left an hour late because there was an eleven plane waiting list for the runway. what a drag. the good news was that there was only a twenty minute line at customs and they didn't make me pay any duties on the rum or the cigars i brought in.
i may go the the museum with Lisa on Wednesday. I have a lot to do, but i would like to engage in something cultural for the next couple of weeks. I am looking forward to the Mandragola production on Saturday. Must break the news to Steve that i am going however.
Well, i have a gazillion emails in my inbox and should probably copy out the notes Matthew is so kindly taking for me. Yeah for nice guys who do favours for people!!!!
This is a happy student signing off.

I am currently in the process of having my last “tea time” for a very long while. Then I must pack. The last shower has already been taken.
So, some thoughts on cruises. The onboard entertainment is pretty good. Worth going to. The food and drinking is awesome. The staff constitute the most helpful and agreeable group of people on the planet. I would not choose this type of vacation for my money spending, however. There is too little to do on sea-days other than eat and I don’t feel that good about eating all the time. I am very very happy my aunt signed us up for the morning yoga classes even though it was an extra fee. It gave us something to get up for and something to do in the morning before breakfast. I don’t feel I have solely been killing my body.
I don’t like lobster very much. I tried it for the first time at dinner last night. It was okay. I should have had the salmon. I am going to miss our crew members, Marlo (waiter), Robert (assistant-waiter - but if we don’t like him, he told us his name is Marlo, ha!), Antonio (room attendant) and Antonio’s room attendant whose name I have yet to catch but I have spoken to numerous times.
Bryan, your biscotti is much better than the pistachio one I am currently eating.
Ok. Back to why I am not as keen on cruises. Everything is about spending money and sitting in the sun. without money and when allergic to the sun, this is not much. Port days were great. I am chatty, so I would go talk to the people at the bars on the beach, bob up and down and shop with my aunt and mum. If you are going to go on a cruise, try to get one with lots of shore excursions. I think they make better memories and pictures too. Speaking of pictures, yesterday I must have taken at least 50 in a span of about fifteen minutes of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Cruises would also be good for honeymooners as it would get you talking to different people at the meals and something to do other than stare into each other’s eyes all day.
Yesterday I didn’t do much. I finished all the scansion and vocab of my latin homework and read some Foucault. Today I have read one article for the Renaissance class. I still want to go take a look at some perfume, pack and spend my ten dollars in the onboard casino. The boat is very rocky today. It is not nice out. Not raining, but a lot of fog in the distance.
Okay. I am all over the place and should probably stop. This post has gone nowhere, but as I left you all hanging yesterday, I thought I owed it to you. I am looking forward to catching up. Some specific shout-outs:
Lisa: Meet you at 1pm at the LAC for lunch Monday, my treat? If this is okay, pls don’t call to confirm, I will be exhausted Sunday when we finally get in and I still have to finish translating my Latin
Vero: I will call you the first evening I am at home. Maybe Monday. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. I will be seeing Steve, and I have to get prescriptions filled. I have not forgotten about you though.
Bryan: I am locking myself in the library Monday morning, drop in to say hi, but don’t monopolize my time too much – I AM SO BEHIND ON THE PAPERS DUE IN LIKE 5 WEEKS! AH!
I love you all. Wish me a safe flight home and a joyous reunion with my Booey.

