On the plus side, I'm down to 1 cup of coffee per day

One of the happier consequences of, ah, the episode as we shall now call it ("pardon me while I have a strange interlude"), is that I can barely drink more than my first cup of coffee in the morning. By strange coincidence I had decided earlier in the week to start limiting my caffeine intake to two cups (down from my usual three), so this is kind of an unexpected bonus. See, I can be Pollyanna-ish and unreasonably optimistic if I want to be.

I also wanted to cut down my food intake, and eventually increase my exercise regimen. Right now the latter is down to near zero, as it has been since roughly February, due to an assortment of injuries that just wouldn't heal. (Getting old sucks.) Just about the only exercise I'm getting these days is walking, although I'm doing plenty of that. As for the food, well, I'm back to my one standard sized bowl limit, and I'm using my chopsticks to make sure I don't wolf it down too quickly. (I find this trick works especially well with things like soup or custard cream.) Even though I normally love food to excess, "the episode" has curtailed my appetite considerably. Chalk up another benefit for nervous breakdowns.

I noticed that the portentous previous blog entry was never followed up. It wasn't meant to foreshadow Saturday's entry, trust me. (How could I have even suspected things would go as dramatically pear-shaped as that? Although in hindsight there were signs... but I digress.) There was supposed to be some meaningful exposition in between then and now.

Anyway, I don't mean to keep you in suspense because I do intend to finish that tale eventually -- it's a good 'un! -- but I really don't have much energy or enthusiasm for it at the moment. Especially since Digital Village Idiot is leading the War on Data again, stomping out any remotely useful bits and bytes of throughput at every opportunity, fearing that the Westminster student community will eventually wise up and realize what a thoroughly useless sack of shit their halls ISP is -- and then post it to the interweb for all to see.

Panic in the streets of London

Some of you will recognize the title of this post as a line from a Smiths song. But for me it was a real-life event, although it felt much more like a hallucination. A very nasty one at that.

Saturday night as I was on my way to Sainsbury's to get some groceries I had a panic attack. Not just any old garden variety panic attack: it was a whopper. Not that I have a lot to compare it to; I've only ever had one prior to that, and it was about six or seven years ago now. At that point I had no idea what was happening, having never lived through such an unusual experience before, except I assumed that it was all the chemical badness that I had ever ingested during my rock 'n' roll years come back to haunt me, all at once.

If you've ever had a really, really bad trip, it was kind of like that, only you haven't taken anything for donkey's years and you're perfectly straight when it happens, so it's that much more bizarre and inexplicable -- which of course makes it that much more frightening. It's not like you can just console yourself by saying, "Bummer. I'm having a real bad trip. But I'll be okay in a few hours." Because you have NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENING TO YOU, except maybe you think you're losing your mind, and/or you are dying, and/or the world is coming to a horrible end. Or rather, you're certain of it. And that certainty increases as your oxygen supply slowly dwindles, and you feel dizzier, and all you want to do is throw yourself off the railway bridge and onto the third rail or under the oncoming Routemaster double-decker bus to end it all, and quickly.

Saturday's panic attack was something like that. But worse. Much, much worse. Because it lasted for hours, not minutes. And I'm thousands of mile away from my own country, my wife and family and friends.

Luckily I was able to get Danika on the phone and she talked me in for a rough landing back at the residence, where even more luckily fellow Canuck and Harrow hall resident Amy and her fiance Adam were home when I knocked. Adam, you see, is a physician in residence at Cambridge University, and he happened to be visiting Harrow this past weekend (they alternate visits). So when Danika had to go, Adam and Amy came to sit with me and keep me breathing.

And as if that doesn't make me the luckiest cat in the hat, I also happened to have a couple of Valiums (Valia?) left over from when a kind colleague took pity on my chronically sleep-deprived self and laid a modest array of pills -- some herbal and some not -- on me a few weeks ago. Preferring as always the natural route, I'd left the heavy-duty stuff well enough alone, but was ever so grateful to have it handy Saturday night. If nothing else I was able to get a good night's sleep, which I desperately needed.

To cut a long story short, I've spent most of the last few days recovering because the whole episode took a great deal out of me, physically and emotionally. I also spent a couple of days bouncing from doctor to doctor, making sure that there wasn't anything more insidious going on, which there doesn't appear to be (thank god).

