http://2amtraffic.blogspot.com

Well, this is it, I suppose. Pretty much just have to shut down and pack up the computer. It didn't take too long to pack. I'm not leaving with too much more than what I came here with.

Note to self: don't go out drinking the night before moving again, no matter how good of an idea it seems. And if I do, stay away from red wine. It was good seeing Matt one last time anyway. We had dinner at Mackenzie's, a sports bar near his place. I had the chicken fingers.

I walked home up Keele Street. It was pouring rain and I played a game of duck and cover between the bus stop shelters. I must have looked suspicious. After awhile I stopped minding the rain and just walked. Near my place a couple were having an argument, the woman screaming at the man as he walked away.

I've really missed my girlfriend.

I'm starting a new journal tomorrow once I'm back in Ottawa. I'll post the address here.

Today is my last full day in Toronto, which, to be honest, doesn't feel as much like a city I used to visit for field trips. You spend enough time in a city and you become used to the idea that its structures and streets and parks and whatnot don't really go anywhere. And while I've been provided with some memories that will last me a lifetime, I've long since gotten used to that feeling that Toronto usually puts in me, that combination of melancholy and nostalgia and excitement and pure happiness that runs through me all at once as one experience triggers every other experience I've had here simultaneously. The city has become new to me in the way that it's become familiar.

Yesterday I handed in my essay, wandered around Value Village, came home and crashed. I woke up at sunset and went to the grocery store with the air that it would be my last trip, realizing afterwards that I'll probably have to go back to nab a box or two to pack tonight. I picked up copies of Diner and Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Different that were on sale, plus the essentials for the 36 hours one has left to spend in a place: Pop Tarts, soup, and peanut butter chocolate granola bars. I watched Diner and tried to understand that for the first time in months I didn't have to think about school work.

Tonight I'm getting together with Matt to have a beer and say so long for the time being. I'll have to spend the greater part of the day packing, but first I have to take back the rest of my library books and pay my fines, otherwise I'm pretty sure U of T will fail me out of spite.

Last night I ordered one of the new iMacs from Future Shop. I should have it next week. It's the newest computer I've ever purchased and it's effing pretty:


Ooo. Ahh.

I'm off. Tomorrow will be my last entry.

To blog or pass out. So many options.

Anyone can write a good paper if they write it from the inside out. You start with a few arguments. They don't have to be related. Then you write a sentence or two that draws connections between the arguments. Connections are a lot easier to make than the average person might think, especially if you have an abstract imagination and sound convinced enough. Then you write an introductory paragraph stating that each section of arguments links together somehow. Then you write a conclusion saying, to an effect, "told you so." Voila. Instant A-.

They give Master's degrees to jokers like me. I'm assuming. We'll see how the marks pan out.

Titles of the main essays and projects I've written this year:

Balancing Acts: Comparing Storytelling Media Across Representations of Death in Venice

Memo-rizing Touch of Evil: The Execution and Effect of Orson Welles’ Intentions

Embodying Africadia: Representations of the Female Body in the Works of Oni the Haitian Sensation and Afua Cooper

Avant-Garde Webslinging: Electronic Literature and the User

Man Without a Past: Douglas Coupland in Canada

Re-visioning Convention: African American Representation and the World War II Film

An End, A Beginning, A Middle: Temporal Rupture in Morrison’s Beloved, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and Kelly’s Donnie Darko

I'm done University again. Think I'll pass out now.

Up at 8:30, or what I'd define as an ungodly hour. Yesterday I asked for a one-day extension on my paper. I finished my arguments for Donnie Darko and wrote 13 annotations. I'm starting to think I might pull this off.

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a great note about words and phrases us grad students are relieved to no longer have to use now that classes are coming to an end. Here's my list:

- Epistemology
- Ethnocentric/graphic
- Hermeneutics
- Interesting
- Neologism
- Ontological
- Pragmatic
- Sociocultural

I know "interesting" may seem out of place on that list, but it's been a long year of people overusing that word, myself included. I can't count the number of sentences I've heard prefaced with "It's interesting that..." Saying something is interesting only goes to show that there's something you want to say about a subject but are too unfocused to actually say it. Those sentences usually end with a loss in train of thought, or the words, "Sorry, I'm rambling." Again, I'm as guilty as anyone else in perpetuating its use.

The Touch of Evil screening at Innis Town Hall was fun. Brought back some memories of last semester. Is it possible to have nostalgia for something that happened four or five months ago? Anyway, it was good to see Dru one last time before we both shoved off. It's interesting that the commentary he recorded for the film was the impetus for the reunion, yet he showed up midway through the screening because he was playing along with a Dark Knight public viral marketing campaign that let him see the new trailer. Sorry, I'm rambling.

I'm 3263/5000 words into the essay, which is fine - that's really only a couple more hours of writing. I still haven't started the bibliography. I have to put more of a focus on that today and churn it out. Throwing another kink into the plan is a screening of Touch of Evil that I should attend tonight, because people from the class are getting together. I might be able to do it.

I watched and wrote on Donnie Darko last night, and I could have written the entire paper on that film alone. I've seen it many times before, but I've never done a close reading of it. It's do damned intricately woven by parts that seem unrelated to one another but actually help explain how and why things are happening.

Okay. Transit's running again, so I'm off.

I wrote just over 1500 words of the paper last night, but I wasn't able to crack the bibliography. I split the arguments up between Beloved and Waiting for Godot. Hopefully I'll have both sections finished by the end of the day. That seems unlikely, however, since I'm in need of secondary sources at the library and still can't get to campus. Apparently the strike is set to end by the end of the day, so at least I'll have Monday and most of Tuesday.

That's it, really. Back to work.