I am currently listening to Billy Idol’s Eyes Without a Face. We just got in from St. Maartens. I have souvenirs for everyone. They are not nice enough for birthday presents too (mainly because I don’t know how you have decorated your room in Toronto Veronica, because there was some gorgeous Dutch stuff). Ah well. Last night after blogging I went to the sushi bar and did some reading which I finished this morning on the stationary bike in the gym. I then fell asleep in the Thalassotherapy lounge, woke up when it was dark and mis-read my clock thinking it was already 7:15pm, when it was just quarter to. So I ran to the theatre for nothing. We watched a dance and orchestra tribute to the great American composers Cole Porter, Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Fats Waller. Except for the Gershwin section, it was very nice. Unfortunately, they decided to mike the performers. Not only were many of the singers powerful enough to not need to be miked, but it just seemed to run contrary to the work of those great men. Plus, there were so many anorexic women in nothing that the one woman whose ribs you couldn’t count from the back actually managed to look fat in comparison. Of course, we all know there is not a professional dancer on the planet even remotely overweight. It was sad. They were not attractive at all. Stick legs.
St. Maartens was great. We went to Dawn Beach. We were only there for three hours which was really sad. The waves were glorious. Divine. In Ecclesias Gloria. You could just go out into the warm water and bob with them. The sand was as fine as in Antigua (pronounced Ant-tee-gah) but the waves were larger requiring a little more pushing. I had a great conversation with an older man (wife and a kid, not old) from Conneticut about the Boston Bruins vs. the Montreal Canadians. Then I drank to Carib Beers (taste like Corona but come with a lime) that only cost 0.75$ each. I don’t usually drink beer. It was a nice change and cheap too. I read some more for school.
We took the taxi back to the port and then walked into St. Phillipsburg to shop. Of course, we were on a time schedule because god forbid we would miss Battle of the Sexes Trivia (I am not there right now. I am on strike). Apparently we paid a fortune for tickets to visit all the islands to have to come back to the ship to play trivia games. Absolutely ridiculous. My allergies are acting up again. Now they are all over my feet. It burns. I can associate much more with those of you who suffer with eczema now. It was so sad to be on the beach in the most intense yellow sun ever and not be able to get out from under my umbrella’s shade.
I brown bagged my lunch again. This time it was my Mum who stole a sandwich. On the walk to and from town I burnt my scalp. Usually I don’t wear a hat because I want my hair to go blonder, but, as I am sure you can imagine, my poor little scalp no longer has much protection from the rays now that it is in pretty cornbraids. Three people other than my mother have made the reference to Bo Derrick (?) in the movie Ten. I have no idea what they are talking about still, but continue to blush appropriately.
Well, you may have figured out that I am not responding to any comments you may post. That is because the internet on the ship is at 0.75$ a minute. Hence, the beer was as costly. I write in word, sign in, and cut and paste into blogger. I am not checking my email either. I will admit to sending Steve a text message. However, I am talking lots of pictures I will be happy to share once I have returned.
I am going to go and try to find some ginger ale. Read some more or maybe do some latin in the sleeping, oh, I mean thalassotherapy lounge. I will probably bring the laptop with me for the music. I am now listening to For Adults Only by Miles Davis.

Good afternoon. Today was not too bad. Though I am rather inclined to rip the entire front area of my torso completely off, the day at the beach was fun nonetheless. However, I will begin with last night.
Walking back to our stateroom I crossed my mother’s path and managed to run in before her. Woohoo. My mother walks around the ship at the pace of a snail. I proceeded to flop on the bed and do some much needed latin homework. Then, after showering, getting dressed and brushing my hair I waited a good hour before the other members of my party of three were ready to descend to the martini bar. I had an Alize Gold Fancy Martini. Wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad. We ate breadsticks and sat at the bar watching the bartender make others’ drinks. I had lamb shank for dinner. Yum. Tiramisu for dessert – double yum.
Then we went to the theatre where I saw the most amazing dance act ever (the woman was a pretzel I swear!) and a very good stand up comedy act by Theing Fu. He left the boat today to go to Vegas. Then came back to the room and slept.
This morning I got up kind of late and we went for breakfast. Eggs Benedict are nasty. Then in a typical student fashion, I went to the breakfast buffet and stole rolls, cold cuts, cheese slices and fruit to brown bag lunch at the beach. I donated a sandwich to one of the beach vendors who looked like he was starving.
Antigua has the most beautiful beach on the planet. The water is the palest blue. The sand is like powdered sugar. I got my hair done in corn braids and swam. There was enough sand in the water that I thought I would be able to do this, but I think it affected me anyways. Then we did a little shopping. I got postcards and an orange bracelet, earrings and necklace set. No rasta stuff for Steve because I was with the mum and aunt.
I am now going to go do Renaissance readings in the sun in my bathrobe. Maybe I will take a nap. The show is early tonight, so I will be bringing sushi there. Tomorrow is the big shopping day in St. Maartens. I am looking forward to it. The sun is glorious, there is always tons of breeze and the water is warm. Antigua gets two thumbs up.

