oh, it's ON

things are ramping up at an exponential rate around here. bucktown! i heaved my way to class last night, my weekly wednesday night date from now until i pop. the walk wasn't that bad, only about 20 minutes, made more difficult by the fact that the fatburger is doing some kind of crazy calisthenics in there. i never find it that weird when i'm lying down or sitting still, but when you're moving and you're having an alien punching and flipping around inside your gut, it's an unsettling feeling. plus, as spumante bambino gets bigger, the motions are more and more aggressive and forceful.

the class is more intense than i thought it was going to be. assignments consist of: 1 article review, a peer review of a classmate's article review, participation (including the - ugh - *mandatory* attendance), a midterm, a research paper proposal, and then the final research paper. the prof seems stupidly intense given the length of the assignments. for example, the research paper is only supposed to be 20 pages long (double spaced), but he wants there to be a table of contents?!? how many points can you make in 20 pages?!? and he wants us to outline our methodology in the research paper proposal, but we're not taking a research methods class until NEXT term. i hate getting graded on research paper proposals. i know, i know...it's par for the course, but i write my papers the night before (maybe 3 nights, if i'm particularly inspired/on top of my game), so i hate having to reverse engineer the steaming pile of b.s. that inevitably constitutes my proposal.

the most annoying thing is that the prof stipulates that no more than 75% of our sources for the paper can come from online sources. so i asked, "do you mean online as in, government white papers and annual reports, or do you mean online as in, accessible through online journal databases?" and he's like, "we want you using the york libraries and using BOOKS." at which point i'm pretty sure the sound of my jaw dropping open was audible over the blasting a/c in the cavernous room. in case my shock and disbelief wasn't apparent enough, i felt compelled to follow up with, "are you serious?"

here's the thing: you don't make a program geared towards people who have full time jobs and then MAKE THEM GO TO YORK CAMPUS to get their stupid books. not only that, i have to go make a special trip to york campus just to GET MY STUPID LIBRARY CARD. and OF COURSE the "yu card" office isn't open on saturdays, the day i'm already there. OF COURSE THEY'RE NOT.

on tuesday night we had the roomie over for dinner. we haven't seen her in over a month! it was a lovely catch-up, even if she is terrified that she'll be on call the weekend that i go into labour and then will have to somehow be present at the birth in some kind of medical capacity. i haven't thought about ANY of that stuff, to be honest. what i want, what my expectations are, who i want to be there, how committed i am to a home or hospital birth or what levels of interventions i'm expecting. really, i don't care about that stuff. at the end of the day, i want to come out healthy and have a healthy bambino. the rest is just whatever to me. i feel like if you put too much into your "birth plan" then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment and self-recriminations over a situation that you have very little control over. what will be, will be. i want a home birth but if the pain gets too unmanageable, of course i'll opt for an epidural. it's not an ideology for me, it's a preference. we have access to pain medication for a reason - i would never consider having a leg amputated *knock on wood* without being knocked out, just to be a tough guy. at the end of the day, i just want to be okay and i want the little one to be okay and i'll be totally happy with that.

i'm not sure how we're going to manage visitors after. everything i've read has said that as a new, exhausted parent, you really have to harness visitors to get them to get shiz done for you. momma d has offered to take time off to help, but i feel like i can't be like, "momma d, please do the dishes and do the grocery shopping for me, thanks" but that's kind of the stuff that you want and need the extra hands for. i'm going to try really really really hard to wrangle my martyr, "i can do it all!" impulses and ask for that kind of nitty gritty help for those first few weeks - get people to bring meals and clean up the house and do that kind of stuff. try not to go crazy cleaning the house FOR visitors, etc.

