It's afternoon now, and the rash is gone, and I'm trying to convince myself the illness is too. I'm bored of laying in bed all day. This is midterm week, and I don't have time to be sick.

Now if only my body would catch up with my mind.

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*Snot Insurmountable= typo Alice made to me on msn. I thought it was apt.

Actually, I'm pretty sure if I was sleeping with Al Gore, and he sent me a romantic care package, the contents would have been similar.

Haha. I love how this was like an infomercial for Alex's own food blog.

I also like how Alex Dodd sent me something that he thought I might not like. For the record though, I love candied ginger. It's good for nausea, especially where motion sickness is concerned. You can also drop candied ginger in tea for a little extra flavour.

However, I bit into the alleged soy nuts...and they were nuts of beans of some variety, but they were definitely not soy nuts, because soy nuts are roasted. What occured in my mouth was far from delicious.

I kind of wish I wasn't headed to London this afternoon, because I really want to make the curry lentil soup right now. But all the bulk dried goodness is going into Ziplock bags for the bus ride.

Because nothing says "be my friend" like yogurt covered raisins.

518 was ready for us too. Walking into the bathroom, I discovered it was freshly painted, without a trace of graffiti or markers on the walls. Weird. In the bathtub there was also these knives. "What's up guys? Are you trying to encourage people to off themselves?" I asked right away.

It turns out that I'm just morbid, because upon further examination it's clear that the knives were quite blatantly there for shotgunning beer. (Reason #1 I'm socially awkward: comments like that.)

Brie and Mark love me even though I'm obstrusive. At least, I think they do.

And Dayn indisputably is completely ignorant to my social problems. Thanks Dayn!

Dayn and Mark made amazing mojitos.

Brie and Lana chilling in Mark's room with some other party-goers.

Charles and Ian.

Reason #2 I'm socially awkward: This morning on my camera, there was a surplus of pictures that I had taken by myself. I like this one in particular, because you can see the party in full-swing behind me, while I'm hanging out by myself. Awesome.

Jonny, Court and Brie.

Brie, Mark, Kyle, Ashley and Marla.

Charles, is, however, guilty of letting the girls paint his nails black.

This morning when I was looking through Ashley's camera, I had to laugh because she had taken a similar set of pictures of herself, also cam-whoring in the bathroom while there was most likely a long line of people waiting to use the bathroom.

Yah, Mark, I might be a little socially maladjusted. It's a good thing that I have a pipe and brandy snifter to charm people with.

Brie nuzzling in towards the end of the night.


I made some new friends.

I danced a little.

And I ranted at length about social activism, soybean production, and Lasix eye surgery. (This, of course, would be reason #3 that I'm socially awkward.)

Last night Court and I headed to Kensington for Ben's birthday celebration. Everyone was instructed to bring a specific bottle of liquor and Ben had set up in the corner a bar, complete with a bartender! We tried all of the drinks except for "Into the Blue." We weren't a big fan of the Devil's Juice, but loved the Pomtinis!

He had a little trouble understanding the spelling of Court's name, though.

Ben requested that we all dress up, which we did with ease. Jonny sporting the pipe!

Jonny waiting by the bar for the bartender to return.

Okay, these are the red shoes that I was talking about. Verdict? (I guess I have to keep them now, since I've worn them now.)

Thanks for the lovely evening Ben! I hope your birthday was wonderful!

2. By our third week in Vanuatu, all the girls had broken down. Jo had waxed her upper lip, Tara had shaved her legs, and Becca was wearing full-out makeup. My weakness? Eyebrow plucking. My armpits were hairy, I smelled disgusting and there was a thick layer of mud on my feet at all times, but heaven forbid I let my eyebrows go astray!

3. I've never tried smoking cigarettes before. (I missed the memo in 7th grade and didn't go out to the alley with all the other girls for that mandatory rite of passage. This undoubtably was a huge contributing fact to my ostracization throughout the entirety of my school career.) Yet, I still can't stop thinking about the prospect of learning how to smoke my pipe.

4. On Wednesday, my class went on a field trip to Magazines Canada, where we were allowed to browse the warehouse and take as many backissues as we pleased. It is unlikely that I will read many of these, but I like to think that I might, someday.