I am in my room eating sushi. You might be asking why I am sitting on the bed of the tiniest room on the planet, albeit eating gourmet food, when I could be outside on deck basking in the sun, walking around Puerto Rico, or relaxing in the thalassotherapy pool. That is a very good question. Short answer – I am allergic to the sun. We are going to Antigua tomorrow and have already paid to spend the whole day on the beach. I am hoping that this allergy has been a misdiagnosis and after applying some cortisone and refraining from using suntan lotion, mosturizer (and perhaps even soap!) I will be back on my feet.
I blogged this morning on the ship’s computers, but discovered that their browser doesn’t accept cookies. Ten minutes of vacation wasted. My laptop is now set-up for wifi, so I am going to be able to post this when I go down to the martini bar.
Speaking of martinis, last night I had a sour apple one…and three glasses of wine at dinner. Surrounded by a thousand people having a great time, two of them being family members, I suddenly felt all alone. I wanted Steve, Veronica, Lisa and Bryan as well as my Boo. I went to bed right after dessert and missed the musical presentation “Let’s Rock” which my mum and aunt have tried to convince me was good, I think the title doomed it to begin with, and some horrible karaoke performances.
We did some shopping. I have a new bathing suit which is already too small from all the eating. I signed up with my aunt for yoga classes four mornings. I hate yoga, but she had never tried it. I guess it is better than nothing and the other three days I am going to be working out in the morning on either the elliptical trainer or the bike.
Puerto Rico was a bit of a letdown. The old city is very pretty. There were people flying kites that were high enough I was afraid they might crash into a plane. We walked in the sun, but the shopping wasn’t any great shakes and we didn’t want to pay for a taxi to go to the beaches. So we are back.
I am having a good time, don’t get me wrong, but I must admit that the most fun of it all thus far has been calling Steve and hearing about the weather Montreal has been getting. Oh, apparently I am not very attractive because despite being really drunk and dressed in a little black formal dress from Holt Renfrew, the 18-year old boy who eats dinner with us didn’t say more than two sentences to me despite my doing my best to talk to him. I wish Bryan were here so I could watch him dazzle my aunt and Mom with his dancing skills and other pretentious habits that would fit right in *smiles.
Ok. I had better get some homework done. I am not getting very far on that front. I may be blogging more often now that I may no longer be able to sit in the sun.
I miss you all and wish you were here too. My Mum and aunt are fun and all, but they don’t replace my friends. Plus, they mock me. Oh wait, you guys do too. Hmmm…do you love me after all? I promise not to be a sad drunk again tonight.

my laptop is now packed, so i am using the computer downstairs, which never happens. Steve and i went out for dinner, i proceeded to have too much to drink. then he helped me pack. i am sure that i forgot tons of important stuff, but i guess i will just have to buy more when we get there. ha.
i would like to take a moment to discuss my inability to create for the greater publicizing world. the current issue of the void will be about escape. now, i was lying in bed awake this morning at 6 am, worrying about the upcoming midterm, which went really well incidentally, and i came up with tons of topics. articles on painkillers, obesity, suicide and even a documentary on my cruise experience all seem appropriate. unfortunately, the deadline to submit a query is saturday and i am not articulate enough anyways. what i would like to know, is which is your preferred method of escapism. i think i eat to relieve myself of the problems of this world more than anything else. chocolate and starchy cookies - particularly of the oatmeal or tea biscuit variety. comfort food is so satisying.
i must admit, that as i have to get up at 3 this morning, i would really appreciating my parents arriving home so i can find out where the adaptor for the digital camera is being kept. it would be nice to bring it along. so would batteries, but i don't know where those are, let alone if we have any at all.
well, i want to go to bed. articulation is not my strong suit when i am tired. i will post at least once from the cruise ship, don't miss me too much. i might even post a pic or two if my bro ever gets home.
enjoy your spring break!

wow. the title of the blog rhymes. it's amazing how the little things can be equally uplifting as they can be devestating - like when you don't get what you order for valentine's day dinner. somehow a little thing like that can end up being the cause of an entire evening spent bawling one's eyes out in bed. lovely. poor Steve. i also gained 2.5 lbs last week. great. i am on a diet, but there is no way it was muscle mass because i can feel the muscles in my legs atrophying.
so yeah. after managing a relatively productive morning (two articles and five lines of latin) i went out with Tim for tea. hehe alliteration. it was nice. the tea and Tim. last night i went to bed at nine thirty instead of doing the work i needed to. then i spent the whole night dreaming the weirdest dreams. really odd. i can't remember now, but when i woke up this morning, i know i had a pretty good recollection of the dream sequences.
well, my history professor is done reiterating the midterm exam format for the umpteenth (no, no fourth) time. oh wait, there he goes again. well, i need to start the email writing cycle this class has become the setting for during the past 6 weeks. have a good evening.

