The Darker (and dirtier) Side of Life

On Mondays and Wednesdays -- the days I get off school at 3:30pm, I try to occupy a few hours by NOT spending time on the bus. 3:30pm, that's the prime time to find a bus full of high school students. Pedophiles rejoice!
Before arriving at my bus stop (that I get on from), it passes through my high school, and afterwards, another high school. I hate the bus enough, but when there's a bus full of people, it's even worst. Today, I decided to waste as much time as possible. I spent half an hour rewriting my chicken-scratch notes in the student's study area. I then made my way to the bank to deposit money and cheques that's been sitting in my drawer for weeks. I always go to the same bank branch to do business because it's close to my school...and there's a mall beside it.

I went into the mall afterwards to buy my fourth cup of purchased coffee of the day (I'm sick, I know). I also swung by the lottery kiosk to purchase a ticket in hopes of winning the $14 million jackpot so that I no longer have to take the bus or spend my Mondays and Wednesdays on the streets trying to avoid crowded busses.

In the process of trying to awaken my sleeping brain (caused by my statistics professor), I attended a therapy session -- retail thereapy, that is.

I went into this one store. I spent a good 30 minutes trying on a mass amount of jeans. I settled on a pair of Swedish jeans and a pair of German jeans. I was told not to wash my them for at least six months to keep the indigo glow. "It will be very individual. Your cell phone, your wallet, your keys. Everything in your pockets will leave a mark!" Attached to the pocket was a booklet on how to care for my new jeans! How the hell am I supposed to not wash these jeans for six months. I'm the master of washing clothes. I wash my jeans at least 3 times a month. This will be an interesting challenge.

Anyways, as I made my way to the checkout to use up my paycheque, the sales associate (who was also lugging around the "mass amount of jeans" that I tried on) slipped me a little note. The owner of the store was right beside us folding up clothes. In British Columbia, anyone older than 15, have to pay both taxes. Often you'll hear people buying clothes and asking for "one tax" because it's for "my 14 year old child"...when the clothes are clearly meant for a middle-aged woman.

Anyways, if you see a guy carrying a large backpack, wearing dark jeans, snarling at bus drivers and perfumed in a scent of tuna fish with dirty socks, you know you've found me.

Don the Geo Trip Bus Driver

Don was a man of many personalities. Not once did we doubt he was a crazy fellow. He had a Santa Claus-like figure, but spat out words of poison -- words that wouldn't dare pass the gates of the North Pole.

In our senior year of high school, almost half of the graduating class went on the geography trip. A lot of people took geography for the soul purpose of the annual trip. My friends and I took geography in the eleventh grade but saved the trip until our last year just so we were able to go with everyone else in our grade.

When we received our itinerary, one of the first things we all did was check where we were shopping. The trip that year was to Portland, Oregon. And although I love salt water taffy, and seeing how cheese is formed at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, I've been to Portland the year before for the choir trip, so I'm strictly there to enjoy myself and shop. One of the stops was to South Center Mall. We were all pretty excited about going to South Center since they had an Abercrombie & Fitch store there. Yes, yes, "woopity doo"...who cares about those brands, right? But you've got to understand, back then, Abercrombie, Hollister...those were the "in" brands. We don't have those stores in Vancouver.

Long story short, Don was basically the biggest tool of all. Even our teachers hated him.

After days of visiting unexciting scenic routes of caves and getting caught and punished for sneaking to hotel rooms of our friends (of the opposite sex) we were all pretty psyched to shop at South Center on our last day. But of course, we did not make a stop at South Center. We stopped at another mall that we had already been to on the first day of the trip...a mall that had absolutely NOTHING. Don's excuse was "you guys shopped enough!".

So I decided to do something about it. I took out a piece of paper and wrote on the header, "REASONS WHY WE HATE DON"...and passed it around the bus for everyone to give their reason on why they hate this guy. When the note made its way came back to me, I was too afraid to give it to him. I mean, what if he has suicidal thoughts after reading it? So now, it's sitting in my drawer. Have a read!

