sars bullshit

yesterday I phoned my cuz to confirm our lunch plans and she told me she is quarenteened. A week ago she went to visit a friend at St. Miks hospital, a floor that has a possible sars patient now. Her dad had her phone to see what the deal was and toronto public health said she had to stay put and have no visitors. It is such bullshit thought since she was there for an hour and her friend who was there for 3 days was not informed. If it was improntant to issolate those who may have ahd contact, woudl they not have informedt he patients who stayed on the same floor. Public health said they would phone to see how she is and they would drop off a mask. This is just a scare tactic to keep her inside. They have not stopped by in the past few days, but if they were to stop by when she was not there she coudl be fined. So there she is one week away from giving birth, full of stuff to do to get ready and she can't leave her house.
Her partner who is in close contact with her is able to move about on his daily routine, but she has to sit there and wait. I went over and took her laundry for her. I was like if toronto public health comes I'll hide in the bathroom, but they are nto goign to stop me from comign over for lunch and chilln with a cuz who does not have sars!!!
I wonder what will happen when she goes into labour, will they require she wears a mask the whole time . . . I don't think thats going to work. A women in labour doens't do well with regulation and orders!!!

my offer just came in the mail . . . woo hoo . . .

A month ago I put a quote from the kafka in love pool ophera that I guarded, today it seems more relavant than ever. It read "how am I to distinguish between waking images and dreaming images" Honestly I'm starting to wonder that myself. First of all the dream I have had this past week are all so ordinary. Everyday events. last night for example I drept that sarah and brandon were over, we were chatting starign up to my ceiling, I asked brandon to pick the next cd and he played this portishead cd that I have. So this morning I had to remember wether they were over last night or not. On top of the ordinary dreams, I'm still only sleeping a few hours a night, therefore allowing for several moments in a day where I feel like I am watching from the outside, as if it were a dream. I don't mind the mixing of waking images and dreaming images, it just that poeple are going to think I'm crazy if I start mixing them up. Like if I phone up a friend and say"I got that thing you asked me for last night" and they are thinking dude we havn't even talked all week, what thing could I have possibly asked you for. Anyways so far I'm keeping it real, no matrix glitches for me!

I had a pull off regans joint tonight, so it might help me sleep a bit. If not tomorrow night I'm having one of these italian style gravals. For those of you who were with me in Florence the day I took one of them you know how that shit knocked me out. I will have no trouble sleeping at all. My only concern is will I ever wake up!!

here is my cheezie poem of the hour!

ruby slippers, water falls
dolls heads,
wigs on wall


photography, sun room plants
rice and beans
triple cats

sexy boys, colourful belts
dianna ross
drumming mix

new ideas, creative minds
fashion tips,
toban sticks

mushroom trips, camping plans
tranny pride
pussy galore

UofT BARRIER FREE
wow theres nothing like a protest to make a horrible day seem more than managable. Today I was feeling totally depressed, and do to my insomia I was easily irritated. I was looking at the fact that I have an appoinment to remove my wisdom teeth next friday, which will cost $830, plus the medication and I was looking at my account realizing not only do those numbers not add up, rent is due this weekend. With pay day coming on friday, I should have enough to cover rent. And with the food in my coubard I should be ok for food for a little while, and I do have a little left on my credit card if I need it. But fuck I wish I coudl find a job. Ok so the huge wisdom teeth bill is staring me in the face. Right now even my parents can't help me out, my dad is broke from his trip and my mom has been on strike without pay for a few weeks. Basically I felt fucked, its not like this is something that I can just let slide, I can feel the pain slightly and it will only get worse. I phone my mom anyways to get advice/support ie, some one I can cry on eht phone to! We started talking about me moving home for the summer to save money to move to Ireland. FUCK that just added to the depression, living in Etobicoke, having to get a metro pass or becoem a stronger biker super quick, being far away from work, and friends, not to mention not being able to live with sean and gemma. I have been looking forward to that for ever. Things start to get complicated when I contemplate moving home. Because that means that I have a month to find someone to move in. I was already looking for september, and i mentioned to sk the possibility of movign in then. But july is another story. The problem is Gemma doens't want to live with a stranger, I can understnad her hesitation, look at what I'm dealing with now. So that means I have one month to sublet the whole apartment till octomber, since our stupid ass lease goes untill october. (Sal tried to convice them to let us sign until september but they couldn't understand why this would be easier for us. Sean and gemma are coming over to talk about it, but as things stand now, it looks like it will be my responsibitiy to find three people move in her for july first. Including someone taking the small room without any windows. FUCK this will not be easy, then if I dont' find people what do I do, pay the whole $1400 myself! And I wonder what happens to my bro who signed a subletting contract with matthew, it snot like I can talk to matthew about this, he has been ignoring sal and I for weeks (also adding to my anxiety today), I don't want my bro to be fucked. But my mom has a point, its hard to save money when you are paying rent, bills and buying food. She is paying for my flight to Ireland as my grad presant but the rest is up to me. Maybe I should get a waterproof tent and camp while I live in Ireland!

