I am Aquarian

This is me according to some website that I am shamelessly plagiarizing(Witches' way or something):

You are the James Dean of the zodiac, a natural rebel who dislikes restraint and dependency--almost to a fault.

Of all the signs, you find it most difficult to establish and maintain a close, intimate relationship. This is because of your incredible independence, individuality and freedom of spirit.

You are a natural humanitarian, honest and loyal, very inventive with an intellectual mind that loves to ponder the big questions.

You also enjoy any type of work where you can express concern for humanity.

You follow your own path, preferring to go against the grain in a somewhat eccentric quest for knowledge and expression. This can border on the genius because you think in unique ways.

Despite your rebellious nature, you have a very strong compassion and usually become emotionally involved with causes. Your compassion comes from the intellect rather than the heart, however.

Your coldness repels people, yet at the same time you have a fiery attachment to idealist 'causes' which inspire and motivate people to compassion.

Your chief faults, however, are unpredictability, remoteness and emotional problems stemming from your detachment.

When you are evolved, however, you can feel great love and express it. You have the capacity to spread this to others.

The Aquarius woman is hard to figure out; paradox seems to be the best word to describe her.

Money does not impress her, and she has a diversity of interests.

She is usually attracted to someone unusual or eccentric in some way, typically to people of an intellectual nature.

She will stand up for what she believes in, and her true friends will join her in whatever the cause, believing in her integrity and commitment to humanity.


It kind of is, well, yes, alarmingly accurate. But maybe I would just like to believe that that's what I'm like. Although, i agree with the more negative parts just as much.

Does anyone else feel like their personality corresponds to their zodiac sign..?

My writing class...

...sure doesn't teach me a whole lot about writing, but here's why I like that class. Or, like the teacher, also known as Michael Lahey or the guy who sings U2 songs, in class, while pretending to shoot himself up with heroin, and still gets bad teacher ratings- one of the mysteries of life, in my mind.

ML: "Have you heard about this Great Canadian thing? It's very uncanadian, Catrin. I apologize. Anyways, I'm going to make up a paragraph condemning Pierre Trudeau. Watch me."

Then, he writes on the board:

Trudeau, the brilliant hobbyist, the philosopher who did not need a job, lived not in Leduc or in Cape Breton, not even in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa or Montreal , but in one remote and self-satisfied place: his own mind - the product of poetry, European philosophy and expensive menus of cruise ship dinners - a mind that knew which abstractions could become bold social and legal policies to shape a country more open, realistic and consistent than any other in his century.


Hm. What happened? I'm not sure. I think he got carried away(that being the teacher who got mad at me for politicizing his class room).

Quote of the day: "I'm going to Jerusalem, so I'm going to have to learn some Muslim."
(overheard on the bus)

Some people still surprise me

Like my sister's American ex-boyfriend.

Not only is he a conservative chemical engineer who likes to own guns and is part of the National Guard, but he also just agreed to father his lesbian friend's child(it took them two weekends and I've been trying to picture what it would be like sleeping with someone who's really grossed out by your...equipment. Conclusion: very awkward, but there's some humour in the situation).

I'm also pretty sure he voted Bush.

Thanks for making my day, David, and I'll come see you sometime in Boston, where you will hopefully enlighten me as to the thought process that was behind this.

The local selection committee...

...for the seminar in Burkina Faso was very impressed by me, and my application goes to Ottawa! One down, one to go - and by that I mean committees. Only, the next one doesn't get to meet me. All they have is what I wrote. And I wrote that last Sunday while still mildly drunk...but hey, the local guys liked it.
So, now I get to wait until December 15 to find out.

A quote from my economics professor

"Children are good. People like children. They get some kind of psychic benefit from them. Kind of like from a TV set, I suppose."

I shit you not.

And yes, he said 'psychic', not 'psychological'.

Hallo nach Deutschland!

Viele, viele Gruesse nach Deutschland, ganz besonders an Ralph, der mich jetzt hoffentlich oefter hier auf meiner Seite besuchen kommt! Und unbedingt Kommentare hinterlassen, damit ich beweisen kann dass ich in Deutschland auch ein paar Freunde gehabt habe....

Law & Order: C.ocky I.nvestigator

Why is Vincent D'Onofrio so hot in that show when he's just not that goodlooking? I think what does it for me is his constant frown and his endless knowledge of all kinds of trivia(which inevitably leads to the solution of the case).One eptiomy about my weird tastes happened when I talked to a nice girl called Kiera from my Pol S 200 class about Law&Order CI, and we both started a sentence with:"That guy is *so*...", but then I ended it with "hot!" and she with "creepy!".

