Salutations from the t.dot

Hey y'all.. I decided to go to Toronto this weekend to visit my aunt and my cousin... partly to just see them, partly to gorge on yummy chinese food, and partly to pick up some stuff I had neglected to bring the first time around. So now that we'll all on the same page, let's go back in time to see how I ended up here.. *huzzah*

This morning, I woke up to an alarm clock going off (I think), and to the smell and touch of warm skin next to me. Although I was awakened, it made me happy to wake up and have the one i love beside me. She's always so warm after she's been sleeping in bed for a while. I love it, especially when I'm cold, and I feel like there's a warm blanket around me, and then I get to be warm, toasty and cozy. :D So yeah, needless to say, I fell asleep again, and when I woke up (or was it the 3rd time I woke up), it was like quarter to 12. Fuck... We missed the farmer's market, and the Greyhound for Toronto was at 1:00, and the bus to get there was every 1/2 hour, on the hour. That jolted me awake, as I had yet to pack all my shite together. So hastily, and not entirely willingly, I jumped out of bed, and got ready to leave. Luckily, I checked the greyhound website, and realized there was no bus at that time, and the next bus was at 2:15.
So me and Katie went to downtown Guelph for after a delicious lunch at the Carden St. Cafe. An amazing place... And after that Katie walked me to the bus station before she took the bus back to the University townhouses.. Hope she made it back ok.

So yeah, the hour or so on the bus was surprisingly short. I read a copy of the Georgia Strait that I'd brought with me from my flight from Vancouver, and didn't get the chance to read. So yeah.. like the first week of september or something. Apparently I did, as I recognized almost all the articles inside, from the Fringe festival, to the movies not to miss, and of course, the 50 top cds of the week.

Arriving in Toronto was actually a really neat experience. There was a certain freshness to it, arriving by bus, instead of never getting to put my foot in the streets of the city, like what usually happens when my aunt picks me up from the airport. It was something new and exciting, with just a dash of familiarity in there. I felt like I had walked on this street once before, but as a different person. The angles in the skyline were sharp and angular, and the buildings towered over me like gentle giants slumbering. Really, there's not much of this in Guelph.

My cousin showed up in her car and picked me up, and gave me a funny look, like many people who haven't seen me in a while have done, with my mohawk and all. We started talking, just some general catching up and stuff. And it was almost like a glimpse in the not-too-distant future. She'd just moved into a new apartment with a roommate, just off one of the busier streets of Toronto, and she was working a job from home, and looking for another.
Even though she's got a good 10 years on me or so.. it made me try to imagine where I would be in 5.. 10 years, and really I haven't the foggiest. Right now, I can't even really see much further than my next couple meals and assignments. But whether I want it or not, it's creeping up on me. like a glacier. Undetectable by the naked eye, but unstoppable by almost any means. All around me, it's seemed like there's all this bustling about building careers and getting into associations and getting experience and portfolios, grad school. all these things that people are just going around and doing, and sometimes I have no clue how they're pulling these things off. It seems like their whole lives are all so well planned out. They know what they want, and exactly how to get it. I just don't feel like I'm ready to be living in such a dynamic, yet strangely clear-cut, concrete world. It seems almost.. cutthroat and unforgiving. Even though I know it isn't. My cousin Carolyn's roommate Chris asked me the typical questions that are asked of university students.
Where are you studying?
"Oh the University of Guelph"
What are you studying?
"Umm, Environmental Science"
What do you want to do with that?
"Umm.. Save the world, I guess"
Save the world. For the cover-my-ass answer to that question, that's how clear-cut and concrete I am. I have no idea how, or where to begin. or how to get to a point where I can even make a difference. But there is one thing I do know. I know that the world I live in today, I want it to beat with the pulse of life. To survive and to flourish and not cower in fear, even with the knowledge that humanity is destroying the very ability for the earth to survive. And I want to believe that the Earth can do this, like the grass that grows in the cracks of the pavement, the tree that stands tall and proud beside the skyscrapers.