2004 top ten

dear friends,

here is my annual list, non-exclusive, list of good memories for the year.

happy new year,

cam

1. Becoming an Aunt. Although her current interests are not being far from my sister and eating paper, Hope is the smartest, sweetest most beautiful baby in the whole world.

2. Getting my MA, easily the most hellish year of my life but I am proud that I have the piece of paper, that I did it in 12 months and that I made some fab friends along the way

3. Three weeks in Krakow. Getting there on sketch Wizz Air all by myself, praying in amazing places with amazing people (for the most part) and my days in London before and after. (Also my days in Toronto before and after… the Pedro show, staying with Hilary and Lepp-Fransens)

4. Moving to the ICRM- Goodbye smallest apartment in the history of ever, hello fabulous Illustrious Circle Road Manor and all the fun that followed (minus Mr. Nibbleybites)

5. Pop Montreal- 6 nights, 6 shows… Tegan and Sara, Cuff the Duke, [pocket]Luke Doucet, Pete Elkas, [pocket] Gentleman Reg, Jim Guthrie, The Constantines, [many pockets] Blocks, Blocks, Blocks, Mission of Burma, and Rilo Kiley

6. Pops Montreal- many pops, fun friends, meeting fun friends boy friends, barfing.

7. High School Reunion 1&2- Carrie, Caryn [and Andre?] and then Anupa, Tasha, and Christy

8. The Conference Circuit (Grand Rapids and Kansas City)- presenting papers and catching up with Chris

9. The Arcade Fire CD Release at the Salvation Army Citadel with Luke, Tania and Priscilla

10. Scrabble, Salad Bowl, Psychologizer and Sociology Parties

So many others! My birthday, Christmas dinner with the girls, Being and hosting houseguests, Madonna with Carrie (again)...

foreshadowing

dear friends,

i stole this annual tradition from my friend hilary who stole it from some one else... anyway these were my top ten moments of 2003, expect my top ten of 2004 soon...

happy christmas,
cam

Top Ten Moments of 2003

1. The Wedding Convention with SELF (when she was just SEL), Laura and Hez… our rental car Bea minus wipers and stopping every 10 minutes on the 401 to throw windshield washer fluid at her, and perhaps most importantly learning that the words to “Bop Around” are actually “Barbara Ann”
2. QIAA Dinners, especially Cuba documentarian Estella Brava—pretending to know about wine, world affairs, and ruling with an iron etiquette fist.
3. Making church friends with the over 65 set especially Pete, Clare and Wilma at St. Mary’s and Norman at St. Patrick’s
4. Choosing McGill and turning down the LSE, becoming a sociologist and learning about social movements, Jews in North America, and research design and practice. At McGill, I have consistently enjoyed my Wednesday office hours, complete with entertainment from Mr. Roboto and David which more than balance out the crazy Janine visits and the being stalked by Lorne.
5. Hilary’s car dying in the middle of Kingston’s busiest intersection, unhelpful advice from cabbies and those at the other end of the cell phone, being “rescued” by the good Samaritans John and Krista and learning a lesson in karma (John had just won a roll up the rim bike). Promising them sleepless goat dessert and subsequently seeing them at convocation.
6. Graduation NOT Convocation. Seeing as how my position on my family remains as follows “it is broken. Lots of pretty pieces that I cherish, but when brought together it is ugly and jagged and I hate it”, the presence of my divorced parents (which includes the mother I speak to once a year), my two sisters (one of whom I do not get along with, one of whom does not get along with my mother and one of whom does not get along with my father), and two of my mother’s sisters who do not get along with my mother made for a stressed out CAM. But, she was very happy to bring four years to a close in the company of her favourite university friends and to find solace at church the morning of.
7. The Bacholerette Weekend. Learning that Mapquest is not as familiar with Eastern Ontario/ the Upper Ottawa Valley as one might assume. 6 hours to Barry’s Bay on the way there, 2 hours home… lots of good times at the cottage in between.
8. Living out my best friend’s wedding minus the gay best friend and the sabotaging the wedding part. Enjoying the pace of Chattanooga life and meeting Chris’ Megan. Encouraging a movie moment for Susan and Brian “go to the airport! Go to the airport!”
9. My Joel Plaskett Birthday in my favorite place with some of my favourite people (especially Sean and Hilary who made the trek from the T dot), seeing Joel Plaskett the night before, sort of… with Taben and bro and Carla…
10. Carlos and Pepes. Mango daquaris the size of my face, many a Friday afternoon spent intoxicated with the delightful Carla and David (even if the latter turns into a pumpkin at midnight)

christmas with stata is the best

dear friends,

i dislike christmas. i dislike a lot of fun things apparently. see: tomatoes, birthdays, bannanas and short people. the birth of christ part is wonderful, but everything else i could do without. alas, tommorow i head to trenton by way of toronto. in the big city i will be seeing the lovely ladies formerly of kingston and hopefully finding dadderino a christmas present.

i do have a delightful neice to watch look at presents (she is only 9 months old) and some super fun family to see. but, a holiday is a misnomer. i will not be seeing santa so much as stata and other programs on my laptop.

a thrilling report next time.

