Too much too fast to keep up

Stuff happens fast at university. I can't over emphasize this. Take any instance of my present life, like last night: there's a game going on on rez where we're given a name and have to hunt that person down and hit them with a sock. There are safe zones and safe places. I've been one of the most active players. The first night, I found out that my target was headed out to a bar without a safety item. I waited about three hours for him to come home. I've kept my safety item with me the whole time, not even taking it off for sleep or showers (I hang it up inside the shower, just outside of the spray).

Last night, my second and third targets were headed into town for a party. I heard them making plans, making a truce and knew about the party. I tried to tail them, but lost sight of them when they left rez. I ran to the bus stop to cut them off, failed to find them, and headed back to rez. On my way back I contemplated quitting the game by letting my "assassin" (known to me, not a common thing) get me. I decided it would hinge on that night and made plans to wait for them to come back. When I got back, I realized that it would be easier and faster to simply go to the party and get them there, an "asshole"ish move, but I have no trouble with unconventional tactics. I dressed for the bar and for my purpose, not to be noticed (easy with my largely neutral wardrobe of grays, blues, blacks, and browns). I removed the safety item (this week's being a bright red t-shirt) knowing that my assassin was gone for the day and not at the party. Then finding the bar was easy.

I got there using Google maps and my bus pass. It was a bar, half the size of the Capri and twice as nice. By that time (one of the clock) they didn't bother me with cover, I walked right in after showing someone my identification. I walked in, slowly around the quieter parts, avoiding the dance floor where I'd stand out and the lights where I might be recognized, and spotted my target. I got him, his face total shock twisted to look like amusement, then the girl behind me took notice and scrambled. I got her right there, but she didn't notice and went for her bag where they kept a safety item. I walked over slowly, noticing her trouble with the zipper, and tapped her again. She was furious (hell hath no fury like a woman scorn), and also shocked, but more so in hate. I stayed for a few minutes before I realized that I was too sober for this at this time in the morning and could put my time to better use back at rez and asleep.

There've been all sorts of things happening, like colour wars, where all the houses in Totem (my place of residence) wore colours of with houses and competed to prove their worth. We might not have been the best, but we were the most enthusiastic. Two hours, a shower, change of clothes, bus ride, and long walk later, I was at my sisters wedding with a white shirt and tie, and red face paint still refusing to remove itself entirely from my hands. Another time, my floor and another from our building went into town for supper. There I build a straw so long that it reached across the table, and eventually, to the other table. It was taller than me and hitting the ceiling fan before long. I also piled up all the heavy spice containers on self-supporting knives held up on glasses. But those are only a few of my days, and nights. We've had nights of stealing chairs from other floors for our decked out floor lounge, nights where local street signs and advertisements end up mysteriously in that same floor lounge. There are nights I've spent studying, nights I've spent watching movies, nights I've spent at parties, nights I've spent getting close to girls*, nights I've spent tutoring, nights I've spent waiting for sleep and night that have simply been another night.

Right now, I'm in the middle of studying for chemistry, for which I have a midterm this week. Myself and a few friends find this class the most difficult due. Partly because the teacher, while entertaining and far from monotone, puts the class to sleep faster than a mother's lullaby (or a bottle of chloroform), and partly because there's no incentive for doing work or question for his course, the only points come from the labs and the exams. It may therefore seem stupid to put off studying, but when you have several other classes asking for pages of concepts and calculations on a weekly basis, what doesn't ask for attention doesn't get it. I've always had a grudge against chemistry because, while central and highly useful for science, it is not as directly mathematical or logical as physics, and while I often grasp concepts easily, there are so many different ideas, concepts, and exceptions that it is hard to keep track of them all. This is made especially true from the fact that these concepts and exceptions are difficult to derive from others. I think a few of us are getting our white flags ready for this exam.

I am getting better at studying, unfortunately I'm also getting exponentially worse at time management (actually, this isn't entirely true, but once you loose you're grasp of time, you have no way of determining how quickly you're getting worse at it, time being the independent variable). I keep getting caught up in conversations with floormates, engineers, and fellow students. We talk endlessly of technology, space elevators, archologies, genetic engineering, technological enhancement (cyberization), artificial intelligence, video games, strategy, mathematics, girls (which should be a bit higher on the list, but not by much), cetera, et cetera. I've almost given up entirely on video games, playing about a match a week on Starcraft II, and usually just against a computer opponent. I also listen to audiobooks almost non-stop. Mostly science fiction. It fills any silence I can find and helps me get to sleep when my room mate sleep less quietly. I'm not even sure where some of my time goes. I caught myself saying yesterday that we had been in university for a few weeks, when it's been well over a month, almost two. I feel like Tartarus, only his water is my time.

I've also started taking more control of my diet, though I'm not sure whether it's for better or worse. I bought a rice cooker, having lived in Japan and learned to love eating plain white rice. The cooker cost ten dollars, and rice is two to four dollars a kilo (for comparison's sake, potato chips at the corner store cost about fifteen dollars a kilo). I'm eating apples, oranges, bananas, drinking more water than I ever did soft drinks or any drink, I just started drinking apple juice, and the daily snack. I'm not sure if I've lost any weight (though there were a few days when I could go one notch more on my belt), but I doubt I've gain much if any (despite "freshman fifteen"). I'm a bit worried about my diet, but I'm not dead yet. Also, for all of you at Boston Pizza, I wish I could walk in the front doors and sit down with friends. I would talk with those still on shift, doing roll-ups while I waited for my self-made pizza to get though the oven, and stay until enough friends are off shift to get hammered. Sometimes you just want to go where everybody knows your name, and their always glad you came.

Speaking of which, I have yet to decide my plans for Christmas. I know that many people expect I'll be home-... ...back in Sydney for the holidays, but I have yet to make up my own mind. I'm keeping that in mind as I look to see what's going on with who in Vancouver. Rez closes, which cuts off staying here, but I'm still looking into other options. I'm also factoring in price for if I were to come back. It'd take a hundred and forty hours of work to pay off the airplane tickets. I know it might not be mine to pay, but that's not how I'm looking at it. I'll tell more when I figure it out for myself.

Weather here isn't so bad. We have lots of overcast, common rain, but enough blue in the sky with some sun to offset it all. The rain has yet to be torrential and I'll be ready when it is. Vancouver is a nice city when I can spare the (non-existent) time to ride in. UBC itself is nice, and large, but I feel that there's still a difference from this and real life. There're places to eat, places to go, bars, nightlife, traffic, people, business, work, scenery, and a large enough population to be it's own large town, but life here seems like one step the the left of normal. It might just be the overload of academia.

Other than that I'm fine. I'm living, eating, breathing, thinking, reading, processing, learning, working, writing, calculating, analyzing, listening, saying, speaking, conversing, interacting, socializing, partying, drinking, dancing, playing, acting, dreaming, sleeping, and hoping. I'm still alive.

* I'll add that they were spent getting closer to girls in a manner similar to that of mathematical limits; always approaching, never reaching.