Boxes and smatterings of other such notables

Ah, moving.
How I love the grey stained fingers from endless wrapping of breakables in newspaper, how quickly and masterfully I am now able to construct a box, the random odds and ends I have discovered and discarded (how many bloody candles do I own? and why do I keep all the address labels that charities continually send me?), and the horrible piercing stench of oven cleaner.

I am very very eager for this week to be done. Unfortunately, further box-ing (not the fun kind!), cleaning (I am seriously petrified of under my stove- I swear a mutant band of spiders is probably waiting for me), and dealing with my building manager stand in the way of that.

Between that and the study-fest that proceeded my ethics orals (and, okay, a few fun sojourns, too), there's been little time for blogging, unfortunately. As such, I bring you the highlights and lowlights (I don't know if that counts as the opposite of highlight except in hairdresser speak, but I'm rolling with it) of my week:

Highlights:

Chasing ducks across the street. As we were on our way to dinner Friday night, the Duke and I came across a random duo of ducks clearly out of place on a relatively busy street. They were precariously waddling in and out of traffic, and a woman on a cell phone was frantically trying to save the ducks, with others walking by, oblivious. We put forth a joint effort, and we chased them across the street from different angles until they reached the safety of the parking lot (where, I'm assuming, the mallard put his mack on... the lady duck was surely turned on by his risky behaviour).

With hindsight, they probably would've flown away if they were in too great of danger.

Random sibling adventures!. My little sis is currently on a solo figuring-out-her-life road trip. She happened to come into the city a day later than planned, meaning that she was leaving for a small town a few hours away the day I finished my massive exam. She convinced me to come along for a day of the road trip with her, rather than celebrating the test completion by, yes, packing more boxes.

We ended up having a fantastic time. Her and I, who share the tendency of being a tad bit overcontrolling of our surroundings, decided to just completely play things by ear, and venture down some random roads in the hopes of finding something worthwhile (she was actually on a desperate search for tidepools, being a current prairie resident). Sometimes this turned out better (we saw enormous sunstars at a little pier in a small town), others not so much (driving over 30 min down a twisty road trying to find a park, only to find a sign telling us we were at the wrong spot-- apparently we weren't the first to make this mistake-- then finding the park entrance, only to discover we needed to hike several kilometres to get to the ocean!). I headed back to real life early afternoon the next day, but it was nice to get a quick escape with my sis, who I miss very much most days.

Concerts! This week I had the immense pleasure of seeing both Regina Spektor and Damien Rice in concert. Regina has an incredible voice that holds up amazingly well live, and is utterly adorable on stage-- she seems very much at ease. I was extremely impressed.
Words can't even express how amazing Damien was, though. I had goosebumps for most of the show. It was one of those shows where I still feel on air when I think back to it. There's something about live music like that which gets me to a place like nothing else-- hard to explain to those who don't have that same connection with it.

***

Lowlights

People who talk during concerts. I really want to know who the hell pays to go to a concert, and then holds on a conversation through the whole thing. How is it in such obvious poor taste to talk through a movie, yet, during a show that people have paid several times the cost of a movie ticket, reasonable to chat about how drunk you were last weekend when the artists is playing *gasp* not their single, or, heaven forbid, a b-side?
Almost as bad are the amateur vocalists. For those of you not familiar with the stylings of Regina Spektor, she tends to be quite, um, vocally flexible, and will do odd things with her voice, like singing ridiculously fast, hitting very high notes, or interjecting some odd noises. She is, generally, the only person in the venue who can get away with this-- hence why she is up on stage, and you are not. So, please please, do not attempt to croon along to her every note at the top of your lungs while standing directly behind me. I shouldn't be laughing hysterically during a serious song.

Ethics oral exams. I know it is of vital importance for me, as a future-psychologist, to be impeccably ethical in my professional behaviours. It is still just plain mean to make me sit before a table of three alternatively unblinking staring or frantically writing professors and answer how I would resolve ethical dilemmas for an hour.

Lettuce-less salads? Since when did lettuce become an optional component of salad? Is it really an unfair assumption of me to make that my ten dollar salad will contain something other than ten cherry tomatoes and ten half-pieces of boconcinni drizzled with vinegar and accompanied by a little pile of pesto? I bet the chefs seriously laugh at whatever poor fool orders the salad, knowing that no one wants to look so uncouth as to have assumed a pile of greens in their salad dish, and watching me ogle my companion's burger of the same price.