I feel so blah about writing my response papers for Shakespeare and Postcolonial Literature. Haha. By writing, I mean LITERALLY writing. Been a looooooong time since I last submitted a hand-written piece of work. Haha.

Well, the forecast said 1˚C today, and 'light snow'. With the wind blowing at 30km/h, 'light snow' really means 'wildly-flung tiny drops of icicles hitting you from every direction'. I tried to hide behind buildings when I walk, but the wind will just hit me from everywhere else. Haha. It is *quite* an experience. Especially walking in this wind! WOW. I tell you, it is SO hard to walk. I felt like a frozen snail. The wind might hit me straight front, so it's hard to walk against and into the wind; or it'll hit me perpendicularly, so that I keep going off-tangent.

Luckily I wore my icy-purple long coat today! It's super jumbo, and with all that wind and snow, I don't feel so silly with all the fur-trimmings around the head. :D

Today we had the author of one of our texts come down to talk to us, take questions, and present a reading! SO COOL! The poetry really reads differently now. Suddenly it's not as sombrely violent as I imagined, but filled with a dangerous dynamism that feels forbidden and exciting.

Presenting, George Elliot Clarke!

A little about him: He was "born in Windsor, Nova Scotia. In 1998, Clarke was awarded the prestigious Portia White Prize. He is presently lecturing at the University of Toronto."

He is a very, very humourous man. And he has an enormous, loud, and extremely infectious laughter. He opens his mouth wide open and laughs like it came rumbling out of him. It is SO infectious--even if we weren't paying complete attention or didn't hear exactly what he said, or if it's not even funny--once we hear that laughter, the whole room will laugh. It is so amazing. Hahaa.

And this is him doing a reading from his book:

Oh, I forgot to mention. This is for the Contemporary Canadian Literature class (which I joined 2 weeks late). It is a terrific class and I love it. This reading was done during class time too, with other people who wanted to sit in for the reading joining us. So it really shows that they are serious about letting us have 'first-hand experience from the writer'. I mean if they had scheduled it outside of class time, it probably would've been less sincere--since it'll mean they cannot bear to part with that little bit of their class time.

He signed my text too! Which is his book, so. Hahahaha.

Oh, and then I got to take a picture with him. Luckily I decided to grab my camera with me today! Hee.

After that, I took the treacherous walk back, as mentioned earlier. I shovelled the snow immediately! Felt a little sian* that I just cleared it yesterday and now it's all covered up again. Haha. Exercise for my flabby arms!

With all that after-shovel-rosy-flush, I decided to give myself a little treat... by taking narcissistic pictures of myself!

Tada!

Hahahahaha. Ok. That's all for today. Have to get back to Othello and Annie John.

[Oh, to see what the girls did in Toronto, check out their blogs. I didn't go to Toronto with them, but I will go there eventually! :) ]

Tata!


[*Singlish. Very hard to define. It's a very versatile word that's mostly used as an adjective or verb or adverb or whatever. Briefly, it's a concoction of boredom, lethargy, ennui, drudgery, vexation, and/or annoyance.]