Kung-Fu Kitty

On May 31st, the Canadian Federation of University Women, Sherbrooke & District, assembled for the 2005 Awards Dinner at l'Hotel Le Président. From 6:15 to 6:45 pm, there was a cash bar with a variety of beverages as members and guests alike assembled in the hotel's lobby. At 6:45 pm, dinner was served in Champlain Hall.

After a small salad entree, a welcoming speech was given by the federation's president, Bev Taber-Smith. Everyone present was then delighted to taste a wonderful leek soup, followed by a chicken kabob, served with vegetables and rice. The guests, Yvette Williams, the director of Vocational Education, Andrée Lafleur, the Academic Dean of Champlain College, Sylvie Béquet, the incoming Dean of Bishop's School of Business, and Roger Noël, the Dean of Faculty Administration at Université de Sherbrooke, were then presented, along with a description of the awards to be given.

After a lovely carrot cake for desert, the University Women's Scholarship Foundation Awards were given out. Jewel Aulis received the Vocational Education Centre Home care & Family & Social Assistance Program Award, Lynda McKelvey received the Vocational Education Centre Accounting Program Award, Caroline Masson received the Vocational Education Centre Welding-Fitting Program Award, Heather Keith, who, unfortunately could not be present, received the Members' Returning Student Award, Ilana MacDonald received the Champlain College Science Prize, Heather Dezan received the Eileen Healy Prize for Leadership, Janice Jackson received the Marlis & Sigrid Wehr Mature Student Award, Christelle Leblanc received the Claire Heller Heilig LLB-MBA Prize, and Suzie Darbyson received the Diana MacKay Kuilman Memorial Prize.

After the presentation, coffee and tea were served, and the award winners had their pictures taken together. The meeting then ended and all assembled finished off the evening in lovely conversation, the award winners receiving much congratulations. The next meeting will be a potluck on June 18th.

Anyone who has ever read the articles at the end of the Sherbrooke Record will get this, hopefully.

I honestly think I'm seriously addicted to "your mom" jokes. You know, the ones where someone says something like, "I wish I had a vehicle," and I'd add, "Your mom's a vehicle! A vehicle for my love!" or something similar. Heehee... that was a funny one. At any rate, I've found myself thinking of possible "your mom" jokes for every phrase that someone enters, and they're usually quite bad. And when I find one that I think is funny, I'll say it out loud, but generally, everyone is so sick of my jokes that they don't find it as funny as I do. Ah well. I'll die a terrible terrible death.

In other news, ('cause I like that transition phrase) I turned 19 the other day, and it was a wonderful birthday. Josee and Oliver took me out to lunch at the Jester and I had much too much to eat. Then, Josee bought me handcuffs and a "Sheep Shagger" pin at the Rock. Then, I hung out at Ryan's and even Jonah being there wasn't all that uncomfortable. Then, I had a big supper at my place, though I was still full from lunch. Then, I went to Ian's and sat around, which was more or less fun. Sam got hideously drunk and stayed over at my place after he walked me home because he never would have been able to make it to his house.

Then, last night, the band ate at Shalimar, and I overindulged again. This diet isn't really going well. Also, I'm taking care of a hamster right now. How living things still stay alive in my care is beyond me. At any rate, I can't use this computer anymore because the sound of typing annoys my dad who's in the throws of writing a piece for the Toronto Symphony. I'll write soon again with more interesting things to say.

Well, I just came back from seeing Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and it was pretty good. Everything progressed as it should have, there were no MAJOR plot flaws, and the action was pretty frickin' awesome. I found that there were a lot of corny lines, and though that is sort of the style of Star Wars movies, I think that it wasn't as good as the original trilogy. The special effects were amazing, but that's to be expected in a multi-million dollar Lucas film. And of course, Yoda was the hero of the show, as Etienne put it, "One of the only redeaming qualities of the film." I wouldn't go that far, but he was the most awesome of all the characters. All in all, it was leagues better than Episodes I and II, but still not quite as good as the original trilogy.

In other news, it's my birthday in two days! Hourra! I'll be 19! Actually, I'm not that excited. I don't really want to do any partying except for a dinner with my parents. Maybe I'll decide differently later, but for now, I'm rather meh. I guess that 19 isn't quite as climatic as turning 18, when I became legal and all that. Ah well.

Well, I had my last exam today and so I'm officially done CEGEP forever. Hopefully I'll soon get my diploma in the mail, though it might take a while. My Calculus exam was horridly difficult. I was able to finish only two out of seven questions, but, considering everyone had as much trouble as I and this teacher always bellcurves everything, I should be ok. My Linear Algebra exam was surprisingly easy, but I guess that after the Calculus exam, anything would seem easy. Today, I had the Minesterial English Exit exam, and though I wrote a really good essay, I'm not sure it was exactly what they were looking for. Ah well, I'm sure I'll pass at least. If someone can do the exam stoned and sleep through an hour of it and still pass, then so can I pass.

