and thus concludes...

the best and worst year of my life thus far.

am i the only one who thinks "twenty-ten" sounds crazy sci-fi futuristic?

anyways, happy new year. got a good feeling about this one.

the end times

in a certain way, the imminent round of final exams is like the apocalypse described in the book of revelation. god (the profs) unleash a great fury (exams), and the righteous (studious) amongst us can rejoice in heaven (good grades) while the unrighteous (slackers) amongst us burn in hell (fail).

indeed, the end is near. my objective is to finish up the readings i've fallen behind on by friday, start studing on saturday (18th birthday), and celebrate the conclusion of first semester on december 16th. today was the last day of lectures, though i regrettably slept through 2/3 of them.

all in all, first semester was about what i expected. i knew leaving toronto and settling down in montreal would be tough, and it certainly was. that's more or less history now, and i can say that i've genuinely enjoyed, if not outright loved, my first semester here at mcgill. i have a pretty clear picture of what i want for the next 3 years of my life to look like, and having that plan is really comforting. but for now, i should probably get back to my readings.

mired, tired,

travis

a thought

in my senior year at bayview glen, my english teacher posed this question to our class: which is a stronger feeling, love or hate? i forget the exact context from which the query rooted from, but that doesn't really matter. it was a good question. ever the romantic, i was quick to throw my support behind love without giving it too much thought. that in itself isn't the point, however. the reason i bring up this story is because of something that my dear friend, shane kinsella, said.

shane believed that love is the foundation of all of our feelings, hate included. he believed that we could not muster up the genuine emotions necessary to truly hate something unless that thing which we hated was something fundamentally contrary to something loved just as much. love comes before hate. hate cannot exist without love, but love can exist without hate.

to be clear, i'm not particularly incensed about anything or at anyone presently. but i've always found shane's notion of love's supremacy as extremely optimistic, and have thus held it in high regard.

if ever you're upset about something, perhaps you may find comfort in the evidence of your love and the affirmation of your humanity.

fond memories

back in toronto, i kept a journal in which i documented around 600 days of my life from december 2007 up until i left for university. christina got it for my 16th birthday. i never really poured my heart in my writings--i usually didn't write anything at all if i was too upset, as i would much rather forget the day--but instead i kept it as a definitive chronicle of my daily life, no matter how mundane. it was always fun to write an entry and then flip back through the pages to see what i had a done a year ago that day. i didn't bring it to university, but i've been thinking about it a lot lately. i figured i would just be too drunk or too tired too often to put it to proper use, and that appears to have been a fair assumption of the circumstances.

after two full of months of mcgill, i'm ready to call university extremely bittersweet. is it weird that i love leaving montreal as much as i love coming back? routine has officially established itself, the "bad days" have faded into the past along with the warmer climes. i'm glad to see the majority of my friends genuinely enjoying university too, and i can't tell you how great it feels whenever i get a chance to talk to andrew or steve, who were once daily contacts. i miss them both a lot, along with the rest of the crew, and i can't wait to reunite with them come the holidays.

when i think about the people who i just couldn't get away from even if i wanted to, i'm not surprised. i really miss my friends from toronto. these are the things i miss most:

-the top of the parking lot

-the anxious excitement as steve and i waited in the car, wondering if andrew would emerge from lcbo with his un-carded bounty. he always suceeded.

-roman candles

-the occasional time christina would tag along

-the stupid, childish things we would do and the utter absence of consequences

-being the voice of reason amongst the pack of crazies so we all got home relatively safe (except for maybe that one time)

-andrew's ridiculous drive-thru rituals

-the spontaneous fight club brawls in spiro's basement and backyard (the time i busted arjun's nose by accident--those were the days!)

-bubble tea, especially ten ren's

-mooching off andrew and arjun

-the games of risk and monopoly, which were really only between me and gavin

-the days of andrew's oldsmobile before its untimely demise

there's so much more i miss beyond just that. i am going crazy with excitement for the holidays. my girlfriend, my home, my family, my friends, my birthday, christmas, no work, general holiday cheer, white-yellow lights and the christmas music in the malls. i've never been more excited for anything in my life.

at peace,

travis

hallow's eve and health care

fuck, i'm tired.

running on about 4 hours of sleep (which apparently is the same amount of sleep margaret thatcher got every night during her premiership) sucks. 8:35 government of canada class is killer.

