RSS Feed

October, 2002

  1. Seattle (continued)

    October 30, 2002 by Gail

    Here’s a continuation of the story of the weekend in Seattle, which I have to post separately since the Blogger server says it’s too long:


    smallest American hostel room I’ve ever seen


    close quarters

    - have a look at the hallway… it’s only just wide enough to accommodate the doors! At the left of the photo are the doors to the shower and the toilet. The shower was OK, but if you were a big guy sitting on the toilet, there’s no way you could close the door… and just try to wash your hands!


    look at the size of this washroom

    - the room even had a double bed! There was just enough space to squeeze in a bed between the shower (which was probably a closet before) and the wall with the air conditioning unit.


    no stamina Erich — one late night, he’s flattened!

    - one thing, though — we had a great view of the Space Needle and the little bitty garden area from the condos in the next building over.


    view

    Share this:

  2. Sunday in Seattle

    October 30, 2002 by Gail

    Sunday afternoon was spent at the Seattle Art Museum, where I took in the Mexican Modernism exhibition, which brought me back to the Latin American studies course I took at SFU in the summer. So I don’t feel so bad missing Spanish class Saturday morning. There were also a couple of other exhibits which were really impressive, particularly one by Doh-Ho Suh, a floor:

    Excerpt from the Seattle Art Museum website describing his work:

    Suh is perhaps best known for his sculptures that comprise numerous identical objects, including a “camouflage” floor supported by thousands of miniature plastic figures, a suit of armor made of shimmering army dog tags, and wallpaper using some 37,000 tiny portraits from his high school’s yearbooks.

    We were totally knackered coming home to Vancouver, but I phoned Allan and Cheryl and found out Alvin was visiting from Victoria, so I gathered up some energy to drive to Surrey. Melissa and Michael were naughty and sent to bath and bed early, while Maddy stayed up late with us and had her uncle and auntie all to herself, for once.

    Share this:

  3. The Tea Party

    October 30, 2002 by Gail

    I’m back from watching The Tea Party at The Orpheum in a rock concert/performing arts event like I’ve never seen before. It was like going to the opera, the symphony, a rock concert, the circus, and a sitar jam session all at the same time… it was GREAT! They even gave away commemorative CDs on the way out! They are only playing in five cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Qu�bec, and Montreal. Vancouver is the first date. Adrian is going to see if he can see it again in Toronto.

    It was a big production — the symphony had 42 instrumentalists, plus all the other musicians. The soprano, Christine Williams, was a major stage presence with her wild blonde hair and fuschia outfits.

    Phoned my mother this morning and offered to take her to see Dame Edna on Thursday, which should be a riot.

    Share this:

  4. The Lowdown on the Weekend in Seattle

    October 28, 2002 by Gail

    Back from a weekend mostly in Seattle. I booked tickets to see Janeane Garofalo on Saturday and dragged Erich down there to see her. What a good sport he is. I tried to get Erich to go on a road trip to San Francisco a few years ago, but he couldn’t go… we’re finally doing our first road trip in 2002! It wasn’t far, but it was a good little getaway.

    Fondue night last Friday was a hit… so much so that I slept right the way through half of Spanish class, so I decided to skip the rest of it and listen to the tapes in the car on the way south. Thankfully the border wasn’t busy and the guard was fine with us, because I made a reservation at the Wild Ginger for 5 o’clock… that place is so busy, there was only a 5 o’clock and 9 o’clock sitting left! It was well worth the speeding down, though (only in hindsight since we didn’t get a ticket), because their Asian menu was quite extensive.

    We had just enough time to find the Paramount Theatre, which was only a few blocks away from our hotel, The Vance. Maybe it’s because I booked through Expedia’s special rate, but we got the SMALLEST hotel room I have ever seen in an American hotel!