5. It's officially Reading Week, and I'm not in Cuba right now. This is most definitely a fact.

6. When I was in Finland, my dreams would be almost entirely in Finnish. It was like my brain collected all the things I hadn't understood throughout the day, and decided to make my sleep in a foreign language as well. After looking into it, this is apparently relatively common to people living in other countries. It's difficult to research because it's not something that can be qualitatively measured, but apparently people are more proficient in a foreign language in their dreams. (I would liken to this to the fact that I first learned to speak Bislama when I was drunk. Despite my journeys, I'm horrible at foreign languages and have a mental block that prevents me from speaking them confidently. It makes me sad.)

7. Superheroes are often independantly wealthy.

Facts for Friday: I'm like a Bon Jovi Dream Machine.

Courtney was really excited to watch all the first-years in action, groping and stumbling drunkenly through the bar. It was pretty painful to watch.

I was provided a running commentary on the scenes as they unfolded. "You know, you're kind of a bitch?" Dayn told me. For a second, I was worried, until he finished his thought. "It's pretty hilarious."

Oh, and Court kept trying to make out with me. As usual.

This happens every time we go out.

And honestly, how would you react to this face coming in for the kiss?

She usually wins me over in the end.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Boys, what's with the pick-up from behind? Seriously, now! Here's a little lecture, y'all. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to pick up a girl from behind. This includes hanging around behind her back for 10 minutes in a hope that she might turn around. This includes tapping her on the shoulder from behind. And this, by all means, includes what I like to refer to as the "ass rape dance," which is the classic move whereas a random guy, usually wearing too much cologne and quite possibly sunglasses or some other gaudy and inappropriate accessory, comes up behind a girl and starts grinding into her ass in the hopes that this will light her amorous fires.

Boys! Please stop this! In what other social situation would you approach someone by rubbing yourself against their ass without so much as saying hello? Seriously, now! Inappropriate! (Recommended reading: The Game by Neil Strauss.)

After one too many drinks, and one too many guys trying to pick us up, Dayn decided that it was time to pack 'er up and go home.

Ahhh! It's a pipe! My first prop for Year of the Prop!

But who would have sent it?

Using my new prop to get into character, I decided to channel my inner Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery.

Let's examine the clues:

1. No return address.

2. The stamp was not post-marked, so it's impossible to tell what city it came from.

3. The package is covered with grease and food.

4. An environmental sort is clearly responsible for this package, because it's wrapped in an old, used envelope with an absurd amount of scotch tape (which is a key sign that it was more likely a male sender).

5. The old postmark on the package comes from a London, Ontario postal code. Therefore, the sender of the package must either recieve mail for London, or live in London themselves.

All these clues (the greasy food marks, in particular) clearly point to only one person: Alex Dodd.

However, after doing a handwriting comparison of my postal code to another letter mailed to me by Alex Dodd, he is definitely not the culprit.* He's just the Red Herring. Going through all the postcards that have been sent to me in the last year, I decided that Steve was a better suspect, because he has very similar handwriting, but I don't think he would ever dot a question mark with an "O."

Time to look for further clues:

-The package is addressed to "Jess" (no last name used) which makes me think this is someone who knows me primarily or strictly through this blog.

-They also obviously know one of my friends (how else would they get my mailing address?)

-The postmark is dated January 24th, 2007, which means that this package was probably only sent within Ontario. (This leaves the person a good 3 weeks to get mail from London, then wrap this in the same envelope and mail it to me.)

I have my ideas of who the mysterious sender of the pipe is, but I'm not entirely sure.

So, to whoever sent me this fantastic prop, I have two things to say: Thank you, you made my day!

And more importantly, it's never too late for props!

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* Edit: After re-examining the postal code and writing, I'm actually not ruling out Alex Dodd as a primary suspect anymore. I realized that I failed to take into account that the address was written on a package, which is harder to write on than a letter, and may alter the nature of the handwriting.

*Edit: I got Alex Dodd to fess up at approximatly 10:30 tonight. The food marks were a dead giveaway.

When I got out Brie gave me one of her bandages for my wounds, since Jesus heals. I felt this was extra special due to the stigmata-esque locational bleeding.

Omigawd! I'm interrupting this past-tense blog entry to report on something that is happening right this very moment! I'm watching SNL by myself (that's right--it's a pretty rockin' Saturday night here in China--we're out of control!), and they just had an awesome song dedicated to sloths! Does everyone know how awesome sloths are?! They deserve eight interrobangs, I love them so much.

Alright, now that I've got that business out of the way, back to last night:

Have you ever wondered what girls do in the washroom, and why they always go to the bathroom together?

Well, I'm not entirely sure how to answer that question, but whoever designed the Richmond club This is London obviously knows the importance of the Powder Room.

