UPDATE: Is the Housing Torture Over?

See original post: Is the Housing Torture Over?

Nine days have passed since a rental group toured our house, so I think I can safely say that our house has been rented (knock on wood). March is almost at its end, so I imagine that most people have secured their living arrangements for the 2010/2011 school year. If my assumption proves to be incorrect, I shall be VERY ANGRY! Don't you dare do that to me, universe.

My days in London are few, which I am simultaneously stressed and very happy about. My last class is April 8th and my only exam is April 22nd, then it's back home until I figure out my future plans. Moving should be quite the adventure...

Diverse Interests

As much as websites recommending things to me creeps me out, I do at least find enjoyment in the results. I went on YouTube the other day to find a music video and I'd like to share with you what I found. I'm going to preface this by mentioning that I think I have a diverse range of interests, and it seems YouTube has keenly noticed this. For me, all the recommended videos are about these three topics:

1. Lady Gaga
2. Mud trucks/off-roading
3. Ted Bundy

Thanks, YouTube.

Trouble Sleeping

Sleep has been a challenge for the past several days. I don't appreciate this.

Every night I go to sleep with the intent of waking up at a self-proclaimed "decent time" to get ready and do some work before class. But every night I lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. I could go to bed at 11, 12, 1, 2, 3... The time doesn't seem to make a difference. My mind is suddenly filled with ideas: what to write for my humour journal, what to write my persuasive speech on, what to wear the next day, what shoes to wear to Formal on Thursday, what I'm going to do in a month. When I finally do fall asleep, I wake up multiple times before forcing myself awake in the morning with no energy for the day ahead.

This is nothing new for me. Unfortunately, I've had trouble sleeping since high school. It comes and goes. Perhaps I'm more stressed about finishing school than I was allowing myself to believe. I'm so excited for a (much needed) change and to actually start my life, so I've been trying to concentrate on that instead of the scary parts. In light of my new wave of insomnia, it seems that plan was only partially successful. You win this time, subconscious.

When you try you best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
- Coldplay, "Fix You"

The Committee of Our Lady of Perpetual Birth March 2010 Newsletter

Hello Friends! We hope you’re all enjoying the positive change in the weather. Spring is definitely on its way, and you know what that means: its time for more babies! Spring always brings the promise of new life, so we’ve decided to dedicate this month’s newsletter to reminding everyone how important that new life is by reiterating why you should always (say it with us): Say no to abortion.

(1) Abortions are expensive and hinder the economic growth of our country. If we didn’t waste all this money on aborting the babies of young women who took all the proper precautions and women who were raped, then we’d have enough money to pay off the country’s $500 billion debt. Then we could afford to send all your babies to Catholic schools so they’d learn that sex before marriage is bad. This would prevent even the consideration of abortions (married people never get pregnant by accident and always want babies). What’s more important: paying off the national debt and sending all kids to Catholic school, or killing unborn babies? Yeah, that’s what we thought.

(2) Abortion is like slavery: embryos have civil rights too. Just because they’re in your womb, doesn’t mean they’re not people just like the rest of us outside of that nasty placental barrier. Those embryos have the right to free speech…if it was possible to talk inside of a womb…and if embryos had issues they needed to vocalize. Perhaps they would say, “Please don’t abort us; we need to grow up to be crack-whores, serial killers, sexual predators, and general drains on society.”

(3) People who think abortions are acceptable also think child abuse is acceptable. They are child-hating hippies who think that life is as expendable as that condom they clearly didn’t use. They don’t respect the life of unborn human babies; they eat chicken eggs, which are unborn chickens, so they’re also baby chicken munching monsters; and they even think it’s okay to dump out the stagnant water that holds the unborn mosquito babies that will grow up to kill people with West Nile and malaria. Outrageous! They must be stopped.

(4) Some people think that an unwanted baby is like a disease, but the joke is on them because the abortion they want will give them some real diseases to worry about! Not only do abortions potentially cause every known kind of cancer, but they also cause women to develop a very specific and horrific form of anti-social personality disorder that causes them to hate all types of babies. This includes, but is not limited to, baby birds, baby elephants, baby carrots, and Baby Spice.

(5) People say Earth is overpopulated and that aborting unwanted babies would solve this problem. Well, newsflash, Earth isn’t overpopulated; that’s just a myth, like evolution and that pulling-out isn’t a valid method of birth control (it totally works, kids). If you’re so concerned, then move with all of your babies to South Africa because, quite frankly, South Africa is severely under-populated and is possibly the safest place to raise your new family. Also, it’s about quantity, not quality. The more babies the better, right? Babies for everyone! Buy a farm, have lots of babies, then use them as a work force. The farm will provide the babies with everything they need and your family will be totally self-sufficient. Don’t worry; it’s not like slavery (see reason 2) or a cult. It’s just like…like being an Amish family… Yeah, that’s it.

We hope you enjoyed this month’s newsletter. Thanks again for subscribing. See you all next month when we discuss how you should eat your own placenta because it’s super nutritious and cuts down on waste, which is good for the environment.

Love always,

The Committee of Our Lady of Perpetual Birth

Is the Housing Torture Over?

As previously mentioned, ever since returning from Christmas break our house as been shown to potential new renters pretty much every single day. It's been hell. Complete hell. The rental company is totally unreliable: they say they're going to show up and then don't, they don't notify us of showings and then show up, they don't show up on time... Hell. Multiple times there have been groups who sounded very interested in the house, but so far none have committed.

On Saturday, I stepped out of the bathroom fresh from a shower and wrapped in a towel to hear a man downstairs saying, "Ok, why don't we head upstairs." Shit. As the first person began ascending the stairs I asked if they could look in my bedroom first so I could get back to getting ready. The guy leading the tour all but shit his pants in uncomfortable surprise. He began apologizing profusely and trying to avert his eyes as he was forced to stand beside me so the group of six (the three girls looking at the house plus three guys for moral support) could make it onto the landing and into my room. As they all awkwardly apologized to me, I assured them it was fine and that I just needed them to look at my room so I could get along with my business.

I could hear the group asking questions and making comments about the house as I stood, still towel clad, in the safety of my room. Everything sounded quite positive, although the guy from the rental company was bumbling around trying to answer their queries. However, we had no showings yesterday (Sunday) and I haven't received notification of any for today (Monday) so I'm hoping my Saturday house cleaning and my almost naked shower-fresh body tipped the scale. Please let the house be rented. Please please please. I can't have anymore strangers see me in a towel. That's why I stopped living in rez after first year.

One Summer Dessert

I am an ice-cream cone
Wafer plains and ridges promising a reward
A curved and tapered vessel
To hold sugary, crystalline cool innards
To be perfectly cradled in your fleshy palm
And your rough fingers callused by steel work
Thankfully cupping my sweetly rough exterior

A clutch too eager causes cracks in my ridges
Holes in my paper thin plains
An approach too timid lets my innards melt
Become soupy and exposed
And my fragile but solid shell
My contained existence
Implodes in your helpless hand


Written for Fundamentals of Creative Writing
(poem had to begin "I am a")