She blinded me... with SCIENCE!

Hi!
On Saturday I went to this thing with Elise and Kara called Kollaboration, it's basically an Asian thing where they show off Asian talent and there's a competition thing like a talent show. Wowww that was a really good description. I'm too lazy to change it. Anyway it was in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, right next to the CN tower, and it was super rainy and windy and we went around for like 20 minutes trying to find the right place, but we made it eventually. Pretty much everyone there was Asian (mostly Korean) and everyone was like "yay being Asian!" and I was like, does half-Asian count, and feeling very conflicted about my background and where I belong STORYOFMYLIFE. Other than that it was really fun. I basically went to see David Choi, musician and ultra cute "Youtube sensation." Maybe you have never heard of him before. Maybe you have. But Elise and I are both Youtube geeks and follow all the same people etc, and we were in maximum fangirl mode. Kara probably thought we were insane. After the show we bought his album and he came out to the lobby and we were like "YOU ARE SO AWESOME AAHEEHEHEHE, WILL YOU SIGN THIS OH MY GOD THANK YOU CAN I GET A PICTURE WITH YOU?!" Of course it was the one day I didn't have my camera with me, but I got a picture on my phone. But I don't know how to get pictures from my phone to my computer. :/ He said I looked like one of his family members. Afterward Elise and I were like damn we should have given him a hug cause he is SO ADORABLE. There were like 30 people waiting for him to sign their stuff but we waited our turn (Kara left) and when we got to him we were like "ummmm can we have a huuggggg?! heehehhehee" and he was like lolsure. It was fun to hug him because he's so short, about an inch taller than me. He was really nice too, like he actually talked to us and stuff. So YAAAYYYYYY I met David Choi! We got a cinnabon and took the subway home.


On Monday I went to the Japanese Cultural Centre with Bachan and my cousins Paige and Emma, who are 7 and 8 (I think) and their parents for Nikkei Kids Day (Nikkei=Japanese migrants and their descendants). Paige and Emma love me and I'm not sure why since I'm really not that great with kids. I never really know what to say to them. Anyway it was cool to go there, because I never ever see Japanese people around. Toronto has tons of Asians but they are almost all Korean or Chinese. There were a bunch of activities set up for the kids to do and they won little prizes and stuff, it was very cute. There were soooo many mixed-race kids! There were a few tables for different Japanese prefectures and two of Bachan's cousins were at the one for Kumamoto, where her parents were from. I had never met them before so that was cool. There was a whole room with artwork and information about the internment camps, and I learned that both sets of my great-grandparents were in the Tashme internment camp in B.C. and now it's a ghost town.
After that we all went to the Science Centre. I had never been there before and since it's March break there were a million pushy tourists and their annoying pushy kids, but it was still pretty cool. In April some Harry Potter exhibit is going to open (they already had one of the 16 cars they used in the movie for the part where Ron drives the flying car and is like "come on then 'arry!" and rescues Harry but I can't remember which book that is). As a kind of preview they were going to do a "sorting hat demo" so Bachan and I went to check it out before we left. It was basically this blonde lady with a really fake British accent and a witch costume inviting kids to sit on a stool and asking which house was their favorite. Then they would put on the "Sorting Hat" (actually she would just hover it over their head cause I guess they were afraid of spreading lice or something) and this recorded background voice would come on and sort them into that house. 90% of the kids chose Gryffindor. So over and over we heard, "brave, courageous... a good heart... better be... GRYFFINDOR!!" It was brain-numbing but we really just wanted to sit down. Waiting for the bus back to the subway station, I tried to teach Bachan how to text.

Also I made a new skirt recently with Bachan. I was getting bored of my robot dress so it got cut up. I am way too lazy to take nice pictures so here is one that I took in a mirror. I forgot to take a close-up. But you might remember the robot dress anyway... I'm sure Claire will.


:D

Today I got a Visa bill for 65 cents. lolwat
Yesterday there was finally a non-canceled observing session for my astronomy class. It was on top of the 15-story McLennan building and I went up there at sunset and it was soooo beautiful. Yeah, I didn't have my camera. But once the sun went down you could see all of Toronto and all the city lights. There was a telescope set up and we looked at Mars and the Orion Nebula. The TA took some of us inside to see 2 of the more hardcore, non-portable telescopes. It was pretty cool. That's pretty much it. Bye!

hello how are you

Yesterday CBC was in my sociology class in con hall, filming us for a documentary called "information overload" about technology and how it affects our generation. I didn't think it was a very original topic, but it was kind of cool, there were camera guys creeping around the stage and filming our prof as he was lecturing and other camera guys going around filming the students. I was sitting next to one of my friends at the end of a row and they put a camera about 5 feet away pointed right at us for like, 5 minutes. I am a huge dork and kept glancing over at it and starting to crack up. The documentary comes out in October, maybe I'll be on tv! But I probably will have forgotten by then anyway. :/


My last exam is on April 15 and they kick you out of your res 48 hours after your last exam. So I get kicked out on April 17, the day before my birthday. Depressing. Molly doesn't have her last exam until the 20th though, so hopefully I'll be able to stay a little longer and just say that I'm her guest or something. Apparently I have the same birthday as America Ferrera, Melissa Joan Hart, Christian Slater, Conan O'Brien, Eric McCormack, and James Woods. Also, Albert Einstein died on my birthday in 1955.
:/
Extremely depressing.