I wasn't a fan of the unecessarily high decibel levels of the music (my ears are still ringing nearly 24 hours later), the prevelance of guys clad in vertically striped button down shirts, or the overpriced $4 bottles of water, but I sure loved the bathroom.

So, uh, I don't know what most girls do in the bathroom, but in This is London, there's a whole seperate female only hang-out area. The bathroom was bigger than all of the China household.

Apparently what I do in the bathroom is take a lot of pictures.

When we weren't hanging out in the bathroom, we were dancing.

And showing off our pro self-portrait skills. (This picture was on Alice's facebook today, and must have been taken with her camera. I took the picture because she couldn't get the aim quite right. Seriously, taking narcissistic self-portraits is going under the "summary and qualifications" section of my resume. Right after I put it on my skills card, that is.)

The night was a good time. The energy level was good, the music was good, and of course our outfits were good.

2. Sometimes when I'm walking down the street on a sunny day, I see something in my peripheral vision stuck on my nose. I always try to rub it off but it's impossible to remove.

And then I remember that it's a freckle.

3. I prefer to go shopping alone, however this comes with its hazards. Maybe I'm just bad at picking out sizes, but I get stuck in clothes on a regular basis. Like, pretty much every time I go shopping. Today, for example, I was trapped in this dress for a good 20 minutes in the Winners changeroom before I finally struggled out of it. (Does this happen to anyone else? Or do I just really suck at life?)

4. I'm pretty sure that if I invited Don Cherry out for beer, he'd say yes, and we'd go to House on Parliament and have an awesome time. And we wouldn't talk about hockey. I have lots of old man friends. We'd relate and bond. I might even let Brie tag along. He'd really like me. I'm confident of this--which is why it is a fact for Friday.

Fact: It's inevitable that Don Cherry would love me.

Facts for Friday: Fortified with more awesome than milk.

Maybe it's the time of the year. Maybe it's the fact that we're all trapped inside. The fact that our entire beings are the product of textbooks, ticking clocks, the closeness of a hot mug of coffee, early bedtimes, empty banks accounts and the reduction of love to binary code.

We're starting to remember. To crave. We're starting letters that will probably never be sent.

We're homesick. Weary, worn, missing. But not for a place or a person--we're craving a moment in time.

We're missing something that we can never have back.

And we're all vowing that we'll do better the next time around.

Next time, when the snow thaws and the ice melts and there aren't so many obligations weighing us down. . .

But when will we remember to do better this time around?

And for all those naysayers who thinks my latest quiz was too hard and based upon changing opinions that are impossible to quantify--this is yet another example of how it was mainly based on static facts. This is a prime example of how I can't do anagrams to save my life. (After viewing this pallid example, it probably also makes you wonder how I kick everyone's ass at Scrabble. I'm just as confused as you are about this one, kids.) I can, however, stick my entire fist in my mouth, which is a much more useful skill when you think about it.

Can you find the four-4 letters words using these letters? (Hint: despite my attempts NIHE and NEWH aren't words. Whew! Good thing we got that out of the way!)

I was confused and slightly disgusted by the idea that a well-known clothing company would launch a multi-million dollar advertising campaign dedicated to glamourizing global warming. And that no one would bat an eye.

Looking into it, I discovered that this is supposed to be ironic, of course. (Clearly!) Diesel has actually launched the campaign in conjuction with Stop Global Warming. Org. Oh, okay, then. In that case, I guess I'm okay with it.

Oh.

Wait a second. . .

(Yes, it feels like -27 outside. And then add the 54km/h wind gusts to that. Ugh.)

3. When I'm standing in the express lane checkout at the grocery store, I often become completely enraged. No, it's not people buying genetically modified produce, meat, or even buying more than the stated number of item for that particular lineup that boils my blood--it's the purchase of Wonder Bread. Whole grains, people! Whole grains!

4. I'm going out tonight for the first time since the Steam Whistle Incident (as it shall be known, because to call it the "Steam Whistle Night" wouldn't be quite as accurate). Court and I are going to Fynn's. Which means I need to get ready to go instead of writing Facts for Friday.

This has been Facts for Friday. Knowledge is sexy. Even if it's completely pointless.

But I'm kind of wishing that my assignment was to just sit around and take narcissistic pictures of myself for an hour straight. Because that I could do, no problem.

Instead, I'm grappling to find just the right words to adequately describe watching a 30-something woman in tight leather pants give fellatio to a silver dildo.