i really like living in london...well, before i speak too soon, maybe i should be more specific. i like living alone, or at least, away from my family, away from my old house. don't get me wrong - i'm not an insensitive, ungrateful ingrate whose only desire is to get away from home - i just appreciate this time i have to be on my own. i suppose i like having things just the way i like them - my mom is forever cleaning, forever cooking, and that makes my house always noisy, pots and water and clanging and gardening...my brother is always playing music, and since i'm there, i gravitate toward their company, making it impossible for me to do anything without stopping to taste something, without watching a bit of tv, without just lying on my brother's bed nagging him about the latest cd's...

i suppose i like the idea of setting my own routine, of doing things for myself. for instance, i've had a yogurt-banana-strawberry-orange smoothie (from scratch! - but it's easy) for the last three meals...and blending my own power-vitamin-packed juice makes me feel like one of those new-agers who juice their own potent power drinks and have short white hair and are always on the go go go...i almost don't want to go home on the weekends, although i know i should, because i've been away the whole year and we're a close family. my friends have places downtown, and i wish i could just stay there. i think it's because - going home means going back to the old home routine - not much has changed, i think - so that means, i don't know what it means. i don't know. dinner. a big dinner (and i'm enjoying my fruit fresh life now). a bathroom that hasn't been renovated since i don't know when because no one wants to do it. a drafty house, especially in the winter - it's an old house, one of those double brick contraptions, no particle board, thank you very much. my piano that i don't want to play too much because i know i'll have to leave anyway again so what's the point (i shouldn't think like that!). my room. no longer really my room, more like a computer room, a guest room. hmm. i feel like i've grown a little too big for my house. it's a bit too homey for me. i like my minimalist space right now. square and rectangular birch desks and chairs. very ikea. not a lot of kitsch, not too much "stuff". i look forward to the thought of going home, but once sunday comes around, i'm a little glad to board the train, and come into my own, sterile space. strange, huh?

i suppose the solitude also gives me the silence and time to think. i don't know about what really, but i guess about things like how i want to spend my time, how best to spend my time, or to just think about the everyday things - and memories - i once read this book about a very magical type of scholarly life (the rebel angels) by robertson davies, and forever i've wanted to spend a summer just reading about things i've never had a chance to study. like art history, for example, for go deeper into the philosophy and religion. this just might be that summer, during some of the weekdays, at least. i haven't been able to really get into a book for the last long while, so i think i will do that this summer. it had once been my dream and goal to read every heart-breaking piece of written work out there...i wanted to, at one point, be moved to tears by the words someone had written. i can't think of the last time...strange, that i would desire that, when my own writing is more of an outlandish style, more sarcastic.

i somehow always associated this love of academia with the liberal arts, but it's just as ardent in the sciences. i was at this seminar today, given by a tiny little post-doc (post doctoral fellows are almost always at least 26, having finished their PhD, but this little guy was cute, looked like he was in high school, or 14 years old) from singapore, i think. at the end of his talk on the PX2-something receptor of osteoblasts and ATP-mediated whatever, something came up that Dr. Dixon (his supervisor) apparently didn't know about and he was very excited...there was a lot of constructive discussion - and i really mean constructive - and it was the first time in maybe a year, or at least since i've done some big planning projects - that i experienced this back-and-forth-bounce-off-each-other banter toward the creation of ideas and possibilities. it was really neat to listen to; usually as students we are spoken at, we read read read, learn, memorize, and there isn't really much of a creative, creatory aspect in our learning. i suppose one good thing about toronto in the summer is that the conservatory is there, danceteq is there, the ago is there. the concert season for all the big ones, the national, the tso, and the coc, is over, unfortunately. they don't cater, historically, to the student schedule! i am dying to hear a symphony. or a ballet. or an opera. see a good performance.

sigh....i'm going. there's something waiting for me on my couch....(a BOOK)... ;p