Tonight's show reminded me of yet another epitomy on my journey into the depths of what attraction means to me, since the guy who played a Stephen Hawkins-like disabled genius, who seems to be abused by his wife, also stars in A Beautiful Mind.
After watching A Beautiful Mind, I was wildly attracted to Russel Crowe for months(conversation about masturbation in Sex&the City:"What *did* women do before Russel Crowe?"). The eptiomy happened after I had eagerly rented Master and Commander, strongly counting on a serious fix, but not getting it. Russel Crowe was just not a "beautiful mind", but a big tough captain, and didn't do it for me(Apart from that, the movie was just plain boring, and the only interesting part was when the physician/scientist made his discoveries on the Galapagos Islands).

My logical conclusion?

Schizophrenic mathematicians of the world, here I come!

If all goes well...

...six months from now, I will be in Burkina Faso. Let's hope that interview today went as well as I think it did. Plan B is my 5 year high school reunion in Germany. I am both proud and ashamed to say that I haven't spoken to any of them since graduation day.
For some reason, I have the urge to show up with an incredibly buff, goodlooking guy in a Porsche. Even though I find incredibly buff, goodlooking guys endlessly boring and can't tell a Porsche from a Toyota. What's up with that?

My very first (half)Hockey game

I went to a Golden Bears Hockey game tonight, with my room mate and an American Christian church group from Louisiana. I even managed to stay until about halfway through the game.

"So, you are from Germany?"
"Yep."(Stop talking to me)
"I know a guy from Germany."
"Oh." (Good for you)
"Where from in Germany?"
"Bavaria."(Not that you know what that means)
"Is Berlin in Bavaria?"
"No."(seriously, stop talking to me)

I'm hoping that evenings like this are not indicative of the single life. I am also a little bit worried about my hatred for random people; I suspect it's not healthy. Most people like others until they do something to deserve their dislike. I seem to work the other way around. On the other hand, I am hellbent on making this world a better place. I am a charitable misanthrope, so to speak. Or just socially challenged. The jury is still out.

Kresh2, red lights, and a WMB

So, I am wondering about that letter in thursday's gateway about the 'SU protests' by someone called TJ Keil. Apart from his reasoning, which defies logic and insults my intelligence, I really want to tell you a completely unrelated little story:

Say, it's sometime last summer, and my roommate introduces me to this guy called, say, JT Leik. He's a buff guy, full of testosterone, and proceeds to take us both out to see a movie, say Kresh II. He tells me many fascinating stories about his daddy's WMB, and how he would never drive any other kind of vehicle. We have a few unpleasant conversations about politics, and on the way back from the movie, he runs two, I repeat, 2, red lights. Both accidentally. I am quite relieved to arrive home safe, and haven't spoken to him since. My roommate still talks to said JT Leik, and happens to tell him I was part of those "silly protests"(really, I should put separate quotation marks around "silly" and "protests", to make clear that those events were neither silly nor protests). Last thing I heard, he crashed his daddy's WMB.

But let's get back to that letter in the gateway and away from this completely unrelated story. What could possibly have motivated TJ Keil to write said letter?

Those internet quizzes creep me out.

I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled;
Not prone to overstated gushing praise
Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled
With overstretched opinions to rephrase;
But on the other hand, not fond of fools,
And thus, not fond of people, on the whole;
And holding to the sound and useful rules,
Not those that seek unjustified control.
I'm balanced, measured, sensible
(at least,I think I am, and usually I'm right);
And when more ostentatious types have ceased,
I'm still around, and doing, still, alright.
In short, I'm calm and rational and stable -
Or, well, I am, as much as I am able.

Hypotheses, correlation, and cause&effect

Hypothesis 1: History repeats itself.

It is fall in a US election year. I am in North America, and dye my hair red. I meet someone. Bush wins the election, and that someone proceeds to be physically, but not intellectually unavailable to me.
(I'm pretty damn sure though that I will break at least part of this pattern in 2008. So god help us.)

Also, I've established correlation, but can someone help me with cause and effect here?

Hypothesis 2: Whenever I don't bother to go to class, it is either cancelled or would have sucked anyways.

Wait, that might be a truism.

The story of my life in one song

Measure me in metered lines
And one decisive stare
The time it takes to get from here to there
My ribs that show through t-shirts
And these shoes I got for free
I'm unconsoled
I'm lonely
I am so much better than I used to be

Terrified of telephones
And shopping malls and knives
Drowning in the pools of other lives
Rely a bit too heavily
On alcohol and irony
Get clobbered on by courtesy
In love with love and lousy poetry

And I'm leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
But it almost feels okay

Circumnavigate this body
Of wonder and uncertainty
Armed with every precious failure
And amature cartography
I'm breathing deep before
I spread those maps out on my bedroom floor

And I'm leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I'm losing all those stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
But it feels okay

And I'm leaving with goodbye
And I'm losing but I'll try
With the last ways left
To remember sing
My imperfect offering

Obscene gestures at the PSE rally.

