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wizened_cynicSo, DH sucked last night, except for the bits about Deirdre. I tried to watch Grey's Anatomy, but I couldn't get into it. Izzy is so my favorite though. Hello Kitty underwear! Hee!
My local Death by Chocolate is now selling bubble tea. Bubble tea, in case you don't know, is the single greatest invention by the Taiwanese, ever. It took over Vancouver a couple of years ago, resulting in that, if you randomly throw a rock up in the air, you will probably hit 3 different Starbucks and 2 bubble tea places. Of course, this is Vancouver, so the house down the street is actually a marijuana-growing operation, and when we find out, we're just concerned that we didn't get any free weed. My suburb is so Asianized that the signs in the libraries are written in languages in this order: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, Hindi, and French. Yes, French is our other official language --- we don't remember it either.
Sometimes I love Vancouver so much. It's so weird.
Okay, here is part three of Grace in college. It's short and crappy, and I don't like it, but whatever. I've got Latin on my mind, and I just remembered I signed up for some depressing poetry fic challenge that's due in 2 weeks, and so I've got to kill Joan before the end of the month.
#
Grace doesn't make friends. At most, she makes acquaintances, and even those come few and far between. From previous experience, she has learned that there are very few people in the world she finds tolerable, and she is quite sure that she has met most of them already.
Case in point, high school was a hellish prison of sorts, and of all the sociopaths she was incarcerated with on a daily basis, the only individuals she could stomach could be counted on one hand. And, excluding Friedman, found in the last two rows of Lischak's classroom.
College, well, college is different. If Grace wanted to start afresh, she could do it here, where nobody has ever scrawled mean things about her on the walls, or called her a dyke, or knocked over her things on purpose. But she has no desire to do that. She likes who she is, she knows what she likes, she knows who her friends are, and she is not looking for more.
Even so, somehow she finds herself collecting a handful of people who interest her, or at least with whom she can carry out intelligent conversations.
She meets Sophie on the first day of Linguistics. The professor, a Ph.D. from Yale (a fact he states numerous times in his introductory speech), is giving the run-down on the proper etiquette of rescheduling exams when he says, "A, you must tell me at least a month in advance if you are unable to write the exam. And two, any medical excuses short of having a limb amputated will not be accepted." At this point, Sophie puts up her hand and offers to teach him the alphabet, and the next class, when Sophie tries to sit down next to Grace, Grace does not tell her that the seat is taken.
Ben is a Poli Sci major, a survivor of Hanover Academy, and the first in four generations to fail to get into Oxford. His second love is international relations, his first is international cuisine, and when he combines the two, he comes up with recipes that make the entire History department weep. Once in a while, he invites Grace over for a slice of Socialist Cake and a lengthy discussion on the bastardization of ethnic cuisine by North Americans.
Monica is from Taiwan by way of Montreal, a true separatist at heart, and will end up wanted by the Chinese government in the near future. She keeps kosher, celebrates the Eucharist, observes Ramadan, prays to Kuanyin, and, according to at least two of her religions, is destined straight to hell.
Andre plays violin at the Conservatory, but most people don't see that. Most people never look past his face, which is tattooed with thin lines that look like scars. He says his "pleases" and "thank yous" in a soft trace of a South African accent, and he apologizes to everyone, even when Grace tells him those people don't deserve it.
So, these are Grace's people. They are good people, and they stick together, knowing that good people are hard to come by. Grace isn't the one for crowds, but it is always amusing when Ben and Sophie begin fighting over where to eat dinner. Anything Tex Mex is a sorry excuse for people who can't handle real Mexican food, and P. F. Chang's is considered the ninth circle of hell.
When she needs to pick a fight, Monica is readily available for an exchange of verbal insults; when she needs some quiet to think, she goes to the library with Andre, where they sit across from each other and read in silence.
Nevertheless, they are not a close-knit circle. Grace knows that there are too many things they keep from one another, too many things they don't talk about. They don't talk about the way Sophie's hands tremble when she's strung out on her medication, or the way Andre sits down on the bus and mothers pull their children away from him.
Grace knows, and they all do, that they are only each other's second-best. There are few people you can share you secrets with, people you can put near your heart and trust that they won't break it. Grace has already found them. They are her first-best, and they are enough.
Grace likes her new friends to the best of her ability, and they keep each other sane in the midst of totalitarian professors, histrionic roommates, and the barbaric New England winter. College sucks, but Grace has her first-best, and she has her second-best, and for now that's all right.