anyway, for dinner with the roomie i made a coconut yellow split pea dhal with chopped spinach, fried paneer, brown rice, and she brought purchased saag and naan:

from the looks of the sorry state of our registry, it looks like dr. rei is going to be spending most of the time at the shower packing up food and snatching it out of people's mouths. lol! i really don't care if friends go off-list, cuz our friends know us, but i just don't get w.p.'s - THEY CAME UP WITH THE REGISTRY. it wasn't ***my*** people who did it. and then they up and decide that registries are too "impersonal" so then instead of doing the practical chinese thing (cash), or the practical w.p. thing they devised (buying stuff you registered for), they go off-list and then leave you with a bunch of crap. it's a very, very strange phenomena to me.

so last night i ended up eating leftovers at work and tonight i'm doing the same. my academic book club is meeting at frank at the AGO - it's pretty fitting. we read "loving frank" which is a fictionalized historical account of frank lloyd wright's relationship with a married woman. and even though the frank of AGO fame is gehry, not wright, and there's no relationship between them, it's still apt that the resto is named after an architect. it's our first out-of-someone's home meeting - i'm just going to get dessert or something off their small plates menu, seeing as how i'll be eating indian food at work, killing time trying to catch up on readings and working on my assignment before heading over there.

i took the day off tomorrow to do shower prep and get things in order - i've got to make 2 batches of mini cupcakes, a strata, a fruit salad, balsamic vinaigrette, 2 dips, deviled eggs, salami/bocconcini/tomato skewers, and do some final running around picking up last minute supplies and make these vellum mobiles. some of the work will be spread out on saturday after the ladies-only family shower brunch my sis and momma d are hosting in the morning.

phew! so much work to do!

fin.

I HATE YORK UNIVERSITY

and i haven't even started it yet! so frustrating.

firstly, the program administrator is a TOTAL flakebot supreme. like, speaks in a sing-songy voice, doesn't remember anything about your client file, and gets all "i can see why you're upset" as soon as you say anything remotely ON TOPIC OR ASK A POINTED QUESTION no matter your tone of voice! i hate having to say, "i'm not upset, i just don't understand what you're saying." lol! she's so disorganized and she is the most scattershot person i've dealt with in post-secondary education in a long time. like seriously?

then, the program director is a total shacker who acts like his program is the shiznit. they keep congratulating me for getting in, "congratulations, this is a very competitive program" and i'm like, ummmm...ACTUALLY IT'S NOT. it's for working professionals, the minimum grade requirements are a B+ in your final two years of undergrad (nevermind that i got straight As in my previous masters), so it's kind of like fake grad school for mature students. stop being so high on your own juice. as if they wield so much power! a program that has to extend the application deadline TWICE by as much as TWO MONTHS is not one that's got people beating down the doors. lol! get over yourselves. i've been emailing back and forth with him asking him questions on how i should proceed with spumante on the way and he's all like, "well, if you recall from my presentation at the information session, the MINIMUM expected attendance is EVERY CLASS" and i responded to the effect of, "ummmm...i was the ONLY PERSON TO SHOW AT THE INFORMATION SESSION, and as such, didn't get the formal presentation but asked you my specific questions about the program" lolz.

then i feel a little bad cuz i remember how sad he looked sitting in that room by himself with a powerpoint all loaded up and ready to go. but i'm ALSO like, I SAW YOU IN THAT ROOM ALL BY YOURSELF, don't conveniently forget that i saw that no one showed up and that i'll actually BUY that this program is sooooo in-demand and that people are beating down the door to get in.

ANYWAY, the annoying thing is that these are my options, given that the fatburger is making an appearance in november:

1) THEY DON'T ALLOW YOU TO DEFER, so miss a whole year and reapply next year
2) accept the offer, start in the fall, pay the $2000 term fee, APPLY for a leave of absence, and then pay $200 FOR EACH SEMESTER of my leave.
^^^ with this method, there's a chance that the director might consider that a "false start" and then make me re-do the work or kick me out AND i'd have to wait the full year's cycle for the courses to be offered again
3) accept the offer and go balls to the wall and hope for the best.

