YSP- Week 2
Sunday, July 19, 2009 Posted In Canada , DJ Tiesto , food , Harry Potter , Medicine , pharmacology , piano , Sevenoaks , shopping , summer , Truth or Dare , UofT , violin Edit This |
Same table, as I can’t be bothered to make a new one, and haven’t felt THAT musical as of late.
Soo, the start of Week 2. This is Pharmacology week so we get to do drugs! :D . Not in the exciting way though :/ Monday was pretty cool. First of all there were some new people, one of whom was a Saudi girl living in Vancouver. Her brother is also part of the program, however he goes to JP at home. It was nice meeting some other Muslim kids :) and it was cool that they were Arab as well. Unfortunately we lost D, as she was only around for a week. Aww. We did gain L who is in Med rather than Law this week :) We also gained an annoying Cow. She's Canadian and a haughty know it all. She asked a bazillion questions in the lecture, causing instant dislike. She was then on the purple team with me. Our team is lively, some at times it takes the instructors time to settle us down. She told us all to shut up. She's a racist to some extent, since as we went around the team saying our names and where we came from, 2 girls (of oriental and desi decent) said they were Canadian. When we got to her turn she stated she was the only Canadian. She is rather UGH. Nobody liked her immediately. She asked me how we heard about the program all the way in Saudi, when she hadn't heard about it right here in Canada. She said it in a stuck up way. Then she asked me what my parents did for a living. AJEEEB (odd). L thinks she has the mannerisms of a brutal reporter, and I can see why she would say so. She looks like someone mother as well as she's constantly frowning. Boy does she have a cork up her ass. Anyway we had an ongoing experiment throughout the day. A bunch (a rather large one) of kids were given 2 caffiene pills. Causing a select few to behave rather strangely, this included T (American guy nerd, who LOVES asking me questions related to religion as "he's never had a muslim friend before". M teases me incessently about him, however there is no substance behind her accusations. I have had enough of games. He's just a nice guy.) who began playing Indian music at lunch o_O. Later on each of the drugged up people was made to pee, and their pee samples were tested, to determine whether they had fast or slow metabolisms. It was rather ridiculous. I worked with A (a Colombian). She was rather bossy but extremely efficient, so I let her do the work her way as I am more laid back. The Spanish boys had their pee in cups and it looked rather like beer as it was foamy, probably since they peed from farther away. They then attempted to clank pee cups and say "cheers" but it got them told off. hahaha. The experiment was really rather interesting. After dinner the evening activity was called the Amazing Race, like the TV show. We had to find clues to go places. We were having fun, and I had a lot of nice people in my group, including L, K, V, the 2 Spanish E's with the same name and a NICE new girl. We had originally had the mean one but we held a mutiny.JK, she got PMS :) i shouldn't smile :P. Unfortunately when we got to the 3rd clue the envelope for that one was empty, someone had scattered about the clues in foulplay, so we gave up and retreated. :( SHAME. One of the counsellors performed a dance to Like A Virgin -Madona, as desired by last week's Scavenger Hunt's winning group.M went to the convenience store and bought credit and cleaning supplies. We also stayed up very late doing laundry for the first time in our lives. You'd think the machines would feel sympathy, but NO one of them ate my dollar. -__-
Tuesday, we had lectures ALL morning until LUNCH. I was becoming intensely sleepy. The topics of the lectures were rather complex, and though I took notes, I'm not sure I fully understood. We had a lecture about Stem Cells which was interesting though. We then did a practical to do with Nat2 enzymes using material from a mouse's liver. I put ice on S's head :P. This week our presentation is about the drug Ketamine. That evening at dinner there was nice food. They made a nice seafood fajita with a fair bit of spice. um a nice change from pizza and oher strange tasting meals. The desert chocolate cake was delicious too :). Leter on me, T, C, M and some others were messing around. We went into a classroom and T pretended to be a teacher. He got chalk all over his back side and made handprint on his chest. He then told everyone it had been me who had been grabbing him. Haha. The evening activity was a choice of either capture the flag or watching a talent show or working. Since I was wearing an awesome outfit including fabulous purple tights, and a top R gave me on my birthday I didn't want to change into something more suited for capture the flag. The rest of my presentation group did not want to work so I went to the talent show. There was an Indian dance by V and another girl. There was also a Jazz dance by J. Some of the other performances mostly by English Program kids were interesting, ranging in fact from horrific to HILARIOUS. There were some people who did some odd thing where the used the same toothpaste and drank eachothers toothpaste water (ajeeb) as well as a group of counsellors who set up a table so one of them was hidden with a box over his head. They set up other boxes along the table. They picked volunteers to lift each box and name the item in English as fast as they could. When each volunteer reached the box with the head under it, they had a terrible fright. It was very entertaining.