And so it begins...

Why must you be so cheap in quality, $10 Bax Bear key chain?

Today was my second day of classes. I've been scoping out all my competitors and soon-to-be homework moochers. That brunette girl with the glasses sitting in front of me, yeah she'll be the perfect Geography lab partner. The Chinese guy with the bed head who sneezed on his hand and then wiped it on his Adidas tear-aways, yup, perfect group-member for my Economics project. But the guy with the Ed Hardy hat and the t-shirt that says "GANGSTA" won't be anywhere near my academic career...
So far, this semester seems like it will be a good one. I'm excited to start school again...even though my last semester ended roughly two weeks ago.

Yesterday was fun and relaxing. We went through the syllabus for most of my courses, except Calculus--we did five pages of review. Why am I not surprised that our instructor decided to teach instead of slack?

Time will only tell of when I will skip class or sleep-in. It happened today. My class today didn't start until noon, but I wanted to wake up at 7AM to do laundry...and if I'm disciplined enough, I could even head back into the gym for some morning sweat sessions with my Russian personal trainer Olga -- I don't really have a trainer. Anyways, I ended up getting out of bed at 8:30AM. So I spent the rest of my morning watching soccer-mom television (Regis & Kelly, The View) while ironing my silk halter-top and reattaching gems on my purple sequined dress. Then class began.

We were all seated when our instructor comes out of his office.
"I'm not feeling too well. I'm going to throw up any second now. Class is cancelled".
Great, so now I have a spare hour wandering through the busy halls where students tend to spend more time having softcore makeout sessions with their boyfriend/girlfriend than looking through their brand new textbooks. If my instructor wasn't feeling well, then why didn't he cancel class this morning so we could have been notified through our e-mails. I could have used that extra hour to dry my jeans--which were still damp from being yanked out of the dryer too quickly--or learned how Hilary Duff managed to drop a live scorpion into her pants (without stinging herself) when she was teaching the audience on a rerun of Ellen.

I went to the mall aftewards to refund a pair of Ray-Bans that I bought but no longer liked. I also had to buy metric graphing paper and tracing paper for my Geography course (which I still can't find). I then went into the Rogers store today to inquire about the new BlackBerry Bold.

Me (M): Hi I was wondering if you could tell me the pricing for the Bold.
Rogers Rep (RR): The price? Probably $400.
M: I heard someone got it for $300.
RR: Listen, you'd have to call Rogers and ask them how much they'll sell it to you for.
M: Oh...you don't have any here?
RR: No, we're not selling any at the stores. It depends on how great of a talker you are to get it for cheaper.
M: Oh, no...I was just wondering the pricing of the phone since I've heard of different amounts that people paid.
RR: Yeah, if you want to pay cheaper, then you have to call them and persuade them.

Well, it doesn't sound as bad when I type it out, but he was so persistent on the fact that I wanted the phone for cheaper. Fine. Assume I'm poor just because I'm wearing a schoolbag. I'm willing to spend $400 on the phone, damnit! I was just questioning the different amounts. Alright, maybe I won't spend $400 on a new cell phone...but I did fork out a whopping $2 for a lottery ticket on my way out of the mall.

Yesterday when I was walking home from the busstop, I saw an old lady in front of me. She suspiciously looks around and then lunges at my neighbour's yard and starts yanking away at the roots of dead dandelion plants. I walk past her and see that she has a handful of roots already. I continue walking, and when I turn around...she's still going at it. Who the heck wants to grow dandelions? They're weeds! Was she hoping to infest her enemie's yard by dispersing seeds all over their garden?

Alright, this entry has been really word-y and you probably won't get through it without taking a few breaks. I wanted to post more photos, but Donna has been too busy to send any over. We took a ton when we went camping. Alright. Speak to you all soon.