Xu and I recently got our first apartment (woo!). It is about 850 square feet, just over $800/month, on the 16th floor (technically the 15th because there is not 13th floor…but we’re 1603), have a 20 ft long by 4 ft wide balcony with a pretty neat view and we are right around the corner from Jane and Finch.

The Jane-Finch community has one of the largest concentrations of criminal gangs of any area in Canada. It also has “one of the highest proportions of youth, sole-supported families, refugees and immigrants, low-income earners and public housing tenants of any community in Toronto” (p.5, A Report of the Jane-Finch Street Involved Youth Issues Coalition, December 2002).

Lovely, I know. But we’re not right at J&F, we’re actually spitting distance from York University, so I’d like to claim that we’re actually on campus.

We were both super excited to be moving in today, we packed up some stuff last night and talked about what colors we were going to paint the rooms and about the entire process of moving. We got really excited to bring our new kitten onto our new pad and start the next part of our lives. I tossed and turned all night because I was so excited. This morning I went to the apartment earlier than him to get the keys and scope the place out a little bit.

My excitement hit the floor when I walked into the apartment. It was a complete and utter disaster. It smelled like paint (from the worst paint job ever) and smoke, there were cigarette butts on the ground, dirt all over the floor, rips in the screen door, a burnt out light, a moldy bathtub (which I was promised would be fixed and all better the last time I complained about it) and Tim Horton’s cups on the belcony. I just about hit the roof. I told the landlord it was unacceptable and blah blah blah - so he’s sending his wife to clean it - apparently.

So I call Xu, super upset, telling him not to come and that I want to just burn the whole place down. Once he calms me down we finally decide to just carry on with the plans, sans kitten - because it is too dirty for a sickly kitten to be frolicking around. We moved in a bunch of stuff and to lighten our spirits took a fun trip to Ikea where we bought new chairs, a great painting, a shower curtain and other things to make the place feel a little bit like our own. Oh, and had meatballs, of course. Now… Come Saturday we’ll have EVERYTHING moved in (thanks to all our friends), our kitten will be here (technically our kittenS will be here - we are babysitting for a month! exciting) and we won’t be sleeping on the floor (also exciting). Hopefully we’ll have our own Internet soon… the people with open WiFi don’t really splurge on the fastest net. And hopefully we don’t destroy the place while hanging our new curtains tomorrow. :S

I’ve moved so many times in my life. I think around 15 or 16 times and I’m not even 25 yet. Never have I had a moving experience this terrible before. I guess coupling it with a really sick kitten doesn’t always set it in the best light to begin with (and that I’m just getting into the middle of a super duper crappy sickness that is making me miss Camp Inquiry … AND that we had KFC for dinner…that never makes an experience better) - but I think its the merging of two people into one area, and how we’ve underestimated everything. I mean, we’ve lived together for a while, but now this is OUR space and we get to decide what to do with it. So we just want to make sure we do everything right. (And make sure we don’t get any cockroaches…*shudders*)

Here is our apartment in its current state…yes, we are sleeping on the floor… yes, we have pretty much nothing in here… yes, we know it looks like no one lives here. But, this was just one car trip of stuff to get us started. I’ll do some “after” pictures on Sunday…or when the place is actually finished.

This is our VERY GREEN bathroom... ...it's grrrreen.

This is a pile of garbage that is behind the building. CLASSY.

The view at night.

My temporary set-up. This is where the dining table will go when it actually gets here from Guelph.

The view during the day - we face West (mostly).

This is my new Urban Outfitters rug - I lurve it.

This is the new Ikea picture that has ultimately made me decide not to paint my living room. It looks nice against a blank wall. At the same time it meant changing the colors of at least 3 other major pieces of stuff in the room... le. sigh. But its a great painting (and makes an appearance in "Sims 2 Ikea Stuff" expansion pack).

This is the main room (and that's my main man). We are sleeping on the floor in the middle of it, and shit is kind of everywhere. But...we're trying to get used to it and get things in their right place.

And it is off to bed for me - I’m sleeping so much. I hope the sick is gone soon. crycry.

I missed the Center for Inquiry Leadership Conference this year… My sister was in town and it was pride weekend. But…I did not actually end up going to a lot of pride this year, just a bit. Friday night my sister, a few of her friends, John, Allen and me all went to Fly. It was packed, hot and sweaty. We wouldn’t have gotten in (HUGE line) but by dumb luck we ended up asking the right person directions on how to get there ending up in the VIP line. Inside there were super buff half naked gay men all over - which I would usually love. However it was so freaking busy you literally couldn’t, breath in most areas, go pee without someone watching or move an inch on the dance floor without getting elbowed all over your body. It was like a Streetlight Manifesto concert, only with more sequence. We mostly stayed in the basement and danced the night away to BritBrit and Gaga then made a visit to McDonalds - an inevitable event when with the two Kish sisters.