So I'm all blah blah blah life sucks today . . . but I got off my ass phoned the UofT dentist school to see if I can get a student to do the surgery for me at a cheaper price, I went to SAC to file my claim form from my dentist trip and I went the police station so I can get a refernce check to work with CHAP. While I was at SAC this girl started to talk to me, she said that she sees me everywhere, and that she likes my hair (I swear to you, get a cute haircut and everyone talks to you on the streets!!) While I was there they told me about a protest for accessiblity that was happening later that day. Aparently there was a motion being put forth to get gaurenteed accessible housing to students with disablities, along with over all assessiblity to the campus at a general meeting today. But it was taken off the agenda with no intention of putting it back on. The university is blanetly ignoring the barriers that students with physicla disabilites face at the university. The sahmeful irony is this year UofT recieved an award for accessibilty, for what I can't be sure, so many of the buildings and classrooms are not accessible, and the univeristy is not taking an equitable stance to provide these students with the resources required to participate in there education.

The protest was filled with ballons and buttons, chats like "whos campus our campus" "UofT barrier free" etc. There was a good energy with the crowd. We blocked the entrace to the door to create a "barrier" to accessing the meeting . . . as all the white able bodies men walked into the meeting talk about UofT's general issues we continued to chant outside the window. I was chatting with a few people, and I met a women who is finishing her Phd in English literature. She is Chinese, I say this upfront because she is unable to get a job teaching english lit, manily due to her race. She has hed a hard time securing TA postions in the past few years. In her experience "no one wants a chinese girl teaching them english lit" the racism is so thick its disgusting, this wonderful women, has to use the food bank adn has not idea what she is goign to say to her landlord this weekend when he demand rent. She has started a business baking cookies and delivering them on her bike, she got a $50 grant and has ntetted $25. I wished her luck, we exchanged numbers in case we heard anything for each other. ADn I biked away happy that I have tvp and rice noddles at home and I woudl not be using the food bank yet.

I have been facing serious blogger writing block, the past few days I start to write something but it feels so mundane that I erase it. The irony is that I have been writing allot, but unable to share. I'm going to start with some random moments and see where my fingures take me . . . today I say this 4 year old kid with a Nike symbol shaved in the back of his head run into McD's . . .BRANDING OVERLOAD

today was one of those days where everyone talked to me, strangers everywhere said hi made a joke or a comment in my direction. I think it all started when I had an excellent job interview. Its for this organization called CHAP, what they do is recruit people to work with youth who have autism, physical or developmental disability. They make the connection between the parents that need the support and the workers, and it is the parents that are your employers. Anyways the interview went really well and I got the job. I have trainging next week. I will still need to get at least one more part time job . . . the interviewer himself was really nice and put me in a great mood. As I left the building everyone smiled and said hello, goodbye etc. As I walked to the bus stop every kid that passed by me, said something . . .. it was sooo cute.

Anyways I continued on my job hunt today looking at resturants that I would like to work at, ones that sell fair trade coffee and vegan food. Even thoguht the hunt itself was not successful, my journey through parkdale was fun, and again, so many people talked to me, commented on my hair, my bike, my smile etc. It was a constant journey of smiles and laughter thanks to the friendly people of TO. Ok it gets better, I spent some time at Regans (which is always good) then cam home to talk to this Irish guy. GET THIS, Alicia (my grocery store lady) told this guy who lives in the neighbourhood that I was applying to grad school in Ireland in the fall, he said that he would help me find a job if I got in, well now that I got in Alicia got his number for me and I set up a coffee date to meet up with him. He knew who I was from around the neighbourhood but I have never seen him before, yet he was willing to go out of way to help me out. His brother lives in Dublin and has a few businessess plus some acceddmia connections. The Irsih guy said he will talk to his brother tonight and see when is the best tiem for me to call him, then I will call him in a few days and see if he can hook me up with a job and possibly an apartment. Plus this guy I met has a nephew who goes to UCD who is willing to show me around the city and univeristy. As if this is not enough already he is going to drop off a map of Dublin for me tomorrow. He was supper friendly I didn't get any creepy vibes at all. He seemed just eager to help someone who is moving to his home town. We ended up chatting for an hour about all sorts of things.

