Prologue to history

Umm… just woke up from the weirdest dream: was in China/classroom type setting. It was a not-sex (yeah) dream involving characters I hung out with in Beijing and friends from other settings (awkward). I’d gone to sleep feeling kind of grumpy and maybe the dream ended up the same way ’cause at some point I leave the not-sex (as I said, it was a weird dream) involving above said characters to return to Chinese class which I had been skipping afternoons. I enter at it’s awkward ’cause I haven’t been coming to class in a while and the laoshi singles me out and does that thing where she explains about how she has higher expectations of me, how she’d intended to be a pediatrician (?) but it didn’t work out and now she teaches Chinese to foreign students, and proceeded to make me read aloud from the textbook. Obviously, I could not. Later, the others come back and it’s awkward/grumpy. I can’t remember anything else, it was fuzzy and… awkward.

I’ve never taken the MTL-TO evening express train this time of year. It drives straight into the sunset which is pretty but conducive to sleep, which is not conducive to a good night’s sleep after one’s arrival. But it’s okay because I got an email from my boss asking me to start on Tuesday (rather than Monday) so I have a day to fix myself up and look sharp and whatnot. I hope it’s a good job, it’ll be my first “real” job outside of aquatics.

My room is cleaner than it’s ever been before. I didn’t really hang out with Kat that much (because I was cleaning and packing) but I think I also just felt kind of numb from today’s bleak weather and last night’s sober conclusion. Nick played (Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl by Broken Social Scene which reminded me of this night at Olympic Island and the feeling of late and lyrics.

Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me…

I’m glad to be home though, Toronto is a nice place too; it’s full of muchly-love and muchly-missed gifties. And the weather is looking up, and I believe the sun sets later here as well.

I just saw Sibylle and Adam for the last time in the longest time and I kind of don’t know what to do with myself.

Yesterday was Sibylle’s convocation and I spent the day and night with a few from the graduating economics class and at dinner everyone made speeches to each other. It was very sweet. It makes me want to graduate but fearful of it all at the very same time. The class on Korea ended too and I won’t see most of those classmates anytime soon either. Next year’s the last year. It makes me feel anxious.

(backposted)

anyways.. it was sort of a dream within a dream, which was extra freaky, but i’m not totally sure. i must have spent the less aware part of my dream (which was either the dream within or my exciting night life as a character on spooks) chasing terrorists and i remember being disappointed when my supervisor let me know that my informer had been duping us all along and really he was a far-right european nationalist[1] (they were in my head because they’ve been blowing up red light cameras in france irl apparently). quel dommage.

i either woke up or got home and it was morning (hence the feeling it could be a dream within a dream) and i opened my notebook computer and there is an alert for an msn message. i click it. friend[2] has just gotten up from a nap during an all-nighter. then he posits how someone would look ~*iguana*~ themselves (or i misinterpreted this and he told me to go ~*iguana*~ myself, but i don’t think so) and wouldn’t it make a cool breakdancing move. but before i even have the chance to think about a response, i notice a squirrel on my desk starring at me ready to pounce.

and then i woke up. squirrels within arms length starring at me scare me like no other. happened for the first time while i was in residence and a squirrel had chewed up the screen and stuck its head in the window. actually freakier than the thought of working for an international intelligence agency or trying to imagine someone ~*iguana*~ themselves as a breakdance move.

[1] read: white supremacist, racist, anti-immigration, etc.
[2] alex: alexuser.

I think I had this dream in early April before the end of classes. I remember because I told this in our history seminar during a conversation about how nice spring is and that’s how I found out that Joyce lives in the building across the street on the same floor as me. It took until I’d finished exams to bump into her for the first despite having known her since first semester. But squirrels… *shivers* I went to Ottawa a couple weekends ago to see Melly and they have groundhogs in that city instead. Groundhogs are fantastic and non-aggressive. Squirrels from Montreal on the other hand (Toronto squirrels are okay) … oy, I have bad experiences (ie. rez). And because it was a dream within a dream, when I woke for real I wasn’t entirely sure there wasn’t a squirrel in my room and I will still figuring out escape routes for both myself and the squirrel because I live high up enough that it wasn’t practical to try to force it out a window. Yah…

Spanish-speaking kids are rolling down the hill. The sound effect they make is “roll! roll! roll!” The smallest one in a red turtleneck doesn’t really know how to roll and has to push himself through every turn. “I’m alive!” Another small one sitting with another family tries to imitate them but it probably isn’t as fun alone. A young francophone family has sat down to my right and the boys’ path is obstructed. Today, Sunday, is free museum day and the sun is out and many families are around. Some guys below strum and drum against a single guitar. It is late afternoon and the shadow cast by the Redpath Museum shifts and soon I will be entirely consumed. “Elle consomme moins que votre blonde,” reads the car ad (for a BMW mini) at the Roddick Gates. A helicopter chop-chop-chops above. The tent is set up for Convocation. The shadow has now consumed me and only the tip of my left shoe sees the sun. The francophone family beside me actually speaks Spanish. I should move back into the sun. I should read about the Soeul punk scene. Sometimes more than I wish I spoke French, I wish I spoke Spanish. I could be like a character called Molly. The skinny girls get up and check their bums for grass stains. The guys put away their guitar. I am going to move back into the sun, until the shadow consumes me once more. The last song on the album has ended. A young dad tries to help his pudgy little Asian baby stand up to pose for a photo. It’s hard kid, I know. (on lined paper from a couple hours ago, sitting on Lower Field, Sunday afternoon)