I have another visit to the school shrink scheduled for Tuesday, and a full exam scheduled with my own family GP when I get back to Vancouver. Which is mercifully very, very soon.

Just when you think things can't get any weirder...

...someone turns up the 'melodrama' button.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I will be away from the blog for a few days. Not that I think anyone out there is holding their breath or anything, but for the one or two people that actually read this and care (hey baby!)... a little heads-up.

Lord, give me strength

Rude awakenings: 11:30 pm, 12:00 AM, and then roughly every 5 minutes or so thereafter until about 4:15 AM.
Internet connectivity: SOD ALL, mostly.
Days to departure: 17.

The tease is the worst part: you get one or, if you're really lucky, two nights of 6-7 hours' sleep. But then it starts all over again. Worse than ever. Like last night.

Of course there is a pattern to this, and it correlates with whenever the hall's miserable little shits are absent. Those turds happen to live in 88D (Stroppy), 88I (Frenchie) and whatever that other room across the hall is (I can't be sure, because I've never seen him; I only hear him in the wee hours of the morning). As it turns out, all were away for the weekend, probably at home with Mummy and Daddy, being spoon-fed and coddled, having their nappies changed and getting a decent night's sleep. Which accounts for my own delicious, 8-hour sleep on Saturday night.

But they returned yesterday, with a vengeance. My first clue was the noxious cloud emanating from Stubby's room across the corridor. My second clue was the incessant ringing of his phone. My third clue was the very loud gathering that began -- BEGAN!!! -- at 11:30 PM last night, when Snoopy hosted a drinkfest as a prelude to going out for the night.

It was at that point I knew we were in for rough sailing. (Too bad I had run out of booze.)

All night long we heard doors slamming, loud conversations in the hall, people bouncing off walls, stomping and running down the corridor. Oh, and constant knocking on doors. Followed by more slamming of doors.

I also heard poor Kate, who had a job interview this morning, get up several times to knock politely and tell them to keep a lid on it. Naturally they all put on their best cod-macho poses for the petite blonde and said OK, but went right back at it the moment the door was closed. The security guard came and challenged Snobby over having so many unregistered guests in his room, but naturally the slimy little bastard lied through his teeth and said "We're just going out." Like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

Of course, he knows full well that he can get away with anything and everything, because there are never any consequences here. Like Never-neverland. The worst that will happen is another Tersely Worded Caution Letter will be unceremoniously slipped under our doors, and life will go on as usual. Another valuable life lesson learned at university.

Needless to say I do not have two functional brain cells to rub together this morning, when I need it most to complete my FINAL ASSIGNMENTS, so I can move on to my dissertation. Today I am utterly useless, intellectually. Once again I will effectively lose one more day of my life trying desperately to get some rest, thanks to selfish little pricks like Snippy, who will continue to float through their days utterly oblivious to the basic human rights and needs of any sentient being on the planet. (I almost wrote "any other sentient being" but that implies they too have functioning sensory apparatus.)

I am also filled with a variety of mixed emotions, one of which is a strange, free-floating sense of being carefree and weightless. This is probably due to the natural high one gets from sleep deprivation. Or maybe it's finally sinking in that I am leaving this hell-hole in 17 days.

Another is a profound peace that comes from the decision not to have any children. Knowing that people (and I use the term in its loosest, most generic sense) like Stumpy are the next generation to run the planet reminds me that we have made the best possible choice; I would not wish my worst enemy to experience that, let alone my own progeny. That these spoiled, self-centered little oiks are now old enough to vote (but, thankfully, probably neither smart nor motivated enough) positively frightens the stuffing out of me. Global warming and other man-made disasters are bad enough as it is without pillocks like Stuffy further adding to the misery. Gasoline, meet match. Match, meet gasoline.

Then as soon as such thoughts enter my head I get a sudden rush of exhilaration: "Yay Mother Nature! You go, girl! Wipe 'em all out! Starting with residents of Q88 who are loud of mouth and bereft of intellectual capacity! Bring it on baby!"

And then I want to go to sleep and wake up to find it was all just one horrible, extended nightmare.

* * *

Given the craptastic, uh, "quality" of our internet connectivity, I cannot post any of the beautiful photos I've taken over the last couple of days -- sunny, springy shots of Green Park and Hyde Park and other oases of calm and natural beauty in the heart of London that I have been indeed fortunate to enjoy over the last couple of days.