happy holidays,
cam

a little of that 

a little of this 

no time for christmas but all the time in the world to waste

dear friends,

christmas may not happen for me this year. i have 1.5 papers and a stack of research-assistant work to keep me companu in the two weeks before next term. i should have spent today polishing off that .5 paper, not least of all because it is to be my writing sample for my looming deadlines. instead, i spend the day googling and otherwise wasting time.

fun fact: charlie from the west wing is married to emily from student bodies.

dinner at l'academie in an hour and a half... surely to late to start working now...
cam

oh interweb, you are a trecherous whore

dear friends,

google bling letters.

i hate having my picture taken,
cam

ps- best friend amanda coming today!
pps- no more marking!!!

last night

dear friends,

so, after celebrating optimuscrime's (the blog, not the editor's) first birthday at rockaberry last night the residents of the illustrious circle road manor braved the super-slush to get on the 166 and head to a little establishment known as "the cock and bull" to a) see ms. sofi off as she is leaving m-city for the t-dot for the holidays. and b) see a friend and business partner of optimushalifax's band the burdock's. it was a great show... and inadvertently hilarious. apparently, the establishment usually has cover bands cause the locals were looking for some weezer. but it's my birthday. play some weezer. say it ain't so.

anyway, the craziest part of the whole night was when i spotted someone who looked familiar. after a few minutes i began to think it was this girl who was on the yearbook staff when i was the editor. since that was over five years ago and i have not seen her since, i was not sure. i kept looking at her, or she kept looking at me... anyway, she decided she would be the potentially creepy one and come over and ask if i was in fact carol ann from st. paul's in trenton (which of course i am). anyway, the last time i saw this girl she was 14... now she has several large tatoos and is in "a rock and roll band"... her family no longer lives in trenton. she gets bonus points for saying i was looking very good.

i find it totally odd running into random trentonians in the big city. the last time it happened was last spring at the pretty girls make graves/constantines show when this guy named jamie came over and asked if i was in fact carol ann from trenton who used to work at mcdonald's (which in fact i am)... he used to work there too... but he is like four years older than me and our working there overlapped for like 4 months. weird.

if we lose touch and you see me in a bar in five years say hi, even if it means i am going to talk about you the minute you are out of ear shot.

love,
cam

the greatest canadian gets covered in page six

dear friends,

i like to start my day by reading celebrity gossip (don't you judge me! it's once again set to be part of my work, when i ta television and society again)...

anyway, i laughed at the snarkiness of the following:

December 10, 2004 -- KIEFER Sutherland's granddad Tommy Douglas has
been voted "the Greatest Canadian" in a two-month, country-wide vote via a
reality TV-type show on the CBC network. Douglas — Donald Sutherland's
ex-daddy-in-law and the premier of Saskatchewan province — founded and
championed the Soviet-style form of medicare so cherished by pious
Canadians, who don't mind waiting years for elective surgery. Tommy battled
against the likes of hockey great Wayne Gretzky and the inventor of the
phone, Alexander Graham Bell, who was born in Scotland, and died an
American, but did some work in Canada.

i might have been up in arms had i not a) disliked the show b) responded to tommy douglas' generous lead with the following direct quote: 'lukas, i simply cannot support a man who is anyway responsible for bringing keifer sutherland into the world. i am creating ten email addresses and voting for terry fox NOW.'

the blurb did remind me i have never been to Saskatchewan province,

cam

goodbye ellie

ellie, you will be missed!

dear friends,

news that makes me wanna cry. not for fake. i mean really, is there anything sadder that a dead baby elephant that didn't even get named and was rejected by its own mother. horrible. horrible world.

back to the marking.
cam

unrelated: friends expect your second annual cam christmas cd soon. if you suspect i do not have your address you can benefit from some pirates of the interweb/icrm intranet advent downloads at optimuscrime. you should especially enjoy the fact that so many of the songs are associated in someway with the oc.

another rememberance day

dear friends,

it's a busy day... but please remember this.

love,
cam

mcgill art attack

dear friends,

after finding that"all the dirt on mcgill" page last week i went browsing around the mcgill archives site and discovered all of the following amazing posters. i began to wonder whether my sheer and unabashed lack of enjoyment of mcgill-life is a historically specific thing. i am sure that their are many talented artists at mcgill today, but where are their posters? why all the clipart and coloured paper? although, it seems that none of the following interesting events seem to happen any more. maybe i would have been happier here in the fifty years ago. i certainly would have liked the site of campus a lot more.

the countdown is on: 51 essays to grade, 85 exams to mark, 1.5 essays to write, and 10 applications to file before i can start working on the things i am really interested in again.

cam

i would like to see this crazy snow ghost around campus again.

maybe i would have been happier here in 1925. then again, i probably would not be here in 1925 given a) my lack of a y chromosone and b) the non-existent grad program in sociology

check out how wicked awesome super rad this poster is... and tell me the woman doesn't look like helena-bonham carter

the plumber's ball doesn't seem to happen anymore, and as far as i can tell mcgill never trained plumbers. i love the angular little people in the corner.

apparently the graduates' society of mcgill was a little more active once upon a time. although, to be fair i do not know is this is the equivalent of the pgss or some sort of senior year/recent alumni thing...