My weekend was also kind of crappy with my lack of being called about the most recent student librarian gig I’d applied for. On the posting it said the interviews were going to be today, so when I didn’t hear anything by 5pm on Friday I figured that was yet another job missed somehow. I dwelt on what I could possibly have done to make my application better, brooded on the possibilities of ever finding a job when I graduate without recent library experience, and generally buried my head in books.

And then this morning I got a call saying I’ve got an interview tomorrow. So that’s all right then. I still might not get the job, but I’ve got a chance. A little bit of income, and the experience in a university library setting, would be so very excellent.

Doing this kind of thing is much easier than I imagine it used to be when you couldn’t lie in bed with your laptop all day, reserving books from all over the area to be delivered to places conducive to being picked up, or just getting the documents loaded onto your computer. I did go out to the VPL to grab a stack of books. Just for the thrill of going to the library and hurting my shoulder by overloading my bag.

And I did laundry and bought groceries. Wee. Exciting. Aren’t you glad I’m writing about this?

So many of my classmates seem so much more busy than me. All with their multiple jobs and things. I’ve just got my classes and the assignments, which I might as well do now since maybe I’ll be getting a job at some point to cut into my schoolwork time. This term I don’t have any pressing reason to get my school stuff done early, but I’ve kind of gotten the habit started so it seems better to be working on that stuff than not. It’s basically procrastination from writing or thinking about the future to be working on homework.

Yesterday I tried to get a SIM card but failed so you still can’t call me in Vancouver. I’m still on Skype though, and really, isn’t that all a person really needs in this day and age? The only thing is that I can’t really receive texts. I might get a cheapo pay-as-you-go number for those rare times I need to communicate out of WiFi range and to spoof as my CallerID number for Skype.

Today we moved a bunch of stuff out of storage and into my room in my new apartment. Holly and I both really like my new roommate Emma. We got keys, drove to the storage locker, did a quick selection of important stuff I’d need (like a bed and a pile of computers and books), got lunch, unloaded the van, almost got a parking ticket, carried the stuff up to the fourth-floor apartment (Emma and Holly did that so I could get the van back in time), and then sat and chatted for hours before heading home on the SkyTrain and stopping for pizza.

Now we’re just drinking tea.

Interestingly, there was barely any mention of any aboriginal history. That’s interesting because places here tend to make more acknowledgement of the traditional lands events happen on. Yes, it’s just lip service and doesn’t change any poor treatment, but now I miss it when someone doesn’t at least make the ritual pronouncement.

We also went to see some contemporary art at a free gallery, which I really enjoyed and had a pancake lunch which I enjoyed at the time but my guts decided to make me regret afterwards. We also met a woman who was selling some sort of medicinal goop and jewellery made from broken plates, and heard her speak at length about different schools of Buddhism (I was wearing my prayer beads but quickly tried to make it clear I’m not actually Buddhist). Holly and I were ready for me to get reprimanded for wearing symbols I didn’t understand, but she didn’t seem too frustrated with us. She kept on making references to toking up in the 60s and decided Holly was a child of those days in spirit.

We also spent some time listening to a pretty excellent busker, Mark Wilkinson. Holly’d heard him while we were talking to the Buddhist woman and wanted to find him and sit and listen. Sadly, there weren’t any free tables at the cafes right there, so we sat on planters to listen. He did an excellent version of Hallelujah but his songs were also good. We got EPs.

I always forget when I’ve been off a bicycle for a while how much I love the bicycle as a transportation method. We rode to Circular Quay through the CBD and even though I cursed at Javier’s bike when it slipped gears on me (oh for my bicycle in its storage locker back in Vancouver) I loved being on a bicycle again. I know Vancouver January biking won’t be this pleasant, but I’m looking forward to it. This morning we were talking about long-distance biking and I would like to do that someday. Do a real trip on a bicycle. Probably not over the rockies, I’m not that hardcore, but maybe heading down the coast a ways would work. I don’t know if my bike would be the best choice, being an urban single-speed, but someday I want to do that.

And the day began with reading Murakami (*contented sigh*) and blueberry muffins. Holly makes them in torn-in-half diet coke cans, because we don’t have muffin tins and because she is awesome and resourceful.

Last night we went and watched Christa Hughes belt out songs in a square and we danced at a silent disco. The silent disco was under a couple of umbrellas. There was a laptop DJ spinning tunes but instead of heading into loudspeakers they were beamed into wireless headphones. People stood around watching the dancers bob up and down to the sounds in their heads. The headphones hung on clotheslines when you were done so people could move in and out. Holly and I danced for a song then left in the middle of Hey Ya! so that others could enjoy it. It felt so selfish to dance to the music no one else could hear but as part of a project, it’s better. I like how art works sometimes.

We also wandered into an exhibit filled with elastic bands stretched around a room, but the curators/artists were too busy with their own conversation to make it at all accessible. Selah. A guy who made cufflinks out of old watches was my favourite. He had the salesmanship of selling prettied up discards down perfectly. I really wanted to buy a couple of cufflinks but I don’t have the right kind of shirts (though that’s remediable) and I’d already spent a chunk of money on myself earlier (I bought 1Q84 at Australian book prices). They’ll be back next week if I change my mind.

