I saved this as a draft in June 2003, 2 weeks after I moved to London for the first time, and just found it in my Hotmail account. I used to swear alot. And I obviously had a drinking problem.
1. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? too early and too hungover. i get up around 7:30. thank fuck the pubs shut at 11... 2. IF YOU COULD EAT LUNCH WITH ONE FAMOUS PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? Gwenyth Paltrow so I could poison her soup and have Chris all to myself...muahahah! 3. GOLD OR SILVER? Silver!
4. WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW AT THE CINEMA? matrix 2. i didint even like the first matrix, so i fell asleep during the 2nd one. 5. FAVORITE TV SHOW? temptation island, the bachelor/ette, anything trashy mindless and fun. but i like the flimpsons too..and 6 feet under is cool too. and big brother. go glasgow federico!!! 6. WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST? spotted dick...errr...i mean cigarettes and coffee. breakfast of champions. 7. WHAT WOULD YOU HATE TO BE LEFT IN A ROOM WITH? a pool full of creamed corn. yuck!!
8. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE? No but i can stick your tongue up my nose
9. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? starry skies, music, and red wine
10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME? Ann
11. BEACH, CITY, OR COUNTRY? city yo! 12. SUMMER OR WINTER? warm winters
13. FAVORITE ICE CREAM? i dont get ice cream either. unless it is peanut butter and chocolate and then i get it 14. BUTTERED, SALTED OR PLAIN POPCORN? buttery butter
15. FAVORITE COLOR? red. or hot pink. hot pink is cool. 16. FAVORITE CAR? little old mini VW bugs, with teeny tiny old ladies behind the wheel
17. FAVORITE SANDWICH FILLING? peanut butter and jelly. i miss peanut butter!!! can someone send me a jar of peanut butter? preferrably skippy with the peanut on top! 18. TRUE LOVE? im on about number 5 in 3 days now 19. WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU DESPISE? rudeness, fakeness, and licking fingers after eating
20. FAVORITE FLOWER? Daisies 21. IF YOU HAD A BIG WIN IN THE LOTTERY? don't even get me started!!! all my friends would be so set. but not as set as me...fuck, i would have 10 houses, 80 yachts, beeen around the world 100 times, get really fat and ugly cuz it doenst matter cuz im rich, and i sure has hell wouldnt be living in a shoebox right now.
22. FIZZY OR STILL WATER AS A DRINK? beer is a drink
I've never read more than one book by the same author (Irvine Welsh, Ann Martin and Judy Blume don't count).
I don't have a favourite book or a favourite author.
I don't really have any opinions on genres of books. Except I know I don't like fantasy, or sci-fi, or military history.
And I'm a Librarian.
In my defense, I didn't become a Librarian because of a love of books, or reading, or libraries. I became a Librarian because I love to find stuff out. I love the research involved.
I've decided that I should gather an opinion about authors, and genres, and books in general. So I've made it my mission to read every Nick Hornby book. Ok, so he doesn't have the largest of catalogues, and he's not the most intellectual of authors. But he writes good stories about people, and North London, and good music.
The 12 bottles of wine that Christopher has been gifted just arrived, which means Saturday night is going to be spent going around the world with red wine. I think our first stop is South Africa.
Update
I have been through Spain, Argentina, and am now making my way through France and my record collection.
I have been inspired by the Jenifesto's Saturday Morning Kitsch and went in search of my favourite Saturday morning tv. It spooked the hell out of me at the time(especially The Librarian, go figure), but I kept on going back for more.
As I get ready for work on a cold and grey London morning, I'm thinking of all my family and friends who are probably snuggled up in bed right now, tummies full of turkey, and looking forward to a big sleep-in today. Thanks to my Scarborough girls, my Scarborough boys, my Dal gals (+Dave), my London friends spread across the world, my London friends still in London, Mike for bringing me canned pumpkin and halloween kisses, Christopher's family for caring so much without ever having met me, Christopher for being the best person I could have ever dreamed of, my family for always being there, and anyone else who reads this silly thing. Thanks for seeing me through the past six months. They have been the worse six months of my life. I seriously couldn't have done it without all of you. You rock. I'm off to work. Happy Thanksgiving. xoxo
It's Friday evening and I'm sitting on our bed with my laptop and a glass of wine, a la Carrie Bradshaw. So perfect time to write a silly little update.
