Thoughts From Places: UWA

Right. Wow. Okay. Exams are over.

I'm finally going to do this Thoughts from Places post. I know it's not this week's topic, but it was one of the ones I suggested, and I already have notes for it, and yes. Anyway.

The first thing anyone will say to you if you mention that you go to UWA is something along the lines of "Oh, it's such a lovely campus." While I guess this is technically true, it's not something I can say really played into my choice of university. But I think it tells us a lot about how we see and think about places like universities. They're not just learning factories. They're places that people have to spend a lot of their time, and whether or not that time is pleasant - whether in surroundings or in company - is actually important.

The lawn near Hackett Hall, Home of the Postgrads, Where Undergrads Doth Fear To Tread.

The other thing this made me realise is that, like Ali, I don't pay nearly enough attention to the environment around me. It took dragging a camera around for a day to make me realise that actually, the campus was beautiful, but that I was pretty much just rushing through it to get to places rather than actually spending time there. I spent some time a couple of weeks ago (yes, this post's been a while in the making) revising for exams in on the grass front of the library instead of inside it, which I've always dismissed as something which only happens to the unnaturally happy students on the front page of the website. It was actually really pleasant and, strangely, much quieter than the library.

Peacocks, which live in the Arts courtyard. There is a rumour that anyone who touches them is kicked out of the university.

That said, there's some stuff I realised I don't like as well. Like, there are these "friendly" rivalries on campus between faculties - Engineering vs. Law is the big one, but Everyone Else vs. Arts is the one that pisses me off the most - which I don't think are particularly productive. And this is sort of codified in the actual physical layout of the campus. One side has arts, social sciences, economics, and law, and on the other side is engineering, computing, mathematics and physics. I've never been one for the hocus pocus surrounding architecture and layout and stuff, but I have to say that maybe, if they weren't quite so physically separated, we might end up with groups which are slightly less isolated by faculty. Like seriously. All my friends from high school are engineers, and it makes finding somewhere to meet a right pain.

This is the library, which for some inexplicable reason, has a moat

So now that I've covered the philosophical, and the critical, it's time for the whimsical. If the east-west axis of my campus' cartesian plane is the humanities-sciences continuum, then the north-south axis is labeled something like 'fields, in order of obscurity'. At the north end there's arts and physics and such - big, broad, important ideas. And then, the further south you go, the stranger things get, until you reach - I kid you not - this:

Which is about as ludicrously specific as you can possibly get.

Anyway, that's my thoughts from uni. Hopefully with assignments and exams out of the way I can put some more time into this kind of stuff - after I get through my Youtube backlog, that is.

Ultra-Super-Mega Post

Hey guys! So I know I said a while ago that I would get caught up with my posting, and the reason why it has taken so long to get that going is that my laptop broke and I have had to bum off the other computer that my brother uses a lot so I haven’t had a chance to write this post, but here it comes! A three for one deal!

So without any further ado…

Parts One and Two: Freestyle Featuring a Novel by John Green and Thoughts About Writing, People and Characters from Knox College Campus (sort of)!

The other day I had the pleasure of reading my second John Green book, Looking for Alaska, which for the record I loved. The book gave me great insight into myself and my own life. The protagonist, Miles (aka Pudge), is a character that I can really connect with in a special way, more so than I could connect with Hazel, and it only made my experience of the book better. Without giving away any spoilers to anyone who hasn’t read the book, which I recommend you remedy, the book in the end helped me to overcome so emotional hurdles because I feel like I went through a similar situation (though not the same) relatively recently in my life and it gave me some real closure, especially the ending. It really amazes me, John’s ability to create characters that are so real, and bigger than their story. Ironic when you think about how one of the things in The Fault in Our Stars is the idea that characters are merely within the pages and do not exist outside the pages. Before the beginning of The Fault in Our Stars, John reminds the reader that it is both unproductive and unfair to the author, the reader and the book to wonder if characters in the book are based on real people or events or places based on real events and places. I agree with him one hundred percent. Almost all characters have some connection to someone an author has seen, known or read about. It doesn’t give the story anything extra to wonder who a character might be based on because they are their own character, and the job of the author is to make characters real enough that they take on a life of their own beyond any real people that might have contributed traits to them. Also most, if not all characters contain bits of the author himself or herself, that’s not the important part. The important thing that the author should work to achieve, and the reader should try to do, is make a connection between their life and the story and the characters. Take Miles for example, a nerdy, skinny, awkward high school kid. It doesn’t matter to me who John based Miles on if he did. What matters is who Miles represents to me in my life. I identify Miles with myself. He is most like me. Alaska, the reason why Alaska is such a powerful character is not because John based her on someone from his own life, but because the reader can relate her to someone in their own life. That’s the job of the reader. Take the story and ground its characters, symbols and themes in their life to make it stick more, mean more.