Then I biked to kim's place and we went on a biking adventure down to cherry beach, we stopped by these benches just past the docks and watched the planes land. It was good good times, (plus all these freindly TO people talked to us) when you in the parks, its like you have left the city people become friendly and say hello to everyone as if we were in small town. kimmy got her photos developed from many adventures from OCT till now. Lost of silly pictures of me and her. The best ones was this full roll of photes of her getting all ready in drag, damn they are good. I took about 6 of them with me, and there are more that I want but her friends got to the doubles first. I will have to ask how she feels about havign her photo on the internet, if she is ok with it, I will have to post it here.

That reminds me, regan got her photos back from our crazy walking adventure last week. There are soo many good ones. One that sticks out right now, is this pic of me carving our names into this staircase banister in a park. It turned out so well, you see me as I carve in the last line of the E from Tobie, and you can clearly see REGAN + TOBIE. We decided we have to leave our mark all over the city. She wrote regan + tobie in the bathroom stale at the red room a few months ago and a few people came up to her and friends of her to ask if we were together!! Only in my dreams could I date someone as cool as regan!

AHHH, I did an excellent job of avoiding all my actuall thoughts that have been causing me to have bloogers writers block. I suppose I will stop my personal filtering system enough to add them in soon enough.

I have just got off the phone with the administrator for the equality studies program in Dublin. I recieved an email from her this morning saying that they wanted to see my final transcripts because in order to enter any masters program at the univeristy the students need to have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA. I phoned her immediately saying that this year I recieved a 3.6, but untill this year I was not recieving accomidations for my learning disability, and therefore my overall GPA was under 3.0. She said that she would talk to the director of the department (who by the way is very interested in having me in the program), she was going to say to her the my GPA was not adiquately examined until this year.

Five hours later she phoned me back. She explained how the system works. There are 14 positions for full time, 14 positions for part time and 14 posiitons for higer diplomia. The higher diplomia means that you take all the same course work, without writing your thesis. There is an opportunity if you are in the higher diplomia to move into the masters program after first half of our course work if you have an average higher than 60. The administrator and director pick the 28 people that they want in the program and then send those applications to the accidemic council. And this council has the final word to weither or not a student will get in. The thing is once the council says no to someone there application is garbage, they can no longer even offer them a postion taking the higher diplomia.

The fear that both the director and administrar have is that the council will not be understanding about the reason my overall GPA is lower and they will not accept me and I will not get into the program at all. The say they really want me in and are not comfortable taking that chance since they have no say in the accidemic council dession. So they are going to write me an offer for the higher diplomia program with the understanding that I would easily move over into the masters program by December. This is not my ideal situation since I will only have one year to offically work on my thesis with an advisor, but since I plan on moving over to the masters program, I am expected to attend the same research seminar as the masters students. So this will put my foot in the door and I can still be working on my thesis over the summer and during that first year. Plus I'm confident that I will get above a 60 in my first year there.

SOOOO I'm moving to Ireland!!!!

you all have to come visit me in Dublin, since I will be there for 2 years you have no excuses!!!

Insomnia . . . has it gone away

For the past week I have not been sleeping, the first few days I was able to attribute to external factors and thought little of it. After a full week of the same thing I started to realize that regardless of the external factors I was not sleeping. I wasn’t lying there with my mind unable to rest, thinking and worrying about things that I need to do. I had a rested relaxed mind and still unable to move from a rested state to a sleeping state. But last night I slept. The irony is I have been good to my body, doing everything on the “30 things to do if you have insomnia” list. But last night at Lara’s party I had a drink (number one rule is no alcohol). Ok so maybe it didn’t cure the insomnia completely I still only slept 5 hours, but that is double what I have been getting on an average night.

So what does this mean, do I have to have a drink or smoke a joint to fall asleep now a days. Well no can do, that goes against my whole philosophy of never using drugs or alcohol to deal with a problem. I decided long ago that I would never have a drink specifically because I was sad. Or get drunk because I could not deal with life. Etc. I really didn’t want to ever feel like I was developing an addiction, I saw what that could do to people. I had a few dark years where that philosophy kinda went down the drain, along with my serotonin levels ;) Those were good learning years and great fun at the time, but disastrous for my emotional and physical health.

Anyways my point is I hate the idea of being dependent on anything or anyone. I tend to change my habits once I find they are becoming too much of a crutch. So what will I do with this insomnia business, maybe I just have too much energy lately because for once I’m not running myself down with school, work and every activity I can get my hand on. Maybe my body is confused with the amount of time it is allowed to be stress free.

If so the answer is get busy and I will sleep like a baby . . .