I love being a librarian.
Seriously.
What other profession allows you to find shit all day? It's awesome. Basically my job means that I'm doing 36 hours of company profiles all week, with a little bit of ref desk thrown in here and there. Government libraries are also awesome because you don't have to work with the public all day. I enjoy dealing with the public, but I think I've paid my lifetime dues by working at a government housing office for a year. Minsterial aids and legal advisors can be just as whiny and obnoxious though, but at least they're only a pain when parliament is sitting, and not 7 days a week.
For those of you SIMSA kids taking Business Info Sources: pay attention. You really might need to know all that stuff one day. I kept the lecture slides and now refer back to them on a daily basis. I actually learned something at biblio school hurrah!
When I'm not at work, I can either be found:
1. At the gym. Yep, I'm right back into it. It's not a fancy shmancy place like Nubody's, but it's more along the lines of a dirty grimy YMCA. But it has Body Pump, and Pilates, and Yoga, and crazy cardio classes, and it even has a pool. I went to my very first AquaFit class this week, and it was pretty fun. I felt completley idiotic and prayed that no one I knew was watching me, but it was fun.
2. At the pub. I have cut down considerably since returning from Iceland (London, Iceland, and only getting paid monthly = less Guinness in my tummy), but I can usually be found there once or twice a week. Last night Christopher and I went to a couple of really cool pubs in Brixton. During which time a guy walked into the McDonalds across the road and shot a couple of kids. Brixton is whack.
3. At home. Curled up watching Christopher play Mario Kart. That boy has a great pair of thumbs on him and knows how to work Yoshi in the 150cc.
I am home on a Friday evening because I drank too much last night, and we have been invited over to a complete stranger's (friend of a friend of my parents) house tomorrow for dinner, so probably will drink too much then as well.
I was going to write a post reminiscing about places I've lived. London (Ontario), London (UK), Waterloo, Toronto, Halifax, they've all had some great things and I wanted to share them with you all. But I think I might give Luigi a time trial in the Mushroom cup instead. So maybe next time.
You heard it here first - I am now an Assistant Librarian at a large central government department (I won't say which one due to confidentiality and yadda yadda). I start on Thursday and am *very* excited to stop wasting away my days on "Escape to the Country" and Sudoku. What's even cooler is that the large central government department is directly next to Westminster Abbey and Westminster so I can play tourist on my lunch breaks (or just angry and busy Londoner pushing all the tourists out of the way on my lunch breaks).
I am also beginning a serious lifestyle change, as of today. You would think that cancer would make me drink less and eat better, but I think it's been the exact opposite. I have had a serious Heathrow Injection and have ballooned to sizes unseen since the great European Train Trip of 2002 (read a month of consuming beer, bread and cheese, with a European backdrop).
Wow, wow, wow. I just wrote a really long email to my mom and dad, so I'm just going to copy and paste it right here for everyone to read.
I got back to a humid and warm London last night after an a-m-a-z-i-n-g time in Iceland. Here are some highlights, broken down into stages:
My time alone in Reyjkavik - the whale watching: saw minke whales, a school of ten dolphins, some puffins, a basking shark (the captain said he had been fishing for 20 years in that bay, and had never seen a basking shark so close in the bay, so we were lucky), and hundreds of gannets (it felt like it was hailing, there were so many). It was a five hour boat trip, and I was stupid enough not to be wearing socks, so my feet were freeeeezing! - the Laugardalar pool: this was a geothermal pool right next to the hostel where I was staying. I went there every day and just sat in the "hot pots" - museums & galleries: I actually enjoyed most of them. I bought a 3-day tourist card, which gave me free admission into all of the tourist attractions, including free travel on the city buses, and free entrance into all of the pools. I went to every single museum and gallery in the city. And of course, a couple of libraries too.
