2001-05-07 :: 1:58 a.m.

todayidid * 4 (thursday - sunday)

Soundtrack: Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92

For the first time, using a net diary has fucked me over, and not that badly (to the tune of 30 minutes or so), but enough that I'm not going to bother reconstructing the stuff I said to people in chat today (mostly about Aphex and ambient music). I accidentally closed two Netscapes instead of one, and here we are.

Todayidid business follows.

Thursday: Had pantry duty, where I discovered the horrors of industrial dishwashing. Doing pantry duty is awful because it shows you how unclean everything you eat off of here is. Ugh. After that seemingly endless chore, Sarah E (I've succumbed, first names are getting out of hand) and I had dinner at Cafe Trevi. Or rather, I did; she had eaten already and got a mocha (her first ever). I had a calzone and three Cokes (I thought there were refills; sadly, they misled me). In between I showed her 9 rolls of film. Later we went to the Nightcat and ran into some people I knew from the trip I took over Easter. We didn't hang around for long, we were more interested in having our own chat and I had little to say to my tripmates. In the dead entry I talked a bit about how I think Michelle has a distorted picture of me and why I don't care to change this outside of a general desire to have people see me the way I see myself. I wonder how often that happens. Sarah also gave me a very cool business idea, one that I intend to pursue when I go back (and it doesn't involve the Internet -- shocker!). Sarah's got one of the best personalities and laughs of anyone I've met here.

Friday: Went out with Robyn to Lygon and did some book shopping/CD listening at Readings. Had Malaysian (Penang Affair) with Robyn, Nick, and Liz. Realized I was sick of Asian chicken dishes. Bought the Aphex CD from a store called Sister Ray, overjoyed to find the import-only album.Watched The Dark Crystal (which took two video stores to find).

Saturday: Robyn and I hit Brunswick to see Princess Mononoke at the Astor. It was a bit of a transportation disaster getting there (took the train all the way to Carnegie and paid a taxi $12.60 to correct our moronic mistake). Luckily we just missed the credits, and I thought the film was a lot of fun. Thankfully, it was subtitled, not the poorly conceived Hollywood dub with Billy Bob Thornton and Claire Danes. We got dinner at Amigos on Chapel (chimi changas: out of sight) and had a few drinks at Bluebar 330. After I got back I rang my cousin Bill on the mobile and found out he and his friends were seeing off a friend to America at the Clyde. So I came by and shouted a jug and caught up with him, and I have to say it's great to have a cousin my age that is this fun to hang out with. Also nice: I met some of his friends and got invited to a birthday party.

More than anything else I wanted to make sure I documented the past few days for this moment. I ran into a few Ormond people on the way home and so I introduced them to my cousin, and my cousin to the Ormondians. Most of them -- if not all of them -- were first years, so I know them all well because the exchange students all go through O-Week with them. Anyway, Bill begins shaking their hands and says, "You go to Ormond, do you? You must own a lot of money!" He said it with such enthusiasm and straightforwardness, it was fantastic. None of them had any idea what to say. It was particularly funny because some of those people really are among the richest students here. Bill knew it was a bit of a foot-in-mouth but still didn't much care. He's got a bit of an eat-the-rich mentality.

Sunday: Today was slow, but started off quite shit. I had a makeup kitchen duty and it was parents' weekend (or whatever they call it here). So there were just heaps of people in the hall, and we had to work overtime in the pantry to get clean mugs and glasses and plates back out for people to use so we could wash them again so... it was pretty lousy, but not as bad as Thursday because they'd hired five extra people to handle the load, and it ended up being more than they needed. I ran into Les, and got introduced to her mother (who gave Les her incredible eyes). Then Tim showed up, so I moved along, but Les came back and chatted with me while I ate my brunch after I got off kitchen duty.

I chatted up a storm in the afternoon, and then worked a bit on my story for Creative Writing. My overdue Chinese Calligraphy essay got backburnered yet again. There was an art exhibition at St. Hilda's tonight, and a bunch of people pretended to be front New York. I felt distinctly underdressed in my t-shirt and thongs, but I didn't care too much after a lot of them began to grate on me with their snippy remarks about the artwork. All I wanted was to enjoy it. Post-exhibition, Adam, Gordon, Liza (Adam's sister), James, Robyn, Justin, and I congregated in the MCR (where Claire G and Tara already were) and watched Akira, which was confusing and beautiful. I noted that when animating, building explosions are on demand and essentially as budget-intensive as anything else being animated. Not bad.

On those days I did those things. I just wanted to remember all of those fine people.