So blame Digital Village Idiot if you get nothing but grumpiness here.

* * *

UPDATE: I found out the cause of this most recent late-night/early morning disturbance. Oh boy. Hang on tight, this could be a bumpy ride.

Si si je suis un rock star

Rude awakenings: N/A. (Might've had to do with the entire bottle of Aussie cabernet-shiraz I downed last night. Yes, booze IS the answer.)
Days to departure: 21. Three (count 'em, 3!) weeks.

I am a fucking rock star.

Or at least that's how I should feel after yesterday's relatively fawning treatment by the Powers That Be in the Harrow halls. After filing two more complaints earlier in the day I had two separate visits not just by the night desk clerk but also from one of the student Residential Assistants, as they're called, last night. Both wanted to check in and let me know they were on the job. Which I appreciate, of course. Then again, maybe they came on suicide watch. (If I were a little more paranoid -- and in the last 48 hours I've been marginally more lucid than what constitutes 'normal' of late -- then I'd say someone's found out about my blog and is getting concerned with the tone and timbre of some of my recent rants.)

But it's sad that it's come to this; my life is now one constant intrusion. The whole point of my rabble-rousing was quite the opposite: to restore a modicum of peace and sanity for the meagre amount of time I have left in this place. As I told Jason, the RA who came to visit last night, I really don't care if Stubby across the hall is dealing drugs; it's not as if a lifetime in the music business hasn't inured me to these things. I just wish the fuck he'd do it discreetly.

I mean, if you've got to have a parade of shady characters trooping up and down our hallway at the rate of one every ten minutes after 1:00 AM, then do it quietly. When your 'clients' duck in for their dope, tell them close the door gently; letting it slam in the usual fashion is only advertising your illicit enterprise to all and sundry. Ditto for when they leave. And tell them to shut their fat gobs while they're at it. Shouting the odds down the hallway is not a particularly clever way to avoid detection. Nor, for that matter, is the pungent cloud of skunkweed smoke filling the corridor in the immediate vicinity of your door.

Therein lies part of the problem. The long-lasting nocturnal parties themselves have died down (in the last 48 hour cycle anyway; I'm sure it'll pick up again, as it always does). But that still doesn't mean that my neighbours and I aren't woken up by people coming in and going out at all hours -- the noise is simply more transient. It's harder to catch them in the act, so to speak.

And of course my neighbours have been disappointingly silent on the whole affair; despite their grumblings and general agreement with my occasional jeremiads, they have remained resolutely inactive. Whether that's because they are too tired, or timid, apathetic, fearful of reprisal, simply resigned or what, I'm not sure. But up until now I've had to carry the can and do all the dirty work. I mean, someone has to do it, and whether that's simply because I have a lower bullshit threshold, it might as well be me. But of course after I'm gone things will just get worse again, and they'll have no one to speak up for them.

Which leads me to another thing that has me almost feeling like a rock star -- or at least an older, more curmudgeonly version of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables* (Hugo's version, not the wimpy musical; all these years later and I still can't hold a note). Yesterday I hosted an impromptu political rally in the kitchen at dinnertime. To cut a long story short I was trying to tell everyone that their damage deposits -- which they may get back once they are safely out of halls and thus out of the country! -- are likely to be forfeited due to the unfortunate cooker incident prior to Christmas (which I have yet to relate here). They seem to have forgotten about it, or at least they harbour a naive faith that we will not, in fact, be charged for the alleged damages. But I have serious doubts, particularly since all my enquiries -- four written requests to date -- have been studiously ignored by halls management.

In those few minutes, I felt like I was making progress. Especially when they realized their money was at stake, never mind their academic standing, their honour, their criminal records, etc. I felt I had their attention. I felt we were as one, together, fighting the good fight for the common purpose. And almost in unison they shouted, "Yes! We agree! We must not be denied justice by the oppressive corporate-bureaucratic regime! Let us rise up together!" And then we marched out of the kitchen and down to the halls management office, which we proceeded to storm and occupy until the press arrived and made our democratic fight front-page news across the land.

Well, that's how the scene ends in my fevered imagination, anyway.

What they really said was, "Oh, okay. If you write something up we'll sign it."

[Sobs silently, pounding head repeatedly against desk.]


