A:

OR….

B:

You can also add comments such as “I like the brighter pink but want the yellow bingo daubs on their faces, while keeping the font of B, but the word placement of A!”

Thanks for your help!

A:

I'm Letter A!

OR….

B:

I'm B!

You can also add comments such as “I like the brighter pink but want the yellow bingo daubs on their faces, while keeping the font of B, but the word placement of A!”

Thanks for your help!

Assuming no one reading this knows me (although I know this to be a virtual impossibility), I will say briefly that I left a high-ish paying advertising sales job to move to Toronto and come back to school, so my most recent work experience was that of a trusted professional. I had the most freedom you can really get from a job without being the boss. No one cared about my hours as long as I was selling. My clients were awesome and I spent a lot of time just driving around the city visiting them and making money doing so. It was enough of a workplace utopia (taking into account that no such thing exists and therefore this was still full of normal work bullshit, but on the whole the perks made it well worth it) to make me forget how SHITTY the retail world can be.

I don’t have this job yet, but I already feel like I am being kicked back to Australia and the horrible work hunt that happened there in my first few months before I found the store with no name and another owner who trusted me to do what was required and didn’t feel the need to talk about being Fashion Forward or grill me about how I would handle  such baffling customer service conundrums as internal theft and strict policies on refunding and exchanging. GUUUHHHHH.

The tone of the interview was just  so condescending! I followed the two owners into this dungeon-like basement where we sat in folding chairs at a low table under a bare bulb. Seriously.  The two of them didn’t have my resume in front of them since I had applied at the other location, so I had to do a lot of recapping. That was all fine, but the kicker was their reactions. They clearly felt they had to use their “professional” faces and exert the full force of the deafening power they have over me, lowly applicant. I spoke like I would in a professional setting: relaxed but succinct – well, as succinct as I can be – but still jokey and normal. All my smiles and friendliness fell on their stone faces, locked in stern rictus. What is the point of this!?!  Be a normal person! Assume the people you are interviewing are normal! Fuck!

I can only assume this comes from dealing with juvenile delinquent shop-lifting hobo children, but it’s really not an excuse.  What other brilliance did they offer?  Well, I was asked to name my favorite fashion designers and what some of the current styles are for Spring, and had I heard rumours about the Fall collection. Awesome. Did I mention this is an interview at a shoe store? I GET the fashion thing, but come on. If I “pass” your little coolness test and say someone you approve of, it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like I WEAR THEIR CLOTHES.  I am a student, not a celebrity. And if I know everything there is to know about fashion, that won’t matter either, since your store sells SHOES.  Seriously.

I got to run down my previous experience with internal theft, customer service, delegation, blah blah blah. I ascertained a 50% discount with one FREE pair of shoes per season after 6 months and found out the hours. I inquired after the origins of the business and their plans for world domination (which of course exist. Ambitious business plans can be so aggravating). All in all the interview went fine.

If I get my way I will get the job at the College location where these two do NOT work and which seems a little more laid back. OH! And another stipulation was that female employees must wear makeup and heels!  I like dressing up and all the shoes I like in this store are heels so this doesn’t concern me in actuality, but it’s pretty disturbing conceptually. And in another way not… it’s so odd. Uniforms are part of jobs, and image is something a store needs to concern itself with… but make up and heels are two pretty loaded items of female attire. I still want the job, but that interview left me with a really weird taste in my mouth. If I get it, I will have to keep my wits about me. I don’t want to be a little jumping squirrel in retail again, accepting the ridiculous assumption that these things are actually important and that I am a serf, beholden and grateful to the benevolent care of my governing lord, bowing low before his glory. In heels.

I bought the ingredients for delicious beet borscht. Did I mention I am doing a cleanse? It’s the infamous Wild Rose cleanse, including such pill-formed Herb family favorites as Cleansaherb, Biliherb and… Miss Congeniality winner, Laxaherb. I take two of each of these before two meals, as well as some vile echinechea-tasting tincture. The result is supposedly a happy healthy colon in a mere 12 days! Another result is a different kind of “trot” than I took today – the type you can’t bring your roommates along for. My poor butt. That asshole Laxaherb. That’ all for now.

It’s a tribute to his volume that I could hear perfectly with the plugs in, and was able to catch some stellar pronouncering:

Modernity: “maw-DERN-ty”

Ennui: “ANY-wee”

Fiefdom: “FEEF-dom”  – though in this case, a fairly knowledgable source tells me that “feef” is also an accepted pronunciation for what I would have pronounced “fife”.