My local Death by Chocolate is now selling bubble tea. Bubble tea, in case you don't know, is the single greatest invention by the Taiwanese, ever. It took over Vancouver a couple of years ago, resulting in that, if you randomly throw a rock up in the air, you will probably hit 3 different Starbucks and 2 bubble tea places. Of course, this is Vancouver, so the house down the street is actually a marijuana-growing operation, and when we find out, we're just concerned that we didn't get any free weed. My suburb is so Asianized that the signs in the libraries are written in languages in this order: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, Hindi, and French. Yes, French is our other official language --- we don't remember it either.
Sometimes I love Vancouver so much. It's so weird.
Okay, here is part three of Grace in college. It's short and crappy, and I don't like it, but whatever. I've got Latin on my mind, and I just remembered I signed up for some depressing poetry fic challenge that's due in 2 weeks, and so I've got to kill Joan before the end of the month.
#
Grace doesn't make friends. At most, she makes acquaintances, and even those come few and far between. From previous experience, she has learned that there are very few people in the world she finds tolerable, and she is quite sure that she has met most of them already.
Case in point, high school was a hellish prison of sorts, and of all the sociopaths she was incarcerated with on a daily basis, the only individuals she could stomach could be counted on one hand. And, excluding Friedman, found in the last two rows of Lischak's classroom.
College, well, college is different. If Grace wanted to start afresh, she could do it here, where nobody has ever scrawled mean things about her on the walls, or called her a dyke, or knocked over her things on purpose. But she has no desire to do that. She likes who she is, she knows what she likes, she knows who her friends are, and she is not looking for more.
Even so, somehow she finds herself collecting a handful of people who interest her, or at least with whom she can carry out intelligent conversations.
She meets Sophie on the first day of Linguistics. The professor, a Ph.D. from Yale (a fact he states numerous times in his introductory speech), is giving the run-down on the proper etiquette of rescheduling exams when he says, "A, you must tell me at least a month in advance if you are unable to write the exam. And two, any medical excuses short of having a limb amputated will not be accepted." At this point, Sophie puts up her hand and offers to teach him the alphabet, and the next class, when Sophie tries to sit down next to Grace, Grace does not tell her that the seat is taken.
Ben is a Poli Sci major, a survivor of Hanover Academy, and the first in four generations to fail to get into Oxford. His second love is international relations, his first is international cuisine, and when he combines the two, he comes up with recipes that make the entire History department weep. Once in a while, he invites Grace over for a slice of Socialist Cake and a lengthy discussion on the bastardization of ethnic cuisine by North Americans.
Monica is from Taiwan by way of Montreal, a true separatist at heart, and will end up wanted by the Chinese government in the near future. She keeps kosher, celebrates the Eucharist, observes Ramadan, prays to Kuanyin, and, according to at least two of her religions, is destined straight to hell.
Andre plays violin at the Conservatory, but most people don't see that. Most people never look past his face, which is tattooed with thin lines that look like scars. He says his "pleases" and "thank yous" in a soft trace of a South African accent, and he apologizes to everyone, even when Grace tells him those people don't deserve it.
So, these are Grace's people. They are good people, and they stick together, knowing that good people are hard to come by. Grace isn't the one for crowds, but it is always amusing when Ben and Sophie begin fighting over where to eat dinner. Anything Tex Mex is a sorry excuse for people who can't handle real Mexican food, and P. F. Chang's is considered the ninth circle of hell.
When she needs to pick a fight, Monica is readily available for an exchange of verbal insults; when she needs some quiet to think, she goes to the library with Andre, where they sit across from each other and read in silence.
Nevertheless, they are not a close-knit circle. Grace knows that there are too many things they keep from one another, too many things they don't talk about. They don't talk about the way Sophie's hands tremble when she's strung out on her medication, or the way Andre sits down on the bus and mothers pull their children away from him.
Grace knows, and they all do, that they are only each other's second-best. There are few people you can share you secrets with, people you can put near your heart and trust that they won't break it. Grace has already found them. They are her first-best, and they are enough.
Grace likes her new friends to the best of her ability, and they keep each other sane in the midst of totalitarian professors, histrionic roommates, and the barbaric New England winter. College sucks, but Grace has her first-best, and she has her second-best, and for now that's all right.
#