* At this point the more imaginative writers in the audience will detect the imminent and plausible, Hollywoodesque plot twist, wherein our aging hero spontaneously throws himself into the current student elections just to "show the kids how it's done." At first considered little more than a curio or novelty, the old man on campus is at first championed out of sarcastic if somewhat good-natured student japery -- which then turns into a serious expression of support as our hero wins one crucial battle against the evil educational regime after another . Eventually, carried along on a tide of popular support, Ken Clean-Air System must face off against the laissez-faire stooge candidate planted by the opposition, whose sole platform plank is "cheaper beer in the student union bar." In the student union presidential debates our protagonist launches an impassioned plea to the newly emancipated students and he declines to run, urging them instead to think for themselves and to stop blindly following fashionable trends or leaders. Naturally they do. The stooge changes sides and takes up the rallying cry. Oppression is vanquished; the students are liberated; Ken goes home to his lovely wife; and all live happily ever after. The End. Roll credits.

This time it's personal

I submitted two more written complaints about noise and smoking in halls today. One was from back in February, the one I was about to file when asked to meet with halls management. I hadn't forgotten about that one; I merely let it lie, foolishly thinking my meeting would result in affirmative action. The other was from last night, when Stumpy across the hall -- who, I now have reason to believe (judging by the number and duration of his late-night visits), is dealing drugs from his flat and not just smoking them there -- kept up the parade of slamming doors well after hours.

Oh, I have no illusions that anything is going to be done about it. Despite there being clearly identifiable parties at fault here, about whom many complaints have been filed (and not just by me), the inept halls management utterly refuse to act in any meaningful and appropriate manner, preferring as always to blame the victim. I filed the report for appearance's sake more than anything. If this whole stupid situation goes as far as legal action, which it might well, then I will need a paper trail to help demonstrate their utter incompetence and negligence in dealing with a persistent problem.

Having been stymied at every turn in my attempts to seek justice -- or at least the right to enjoy my place of residence in the relative peace that is theoretically due to me according to the terms of my lease -- it has now become personal.

Although I am still going ahead with a visit to the Citizens Advice Bureau, my legal research to date has left me feeling deflated, defeated, utterly powerless. The cards, as you would imagine, are stacked against the tenant at all times. (Apparently I was sunk from the moment I foolishly signed my lease, naively believing that things would be as advertised. Ha ha ha!) But as any student of psychology knows, it's a dangerous thing when a desperate person -- who has been suffering the debilitating effects of chronic sleep deprivation -- begins to feel powerless.

Not a good combination at all.

Update re: "Victor: the Victor Davis Story"

Just got this from Mark Lutz, the writer/star of the film:

"Hello All,

Due to the recently announced provincial election in Quebec the airdate of "VICTOR - The Victor Davis Story" has been postponed.

Obviously, the election date conflicted with our premiere, and because the CBC has a mandate to cover all elections, we got the bump.

Rest assured, once we have a new airdate, you'll be among the first to know. In the meantime, we encourage you to check our new website at... www.myspace.com/victordavisfilm

If you're already a member of MySpace, please give us an 'add' and pass along the profile. If you're not a member, the site has all kinds of goodies on it, including a trailer for you to enjoy. Please pass along the news."

Consider it done.

Why they are called 'universities'

Rude awakenings: Too many to list the various hours.
Fire alarms: 1 (false, yesterday).
Days to departure: 23.

Angry Alien Phone-Shouter was at it again early this morning. I took my life into my hands and tiptoed around the hallway to find out which room that horrible, freakish noise was emanating from. And I was right: it's that tiny little creature across the hall and down one door! My god, I can't believe such a ferocious din erupts from such a small body. She/it is definitely from another planet. Which, incidentally, is why I now call her Angry Alien Phone-Shouter; in case you missed my footnote the other day it's because she sounds like the titular monster in the Alien series of movies, and it is emphatically not because she is -- like me, after all -- a foreigner on these shores.

* * *

It's enough to make a grown man want to bang his head against his desk repeatedly.