Even the “modernity” one is not so bad. It’s the ennui that really kills me.  These words by their meanings alone really illustrate what a first rate douche class this is. Any-wee, I just thought I would mention some of this week’s hilarity.  It’s a new semester, dontcha know, meaning an all new parade of classes, including the above… Which I  JUST realize I have already mentioned! You guessed it! This is from none other than Critical Frameworks!
That class that launched a thousand Drop Slips! Joke’s on you students: this class is a REQUISITE! For ALL of the programs! Bet you thought you could get out of it with your fancy “Advanced Standing”! How wrong you were.

This afternoon I spent some time at a really nice cafe near my house called Finding GiGi. Brutal name, but cute place with a mellow atmosphere. Wednesdays I don’t have class, so I like to toddle over to some sort of establishment to drink the lattes that gave this blog it’s wholly unearned name. Since school started both sloth and lattes, and especially the two together have been sadly absent. Had I known I might have strove (striven?) for accuracy and called it The Art of Bullshit. Bullshit is an art. And learning art requires much bullshitting. My bullshitting skills have come into play more frequently than my drawing skills, I bullshit you not.

One of my teachers is an insecure narcissist.  She  feels the need to spend much of the class time bragging about her accomplishments and abilities both as an illustrator and as a guide for us. I say guide, because she clarifies each class that she is not a professional teacher, but a Professional, and she brings that to us; her knowledge of the BIZ as it IZ (my words, not herz).  She is good and does get a tremendous amount of work, and really interesting jobs, so I don’t know why all the braggadocio is necessary, that is, if I couldn’t see her QUAKING self esteem, quivering jello-like just beneath a very polished surface. I don’t want to demean my gender by wondering aloud (in type) if this isn’t a typical problem for a female professional. This is a very uninformed question, since I don’t even know what percentage of illustrators are male or female or if there is even a dominant pattern, but I feel like I have seen the  furrowed brown, false sternness, hard setting of many “rules”, mixed with the attempt for familiarity, “coolness”, and acceptance, at least of her skill level, before. Like she needs to prove herself again and again in each class.
She brings a strange tension to the class and inspires in me an instant fear – she is an unstable mass that could explode at anytime. Sucking up was made for people like her, because she demands that she be appeased, tended to, respected, and soothed at once. Opposing needs.

This was my first “A” in her class: On the first day, she came in bold and volatile, and showed us a powerpoint of her work ending with a few photos of her with a celebrity she had done a portrait of, bragging about the perks of this life, then instantly stern again, warning us of the effort and the deadlines, and the charm and ability to sell oneself that was needed to maintain a career. All of this is true, I am certain. I don’t think what she says is wrong, it is SHE herself that is unstable. Her information is all fine, and her work is fine too.  Any-wee, I saw all this and decided to practice my Art, and suck up to her like it was no one’s biznatch. The classrooms are set up very awkwardly with chairs pointing in all directions on long row tables, so some students always have to crank their heads or turn their chairs to see the teacher. As a result, few do this. Mostly they sit with heads down, doodling, or dicking around on their computers.  I made a heroic point of always reorienting myself to her in the room and making constant eye-contact so whenever she did a little sweep of the room, there I was, sitting up and staring right at her in a sea of hunched backs.  At the end of the class I stayed after to help her take down some some pictures she had put up, and she asked after my past profs teachers, and eventually it came out that I am from Saskatchewan.

“Oh! That’s why you are so friendly!”

Yesssssssssssssssssssssss! Doubleplusgood!  She A) thinks and NOTICES I am friendly and attentive, B) Attributes it to assumed “rural” upbringing and not to my devious plan to shmooze the best grade possible out of her while avoiding the shrapnel of her volatile ego! MWAH-HAHAHAHA!
So pleasing. Now as long as I follow the letter of her edicts and never challenge her (hopefully making some good work all the while) I will ace this class!  I really just want to make nice things and avoid being unnecessarily persecuted by a damaged person with power. But just TRY and tell me that this is not the essence of every single business and interpersonal exchange I will have for the rest of my life!!  This is what school is really meant to teach. How to get other people out of your way in your pursuit of happiness.