i'm leaning towards #3. as dr. rei says, if she's going to bet on whether or not i can do something i've set my mind to, she's always going to err on the side that i can do it. lol! i've also spoken to people who are doing the program (colleagues at work) and they're like, yeah, the profs totally accommodate people missing classes all the time because of work commitments. since 1 course is offered 6:30-9:30pm downtown once a week, and the other course is 1 saturday, 9-5 a month - i figure the chances are good that i'll only have to miss 1 or 2 of the weekly classes and maybe just 1 of the monthly ones, and i'll pump my way through the rest of it. and lean on my friends and family and their babysitting/housecleaning services :)

it's not like there's NO PRECEDENT IN THE HISTORY OF GRADUATE STUDIES for extensions/allowances/accommodations to be made in the face of life events (or in my case, as the queen of extensions, with some b.s. reason like "shiz is getting too real") which is what the program director is making it out like. again, get over yourself.

so i'll probably miss a few classes in november/late october. classes only run into the first week of december anyway, so it's not even a deal. i think i'll be fine. i mean at this rate, NOW IT'S EFFIN PERSONAL and nothing inspires me more than a grudge match/schooling someone/proving someone wrong. i just have to get myself some slick-a$$ electrical pump and pump my way into a MPPAL.

i love my sis because she reads the blurg and then in phone conversations she'll tell me about how i got details of her life wrong and then i have to promise to post a correction. so yeah, she didn't get 3 months mat leave. she said it was like 6-8 weeks, tops. consider it corrected, T!

last night's dodgeball was aces! we ended up accidentally messing up and playing the intermediate team, while the intermediate team in the gym next door played the rec team that we should've been playing. here's the thing, even with 2 new members on board (people who were on the team but hadn't been able to make it to the previous games) - WE WON! wooooooooooooooooo!!! by a significant amount, too! what what!

it was the best!

tonight the goosetang clan is going to rise from the ashes like dumbledore's phoenix fawkes and go to see dj ayres (of the rub) at never forgive action at the drake:

so pumped! it's going to be aces! we're considering it a success if we make it to past 1am. we're meeting up with those guys at dr. rei and hanbo's pad and then having dinner at poutini or massimo pizza and pasta or mother india and then heading out for some old skool hip hop dancing fun. i feel like i'm leaning towards mother india right now, just because i know that by 8pm i'm going to be STARVING and that i don't necessarily want to make a whole meal of poutine, in light of last night's dietary indiscretions.

the next couple of weekends are kind of insane and jam-packed.

this weekend we've got brockin' out going down tonight, tomorrow is 2 hot docs, sunday is a mother's day brunch with dotytron's fam-bam and then asian legend dinner with my fam-bam.

dinner with the roomie and l'army on tuesday, massage wednesday, dodgeball and beers thursday, dinner with friends S & P on friday, kdubsguelph hangs on saturday, supper club on sunday.

then a whirlwind 4 days with a dinner with our friends S & A before heading to NYC over the long weekend, which we tacked an extra day onto to make extra-long. NYC is going to be THE BEST, because not only are we staying with pingy, but dotytron's good buddy count chocula is down there doing his masters in jazz playing at NYU and is there, and xtina and buns are going down, and i have 2 cook friends down there, and my foodshare friend M is also heading down that weekend. i've got our restos planned out - it's going to be light on the insane-tasting menu type places and more on the neighbourhood-y joints (like, $60/person instead of $250) interspersed with cheap, $20 meals of hot dogs, pizza, momofuku crack pie, gelato, etc. interspersed with buying us new kicks at century 21 and me some fat person clothes at uniqlo and jcrew and built by wendy and maybe some fun stuff at pearl river mart. interspersed with a tonne of jazz music and hanging with the best people on earth.

then we're back on tuesday for a midwife appointment and then hooking up with J & S to see sharon jones and the dap kings. then around for 2 more days before we decamp to geneseo for a long-desired visit with that crew. which is going to consist of mass amounts of five guys burgers & fries, delmonico's, brian's USA diner, aunt cookies subs, pizza pauls/mama mia's, cheesecake factory with some shopping at target, the jcrew outlet, and marshalls for discount designer gear.

and then onward into summer!

FUN!

fin.