This week I've had a further two e-mails from the University alerting me to Things of Great Interest and Import to Westminster University Students. The problem is, of course, these events happened a couple of days before I had received my e-mails. So there are several possibilities here:

1. Whoever is charged with publicizing these events is asleep at the switch and chronically late in sending out the messages. (These were by no means the first such tardy alerts.)
2. The publicist is actually on time, but the IT dept. person charged with sending them out on his or her behalf is way behind, and also fails to read what he or she is posting, i.e., doesn't realize that the messages are out of date.
3. The people are fine, but the system itself takes forever to propagate and get the mails out to the several thousand students on campus. However, I am a strong believer in the GIGO principle -- Garbage In, Garbage Out -- which means that a computer program is only as good as the human instruction behind it. Therefore I find this the least plausible explanation.

Of course it would be too much to ask to have a little text at the bottom of said e-mails providing human contact information so we could alert those responsible to these errors. But no. Hitting 'reply' only bounces back a message from an autoresponder saying, 'Please do not respond to this message' etc. And they wonder why they consistently get such poor turnout to their events.

Good thing I am utterly disinterested in 99% of what goes on around here anyway.

There are exceptions. Like yesterday, I received an e-mail notifying me of an event that has yet to happen -- hallelujah! -- namely, a trial for a new series of psychometric tests. Now, I've only ever been asked to write psychometric tests for a job once in my life. I had been unemployed for nearly a year and was getting desperate. So when I went for this particular interview at a division of a Well-Known Canadian Ad Agency, instead of being introduced to the interviewer I was asked me to go into a room and write a test. I promptly declined. Not being quite that desperate, I got up and walked out of the office, saying that I don't work for computers, I work for people; and if the computer wanted to interview me, fine, but it probably wouldn't be able to read my handwriting.

But the sad reality is that many companies are turning to psychometric testing. Why, I don't know. Anyone who's ever had to write something under duress -- especially when you arrive at an interview and expect to be, well interviewed -- knows that the results of these things are completely unreliable. But still, companies are doing it, probably because Other Companies Are Doing it, and Psychometric Testing Software Companies are really good at the selling their digital snake oil to other companies who hate to be left off any bandwagon. But I digress. So anyway, I figured I'd try my hand at the psychometric testing just to see the results, because I have no idea what they even purport to test, or how, or why. Besides, there's 20 pounds in it for me. So I read the attached flyer. And re-read it. And read the e-mail again, several times. But I could find absolutely no information on where and how to sign up, except a link to the main Careers page on the uni web site.

To cut a long story short, after much surfing and searching I sent an e-mail to the Careers dept., asking if they could point me to the right signup page. I received an e-mail back telling me, in long descriptive prose, where I could find the link. Sort of. (The e-mail never actually included any of the words I should have been looking for in the first place.)

So I wrote back and said, "Thank you for the information. It may help recruitment in future if you were to SIMPLY COPY AND PASTE THE DIRECT LINK TO THE APPROPRIATE ESSENTIAL INFORMATION IN ANY E-MAILS AND ANY OTHER MARKETING MATERIALS YOU SEND."

I used to wonder why they call them 'universities'. I now know it's because they hire the stupidest fucking idiots in the entire universe to run them.

* * *

Speaking of universal morons, let us pause to marvel at the astounding waste of skin and oxygen that is Sonny, the bloated sac of protoplasm that lives across the hall.

As I type this I am once again listening to his mobile phone cum alarm clock ringing incessantly. At least once a week on average, since the beginning of the school year, he has left his room and 'forgotten' his mobile phone, which he has set to go off at 10-minute intervals. When it does, it rings for a full minute, then stops for another 10.

You can only imagine how annoying this is when one is trying to concentrate on a paper, or sleep.

Good thing his battery lasts only 8-10 hours.

And before you say anything, YES, we have ALL complained about this repeatedly -- to him, and to halls management. The former only apologizes (sometimes) and promises to never do it again, and the latter never does anything, period.

Things I will not miss

1. Sonny, the unnecessarily loud piss-tank across the hall.
   
2. Pig-Squealer.
3. Doors that slam instead of click gently closed.
4. Kitchens and hallways that reverberate like echo chambers.
5. Weeks-old crust and slime coating various cooking and dining surfaces.
6. Industrial strength, chemical-based toxic cleaning solvents.
7. Kidiots revving their engines, doing doughnuts and/or cranking their pointlessly loud sub-woofers in the parking lot (especially after 3:00 AM)
8. The view of the back wall of the sports complex.
9. Furniture designed for maximum discomfort and spinal deformity.
10. Angry Alien Phone-Shouter.
11. Fire alarms (false and real).
12. Ever-changing weather (especially since I'll get plenty of that back home).
13. The French Contingent and their late-night revels and hallway relationship dramas.
14. Coronation Street*.