anyways. midterm update. comparative government and politics, 82%. french, 88%. yay :)

so halloween is coming up and i'd be lying if i said i really gave a damn. i'm not bitter about it in the same way some morons get all angry and worked up about valentines day or anything, but i'm not really all that excited. i've never really loved october 31st, really, except for a few particularly bountiful years of trick or treating when i was a spoiled little kid. i'm thinking "scarecrow" this year, because it's nothing over the top or difficult. i just need to score me some hay.

my life is sorta dull and full with work, but apparently mcgill halloweens are renowned for their madness. so we'll see.

the health care debate/fracas has been a real spectacle of definitive american politics in recent months, and harry reid's admittedly ballsy grasp at the public option still has me thinking: is this guy brave or just stupid? november could be the "make or break" month for reform--the actual "make or break" month in legislative terms--so it'll be interesting to watch. i'm pretty satisfied with what's being proposed, because i do have immense confidence in the public option. the opt-out feature is a lot like the trigger in my eyes, in the sense that the states that do choose to opt-out will come around in time once they see the inevitable successes in the states that opt-in.

whether or not the bill will get the votes is, of course, another question entirely. that's what has me wondering whether reid really knows what he's doing. hell, i sure hope so.

anyways, class is starting.

good morning,

travis

free at last

emerging more or less unscathed from my tussle with midterms, i felt it appropriate to update this. last weekend was a fun and a cruel one. the floor was pretty chaste on friday night because, quite frankly, no one wanted to be hungover on saturday for christine's birthday. this was fine by me, because i had an assload of work to deal with.

then, of course, saturday rolled around. the plan of attack, after the obligatory 'pregame' (the arguably more comical word used down in christina's neck of the woods for predrinking), was to go to sharkz, which was a nearby bar/club/pool hall/bowling alley. and despite absolutely no one knowing really where it was, and the most of the group being drunk already, and numerous accidental yet unavoidable group split-ups along the way, we all ended up there. i have no idea how we do it, really. ross told me all about how he was one of the first swine flu victims in canada, which was pretty interesting. oh, and i have no idea how i keep on getting into these places. the bouncer said something like "we don't accept student IDs", i said "oh, alright", and then i just sort of walked in.

david and i spent most of the night at the bar, and this was a POOR DECISION for 2 reasons. first, it cost me lots of money. the mandatory coat check was pretty eviscerating as well, but holy hell. secondly, and undoubtedly most importantly, david and i are way too comfortable drinking way too much with each other. we always both feel like we owe each other money or beer and we just constantly pay each other back and our cups runneth over more than they probably need to. don't get me wrong--it was a great time. really, it was. everyone (pretty much the entire population of our 'side' of molson 4 and a few extraneous tag-alongs from other floors) had a great time and there were many laughs to be had. no one actually bowled, mind you, though i can imagine that that would have been good fun in its own right.

we eventually packed it in for the night and i caught a cab home with kim and david. back in my room, the prior POOR DECISION came back and kicked me square in the ass. i don't really want to go into any more detail, because it's rather disgusting and hopefully fairly obvious at this point.

waking up was an excruciatingly painful ordeal, as was the remainder of the day. eating and drinking were laborious to say the least, and christina was certainly right to poke fun at my unfortunate situation that i brought about with my sheer stupidity. so much for my day of work. christine, chelsea, and i reminisced about the prior night (chelsea and i with limited success, admittedly) and i slept for a very long time. david, i was told, was in even worse shape. i couldn't help but feel partially responsible.

monday was pretty great because i felt better and i had the capacity to be studious. tuesday and today were spent fending off the last two of my midterms, french and bible and western culture. now i'm in the library, feeling partially liberated from the shackles of examination and partially subjugated all over again to the endless stream of readings. i have traded one demon for another. but whatever. my darling in washington finished her exams today too, so it's nice to have a whimsical carefree feeling that's mutual. i wish the montreal weather was more comparable to washington's, though.

so i guess that's abou--oh holy fuck, i forgot!

DAVE WON HELL'S KITCHEN HERE IS A MASSIVE PICTURE FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT

wasting time,

travis

i bitchslap midterms

so i got my government of canada midterm back. i thought it'd be somewhere in the 60-70% range, but no. 84%. booyah.

i'm half slacking off in celebration and half reminding myself "if you let up now then this is probably the last good mark you'll see in a while", so i figure writing a blog entry is a healthy balance of casual and businesslike. anyways.

WHOOOOOOOOO!!!

totally modest,

travis