This is the course outline in the syllabus:

“This lecture course introduces students to thinking creatively and analytically about visual culture in the contemporary global context. Students are introduced to the ways in which meanings are produced through visual forms, including paintings, prints, photographs, film, television, video, advertisements, news and science images. The course examines how images can be “read” as a visual language and what influences inform our ways of seeing, including aesthetics, ideology, gender, race and class. “

What? Didn’t read it all? It wasn’t interesting or enthralling? It sounded like total jargon?

“baskdhasydfcvwkeuhdkasjxnlasijd MANY DEFINITIONS OF OBSCURE TERMS USED ONLY BY ART THEORISTS WHO WOULD WORK AT MCDONALDS IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE EMPLOYMENT CREATED BY FORGING ASSININE JOBS LIKE THE WRITING OF THIS TEXT adhsdkfdybfskdchksducybskducfhbskdjhfbskjdhfbksjdhbfksjhdbfkjshdvfwyutfvsi”

Ok, that’s extreme, but let’s look at the first “mini assignment” I have been asked by my leopard-tight Kat VonD- idolizing TA:

Objective:
Find an image (of some kind) that engages you in relation to the distinctions covered in lecture, tutorial and in the text:

denotative vs connotative meaning

icon, symbol, index

looking vs seeing

mimesis vs social constructionism

sign, signifier, signified

studium vs punctum

Your task is to find this image, whatever it may be – the sky’s the limit – as long as it has in some way, shape or form, engaged the distinctions listed on your chapter 1. summary posted on Mycourses. This exercise is to help you put this theory into action, so to speak – easy preparation for more in-depth discussions in the future.

You should write up a mini paragraph exploring how this image engages with one or more of these distinctions.

Please note that you are expected to come to class prepared to discuss and share your image in a round table setting – no pressure or judgment, just fun times.

Did you get that? Just fun times!

She made us sit in a circle and introduce ourselves! Then we sang the alphabet song! Just kidding about the song, but the circle was real.

Here is my image and subsequent interpretation:

Credit to the MOBA website. Click the link below for more as well as their synopsis

http://www.museumofbadart.org/collection/portraiture-11.html

Here is my “mini-paragraph” (By the length of previous posts, you should know by now that for me, anything shorter than a novella is a miracle. A mini-paragraph for me is 3 or 4 normal ones). Also please note that since this is for discussion, the paragraph is pretty point form and choppy. What can I say? I am after all doing this about 30 mins before class.

For Fun times

Denotative meaning (Studium): Framed portrait of a clown frowning in make up.
Connotative meaning: Clowns represent youth, playfulness and circuses. Associations with children’s birthday parties, etc. This clown’s frown juxtaposes the usual associations with the “icon” of the clown.

The Punctum is individual and personal by nature. For me, the punctum of this piece is both the reference to cultural uses of the clown as a fearful and menacing figure in movies like “It” , but also as a representative of “bad art”. The Crying Clown is a staple of trift store velvet paintings, touching on the idea of kitsch, and class cultural distinctions.

There is also the implications of this painting and where it was found. It’s on the MOBA (Museum of Bad Art) website, giving it a negative and mocking context. The expression on the clown’s face is not only contradictory to the happy clown, but to the crying clown as well. This clown frowns, but smiles with both mouth and make-up, resulting in the literal menacing clown of popular culture. The light colours of the painting, and brightly lit front facing portrait places the viewer at eye level with the clown, removing some of his menace. This clown looks like he takes pleasure in the pain of others, but here in pastel tones, eye to eye and front on, with his body fading gently into haze implies that perhaps the only malice he will inflict is a really sharp pinch or to cut in front of you in the cotton candy line.

And THAT, friends, is what we call Art Education.

Residential Shanty

Since this picture is of such low quality, I have highlighted some of the notables.

1. Note the bashed up venetian blinds. Behind them there is something cover the remaining clear window.

2. Those white blurs on the door and window are city notices and undelivered parcel stickers.

3. Nothing to do with the house, this wire is where squirrels often run. If I am typing with my head down, I will sometimes get a flicker of something in my periferal vision and more often than not it’s a black squirrel running along those wires. Neat, hey?

4. I know there is no number 4, but something else of note is the overgrown front lawn with garbage bins in the centre. Pretty abandoned stuff.