* Seriously, I will not miss an episode when I get home because I have missed every single one since arriving in the U.K., not having a television. How's that for irony? By odd coincidence, I will arrive home at approximately the same historical point in the show that it had reached when I first arrived in the U.K., thereby executing some strange sort of time travel thing. All without a Tardis.

Of vital importance

Rx is still in effect:

1. My e-mails may not be getting through to you. Some bastard(s) is/are spoofing my e-mail address and I have been blocked by some, though fortunately not all, ISPs and their spam filters. If you have been expecting to hear from me but haven't, please ask your ISP whether my domain -- and in particular my e-mail address -- is being blocked. Fortunately my domain host has put an SPF in place so hopefully that should limit the problem, but meantime the damage is done.
2. Chances are one of you out there has a faulty firewall and/or a trojan, worm, virus or other problem with your computer, and it is being hijacked as a spam-slave. Please download and run Spybot and have your anti-virus updated & run immediately.
3. Because it's been raining a lot over the last 2 days or so, Westminster halls' "service" provider Digital Village Idiot has caught a cold and so I have been unable to post due to lack of connectivity. Too bad, because there were some crackers. But there is a backlog of them coming soon.
   

Harper's Tories: the second-best government money can buy

Rude awakening: 7:00 AM. (Thanks, Angry Phone-Shouter.)*
Internet connectivity: Acceptable.
Days to departure: 28.

Don't know if you followed the news about Bev Oda, Canada's Minister of Culture, who racked up some serious eyebrow-raising expenditures at the Juno Awards in Halifax last month. Then she had the gonads to say she repaid $2,000 of it, as if a $3,500 limo bill -- in a city you can walk around (never mind ride in a cab) in less than 30 minutes -- is that much more acceptable.

But wait, it gets better.

Then some bright spark posted an inevitable parody (to the tune of Lola) on YouTube. (I won't link to it here because frankly it's disappointing and mildly amusing at best, and only for the first few seconds at that. Search for it yourself if you must.) BUT THEN the odious Oda goes and posts a defense-cum-tribute to herself from Peter McKay (because, y'know, that baloney merchant has so much more credibility than Oda). See, by posting on YouTube, she gets to show off how unbelievably cultured and hip she is to the high technology. Right kids?

But here's the best part: her henchmen disabled the comments function.

This, my friends, is typical of the Harper has-beens. (Don't even get me started on King David Emerson, who believes that anyone who was offended by his defiantly anti-democratic, self-interested and opportunistic defection -- meaning the majority of his constituency -- is not worth listening to.) Oda's posting of the self-serving claptrap, minus comments features (which is after all one of the democratizing features of YouTube) symbolically says: "We tell you what we want you to hear, and aren't the least bit interested in what you have to say." That's Harper & cronies for you -- the second-best government money can buy. (What more can you say about a government that names as its national Minister of Public Safety some bozo who reportedly believes that dinosaurs and man roamed the earth together at the dawn of creation 5,000 years ago?)

I'll defer to Michael Geist on the specifics of the far-too-cozy relationship Oda (rhymes with "odour") has with the major record labels. But, dear friends, she is not alone in this. As Geist also appropriately observes, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier "has no time to deal with [major and more pressing concerns like] spam, spyware, privacy, or net neutrality but commits to legislation on behalf of the organizers of a sporting event?" (i.e. trademarking the word 'winter' at the behest of the Vancouver Olymp-dicks). Oops, will that get me sued for trademark infringement?

Utterly abhorrent. But sadly, not unexpected.

The good news: a spring election looks nigh. Then we can VOTE THE BASTARDS BACK TO THE STONE AGE.

* In a remarkable turnaround, halls have been awe-inspiringly quiet over the last two days -- relatively speaking, of course. I still wait up a few extra hours until most of the rabble-rousing dies down but have managed get two consecutive nights' semblance of uninterrupted sleep. This may be due to the Sternly Worded Notice that was finally sent around (yay, another piece of paper to ignore!) or it may be coincidence. Probably the latter. Anyway, now that I'm finally able to sleep a bit it's jarring to wake up to the sound of Angry Phone-Shouter doing what she/it does best. Because I now realize her rapid-fire cackle sounds remarkably like the Alien in the eponymously titled film. With PMS.