    After Janeane Garofalo — who was pretty good but I think that she was better in Vancouver, since she didn’t use notes and seemed to have a stronger connection with the audience — I took Erich to the Baltic Room, where Serg and I had been together once before. We stayed there right past the Daylight Savings Time conversion before going on a search for something to eat. I tried to find the 24-hour restaurant on Broadway that Serg and I ate at before in the wee hours, but someone in front of Taco Bell told me it had moved a year earlier. The taxi driver said Minnie’s had better food than The Hurricane, so we took his advice and ate breakfast there. By the time we got back to The Vance, it was 6:30am (5:30 after the time change)!

    Share this:

  5. Just Another Embarrassing Moment

    October 24, 2002 by Gail

    I can breathe now… the storm is over and I got through it… I handed in my Philosophy paper tonight, and last night I wrote my Linguistics mid-term. I was writing the last sentence of my paper 10 minutes before class was due to start! I honestly didn’t think I would be able to hand in anything — I had pretty much nothing written by this morning and even at lunchtime the situation was looking quite bleak. I don’t know if it was adrenalin that helped me find some cohesion and a thread of sense through that paper, but I managed to get a semblance of order in the afternoon and wrapped it up before racing to class in the fog. I am so much like Ross, I swear his writing methods have rubbed off on me!

    Last night about halfway through the exam, I was struck by this incredible urge to pee… it was overwhelming and almost painful and I couldn’t concentrate! I was so far into the exam I couldn’t get up and beg to go to the washroom — just standing up was a dreaded thought, in case I had to make a run for it (but to have to stop and ask a question!!) — so I wrote as fast as I could and tried desperately to go through the exam as thoroughly as I could manage. I can’t say I was super-confident about my effort, but I was just so relieved to have it finished and ran down the hall!

    It reminded me so much of the bus incident from Hamburg to Amsterdam it wasn’t funny!

    Share this:

  6. Maddy Turns One!

    October 21, 2002 by Gail

    We celebrated it today, but her actual birthday is on Tuesday!


    Madeleine Jane’s first birthday cake


    ice cream girl

    Share this:

  7. Erich’s 40th Birthday

    October 19, 2002 by Gail

    Returned from an evening at Joe Fortes for Erich’s 40th birthday — we had a great spot with a fire in the middle of the table! It was just like camping, but with a waiter! And no bears!

    Share this:

  8. People From the (Near and Far-flung) Past

    October 18, 2002 by Gail

    Bumped into Carolyn at Starbucks across from the library… I met her on the Hostelling International Chinatown tour from August. And how’s this for a blast from the past — I returned a phone call from Mrs. Berden (her son Daryl was a year behind me in school), who left a voicemail yesterday inviting me to some kind of motivational seminar at the Abbey Arts Centre tomorrow night. Talk about out of the blue, too! After giving her a quick run-down on my life of late, I think she realized that it wasn’t worth it for me to drive all the way out to Abbotsford for a seminar called “Take Charge of Your Life”… I told her motivation wasn’t really an issue for me!

    Share this:

  9. Coal Harbour

    October 17, 2002 by Gail

    Biked to West Coast Air this morning to pick up the report to take to Copytime, and toured through the building sites at Coal Harbour… wow, what a hotbed of activity! The place is going to be unrecognizable in a year or so.

    Share this:

  10. Official Panic Week

    October 16, 2002 by Gail

    We went over Assignment #1 in Linguistics class, and I think everyone was shocked at their scores (I would venture to say marks were in no one’s favour). There is a mid-term next week!

    Also, I have a Philosophy paper due next Wednesday! Egads! I have not been able to beat this B+ score in either Philosophy course I’ve taken, and it’s driving me bananas… all of my papers in other classes, even the ones where I did terribly on the exams, were A’s. There is a certain technique in writing Philosophy papers that I just haven’t been able to figure out. Archaeology, English, Latin American Studies, Geography — all were manageable, but why not Philosophy? Are my arguments really that weak? Are my terms way out of line? Martin Hahn didn’t even give any specific comments on my first paper, but I’m too shy to ask him what was really wrong with it. And it’s been too long now to ask Patrick Findler about paper-writing from Moral Philosophy.

    Share this: