it occurred to me today that within the next week, i'll have to get off my ass and get myself a bus pass.

over the last eight months, the beautiful u-pass has absolutely spoiled me: being able to travel anywhere within greater vancouver without paying bus fare is so much freedom -- freedom i'm sure going to miss...

i mean, i guess i did pay for the u-pass through my tuition, but it amounted to only $20 a month and when something's buried in a larger cost that i've already resigned to paying, it doesn't really register that i'm paying for it at all. now through to september, i'll have to shell out $63 a month for a bus pass -- one that will only take me across one zone of translink service. ~sigh~

last summer, i stuck to buying bus tickets, thinking the cost and hassle of having to buy them every other week would be enough to force me to take my bike to school and get some fucking exercise already.

didn't happen.

i think i biked to school once.

i would be fooling myself to think that this year would be any different, especially since i anticipate being in the lab virtually every day of the week at odd hours.

...

and after all the anticipation, we might not be going to mount baker for our editors' retreat. turns out that about only half of us can make it.

so lame.

over the past week, i'd carefully choreographed my appearances at the lab and balanced my teaching duties such that i could justify disappearing for a couple of days ('uh, i'm marking'), but it may have been all for naught. i might take a day or two off, anyway. i've got some journal ends to tie up. but it won't be the same without seeing the newspaper kids. i didn't really get an opportunity to say a proper goodbye to some of them, thinking i'd be sure to see them at the cabin. at least i'll see most of them tomorrow night. we're going to shabusen (a swanky korean barbecue/japanese hotpot joint) for our editor turnover dinner.

...

my sweetie opened his anniversary gift!

he had no idea what i'd gotten him, and i guess now that he knows what it is, i can finally divulge it here: i bought him a kids' bath toy consisting of three hippos in inner tubes. you wind them up and they spin around in the water.

no, wait -- just hear me out:

he'd first noticed them on a cross-promotional hewlett-packard/toys 'r us commercial. i wasn't even paying attention to it when i heard a resonating 'HIPPOS!' from my sweetie, eyes wide and fervently pointing at the tv screen. 'i like the hippos,' he said, and each time thereafter the commercial was on.

on the card accompanying the gift, i wrote that i hope they bring him several minutes of unadulterated joy. hey, i'm just being realistic -- i don't anticipate that they'll still be quite as entertaining even a few hours later.

i wonder why they're so hard to find in Canada and why most on-line toy companies won't ship them up here. maybe they've killed or maimed Canadian children. i relayed this theory to my sweetie, who responded with 'but look into their eyes! they wouldn't hurt anybody!'

he likes them. i'm so pleased that he does.