I skipped out on the pride festivities on Saturday night and saw a movie - but today I went to the Center for Inquiry to meet up with Emily and a few others to join in on the big event - the gay pride parade. I didn’t actually make it through to the parade (I started feeling *really* sick…mono?…ugh), but I did stand around waiting in the parade line for it to start for over an hour. During that hour I saw what anyone would expect to see… Transvestites that looked like a Fruit of the Loom commercial, a naked rendition of Elvis, at least 8 Michael Jacksons and a few naked 60+ year old men with cock rings of various colors and shapes.

Since I was feeling sick I wasn’t really all up in the whole screaming and dancing and smiling thing, so instead I just stood, watched and observed. My observations can be summed up in these four points:

1. Some people are damned hypocritical. We were all wearing t-shirts that said “Atheist Pride” with a big rainbow flag behind the words. In addition we had a big banner that said “Atheist Pride”…banner:

Thanks to Roy for doing the banner, despite the fact it sort of looks like their doing a “Heil Hitler”…………

Anywho…We ended up getting put between Kijiji and some homosexual version of alcoholics anonymous (who, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to as “the gay sober guys” despite the amount of nicotine and caffeine they were all sucking back). The gay sober guys saw our shirts and automatically started to laugh. Soon after they finished laughing their gay and sober leader announced that they had a new chant… “We don’t need a whiskey sour, because we’ve got a higher power!” and then laughed and laughed and laughed. This became their new favorite chant to scream out. Every time someone new joined their group to do the parade, we would see them get a whisper in the ear, us get a pointed finger and then BAM the whiskey sour chant. So, there we were… Atheists coming out to support and be apart of the pride festivities. We were there to show our appreciation for the emancipation of the homosexual lifestyle and these gay sober guys decide it would be fun to mock and make fun of us. It’s interesting how quickly people forget how crappy it feels to be made fun of and feel like the odd man out. Preeeeetty lame, gay sober guys, preeeeetty lame.

2. It is one big. freckin’. party. When the pride festivities began they were part of an overall attempt at activism and acceptance for the gay community. Now that the gay community is accepted (in Toronto) - it’s just one big party. I’m not really all up in that. Pride would be better if it were not totally devoid of any sort of intellectual stimuli or activity. There could be education seminars on HIV/AIDs, same sex unions, safe sex talks, lectures on different gay issues around the world… any number of things. But instead it has become an excuse to drink from Friday at 5 pm until Monday at 3 am while being naked, loud or sparkly (or any combination of the three). It’s really great to celebrate the fact that they’ve been liberalized, but there could be activities that didn’t involve Jack Daniel and meeting everyone’s Prince Albert.

3. It perpetuates a lot of stereotypes. I’m not gay, but I have a lot of gay friends. At least 3 of these friends do not attend pride. They want nothing to do with pride. And more than anything they get fuming mad when their lifestyle is associated with what happens at pride. On top of this I know countless numbers of people who only have the view of gay people as they are seen on Church and Wellesley on the last weekend of June. This is not a good thing. Gay men and women are not all sparkly, partying, crazy, naked, inebriated people. I really think this ties in with my last point. The gay community is given this stereotype by a lot of people as being super fun - but if there were other activities it might tone down this stereotype (might, but probably not). I don’t know how to fix it. I just know that it is a problem that my uncle thinks my best friend is irresponsible, promiscuous and immature because of what he has seen at pride.

4. Holy commercialization batman. Toronto makes SO MUCH MONEY from pride. …And after buying a spot in the parade line, I now know why. It costs hundreds of dollars for corporate companies to even just walk in the parade. It costs thousands to get a float. To get a really BIG logo in the parade (without getting kicked out of it) it’s more thousands of dollars. The bars get crowded, cramped and stay open later than they are supposed to, pulling in more money. There are street vendors, sold out hotels, packed restaurants… even H&M was sold out of all male, size small, t-shirts. When we asked about the issue the sales associates answer was “We always sell out of smalls during pride”. Money Money Money. No wonder Toronto plays their pride up so much. It’s one of the biggest simulators of the economy here - and really… it takes so little effort to put on. Bizarre.