It's funny, but I haven't really been that excited about finishing school of late. It may just be that all my excitement was spent during our graduation ceremony. It may also be that I get less excited when I'm hungry all the time. I decided that I'd start dieting after I noticed that my pants are starting to get very tight. Turns out I could stand to lose 24 lbs or so. And so, I'm calorie-counting, trying to keep my daily intake below 1300 calories. It's very hard, but I've lost weight like this before. The trick will be keeping it off.

Well, bent upon improving my version of Photoshop, old and outdated as it is, I downloaded a whole bunch of new brushes off the internet. For anyone else interested, there are a few good ones at Finfond.net, and About.com. Most of the brushes I have now are here. If anyone has any special ideas as to what I can do with them all, just let me know...

Well, I've attempted to study for my Linear Algebra exam, but I got so bored that I just quit. Instead, I started looking up Photoshop tutorials. By the way, for anyone interested, the best tutorials I've found are at Pixel2Life.com. I made a starfield, which was kind of fun:

Now, I'll try to get back to studying, but I doubt it will work.

Ah, how spring is a beautiful time of year!
The hibernating animals come out without fear.
The birds return from their stay in the South
And must feed every small mouth
Of their tiny newborn chicks.
Yes, the flowers and the trees
Are soon thick with bees
For they are in full bloom.
It was on a beautiful spring day
That I decided it would be a pity to stay
In my house where it is stuffy and stale.
So I took a quick walk
All the way around the block
With no expectation of the disaster to come.
I walked gaily through the neighborhood
And everything seemed well and good.

As I walked down the street,
I smelt a strange smell.
It was an allergen, so it made my nose swell.
The sneeze it did build up;
It became so strong,
I felt for sure that something was wrong.
And then it came out in all of it's glory:
Something spoken of only in story!
Like a whirlwind it was,
Like a rainstorm in May.
It threw me backwards
With all of its force and sway!

There was a small child playing under a tree
Now this small child was laughing with glee
For the force of of my sneeze
Had thrown him into the tree.
The neighborhood was in ruins,
The houses were destroyed.
A car had fallen on an old man named Floyd.
The bees and birds which I had so admired
Were entangled in branches; indeed, were quite mired.
I looked about me at what I had wrought
And then I came up with an incredible thought,
"Why," I mused, "I should have more reason
Than to go outside during allergy season!"

I had no idea of the extent of the damage.
That evening, I was visited by a certain Lieutenant Ramage.
He explained to me, in all seriousness,
That my sneeze had made quite a terrible mess.
A school had burned down,
Right across town,
And although all the children celebrated with glee,
This had a very bad impact on the town's economy.
Several houses had been hit by the blast from my snout;
The authorities had had to tell everyone to get out!
The Lieutenant escorted me to the police station,
Where I was questioned by men from across the nation.
The secret service was there, and so was the military.
They were considering the use, which was oh so contrary,
Of the power of my sneezer
To make a weapon which they would call the Kableezer.
They decided instead to give me a very important task
Which was, in spring, to always wear a breath mask!

---

I wrote this poem back in secondary 4, and it has a few problems with it, meter-wise, but it made me laugh once upon a time, so I hope you enjoy.

Today was the most boring and useless day ever. I sat in front of the computer all day and was slightly productive, but mostly not. Anyway, I created a useless survey that doesn't do anything yet because I have to learn JavaScript and ASP, which I will eventually. I also drew a dimensional rift, which will be used in Etienne's labyrinth, which will eventually get coded... *hem hem* It's here because it's a little too big to put on this page and I don't feel like screwing up my layout right now. That's all I did... all day... the form thingy took forever to code, if you want to look at the source. I can hardly wait until practice because Etienne is bringing an electric violin! Woohoo!

Well, I think my speech went over well in general. Some teachers were definitely insulted, but at least most of the students thought it was glorious. I was a success. And I got some nice prizes to boot ($700 worth), and I might buy a new amp with that. Also, school's almost finished and the weather's fine. I have three exams to write and then I'm finished college forever! I'm looking forward to this summer when I'll have an awesome job and more free time. Another interesting development in my university search, Queen's is offering me a $16,000 scholarship to go there. I'm flattered to say the least.

Here's something I found in yesterday's Sherbrooke Record. I think some of us might be interested.

Battle of the bands for recording time
For the first year ever the annual Friendship Day celebrations will be extended to include a Friday night Battle of the Bands. Any amateur band is free to enter and compete for recording time and publicity. Bands are eligible only if they have never recorded a CD or demo. To enter the event call 819-573-2112.

This is my Valedictorian speech for the graduating class of 2005 from Champlain Regional College. Sam helped a lot with it, and my parents and friends contributed a small part also. I hope I don't get stoned.