i finished watching season 5 of the gilmore girls last night when i got home. i thought i was watching myself as Rory was self-destructing in the last episode. Lovely. i went to bed.
this morning i have not been as productive as possible. i meandered around the house aimlessly. i read three chapters that will be on my exam wednesday and realized there is absolutely NO WAY i am getting all the readings for this week done. Luckily, i am missing the last class this week in Italian Renaissance, so i will not get caught. i did read over the draft i finished yesterday and that assignment is now done. i am supposed to be writing a different paper right now. I am hoping the act of articulating thoughts on a screen will inspire me to get a move on. i should not have permitted myself a nap in the sun streaming through my window. i realized when i was nodding off and enjoying the heat that there will be plenty of time for this kind of activity on the cruise ship. oh well. the nap gave me a headache.
i am going out to dinner with Steve. the outfit i am wearing is picked out. i told him i will leave here around 4:30 to go to his house. that was an optimistic appraisal. though his presents are bagged, my overnight stuff is not. oh well. if i am late, he will cope. i need to get a rough draft of this done.
well, my candy is almost done, meaning my tea must be steeped. off i go to the world of working...

Wow. One hundred posts. That's a lot. Obviously i don't have enough to do...
i don't really feel like blogging tofay, but like all the activities in my life that i should be savouring, somehow i have anaged to internalize it as an obligation. great.
Steve and i fought twice yesterday. i got out of the car on not so nice terms which then degenerated into my falling asleep dreaming of going to tarts and vicars in the sluttiest costume ever. which everyone knows is very very unlike me. if i show up, you will know we are broken up, not that i think we are, but it could happen. there was screaming, as usual. i am not a calm or particularly nice individual and telling him i didn't give a fuck what his parents thought was just antagonistic (our fight started full bore in the entrance of his house and, yes, i slammed the door despite his dad being asleep). somehow, in the heat of the moment, i managed to justify this with a very contrite "well, he's the one whose decided that we should continue living our lives in his parents homestead, in perpetuity", but on the other hand, i also know that was unfair. i care what my parents think too. i shouldn't be mad because he is considerate. i don't give a fuck what they think, but i do care about him, which he saw as mutually exclusive propositions. oh well. i am tired of fighting. i am tired of complaining. i am tired of getting up in the morning.
well, that last paragraph would lead you to believe i was contemplating suicide, wouldn't it. Alas, no. i am currently cooking lentil soup and made myself a very healthy egg salad wrap for lunch. i was waiting for my brother to get out of the shower so i could put some water in the kettle and make myself some tea. i have a paper to finish writing. i also read 2 articles this morning. i have been semi-productive if you factor in the laundry too.
I presume Jon Cayer would never deign to read this, but in case anyone who knows him accidentally comes across this - CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN! For those of you who don't know him, he got accepted to Yale with a 6-year fellowship in Medieval French literature this week. It's inspiring. Success is achievable (you just have to be as brilliant as Jon!).

i am really fed up of people criticizing theories of how society works because they can find an example that either (a) doesn't fit in the system or (b) pokes a whole in the system. i think that historians in particular are proving to be most obnoxious about this. philosophical systems and theories are almost inevitably being presented as heuristic devices - not the blueprint to all knowledge (unless of course, you're that nut Hegel).
so, historians are criticizing any system for understanding the social phenomena they study. why? do they refuse to discuss it using language? no. but the language they adopt is always a conceptualization of phenomena, that blurs the specifics of any particularlity. by calling "rape" rape, you are applying a definition to it that, though you admit is sometimes flawed or unclear, is still required to actually discuss a group of phenomenon that have a lot in common. you don't deny the efficacity of that particular heuristic device (the adoption of conceptual labels called language) but you will critique Foucault for attempting to provide an interesting method of looking at the modern world by interpreting the ancien regime in a new way. foucault doesn't even attempt to be a historian. and what is the point of history if you aren't going to attempt to learn something worthwhile from it rather than just study separate cases. that type of history is not one i want to engage in anyways.
oh well. this is spurred on by general conversations in my Violence and Disorder Seminar with Professor McSheffrey. No one has actually been this stubborn in holding the other camp's point of view, i am putting up a tad of a strawman to defend the theorists' projects. oh wait. that's a heuristic device - i'm not allowed to do that.
i am doing well for your info. not getting much work done, but doing well. no latin homework for the week-end. woohoo. must write a paper tonight. ciao.