Christopher, Andrew & Damon's homecoming ( Friday & Saturday night)- wow. what a couple of days - on Friday night, they wanted to find a steakhouse because they had been eating freeze dried meals for the past week (and I had been eating bagels and bananas), so we found a place called Argentina's in our Lonely Planet. We just thought it would be an average steakhouse, but we were so wrong!!! When we got there there were people dressed to the nines, in cocktail dresses and suits, and there we were in jeans and t-shirts. We decided to stay, and boy, it could be quite possibly the best food I have ever eaten. I had scallops covered in chocolate sauce and the best salmon I have ever eaten. The guys ate lamb, steak,lobster tails, kangaroo, and chocolate tortes. We had a couple of bottles of red wine, I had a couple of the best martinis ever, and they were drinking whiskey sours. It was an amazing night!!! All for the meagre cost of 40,000 icelandic kronur!!!!! I won't do the conversion, but the car we rented for 4 days was less than that dinner. When we told people afterwards where we went they said that was the finest restaurant in Iceland. Who knew???
- Saturday we went to the Blue Lagoon all day, which was incredible.
- Saturday night we went to a place called the Grand Rokk, which was a bar/chess club. Christopher & Andrew ended up playing these two guys who were Chess Grandmasters. And then the two grandmasters started playing against each other (apparantly for the first time in 2 years, so it was very tense). It was the most incredible thing to watch. I can't explain it properly.
- Then later that night we went to my friend Salame's house for a few drinks, and then she took us to a party that was happening at a martial arts centre. The whole bottom floor was covered in mats. Basically, we arrived, Christopher, Andrew and Damon beat the crap out of each other, and then we left. It was hilarious!!! We were supposed to stay out all night and join the 'runtur' (Saturday night pub crawl), but we were all pretty exhausted
Our road trip
- Sunday we got up early to get the car. Sundays in Reyjavik are a mess! The streets are completley covered in broken glass, beer bottles, hot dog wrappers and vomit. A sign of the chaos that happens on a Saturday night. Our car was a Kia 4-wheel drive.
- we drove to see all of the tourist sites, like Geiser and the waterfall where I saw the best rainbow I have ever seen. And then we cut through the centre of the country, driving from south to north, all through the back country on dirt and gravel roads. The landscape in Iceland is so weird - one minute it feels like you're on the moon because there are so many rocks and craters, and then 200 meters down the road there are lush grass and waterfalls. There were lots of sheep blocking the road, and at one point we were driving through the clouds. It was very cool. We stayed Sunday night in a small town and had a great night there.
- Monday we drove east to Lake Myvtan, which still has an active volcano. It also has a blue lagoon, but this time we were the only ones in it! It felt like it was our own little oasis. We stayed the night in Akeyuri (the 2nd largest city in Iceland). Apparantly, the thing to do in Akeyuri is drive around the main drag with music blaring - it was amazing how many cars were doing this on a Monday night. We went out for dinner and someone (I'm not saying who) ate whale. We were right up near the arctic circle, but I think it was too cloudy to see the northern lights.
- Tuesday we headed back towards Reyjkavik with a few stops along the way, and stayed in Keflavik, which is near the airport. On our way there we went through a really cool tunnel. I tried to stay up late enought to watch Rockstar Supernova, but couldn't do it. Magni (from Rockstar) is a national hero in Iceland!!! Everyone talks about him, and the phone companies are cutting their prices, just so people will call in and vote.
Whew, that was long. I had an amazing, amazing, time. I got up this morning and went for my first run in about six months - it was pretty slow-going, but I did better than I thought. I have another job interview tomorrow at noon, and am really hoping I get this one!!! I'll call later on today, xoxoxox
Yes, I'm a Librarian. Yep, I have to deal with cancer. You heard it right, I live in London UK and Toronto. Uh-huh, this blog is so I don't have to write a thousand emails.
