The Story of: The Mull River Shuffle

Well, I'm just killing some time on campus, and I thought I'd write about something that has come up a lot lately. It's a song by the Rankin family called 'The Mull River Shuffle'.

If you haven't heard of the song, you have to read the lyrics before reading the rest of this...

Okay, so the people of Antigonish LOOOOVE this song. Like, with a passion. At the Christmas ball they played it twice, for goodness sakes. The people of Cape Breton (where I believe the Rankins are from) also love this song, but I only found that out today...

In the lounge these kids start talking about which of them actually likes the Mull River Shuffle the most. It gets heated, and it finally comes out that some of the kids actually KNOW, (like for real) the famed "Mister Macneil" and Old MacPhee.

THIS, my friends, blows my mind.

Like, I was excited when I stood on the corner of Hollis and Morris street in Halifax. (Which, incedentally, is kinda gross) These people know people from a song the likes of which Antigonish has never seen before.
It's legendary.

And I was Jealous.

That is all for today.

Booze Fight

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Well, what you have just seen is the aftermath of a horrible house war. Kidding. But seriously, Chris and Dave got in a huge booze fight the other night, and the results were hilarious, but mostly gross and annoying and sticky.

In other news, Antigonish is under a boil water advisory, which sucks because I'm feeling kinda sick and it makes the whole "lots of fluids" regime kinda hard to stick with. Anyway, I just wanted to keep everyone on the same page as far as booze war information goes, so there's that. Hopefully it never happens again.
-Nat.

P.S: I know some of you wonder how much booze went into this war (none of mine, that's for sure)...about 4 or 5 26ers, 5 beers.

New Arrivals...

So Cindy's cat Elle has finally had her kittens...Ben came into class and told me 'Elle's having kittens!' and I promptly told Marc, who had been asking me daily about them (and making me crazy). There are four of them altogether, two orange like that one and two black. And no, we haven't named them yet. And no, I'm not hurting it in that picture. Sheesh.

The guys got a little arrival in the mail, but I won't explain that one any further. Suffice to say they're entertained enough that they aren't torturing the cats.

Classes are going well, especially since on Friday two of mine are cancelled. Mmm...early weekend. Bickerton, my favourite guy ever from last year, is guest prof-ing our Canadian Politics class sometime this week too...woo!

Um...other than that, things are boring. The Young Liberals society did really well on society night, and at our first meeting. We were, however, told that the condoms we gave out were less than 'quality'. Go figure.

Saltwater?!?

So yesterday, pre-Ophelia (which I think is a great and apropos name for a hurricane, if we recall our Hamlet from high school) a bunch of us decided to take advantage of the heat and the sun and head out to the beach.

Firstly, this was the first time I'd been to see the ocean during the day, so everything was really exciting. Example:

"Wow...you can see forever!...Look at that cliff, it's so pretty! Hey, the seaweed looks like lasagna!"

So then the only other girl on this trip (Sinead? She pronounces her name "Shawn-id"...damned if i know how to spell it.) decide to go for a swim while the guys go skim-boarding. So I'm so excited about the sand and the freaky prospect of jellyfish that I just run into the water, pretty much equating it with Wasaga Beach this summer, except warmer. Yes, WARMER. Then, it happened.

Some water splashed up into my face.

It was salty.

YES, I KNOW that seawater is salty, but I didn't make the mental connection that this whole body of water that I was in would actually TASTE salty. It was just blowing my mind so much and all the other people who were there thought I was both highly amusing and partially retarded.

Hey, it was a nice swim though. No jellyfish, in case you were wondering.

We capped the night off with chinese food c/o Dave, lots of drinking games, some kareoke in the house, a trip to the Inn, back to the house for a Manitoba vs. Ontario debate (guess who won), and all decided to go to bed when some randos were PG-13-ing our living room. Bleh.

Hasta la Vista,
Nat

Institute Your Own Family Game Night!

Last Night was fun!

Our whole house, after a night of extreme boredom, decided to go to Pat's together for kareoke night. Some of us were a little reluctant at first, seeing as the place to be on Wed. night is Dooly's for cheap pool. But, we went anyway.

A bunch of us in various combinations put in to sing various songs, but as '11 Acadia' we entered to sing 'Tiny Dancer'...it was AWESOME. We brought the house down...everyone loved it. Not to mention all six of us were all together and having a great time...*sniff* it was beautiful.

Then, hilariously, Chris and Dave got up and did an interesing rendition of 'Rapper's Delight'...that was hilarious too. For the whole night we were just up at the stage dancing like these random people (who we knew for the most part, except for Sara) were rock stars. Brilliant.