I had a great time at the Provincial Day of Action Rally. We managed to attract quite a bit of media attention, and attention from the public, and honking. I got interviewed, but I forgot who it was- some kind of confusing combination of letters, but it looked like print, so I don't know. But if you see a quote somewhere that says "We're going to stay here till the cows come home", well, then that was enthusiastic me(before my fingers went numb from the cold).

But my favourite part was when I held up my HONK! sign and some guy in a car made an obscene gesture towards me(you know, the one involving the tongue and two fingers).Naturally, I gave him the finger, unaware of the photographer next to me. Needless to say, he didn't see the obscene gesture, only what looked like me giving the finger to an innocent bydriver, and looked at me quite appalledly. So I repeated said gesture for him. Which created some more confusion, but eventually we cleared it up. What I am hoping right know is that he didn't take a picture of any part of this incident.

Well...

What can I say. Is there a lesson to be learned? If so, then it eludes me at this moment.

So, I guess I have managed to answer my 4 questions in the last 24 hours one way or another.

1. uh..Except 1.
2. Yes.
3. No.
4. Most likely.

I can say with entire certainty that today was pretty much the most fun I've had in a long, long, long time. Highlights were:

1. Working out for the first time in ages.How come I never run into any SU people at the gym..?
2. Harassing Ralph Klein at the farm fair. Even though I stepped in a humungous pile of cow shit, broke respectively was an accomplice in breaking many traffic laws, and was hugged by a middle aged clown.
3. Hanging out in Sam's office.
4. Going to the symphony.

Oh, and I am offering another beer to the first person who figures out what the name of my blog means.

having a bad day? Read this!

Things that have happened to me during the last 52 hours:

1. Monday 8am: fought with my roommate about whether or not she could put up a PC party campaign poster in our living room. Forgot that I had to print out four versions of my essay for my creative writing class, and wasn't in a position to ask her whether I could use her computer and printer after I threatened to put up a pro choice sign next to Don Weideman's face.

2. Monday 9pm: that's when my creative writing class started, but I was in Rutherford trying to print out four versions of my essay. I only had enough money on my one card to print out three, two of which were without title page. Also had no stapler, came to class 20 minutes late. Was welcomed by my teacher with the words: "Oh hi Catrin, are you sober today?"
But you know what was the best thing about it? When I realized the essay wasn't due until wednesday.

3. Monday 11pm: broke up with my boyfriend whom I moved to Canada for and had been with for 3 years. Ouch.

4. Tuesday 9am: I realize that I neither have my bus pass nor my wallet on me, and have to bum a bus ticket off someone.

5. Tuesday 11am: I forgot to pack food and had no money(see point 4). Unfortunately, I am hypoglycemic, so I am forced to steal a pack of sugar from the Java Jive in tory in order to keep myself from fainting. Well, at least it was brown sugar.

6. Tuesday 1.30pm: I have an appointment with a personal trainer that I made in one of my more foolish moments back in september. Forgot to bring a lock, but, lucky me, find one lying open on the floor. Decide to use it to 'pretend lock' my locker. When I come back I manage to goof it up so it locks on me. Have to ask an Eastern European athlete 6' 4'' woman to open the lock that is not mine with huge wirecutters. Not only were my belongings completely unsafe during the whole time I worked out, but I also managed to randomly destroy someone else's property. That poor person will probably wonder eternally what kind of nutcase cut her lock to leave it there for her to find.
Kind of reminded me of that time when I showed someone my original Eastern German cold war stainless steel handcuffs and then realized that i forgot my keys...in Germany. Well, the guy at the Canadian tire who helped me out had a good laugh.

7.Tuesday 5pm: desperately looking for distraction, I head for 2-900 SUB and Sam's office. Wishing there was a meeting I could go to, but unable to find one, i just bum around campus for hours. When I come home I realize I missed my Access Fund Board meeting at ....5pm.

8.Wednesday 11am: Being annoyed by my economics professor who describes the drawbacks of cutting food subsidies as "the poor will have a harder time doing well". Want to scream :" As in, they STARVE!?!" But all I end up doing is misusing questions to bring more information into the debate - one of the many useful things I've learned in council. When he seems sufficiently pissed off, I remember that he is supposed to write me a really important reference. So much for that.

9. Wednesday 1o pm: lose in monoply against Steve Smith AND my friend's crazy roommate Bryn who didn't even try. Realize that I sold my dinner to a fellow player for 300 Dollars in monopoly money that I legally own myself.

Questions that come to my mind:

1.What is the point of this story?
2. Will it get better any time soon?
3. Is self pity contagious?
4. Can any one beat this?