Maybe we won’t exhaust all the excitement Shepparton has to offer right away, but if we do, Holly’ll get to at least spice it up by driving. We’re renting a car and while she can legally drive here, I don’t have a license for Australia (apparently you can use your North American one for three months, which I have been here longer than).

This is sort of a warmup for December when we’re planning a bit more extensive roadtripping up to my friend Mel’s place and maybe inland a ways. I like deserts.

Other than this excitement, things are just ticking along. Holly made Chinese noodles last night that tasted very approximately like the noodles you get everywhere in Nanchong. She’s in charge of that kind of cooking – specific cooking. My technique is more “Let’s combine a bunch of stuff and see what happens” which isn’t untasty, but it’s hard to know how to make something happen.

I’m reading a bunch of SF&F books for the class I’m taking, which is a fun way to spend my time. Not that I didn’t enjoy my recent social media class, but reading about Vikings and faery and space travel and thinly veiled Christian allegories is a much nicer way to spend a Saturday.

I went out walking again this morning. I read for a while and watched some birds in Hyde park. Then I took an excursion around the long way to get to the Rocks, the touristy harbour zone where the opera house is. While I was sitting on a bench watching a “sail” boat leave the wharf, I saw a crowd of nicely dressed (probably for a wedding) people running for cover. I got my rain jacket out of my bag just in time to get caught in the pissing rain. I went to share the wedding-folk shelter for ten minutes and then it eased off and then stopped and now it’s sunny and beautiful out.

I’m in the State Library reading room which is quite nice. It’s a huge old building with wooden shelves lining the walls three floors up, but the centre is completely open, with tables and computers and a couple of information desks. There’s a passage way down to the reference library which is housed in the neighbouring and more modern building, but I’m kind of a fan of this space.

Soon I’ll have to set out again. I need to get a SIM card to phone my boss to see when I should show up on Monday to meet people (and definitely not work because that would be illegal). There’s also a game store a not unreasonable distance away. I’ll keep busy.

Then I picked up a pile of great books from Abraham, one of my classmates. A whole shwack of stuff about Chinese history and language and religion, plus a bunch of Italo Calvino books. So good. He’s pared down his books to two boxes which is really impressive. Some days I feel like I’d like to do that. But my books are important to me. I’m not as conflicted about them as I was last year. We’ll see how I feel when I move them away from Vancouver.

And today I packed up all my books and clothes into my storage space. I was very conscious of the order I put stuff in there today, so the most necessary books are more accessible than the infamous theology books. Also, my winter gear is right at the front and accessible for when Holly and I return in December from the height of Antipodean summer and stop off to go to Virginia for Xmas (and for me to make Santa Claus jokes I’m sure no one in that state has ever heard).

I like living in a city undergoing a traumatic sporting event. Everywhere today, people have been talking about this Canucks game tonight. The buses always have their Go Canucks Go signs in their lights, but today they felt a little more urgent. At the van rental place the guy said they might be closed by the time I returned the van “because, y’know, the game.” We’re hosting (I say “we” and “hosting” in the same sentence like I’m actually doing stuff beyond showing up – hell, Marlis is cleaning the kitchen right now while I type) a potluck tonight but it came to our attention that we’ll need to have the hockey streaming or else everyone would stay home. I doubt it’ll be like this in Winnipeg if they really do get an NHL team back, but maybe I’m just a pessimist.

We went to the foreigner Xmas at Karen’s out at the Xihua new campus, where we ate sausage and jiaozi and mashed potatoes and drank coffee. We also played Scattergories, which I played exactly the way Holly had imagined I would play the game: annoyingly. Although to my shame I blanked on a book beginning with R. Just after the buzzer went off, Revelation Space popped into my head. But I prevented Mark from scoring Revenge of the Sith, because the actual title of the book is Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (this is what being annoying at Scattergories looks like).

We left early to come back to the bakery, where it was busy as all get out. As in all the people in Nanchong got out of their houses and came to the bakery for pizzas and sangria and such. (I just tasted the wine being used for the sangria – it’s fizzy and weird and not at all like a red wine is supposed to be. Holly’s going back to the place she bought it to get mad.) It was the bakery’s best single day in sales. I washed a lot of dishes.

Today after teaching Sam we had lunch. The first part of lunch almost killed me. Sam’s mom asked if I could eat crab, and foolishly I said yes. I didn’t make the connection that the crabs would be brought to the table cooked whole and bound in string, looking exactly like the armoured spiders of the sea that they are. I got mine open with help from Holly, but couldn’t get past the hairs on the crab legs sitting there as I tried to pick the orange meat from around the guts and brains of the huge bug. I hit these walls when it comes to food in China sometimes. Last time it was that hard was at the pig brain hotpot in Nanjing. But I made it through (and Holly got to eat two crabs).

Also, I think this is where DJs have a distinct advantage. I was hoping for interesting covers and reinterpretations and stuff because I’m used to mashup type juxtapositions. The very first guy did a novel interpretation of that Chumbawumba song all slow and mournful with lots of distortion on the guitar. It’s too bad he was so terrible. But that’s why he was first, I guess.

The evening wasn’t a total loss. I read a great Samuel R. Delany story, Star Pit. It’s about freedom and being trapped and being able to leave and the psychopathy of those who get to see everything. I was happy to find a pillar with a light at the Biltmore so I didn’t have to stand around awkwardly listening to music I wasn’t that into.