Anyway - it was fun. Everyone had fun. I wasn’t there for long, but for the time I was there it was fun. Next year we’ll keep a few things in mind:

- bring the “There’s probably no God” banner so people will recognize us
- bring WAY more people and advertise a lot more
- remind Transnational NOT to hold the Student Leadership Conference on the same weekend!!!!
- bring candy and condoms to hand out
- wear more sparkly clothes
- music.music.music

It was a good learning experience, and thanks to Em for putting it all on. Happy Pride!

I am writing this from my iPod to test it out. It’s part of my new “blog more” program I’ve recently begun. To start it all off I will give my most recent and exciting news…

I got a kitty!!! He is the most adorable thing ever. He is super sick right now but we are taking him to the vet on Monday to hopefully get him some drugs to feel better.

I will post pics when I am at my computer.

Anyway… More to come, as soon as tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow… If your in Toronto then come to cfi tomorrow to come in the pride parade with us!!! Woo!

/test

I took my exam today for my introductory environmental politics course. …Here is what I learned in a nutshell:

NEOLIBERALS ARE BAD!

LOCAL LIVING IS GOOD!

CONSERVATIVES ARE BAD!

SCIENCE IS BAD!

TREES ARE GOOD!

DEVELOPMENT IS BAD!

TECHNOLOGY IS BAD!

SYSTEMIC CHANGE SO WE DON’T WANT TO DEVELOP ANYMORE IS GOOD!

LOOKING THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES IS GOOD!

…There were 7 questions on the exam, 5 definitions and 2 essay questions. I made it my goal for that exam to use the phrase “money laundering conservatives using developement to push the neo-liberal agenda…” in every single question. While it was hard to write that FULL sentence in every single answer, I mananged to get “neo-liberal agenda” in there at least once per question. I’m hoping who ever marks it realizes I’m making fun of how incredibly biased and socialist the entire university of York really is. However, I suspect it will just get me a better grade. However, I will admit that working in “neo-liberal agenda” into questions about the population debate from a mathusian perspective was a little bit of a stretch, but I made it…

Next up… one essay in qualitative research (on how to qualitatively research for an essay…), one essay in science and the environment (on sustainability in one particular aquifer somewhere around like Colorado…), one campaign plan for culture and environment (on meat) and one presentation (on research methods via dance. Yeah…research via dance. *le sigh* Someday…I’ll go to law school…and none of this will matter anymore). And it’s ALL due next Tuesday and Wednesday! Woo hoo!

DOWN WITH NEO-LIBERALS!

As some may, or may not, know I’ve recently moved from being the Vice President - Multi Media for the Freethought Association of Canada to being the president of it. It’s a long and twisted story about why I decided to do it, but with the new executive I really think we’ll make a little bit of a difference in the world while showing that secularists have it in them to be giving. The new campaign is more or less phase 2 of the Atheist Bus Campaign… read on to learn about it!

The Enjoy Your Life Campaign

Show the world that you can have a heart, even without a soul

The charity that brought you the controversial and highly successful Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign is proud to announce its follow up project: the Enjoy Your Life Campaign! This project will take up where the Bus campaign left off, providing charitable funding and volunteer work to a number of highly worthwhile causes.

How many times have you heard the lament that freethinkers of all kinds cannot possibly be good without god? Now is your chance to prove once and for all that not only can we be moral people, but we can put this morality to work in ways that will better humankind. We at the Freethought Association of Canada understand the importance of helping to improve the lives of as many people as our hands can reach. Knowing that this life is all we have, emphasizes its importance and motivates us to extend our moral consideration to all who share our world.

The Freethought Association of Canada will be looking for donations from anyone interested in helping spread the word that atheists are able and willing to do good deeds. Our outlook is global, and includes such worthwhile causes as:

• Expanding the supply of condoms in Africa
• Helping children’s literacy in Canada
• Participating in the development of critical thinking curriculum for pre-university students
• Building an online community to connect and support freethinkers around the world
• Organizing blood drives and food banks
• Taking YOUR suggestions for what you think the Canadian Freethought Community should support!

Over the next few months, the Freethought Association of Canada will be conducting extensive research into charitable causes around the world, and by the end of Summer 2009 we will be ready to begin a campaign that will impact lives forever. If you would like to be a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity, we would love to hear from you. Donations can be made on our site (freethoughtassociation.ca), and if you’d like to volunteer your time or expertise, you can contact: info@freethoughtassociation.ca or phone (647) 822-5474.

The Enjoy Your Life Campaign - Show the world that you can have a heart, even without a soul.