I just wrote a practice version of the GREs (not the adaptive version, but a paper version) and did really well on the math section but not very good on the verbal section. This is horrible. I am reviewing the strategy for taking the latter section as it is what is actually more important to me…damn i hate definitions, antonyms and analogies. I love word games, but for marks, they suck.

Watched the Wizard of Oz with Matt last night. I had never noticed just how BAD that movie is conpared to contemporary standards…i know, acting styles have changed…but it’s difficult for a modern viewer to get in the groove. I had sent Matt the link to the internet movie database, so i listened to him share the interesting tidbits i hadn’t had time to check out at work during the whole thing. Nothing like a running commentary on an old favourite. hehe. I want me a pair of them slippers.

Yesterday was another kick ass day at the office as far as commissions and sales went. I managed to connive a bonus out of Simon for putting up two great days with a good non-cheque conversion in a row. Yeah an extra $5 for me! Said money will come in handy when i am purchasing lingerie at Walmart yet again tonight. My Mom is taking me with her to give me a break from studying…little does she know that i am sitting here blogging instead of studying. I am chronic.

I still have to do the electronic version of the test..with the timed-essay sections and the questions getting easier or harder based on the correctness of my previous answers. I have a list of seven schools to which i want my marks sent…is that too much? I don’t intend to apply to ALL of them, but i don’t have it narrowed down yet. One thing at a time. Thus far, i have: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, U of Toronto, Ottawa U, U of Alberta and Simon Frasier. I am going to be applying to the JMSB program, but i don’t think they will care about my GRE scores anyways. I need 2 American and 3 Canadian schools (like U of T, Ottawa U and Concordia), but maybe four Canadian if i get more interested in either of the ones out West.

Please wish me luck. tomorrow is an insanely hectic day and i still need to pack too. Egadz, nothing like leaving everything until the last minute! the next post will be from the big TO.

Do i really want to be an academic? Why am i shooting for the moon? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to complete my B.A. and either apply for education at McGill or try and get into the Masters in Administrative Science at JMSB? I don’t know how far away i want to move…i don’t know how much longer i want to do this for?

Call this the pre-GRE cold feet. Someone pls smack me out of it.

i am not a hypochondriac. i say i have a cold when others would say its the flu. i don’t ever say i have gastro because i have an upset stomach…and i think i have complained all of three times in my life about cramps. i don’t see the point in complaining about feeling under the weather when everyone has bad days and goes through that kind of stuff. sometimes feeling bad comes up in passing: “what did you do last night?” “oh nothing, i stayed in bed because i wasn’t feeling well.” i have a rule, if you can get out of bed to go to the washroom and take a shower, don’t go to the doctor unless you’ve been feeling that shitty for more than five days.

Anywho, that was a precursor to a more drama queen statement. I think i had an anxiety attack at the office today, albeit a mild one. What worries me most about it is not that it happened, but that it happened before the school year even started and it was brought on by essentially nothing. I was attempting to study and realized i couldn’t read…the letters weren’t registering as words…this happens to me a lot, when i am overtired or thinking of something else, but for some reason the combination of being unable to read and contemplating the benefits of moving in to the 2 1/2 across the hall from Lisa ($495, furnished and heated) gave me the shakes, a stomach ache, a very bitter taste in the back of my throat and the need to either rock my self or massage the skin on my extremities. I shut up about it at first, figuring it would pass, but when i started crying mid-sentence on the phone, obviously those around me started to notice. Of course, the last thing i needed was to explain that i get worked up over nothing, i felt out of control of a situation, estranged from mankind, blah blah blah…yada yada yada…don’t encourage me by letting me talk about it…someone tell me to shut the fuck up. I gave it an hour on the phones, kept working because at least it was something to do, ended up going to the washroom to throw water on my face, and went back to work again. It passed…there was a huge sign “THERE IS NOTHING WRONG DUMBASS” on my desk for a while that i was colouring. It helped.

Somehow i turned a day that started off very badly into six sales and my best commission day ever. good, because i am going to need the money for the trip to Toronto and moving out.

So, what i ask of you, is…is my self-diagnosis correct to those of you who have actually suffered a mild anxiety attack? And, of course, what do you think of the price for that 2 1/2 knowing it is a 20 minute bus ride to the nearest metro and then a 20 minute metro ride to school?