i am at work taking illegal photocopies. don't let the powers that be in on the secret.
i was going to do a nice long post before going to bed last night, but blogger was down doing system maintenance. i didn't have an internet connection for most of the day yesterday, so that is why there was no post. my latin test could have gone better. i found out michel foucault's life coincided slightly with my own. this was news.
well, i had better start printing my paper ... more illicit activity. what a rebel i am today.

hi. it's grey outside. i hate days like this. no amount of indoor lighting can make up for the dreariness. i still have tons of work to do before tomorrow at 2:45 when both my week begins and my first latin test of the semester. i tried studying some yesterday, but i ended up falling asleep.
my new mattress was delivered by Steve in his Dad's pickup on Friday. Friday night was fun and oh-so-counter productive. i made my new bed, with mattress pad and it was so comfy that i didn't want to go to sleep, so i stayed up until 5am watching season 5 of the gilmore girls. luckily, i am now so behind on my schoolwork that there is absolutely no chance that i will end up watching it instead of doing my homework.
i am mostly posting because i know certain people get worried when i don't post over a five day period. i got cornered by sandra when i answered my cellphone yesterday, so it is back to it's traditional "silent" setting. i need to switch to caller ID rather than voicemail. also, there is more chance i will call people back if they don't tell me they were just calling to check if i was free when i was working (that's an explanation for you Lisa). i am a little overwhelmed by the amount of work i need to complete before "reading" week.
ok. i know that whenever i come up with a cool plan to combat poverty rates, there is a flaw that someone much more educated than myself points out. so, here is my new plan of the week:
the cost of hydro is indexed to oil, correct? we cannot sell the stuff to our own citizens for less than that which we export to our partners in free trade (this might not be correct, but isn't integral to my plan, so who cares?). with gas prices rising, we should be making more money on the quebec taxpayers investment in hydro-electric dams, correct? so, i think they should make hydro a non-taxable item. it seems stupid to tax people on something as essential as electricity and many people heat with it, making it a major expenditure for most households in a climate where heating occurs 6 months of the year. would this not put money in the poor people's pockets as well as giving the rich more to spend on other items that are taxed? plus, what a great incentive for homes to be built or converted to electric heating. we did sign the kyoto accord, didn't we?
ok. someone can now tell me why this is not economically sound or wouldn't help the target population. go ahead. but remember, that i haven't heard very many other solutions proposed recently...other than constructing homes/apartments for low-income families with better insulation - which seems to be working on the same principle.

some random tidbits that you might find worth pondering:
(a) has anyone seen the passion of the christ? it was brought up that mel gibson has the best medieval conception of violence and that, after seeing the passion of the christ, if you re-watch braveheart, you will realize that william wallace is actually christ. interestingly enough, i just read the court proceedings for his case and execution and it is completely contradictory to the movie. you can read it here.
(b) after listening to professor krantz talking about how petrarch would make multiple copies of each letter he wrote and send it to his other patrons too, i came to the conclusion that petrarch was the first blogger. hmmm. should i re-name this blog "a foray into the neo-Petrarchian" to mimick Bryan's sally into relationships? I love Petrarch. it's so pretty. not deep. but pretty and wise.
(c) when very bored in roman empire the other day, i was reading an article on google. wow. it is really awesome. the use a whole bunch of pcs connected together. that's why it almost never crashes. and they went public when they were already really rich. it's pretty awesome and as google is a search-engine we all know and love, i highly suggest taking a look-sy: at the london book review.
(d) also when bored in roman empire the other day, i read a review on the fat girl's guide to life. i will not be reading that book. everyone knows that i am on a diet, and i think the review, which criticized the book for being both superficial and hypocritical (why do those two always go together) ponted out what is generally wrong with north american eating habits. the author points out that her grandmother used to say "i've had sufficient" when offered a second portion. we have forgotten the meaning of sufficient and can only conceive of full. this is true. i think. i am now telling myself that i have had sufficient...i have lost 3 lbs by they way and am feeling better for it. you can find the article at this address should you feel the need.
ok enough link providing. i hope you feel enlightened. i know i do...