Sadly though, Chris and I put in a sheet to sing a song, and we were kareoke-jacked by three rowdy X students. Shame. After that we were disillusioned with the whole process and got the heck out. But I think that our Tiny Dancer Performance will be the talk of the campus...nay, the TOWN, for at least until Society Night tonight.

A Bientot,
Natalie

Bits and Bobs

Well, I have a little bit to say about a number of things today, so I'll just get right down to it.

a) I've now had all my classes. Canadian Economic Policy and Problems is the classual (I made that up) equivalent of banging you head on a wall fo 75 minutes, twice a week. So, there's that.

Violence and Conflict in Politics is inherently iteresting, I guess, but our prof (Dr. Grenier) is hilarious, so that just adds to everything. The class is packed (as opposed to the aforementioned Economics with 18 kids)

Philosophy is pretty much the same as last year. Same Prof, Plato again, effing metaphor of the cave.

b) Today we fixed the house. We hooked up the cable, cleaned the bathrooms, cleaned the kitchen, fixed the internet, got the electical fixed....*sigh*
Good Day.

Tonight, Rehab game and later, the Pub. Mmmm, STD goodness.

Love Nat

First Day of Classes, aka 'ohthankgod'

So, today was my first day of classes, and what fun it was.

I started by getting up at 10 and making coffee for Cindy and myself on her way out the door. Then around 11 I headed out to my first class: Canadian Politics with Dr. Douglas Brown.

Professor Brown was kinda cutesy, reminded me a lot of Mr. Riddell, for those of you who went to Innisdale. He told a self-depricatingly hilarious story of his life, and followed up by making all of us stand and say our names, 'homes' and general information. The course looks like it'll be interesting, focusing on intergovernmental relations and regionalism, etc. Brown seems like a reasonable guy who won't throw any suprises our way. (P.S. This is his first year at X, he came from Queen's.)

My second class (and last class of the day) was History of political thought, which will feature the memorable Dr. Dossa in the second term, but right now is taught by Frank Harrison, a fascinating and equally memorable guy. He is British, I think, sounds like a Liverpool accent. He talks in the third person a lot "Frank Harrison does this, that etc." and he likes swearing. He makes quasi-sexist jokes and claims to have raised two feminist daughters. In all, an odd guy...and I love his class. (P.S. His accent gives Rober's a run for it's money.)

Uh, that's all. Ben spent both classes puking cause he was hungover. Hah. I'm personally feeling like a nap is in order, but at least my stomach is reasonably settled. Great party last night though...legendary, even.

Hasta Luego,
Natalie

P.S. Quote of the day: "Well, thank you Augustine, You've made me happy today" -Frank J. Harrison

Re-Frosh

So I'm still at home and bored for most of my day right now...classes don't start until Thursday. And since I don't have my computer yet, there won't be any pictures of anything until I get it. But anyway...

I bought one of the new OC shirts, and I must give props to Chris and "the other OCL" because, aside from being TURQUOISE, they're sweetass. They have the traditional 445 on the back, but they say "breaking a whole different set of rules" underneath. Which is true, being off-campus us really really different.

Anyway, I threw on my new OC shirt last night and headed off to Dancing in the Streets, and pretended to be frosh. It was Dave and My anniversary...one year since we met each other. We celebrated by re-enacting (i kid you not) the whole scene. ("where are you from?" "oh just north of toronto" "ME TOO!" etc) It was quite the trip down memory lane.

Frosh Week continues today, and If I don't get any less bored, I'm probably going to go pretend to be a frosh again...it's good times, the second time around.

-Nat

St. Francis Xavier, BA Edition 2.0

Hey everyone...I'm going to blog a bit again this year. I have arrived in Antigonish, got settled into my house (which wasn't hard cause I moved in last summer) and have partied a bit with the ol' gang.

I signed up for my courses already, which means that by this time next week I will have opinions on a few NEW wacky profs. Return appearances are expected from: dr. Byrne (remember her?) for Philosophy of Human Nature, and that crazy Rober (but only second term) for Environmental Economics. I'm excited about all this, and I think you should be too.

In other news, I bought my first term textbooks. They were for four classes and came to about 300$ (just a little less). Good old arts softcover books. Cindy, my roommate, is in Nursing, and bought a small portion of her textbooks today for 450$. Poor cindy.

Other things to look forward to this year: reviews of my roommates that haven't been introduced on this site yet, some pictures, and just general chat about the gorgeous weather we've been having. Anyway, Roxanne is on, and that means there are shots to be done. (tee hee, it's like, noon)

Love and whatnot,
Nat