I hope this doesn’t happen again anytime soon. I have decided the immediate cure would be cuddling…and i intend on enforcing the cure…get ready.

I have stuff to write about, i do, but i don’t feel like it. Pool is more fun than i thought it would be. That’s all you get about my week-end. Like it or lump it.

SOURCES OF INSOMNIA I

Translated by Marian de Vooght & Green Integer

What i like about this: i don’t know, but i do. it’s so melancholy…so dramatic…so soft. don’t ask me what it is other than that…but i find it appealing. i particularly like the use of the word asunder…it’s a cool word.

I got home last night at around eleven thirty after spending the evening gabbing with Lisa and reading astrological sign stuff which kept us in stitches (i don’t believe in the zodiac, but, unfortunately i am such a Virgo that i validate everyone else’s esoteric beliefs). I proceeded to put all my nice, clean, fabric-softener smelling clothes away, change my sheets, sweep my floor, flip my mattress and clean out my desk from all my summer school papers i no longer need. I am the only person i know who seriously enjoys tidying up at 12:30 am before going to bed. Ah…the joys of housework…and my bed was all comfy, cozy and soft.

So…i am at work right now…burning away some of the best pitches i have ever come up with on people who are in foul humours…luckily there is almost no one here so we get to laugh and mock the people who are rude or say mean things and share the nice people who make our lives just a little bit better. I have exactly two weeks left now…there are still a lot of people visiting this blog by googling Comparaction, and to be honest, it scares me. Ah well. I genuinely think it’s a good program for the vast majority of the people whom i call, so whatever.

Simon brought us in Timbits. I will miss Simon. He is cool.

i found my missing american express card. it was in my wallet, which, unfortunately considering it is one of my favourite souvenirs from Florence, has a tear in it that i was unaware of and into which my AMEX was lost for the better part of the day yesterday. Disaster averted. I have now managed to go an entire 11 consecutive months without losing my wallet. I know you are impressed…

The half of my exam i wrote while still a little tipsy from the sangria with Tim, i got perfect on. The other half, when i was sobering up, not so great. I made a billion stupid little mistakes…but i finished with an A- in the course anyways…how you ask? By being an overachiever. We had to give an oral presentation of three minutes; i rehearsed a presentation of 5 minutes in front of him, but when it came time to go up, i ended up ad libbing for another ten minutes in Italian. Because of this situation, my professor gave me 9.2 out of 10 instead of the whole marks he was giving everyone else (i got the best mark on that too, by the by) and that extra .2 is what got me an A-. There is nothing like being saved by your overachiever status. It is such a validation. Of course, as i was standing up there ad libbing i was acutely aware of the danger i was in…every sentence could just have been more rope i was hanging myself with, but it turned out well. YEAH for me!

I found the best herbal tea EVER with Ana at Vasco de Gama’s, but they didn’t have any more available in boxes for me to purchase. i will be going back next week when they get a new order…African Amber is delicious and goes really well with chocolate biscotti! Ana’s piercing, which at first really freaked me out, is starting to grow on me. The price kind of makes it that there will be no purchasing of surface piercings while i am in the process of attempting to find and furnish an apartment, but it’s nice to know that if i need somehing stupid to do, i have a new idea. You can see a picture of said piercing (not that a picture does it justice) on Ana’s livejournal.

Dinner last night at Ferrari’s was very pleasant. I chatted with some classmates i hadn’t had a chance to talk to before. I drank more wine than was good for me for a second night in a row…i only bought one glass, but our professor started buying bottles and then the restaurant gave all of us who were still there at 10pm a glass of port on the house. I really like port after a nice helping of Tiramisu. Yum.

Okay…i need to get a move on before work as i need to stop at the pharmacy on the way out.