So this is the place, as seen from my bedroom window

Last night when I was blogging rather than studying, I saw two odd spots of light outside. It was the glow of flashlights and it was on the front porch of the house!  Two dudes were standing there and from my room I could hear snippits of their conversation, “are these from the city?” and “let’s go in”, and there was a jingle of keys and they went IN! To my dissapointment and relief they did not come out dead. They came out just as alive as before, but leaving me no wiser. Since they have keys, is this their place? Are they owners that had their property run out on by renters? They aren’t from the city since they asked about the notices. What gives!

These are the things I do to avoid studying for midterms.

Mmm! So HEALTHY!

Meet Calbee Spinach Mix crunches. Observe how it’s natural, papery looking header with rustic wheat-themed seal triggers feelings that the product contained must be Healthy, Homemade, and Natural. Plus they are made of spinach and BAKED as the stamp-like graphic screams, not fried. Feeling healthy here! Let’s move on to the back!

What a lift!

Sadly, this picture is a little blurry, but I’ll even write it out for you. That’s service!

Your Salad Never Got Such a Lift!

Calbee Spinach Mix Crunches is made from farm fresh spinach mixed with carrots, pumpkin, bell peppers and tomatoes baked into crunchy bites. Your salad has never been easier to carry around, and it’s wholesome ingredients have never tasted so good.

Now you know that a bag of snacks is easier to carry than a bag of salad. Next lesson:

Vegetable drinks have never given you this crunch.

So true. But carrots and peppers are fairly crunchy, if we are talking about vegetables… oh right, but they aren’t as easy to carry around. Point made, well done. There’s more:

Enjoy the goodness nature has to offer, all packed in innovative product.

No, that’s not a typo. It says “in innovative product” with two spaces between in and innovative.

So class, from this we can take some very direct information: Eating Spinach Max Crunches is equal to eating salad or drinking vegetable juice in terms of health (see “goodness of nature” and “wholesome ingredients”), but are actually better because they are more convenient and crunchier. All in all this sounds like the greatest vegetable revolution since the Veggie Tales movie. I am all in.

Let’s take a bite! [crunch] Lives up to crunch factor. The bag is indeed convenient and lightweight. They taste good. Salty, and not too “spinachy” but a little bit spinachy, which you want. Nice one. Let’s take a quick peek and see how many of my recommended daily servings of veggies I have just conveniently crunched through…

The goodness Nature has to offer.

Again blurry. My camera is still on the fritz so I had to make due with the photobooth which isn’t the hottest for the closeups. But again, I will recap the highlights.

Firstly a serving size is 28g, and there are 2 servings per container, so that’s half the bag. But these are vegetables we are eating here, so bring it on. I’ll eat the whole bag. It’s for your health!

Let’s see now.

Total Fat: 7% … Okay, seems a little high for 28 grams (or one OUNCE) of air-puffed little wafers, but this is nature’s goodness, and I know avocados are really high in oil. No avocados in here, mind you… but what’s next…

Sodium: 8%. Again, a little high, but I love that salty crunch, and they have to make all that health food taste good somehow, right?

Cholesterol: 0%. Awesome. Feeling good.

Total Carbohydrates: 22%.  Hmmm. Atkins won’t love that, but it does have wheat flour in it. They need some kind of binding agent here, after all.

Sugars: Less than 1%.  Joanne and Hal are coming over and I am SO serving these.

Dietary Fiber: Here we go! Let’s get healthy! … Less than 1%. Huh? Spinach is an excellent of fiber, I thought. Maybe I am confused. Anyway, we are getting into vitamin town and this is where the payoff lies, since everyone knows spinach is practically the healthiest veg on earth, chalk full of vits and minerals and all that great stuff. Yessssss….

Protein: 1% Fine. We are dealing with veggies here. All normal.

Vitamin C: 2%

Iron: 4%

Not a significant source of Vitamin A or Calcium.

…..

That’s it?

That’s all.
Yup, Nature’s goodness is some fat, some carbs, some salt and NOT MUCH ELSE. To make these veggies even remotely palatable they had to strip them of all nutrients, cold filter them through some cardboard, stir in some flour and bake for 3 weeks sprinkling them once a day with a salt brine. Total branding hoax! Farm fresh? What difference does that make if there are NO nutrients! It could be Compost Heap Fresh and have the same effect – maybe more since it would come with some free penicillin.