Classmates, professors, members of the administration, friends, family and loved ones:

It is my honour to be your Valedictorian this year. We have all come so far in these last two, and in some cases up to five, years. And look at us all now, here at least under the assumption that we will each soon be getting our DEC and moving on to bigger and disputably better things. Some of us will be going out into the workforce, also known as the "real world", and others among this graduating class, myself included, are going to go on to university to pursue their undergraduate and perhaps even graduate degrees. Our future is spread out ahead of us, and the possibilities are endless.

In most Valedictorian speeches, the speaker will find some sort of interesting and inspirational quote which has some sort of underlying theme, which he will then center his speech around. I couldn't really think of any really good quotes of this sort right off, so I instead chose a random passage from the closest book at hand which happened to be "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", by one of my favourite authors, Douglas Adams. This passage is on page fifty, and goes something like this, "In fact, he had always done the bare minimum of research to support these myths. He was lazy, and essentially what he did was allow people's enthusiastic credulity to do the work for him."

Now, this quote may not at first seem to make any sense, which is to be expected when I pull a random quote from a not quite inspirational book written by a British author, but I'm sure that some of you sense a hint of familiarity in these words. The truth is, we are all a little bit like Dirk Gently: lazy, trying to do the least possible amount of work to get by. Certainly, it's human nature to try and find the easiest way out of hard work so that we can get on with our lives and have a good time. Think of all that procrastination for those long assignments and the staying up until all hours the night before the due date so that Thursday night is free to go dancing at the Maysen. I've been there, with a month to do a project, and leaving it all until the last few days, and I'm sure you have too, just because we're too lazy to get started.

But laziness isn't all bad. Were it not for humans being lazy by nature, we wouldn't have all the wonderful time- and labour-saving devices we have today. We'd still be in the stone age, having to hunt and gather our food, and running away from large predators. Think of it; agriculture and livestock farming were invented so that we wouldn't have to go out into the woods to find our dinner, cars were invented so that we wouldn't have to walk to get where we wanted to go, and the chin light switch was invented so that we wouldn't have to wash our cookie dough covered hands every time we wanted to turn on the lights. And, of course, if we hadn't invented all these time- and labour-saving devices, we wouldn't have had time to develop our culture, to make art, music and literature. Let us not forget philosophy, the laziest of all jobs, where all you have to do is get paid to think about stuff and the write about it. Without philosophy, we wouldn't have some of the great ideas that we have floating around today.

However, I don't think that your parents or teachers would be very happy with me if I was telling you to go out into the world and be lazy. Laziness is only really a good thing if it fuels productivity. Not actually handing in assignments or sleeping in instead of going to that 8:30 class isn't really a good thing. We are all here because we were able to overcome our natural instincts, and work hard to pass our classes. We all were able to make that extra effort to do our homework and to study for our tests, and now we can reap the results of our labour.

Before I conclude, I'd like to thank a few people. First and foremost, I'd like to thank our professors for putting up with our stupidity and for sharing your vast knowledge with us. You are the reason why this is such a great place for learning, and why we actually got something out of these short years. You have left a lasting impression on us, and your students will remember you for years.

I would also like to thank my friends. You made getting through all the hard work manageable, and were always ready for fun when I needed it most. Last but not least, I'd like to thank our families for supporting us no matter what. I'd like to thank you for putting up with our complaining and with our mood swings, for helping us with the problems of young adulthood. You have provided us with a solid basis which will help us all our lives. I hope we make you proud.

Finally, I want to congratulate the graduating class of 2005. I wish you all the best of luck in whatever it is you choose to do with your life. Remember to work hard and everything will be possible.

Alright, so I've given in to Dr. Awesome's challenge to bootleg Photoshop users to make cool desktop patterns. Though my version of Adobe Photoshop isn't exacly bootleg, I didn't exaclty buy it either, so it's all good. Anyway, so I made a photocomposition of everyone in the band, preferrably playing their instrument, but I made do with what I had. I'm missing Bruce, but we'll live, right? I think that Mailin wanted me to make a pattern for a t-shirt too, and she might be albe to use this one. At any rate... Here it is.

In other news, I had to cancel Jonah's cable internet for him because it was in my name because he's still a minor, and it was much more of a hassle than it should have been. He got mad at me because I'd signed him up for it, but he didn't seem to have a problem with it at the time. And I thought I was doing him a favour by helping him get internet. He said that because my parents well off, I have no concept of money. The nerve! Anyway, now I'm just a little pissed, and he has to pay a huge cancellation fee, not to mention another month of bills because they can't disconnect him until June. I offered to help him with money if he really needs it because I felt guilty. I'm way too nice.

Also, I definitely have to write my Valedictorian speech today. I have a few good ideas from previous speeches off the internet, thanks to Sam, so I'll probably be able to get it done. I promise to post it as soon as I finish so that those of you who aren't coming can enjoy its eloquence. Yeah, like I'm that good. At any rate, I'm going to get working on that, so tata for now!