I may not be at school anymore, but I was thinking near the end of the year while I was people watching (I’m a writer, it’s a thing I do : ) ) about characters and why people write and the nature of relationships and John’s writing has gotten me thinking about that subject again.

I had more thoughts on the subject, but I can’t remember them now. They’ll come in a later post I guess.

Part Three: Food

I love food, but my stomach is less than enthusiastic at times about being bombarded by food. I’m lactose intolerant, so I can’t eat or drink anything that has dairy in it. It sucks sometimes, but I’ve gotten used to it. The only thing I really miss is pizza, because I used to not have such a severe case of lactose intolerance and could eat small amounts of dairy.

So some of my favorite foods?

Rice and Chicken: One of the basic sources of carbs that my family eats, or that I can get at Knox, is rice. One of my favorite midnight snacks is microwaveable rice and chicken breast strips with broccoli if we have it, with olive oil mixed in. Simple, but it’s amazingly good.

Filipino food: While I was living on Kwaj, a couple of my friends were Filipino and I got invited to their parties where all the Filipino families on the island got together and made tons of food. My favorite dish from those parties will always by lumpia, which are kind of like egg rolls, but can be made with lots of different things.

Hamburger: American favorite, I like my hamburger well-done and with lettuce and tomato, I used to like mayo on it too, but lately I haven’t been able to stomach it as well. Oh and the fries that come with the burger. Can’t forget those.

Pasta and Fake Meat and Mushroom Sauce: This is one of my favorite meals that my mom makes. It’s exactly what it sounds like. She usually makes it with egg noodles. It’s really good.

My One True Love aka Food

Food, glorious wonderful fantastic food.

There is nothing like a nice big juicy steak, or a platter of fresh sushi. When it comes down to it, I'm pretty much willing to try everything.

Luckily enough for me, my boyfriend shares this love of food. Since he travels a lot for work this gives us an opportunity to go to many different restaurants in many different places. In this post I will discuss some of my favourite places that I've been to in the past few years.

Ye's Sushi: An All You Can Eat Feast
http://www.yessushi.com/home.html

Eat ALL OF THE SUSHI

When I moved to Waterloo, I wasn't that experienced in the eating of sushi. My friends and I used to walk over to the grocery store near our high school and grab sushi to go there. When I got to university though, a friend of mine insisted that we go for All You Can Eat Sushi. A monster was born.

It took a lot of convincing to get my boyfriend to try sushi (three years to be exact). But now, every Saturday the two of us make the trek to Ye's and have lunch. This picture is taken during one of our many of our lunch ventures.

The Keg: Super Expensive Steak
http://www.kegsteakhouse.com/en/
The Keg is expensive, and when I say expensive, I mean sell all your textbooks, don't go to school for a term and miss two rent checks. That might be overstating it a little bit, but I'm assuming you guys get my drift. But let me tell you... it's TOTALLY WORTH IT. In the handful of times I've gone to this place, I HAVE NEVER had a bad steak. EVER. It's like magic. The steaks are juicy and thick and as I type this my mouth has started watering.

I feel like I'm a horrible person if any of you are Vegetarians or Vegans. I'm a monster. :(

Caesars: Welcome to Your Italian Food Coma
http://www.caesarssf.com/
This place is fantastic. I've been twice, what you do is you sit down and choose how many courses you want and then your entree. The last time we were there we had the seven course meal with the entree of veal. I have never had a bean salad as good as I had at that place. If you love your italian food, this is the best place for you to go. It's in San Francisco in the North Beach area. So if you're ever in California this is worth the trip, it's even better then the Golden Gate Bridge (I SWEAR).

Carmines: Homestyle Italian-y Goodness
http://carminesnyc.com/
The first time I went to Carmines I was on the New York City Film Trip in Highschool. My friend's Mom told him that he should get a group together and go to this restaurant. Which we did. Carmines presents its meals in a family style. Each dish is around 26 dollars but can feed four people. You have to go into this with the same mentality of all you can eat sushi, the more people you bring the more varieties of dishes you can order. Every time I have returned to New York City I've made sure to stop here at some point. To my glee I found out that there was another one of these places in Washington DC.

And I will end this off with:

Lombardi's Pizza: To Good to Describe in Words
http://www.firstpizza.com/
If you're ever in NYC, you need to go here. It's located in Little Italy, the wait is around 40 minutes, but it's worth every second. We had a spinach and cheese pizza... and it was the best pizza I have ever tasted. I have accepted the fact that I will never find pizza this good... ever again. And once I excepted it... everything felt a little bit better.


But today is Saturday, which means I have to run soon... Saturday as you have guessed is sushi day... and its time to go eat my weight in fish!

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Now for some off topic things:

Sorry I haven't been posting a lot lately. School has been kicking my butt. I'm taking summer courses to get myself ahead for the next term. Yup, I know I'm crazy.

On top of that I am also working away on summer NaNoWriMo.... So hopefully by the end of this month I will have a 50,000 word manuscript of a new novel.

Wish me luck and I'll keep you guys updated!