Introductions

Let me introduce you to two characters who will be featured shortly in upcoming posts regarding things I will and will not miss when I move out of halls at the end of this month.

Actually, one of them you have already met -- sort of. Or at least I have mentioned her on one or two prior occasions. I call her Pig-Squealer. As you might guess, her moniker derives from the fact that she can frequently be heard up and down the hall because her high-pitched voice seems to carry like a bad farm odour on the wind.

I don't begrudge her innate enthusiasm for seemingly all things, which I think is what causes her voice to rise the way it does and which is otherwise kind of endearing. It's just that voice I can't stand. Kind of like nails on a chalkboard, only instead of nails it's a dentist's drill. And not just on any chalkboard, but one layered with Styrofoam. Only it's as loud and insistent as a pneumatic jackhammer.

This, strangely, is a dramatic change from her usual speaking voice, which has all the sing-song lilt of a three-year-old on Christmas morning babbling excitedly to her new, retarded puppy.

The second flatmate I will call Angry Phone-Shouter. If I haven't mentioned her before, it's not for lack of annoyance factor; in those terms she ranks right up there with Pop Idol/American Idol/Canadian Idol (etc.) and strangers' farts in enclosed public spaces like elevators and buses. Relative to some of the others in the flat, however, she's perhaps not quite as obnoxious, which tells you how annoying they can be.

Another reason I may not have mentioned her previously is because she's a bit of a mysterious figure. I really have no idea who she is; it's possible I have never seen her. Given her accent I have a vague notion that she is Indian/South Asian; I'm not even sure it is a woman, to be honest. (It could be a man with a very high-pitched voice.) I have an inkling of whom it might be, since there is really only one or two that fit that description and who live on this side of the fire door. Which is odd, because if she is indeed the one I'm thinking of then she normally seems like such a quiet, shy, self-effacing type. Mind you, they're often the very ones you need to worry about most.

Once again you can fairly imagine the reason I have pseudonymously called her Angry Phone-Shouter. But to get the full effect you have to appreciate several facts about her 'conversations':

1. They take place in one of the Indian or South Asian languages, at high speed and high volume. Not unlike German, this particular dialect makes even the most harmless pleasantry sound like a harsh insult, particularly when delivered at high velocity.
2. My guess is she rarely utters harmless pleasantries.
   
3. They invariably occur late at night (midnight or thereabouts) or very early in the morning (around 7-8 AM), their stark contrast with your hitherto peaceful sleep enhancing the overall dramatic effect.
   
4. They are mostly monologues, or should I say harangues, of the type one would normally reserve to berate willfully snotty British bureaucrats, although how many of those are receiving calls at anything other than bankers' hours I do not know.
5. They are delivered with a force and conviction that is positively alarming, particularly as I imagine them emerging from such a small body. (Picture Linda Blair in The Exorcist, only instead of the gruff, burly devil's voice one hears the sound of 1,000 homicidal chipmunks on crystal meth, amplified through a tinny loudspeaker.)
   

I can only suppose that she is having an ongoing disagreement with her parents over something like school funding, her imminent career choice, returning to the homeland once her studies are complete, a doomed arranged marriage, or radically redefining her sexuality to challenge her deeply traditional/orthodox religious background. On a related theme, perhaps she is having a sustained tiff with a distant lover, a poor, half-deaf sadomasochistic bastard with a fetish for diminutive, bespectacled ball-busters. Or perhaps the woman is simply out of her flaming gourd, randomly spouting off into the ozone about nothing in particular, throwing raging wobblers every time she forgets to take her meds and the lithium wears off.

Thankfully, we may never know.

(Note to Kate: if you ever tell anyone else on our floor about the existence of this blog I will write something nasty about you, too.)

Forward... March!

March 1! The end is in sight – literally. I look on my Western Canada Wilderness Committee calendar and can see the departure date, March 31, clear as day. That alone feels good.

The fact that I managed a full night’s sleep (!!!) and woke up quite naturally at 8:00AM also makes me feel good, as does the beautiful sunshine. Today I am filled with a hope and optimism that I have not felt for quite some time.