I bought these on a whim while at the corner store and was duped by the big SPINACH on the front and the lure of eating my vegetables like chips. Consumers, if you want to pay $2.89 for 60g (2.1 oz) of salted air wafers, they do have a good flavor, but thanks to their web of misleading nutritional lies, I confirm, that these snacks are fit… (long pause) for the PIT.  …andhaveanuglypackage. Just saying.

August 27, 2008

Oh man, the difficulties of posting when faced with no internet connection, and all of the influxes that a ew city brings with it. I am now stationed at a hoity-toit internet cafe where the receipt that gives you your wi-fi password also requests that pesky laptop users stay confined to the barstools. Fogitabadit! If you are going to play WAY over the top black chanteuse soul music (sounding suspiciously like the Dreamgirls Soundtrack) you don’t get to tell me where to sit. Plus my friend B – my OCAD guide – might come and meet me and then where would he sit. I SWEAR this is Dreamgirls. How can you have black marble tile and red chairs with incredibly good looking somewhat snotty staff and still play the soundtrack to the motion picture “Dreamgirls” in your coffee bar? La mystery du jour.

So far I have eaten a decent schwarma, a very nice pad thai, a great burger and now I am sipping a not-sweet enough iced capp. ABT, the angel who is putting me up in her house has gone to work and left me to my own devices. She also does not have wi-fi in her house until September, so I am woefully disconnected unless I choose to leave the comfort of her sweet pad, as I have done here. Now I sit with laptop and cell phone at arm’s reach. Alone, but reaching out.

So how is it? So far it still feels like a vacation. I am living out of my suitcase(s), drinking a lot of coffee (which I don’t unless I am on holiday or hanging out a lot with my caffeinated friends), eating in restaurants, still feeling like I am living on borrowed time.

There are SO MANY my-age people here. It’s very very reassuring. I strolled up Queen street yesterday trying desperately not to shop (moderate, but not total success), ogled the amazing wares, and found by the end of the day I has walked more than I had walked in an average S. Albertan MONTH. And without trying. AWESOME.

Side note: I want to do a song remake of Technotronic’s Pump Up the Jam with the emphasis on the “get your booty on the dance floor, make my day” portion. Lolly? Can you help?

Side note part 2: The woman sitting closest to me pulled out a wooden box when she sat down that I presumed was backgammon – I wondered how she would play it by herself – but in truth wasa velvet line box that she pulled several satin bags out of and proceeded to cast bones! Like the i ching, or whichever divining method includes bone casting. AWESOME. No shitty fake plastic bones either. Fucking scary looking “I killed a virgin pigeon by biting off it’s head and bathing in it’s blood” style grody bones. There are a lot of pigeon’s around here, it wouldn’t be hard for the wiley Wiccan to nab one. Not that bone casting makes her Wiccan, I just couldn’t resist the alliteration opportunity.

Big City Fashion Forecast: There is a 90% chance of skinny jeans, and I mean SKINNY. No ankle is safe from strangulation by denim in these conditions! The jeans will inevitably be followed by sneakers ranging from chuck taylors to giant puffy reebok high-top style digs in colours from black and white to neon in elaborate patterns and garish combinations. Amongst this predictable forecast, you can expect a smattering of frumpy local aged person in orthopedic shoes, as well as your various young ethnic “princess” types with tits way out, eyes black, jeans tight and heels Hiiiiiiigh. If this system moves through you should certainly prepare yourself with sunglasses to combat the extensive glare of both glittering shiny make-up and ornate necklaces, earrings, chain belts, bracelets and rings that can be both expected and blinding, especially at mid-day in instances of high sun. Back to Jim at the Sports Desk!

In terms of time line and logistics of me being here (I AM REALLY HERE!!! WOOOOOO!!!!), I am at ABT’s until Sept 1st, then off I fly to my new place. Then on sept 8th I start school after what will no doubt be a rousing orientation on the previous Wednesday. I really do love orientations though. It’s going to be awkward with me and a pile of 18 year olds but who cares! I will dress “young”. I like getting the whole skinny on everything and feeling prepared and all that jazz.

An aside: I have no idea why ANYONE drives around here. The traffic CRAWLS. Though it’s a magical relief not to see any giant Albertan trucks, I heart AB Beef stickers, or even a single pair of truck nuts. The only cowboy boots I have seen have been on tiny stylish asian girls with giant sunglasses and shawls draped over their tiny shoulders.