I complicate things. I like putting in effort, but when you put in effort it blows things way out of proportion because things that could be simple are now monstrous affairs. There are many times when my inability to half-ass anything and just presume it will turn out all right is a god-sent (school in general for example, planning going away parties/months), but at other times it is crippling. I make a huge ass of myself for no know reason other than that i can’t shut the fuck up while i am reasoning something very simple and even pleasant out to every possible consequence. I think it would be nice if someone invented big stickers that could just be plastered across my mouth to shut me up under those circumstances. And yes, i am being hard on myself, it is my nature.

i had overstudied for my Italian exam to the point that i could no longer look it over on Tuesday because i found it so horribly boring. This was not good…this equaled cockiness and disaster and i knew it…so there was sangria with dinner. and not being sure of myself because i had some alcohol in me forced me to slow down. that was good. i was done in 2 hours instead of my usual one and i reviewed my work. hopefully i did okay. i should find out tonight as i am going out for dinner with my prof and some other classmates.

I resigned from the office today. my last day will be September 9th, which means that i will not be able to attend the initiation of the first years at the LAC. i am saddened by this, but i was not able to tell my boss i wouldn’t come in those last two days when he had kindly offered to let me come back if i ever need some extra cash.

Someone else has apparently been converted to Wordpress…Mwahahaha.

The woman that was making our call centre a bit of a soap opera stole about $800 from another of my co-workers last Thursday and has not shown up for work since. Wow. i knew SOMETHING was fishy…she came on too strong, and why was she hanging out with Peter in the first place before accusing him of sexual harrassment? i am just very sorry for the person who was a victim of this scam artist. She had a lot to lose and lost quite a bit. it is really unfortunate and just goes to show the lengths people will go to in order to make themselves feel powerful…including ruining someone else’s dreams (in this case of opening up a farm that offers pensione de cheval). The woman who was scammed is losing at least one of her horses over this. She is not well off and was just coming out of a very rough spell. People suck.

Finally, i end with some good news…the professor teaching my class at Mcgill told me should would get me enrolled despite the course’s full status if i show up for the first class. this is awesome. one less night course and a course in my field. awesome. i am going to drop prof. chalk’s history of genocide pre 1920 most likely. it is supposed to be a very interesting course, but it is offered at night on Wednesdays and has little to do with what i want to do.

Once tomorrow’s final is over, the plan is to study for the GREs very seriously, work on the Void website (who cares if they don’t like it…last time i checked i was the only one with the access codes and i paid for the fucking hosting and it’s my position, if i want to get something out of my investment i will!) and try and finish ulysses before school starts. apartment hunting will begin September 10th. one day i will let my parents in on the news, but i can put off the fight as much as they put off their promises…i am vindictive because i am female. LOL. nothing like a sweeping generalization there, but whatever.

It has now been over a year blogging…what have i learned from the experience?

a) any activity that becomes a habit can also be an obstacle to getting important work done.

b) i don’t think my writing skills are getting any better, so perhaps practice does not make perfect.

c) People who do not blog have a very hard time trying to figure out why other people do. I don’t really get it as lots of people keep journals and no one ever asks them “why?” I know i have said this before, but i can’t stomach what i rant when i know no one else will ever read it. This requires more thought and a little less self-centeredness.

d) If one person starts to do something, a lot of people start to do it too. People are lemurs (first it was Lisa, then me, then Veronica…mwahaha).

Yup. Moving Isa this morning was a breeze. It would have been easier if i hadn’t stayed up until 4:30am on MSN. Ah well. My own fault. I need to learn to be more assertive.

A big, huge hug of thanks to Eric for saving the day unknowingly today. If he had not said yes to my coy asking for his help, i do not know how we would have finished that move before 2 am and continued tomorrow to do the odds and ends (like getting a mattress). He would not even accept Isa’s offer of some money to compensate him. Three cheers for Eric.

I was rather astounded when we arrived at Isa’s as almost nothing was packed. I expected more from a soon-to-be accountant. It worked out fine though. I didn’t get out of bed until 12 and went back to bed from about 2 to 3 until Isa called.

I have worried my poor aunt to the point that she is offering to come down next week-end. I may have overdone my drama queen bit. I was very upset when i wrote those past three posts, but i am feel a tad better after two days of relatively little drama. I think i will be okay. I am going to start apartment hunting seriously once the school year starts. I do not have the time nor the energy right now and it just makes me more upset.

It was too humid today to be moving. hence, i am sticky and would have to change my sheets a week earlier than normal if i don’t take a shower before bed. That is what i am off to do right now.