Nathan and I went to the Farmers’ Market in the morning since Nathan hadn’t ever been. We bought Indian food and sushi. Nathan bought fresh cranberries. Then we went to ‘Pancakes for Parkinsons’ which is a Michael J. Fox Foundation fund-raiser that Mt A students have once a semester. It's an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast with entry by donation. The pancakes were great and it was a really nice morning.
At 11:00 I went to Mane Attraction (there something about beauty salons that necessitates really, really bad hair puns) to get my hair cut. While the woman was cutting my hair she got a phone call from her brother and her father who are in Cape Breton saying that they’d caught their sixth tuna of the season. My geography class (Geography of Economic Activity) had a section on commodity chains and one of the commodities we studied in detail was sushi. In the morning I’d bought sushi with white tuna in it and I considered whether I was being unsustainable and whether I should buy sushi with crab meat or something else in it (I didn’t), and then here was this woman talking about her family who fishes for tuna. Tuna is interesting because it’s caught all across the Atlantic seaboard (in Canada, the US, Europe and North Africa) and then most of it is shipped to Japan where it is bought and sold by bidders in a massive auction market (Tsukiji) only to be shipped back to all these countries (a lot of it stays in Japan, too) for consumption. It’s quite unique because it’s very deeply rooted in Japanese culture. What was interesting for me was to study the chain in a very clinical way and then see the reality of this woman’s life. She even pulled out a picture of her dad and her brother with the first tuna they ever caught. It was such a huge part of her life and … yea, it was interesting. I felt like my education may actually be of some use. It made me happy. And, on top of all that, I really like my haircut. It’s short (a lot shorter than it’s been in a long time) and cute.
I came home and spent a long time on Skype with my mum. We both have web cams which is nice. It turns out we’d both had haircuts recently which we showed off to each other. It was nice to talk. I feel like it’s been a while.
At 2:00 I met Cate, Nathan, Noah and Rhiana to go look at houses/apartments for next year. We want to move off-campus and we decided that we’d house hunt together. The first house we looked at was really spacious and nice inside but the front ‘yard’ is a very large parking lot which, Rhiana pointed out (ironically, in case someone misses that) would be very useful for all our cars. It was also a duplex with another ‘house’ below us and we decided that that wasn’t ideal. On the way back we passed this pet store/human society place that had two kittens in the window. We cooed over them for a good five minutes ... they made my heart melt. At 3:00 we went to look at another house that was a lot nicer. This one was an entire house, seven bedrooms, an INCREDIBLE loft that, for the sake of not spilling blood over it, we thought (if we sign a lease there) we’d convert into a living room. It had an awesome kitchen with an island and everything. We definitely loved it. We’re looking at another house tonight and another tomorrow. It’s all very exciting. There are some interesting tensions developing and I think we all need to sit down and clear the air, but otherwise, I think it’s going to be great.
After looking at the second house, Rhiana, Cate and I got all girly and excited and practically skipped to town to buy (temporary) purple hair dye for me. We figured it would be really cool and subtle over top of my dark brown hair and we got rather excited. So we bought hair dye, came home and promptly did the thing. Rhiana did it for me and I feel like we bonded. Everyone was very shocked first at the thought of purple and then very disappointed at how non-obvious it is. Although it's subtle, you can actually see it quite clearly. And apparently it’ll wash out after seven to fifteen washes (there’s some debate about this point).
Feeling very chuffed with my cute purple hair, I came upstairs and ate Indian food for dinner while I watched Alexander. It’s a fairly new movie with Colin Farell and Angelina Jolie about Alexander the Great. A word of caution: it’s TERRIBLE. I downloaded it in honour of my Alexander the Great class which I love. Bad movie though. I went downstairs and hung out with Rhiana and Victoria for a while and then went and watched most of The Fifth Element with Justin and Cate.
At 8:00 Thornton was supposed to get together by floor and start decorating for Thalloween (Thornton + Halloween = our house party) which is next weekend. The theme is ‘Haunted Hospital’ and we had lots and lots of water soluble black and red paint, rollers and sponges with which to go nuts. The house looks really cool. It’s unfortunate that we have to live in haunted gloom for an entire week before the actual party but it took too long to decorate for it to have been done any other time. I’m really, really proud of the house. A lot of people weren’t around but those who were had lots of enthusiasm. There was absolutely no drunken debauchery (which is extremely unusual for a Saturday night) and I think by the time we were done eating our free pizza and garlic fingers (bribes are generally required to get people to do work), people just wanted to go to bed. I think we were all feeling rather warm and fuzzy. Thornton’s a great house.
Justin, Cate, Faisal and I finished watching The Fifth Element and then I went to bed.
Today, I have a Skype date with my mum and dad for 1:30 and another with my best friend from high school Rokimi (a.k.a Kimi) at 3:00 and I’m feeling really mellow and ... content.
I’ll leave you with a song that makes me think of 12th grade and some of the best times of my life … a lot of them with Kimi: ‘Mississippi’, by Train. (The video’s a little weird – it’s got clips from a movie called The Experiment. It’s ok, you don’t have to listen with your eyes.)