Oh, I have me some coffee jitters. It might be time to roll out. More adventures and stories to come. I haven’t felt like posting in 10000 years, but perhaps it was due to the stagnation. Now I am feeling all metaphorically germinate-y, and the posting is coming easily. Fancy that. It’s still strange and new, and last night I did have a pang of craving some SAMEness, or at least a space of my own, but the latter will come soon enough and the charms of the former tend to be short lived after experiencing 6 years of Same. I kind of enjoyed the pang actually. It was a short stab of reminder that of the sweetnesses of the past six years, and they are something that is due a friendly pang of remembrance now and then.

I entered the club in shiny and glamorous New York Cit-AY, but I am back in Toronto now, tasting the tastes of Canada and mingling them with the feeling of being into my third decade. Technically it’s be beginning of my 4th with three successfully under my belt, but I don’t think I prefer to think of it that way.

Toronto is kicking ass and taking names right now, with fall in full swing. The leaves here!  They are insane! In movies and on sit coms I always sneer when some zany friend dumps a pile of the fakest papery-looking leaves on their friends head and launches into a flirty little squeal and run. But the leaves here look like that. Out west the leaves seem smaller and crunchier, like rice krispies. Here the leaves are full pieces of toast that are still a little soft and pliable when they hit the pavement and take a day or two to get really dried up for a good foot stomping CRUNCH. In the meantime, when kicked, they flutter and shuffle like paper movie-leaves. Those flag designers knew what they were doing when they chose the maple leaf. Those are the leaves that really define the description above. They are huge! Like pancakes falling from the trees.  They are fascinating.

Toronto is also offering a sneak preview of the ass-biting cold I can expect this winter. SHIT. It’s only mid-October and it’s getting COLD. The air just snaps at you. My coats are all in a van being driven here by a friend’s parents, so I won’t have them until, I believe, next weekend so it’s shiver-city until then.

When I was in NY – my best friend and I took a We Both Turn Thirty this Year trip there together and had a terrific time – I had the funny instance of thinking, “when I get home…” and not being able to place where home would be.  Alberta would flash in my mind, and it felt odd somehow. Then I remembered I don’t live there anymore, and it all came into focus. A funny feeling. Not funny-funny, but funny-peculiar, and a little funny-nice. It’s nice to feel at home here.

Not everyone would agree with me, however. Apparently my arrival has signaled an emotional exodus. At least three of my friends have dug themselves into hearty talks about how much they HATE Toronto and how the city is dead and how they are really thinking about moving back home. What the shit, people?  The bloom is off the rose for everyone except me who is smelling that fresh baby rosebud like it’s the sweetest thing going.  I want to urge them to stay, but you can’t force that sort of thing. I may have to seek out some more locally-enamored friends though, to balance the scales.

I am smitten with this place. Not every minute, but I like how lively everything is, how I can dress up when I like. All the good movies come here (I just saw Happy Go-Lucky tonight and I endorse it with my whole heart. The lead character was also thirty, and as the title suggests, she was very happy. I took it as a positive sign), there is all the food you could ever want, and cheaply if that’s how you want it. You can walk late at night because there are other people walking then too, and they got your back.  A man on the streetcar two days ago offered me a sandwich, “or perhaps some brownie bites?” from the cooler on his lap, and he was a normal person, not a crazy who digs in garbages for sandwiches to offer girls (“women?” Can I acceptably refer to myself as a girl anymore? I kinda don’t think so). And the crazies! They keep you coming back for more!  There are mumblers and fumblers and beggers and singers, there are twitchers and limpers and lumpers and dumpers… it’s a cornucopia of the interesting and strange. So far nothing too aggresive, but even if there were, there is a small sea, or at least a healthy stream of people ahead of you avoiding the negative action, so you get warning.

In terms of negatives, I don’t like how walking traffic moves. It’s like playing human chicken. Someone’s gotta give people! You can’t just ram into everyone face on, so perhaps when you are walking 3 abreast and one lone me comes toward you, perhaps ONE OF YOU MIGHT FUCKING MOVE before I plow your sorry asses into the pavement. Srsly.

But even these sidewalk dynamics are part of the city charm. There are actual people here to contend with! That’s pretty rad in my books.

Now, it’s time for bed so I can get a mad crack on studying tomorrow. Signing up for all this, I forgot about one of the major negatives of student life: Midterms.