Mountain Dew scented NES controller soap? Yes please.

It's been really warm and nice recently, and it's supposed to rain on Friday. I miss the rain a lot. When I'm sitting in the middle of Con Hall and I can hear everyone around and above typing on their laptop keyboards, it sounds like rain. But we never get real Oregon rain here.

I went to breakfast today with some people and they were talking about concussions the whole time. It made my head hurt.

Yesterday at the end of sociology we watched a short documentary about how Coca Cola is taking over the world and Americanizing everyone. It was terrifying. Don't drink Coke.

Zeus

It's finally been getting warmer in Toronto! Apparently this is supposed to be a "false spring" and it's going to snow again soon, but I hope they're wrong.
Yesterday I hung out with Edward for most of the day and we wandered around downtown Toronto. In the evening I went with Kara to a free concert at Soundscapes, a music store in Little Italy.



The band was Zeus and they were actually really good. They remind me a little bit of Wilco, but more rock-y. The store was crowded to the back when we got there, but we pushed and shoved to the very front. Yay us! Here is a bad picture of the small crowded store:


Soundscapes does free in-store concerts pretty often. A lot of the bands are from Toronto, which is cool. Of Montreal played an in-store in 2007! But they're from Georgia, not Toronto.
Since we were at the front, the band was about 5 feet away from us:


They had a pretty long set for a free concert and played most of the songs from their album, which we bought afterward. The band members were hanging around later and most people had left, and for some reason I had a sharpie in my purse. So we got our albums signed by all 4 of them:


Walking back, we saw Zeus on the cover of Now:


Sweet. After listening to the CD I think they sound better live (which I think is impressive). But I still really like the CD too. When I got back I played Super Smash Bros (N64 version) in the common room with Neil and Naufil. I kicked their asses. Well, I kicked Naufil's ass. Neil kicked my ass.


Horrifying Rifqi quote of the day:
"Elton John is part of the Beatles, right?"
AAAGGGHHHHH WHHAAAATTT

First Evan, now Rifqi. What is it about Elton John.

The Cosmic Perspective

Hi, hello. Here are some updates on my exciting life:

-I am a terrible Canadian and didn't watch the hockey game. But I was on Bay street which is right next to Yonge, which got closed down because of all the partying and chaos in the streets, and it sounded pretty crazy.
-Instead on Sunday night I went to see Shutter Island with Edward. The movie was thoroughly fucked up and I liked it. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, but Edward got pretty scared. I mean he was clinging onto my arm for like half the movie.
-Thanks to Kara I have discovered the gym in Hart House, which is awesome and free for students. No more running around in the freezing cold!
-Tomorrow is my astronomy midterm, then I am all done with midterms. My last final exam is on April 15, right before my birthday.
-I went to a pub night a few days ago with some friends but all they wanted to do was take annoying pictures for facebook and stuff. We hung out in one of the lower house common rooms when we came back and they had 2 laptops out with facebook going and I wanted to go out and actually do stuff but everything was about facebook, it was stupid and I missed you guys.
-I got new glasses, they are sick.

Wtf, raccoons, why are you so scary. And why are there two of these pictures, which I found like a month apart:

Today I went grocery shopping.
How to go grocery shopping like Erin:
-Feel hungry. Realize you have no food because last time you went to the dining hall you forgot to steal stuff in tupperware. Decide to go to Valu-Mart to buy some food to keep in your room.
-Wander around Valu-Mart. Consider buying different things, but put them all back. Decide that you can just get food from the dining hall for free next time you go.
-Go to the drugstore next door and look at nail polish.
-Feel distressed by how much more expensive nail polish is in Canada than in the US.
-Go to Indigo (Canadian Borders) and pick out random magazines. Sit down and go through them one by one for a long time but don't buy any of them. Go to the music section and read about Bob Dylan for half an hour.
-Feel hungry again. Go across the street to Tim Hortons and eat soup and a donut. Go back to res.

I need to start taking more pictures cause I haven't really had any lately. That's pretty much it.
Bye!