On Wednesday we had a lecture about Top selling drugs, it was not extremely fun and then there was a lecture on addiction, which was more nice i suppose, and then after lunch, we had a practical in which we continued working with Nat2, however we were genotyping SNP's. We prepared with mine, however sadly I won't get to see those results and only next years kids will know if i'm wild type or mutant. This is rather upsetting. After this came dinner, in which some of the kids who I suppose would be conisdered more popular if we were in school showed up the mean New Girl D. Apparantly she was removed from our group as she insulted one of the supervisers of the purple team.She's now in M & T's group. Apparantly they were talking about marks and T stated his was a 97% average in a modern manner but she was rather demeening, called him names and said her's was 99%. This upset him. We then went shopping as an evening activity. We went to Urban Planet. There was a Sale, and there were some hoodies that were on a "if you but 2 or more you get them for $10" offer. (In actuality the sign said $10 on them, and in smaller print "if you but 2 or more" and in even smaller print "on select items". So me L and V bought onee each together for the discount. I really like mine.We were discussing chinese names all the walk there and C, V & L all told me theres (with some reluctance) but I can't really say them. We then tried to pry counsellor S's name out of him, but failed :( A guy from Kuwait, S was with all of us (the ones mentioned before and T and Saudi guy S) and accidentally broke the hand off the manikin accidentally. He was pretty much thrown out of Urban Planet.
Thursay... L gave me money, she gave me $10, as opposed to whatever $11+ she owed, but i'm not kanjoous so whatever. Lets see, this morning, NO CAFFEINE. :O We were partaking in an experiment and weren't allowed to have any. I also missed breakfast as I was late. The first lecture was by an Egyptian guy and it was INTERESTING, it was about Genetic Variation and response to Caffeine. It was SO hard to concentrate though and I was tired and grouchy and I don't think I benefitted from it fully unfortunately. I did take notes, but I'm now having a hard time remembering all that occured, (other than he had an image of an energy drink called "cocaine- the legal kind" which was a caffeine containing energy drink.)Anyway, this upsets me as I feel like I haven't made the most of my time here. For 2 main reasons. Firstly I'm extremely sleepy in the mornings and don't always manage to focus, this is a shame since it's not like in school where you can learn all you need before the text from a textbook. Also some of the stuff we're learning is WAY over my head. I can't fully understand some of the concepts behind the practicals. It's a lot more complex than IGCSE stuff, and possibly even IB stuff. It's a huge jump. When I get home I shall recap all my info.The second lecture was Dr.Grant AGAIN. And it was as usual extremely complex and I just couldn't help myself I fell asleep. :( Councellor S saw me, and had Mehvie poke me to wake me up. I then took some of her strong breath mints to make me even more alert. It didn't work very well. In the first part of the Lab, we all took alertness pills. Then we'd take a placebo pill or a cafeine pill, however we did not know which. Then we'd take the alertness test again. I got the caffeine, however it didn't kick in until much later, and class was almost done. It was so upsetting as well since my score decreased rather than increased even with the caffeine! :( We then loitered around and tried to get S to tell us his Chinese name again, just before lunch. HE WOULDN'T. T.A. A knew it but had forgotten :( After Lunch there was another practical. It was quite complex, and I wasn't very focused on it as I worked on our presentation (Ketamine this week) instead. Later I went for dinner and councellor S was there, and he starts off "so i looked up and saw you" (and then was interrupted). I got all freaked out cause earlier I'd been shouting people's names from my high up window so they'd turn around look blindly for the person calling them. Then he continued and said "and saw you sleeping... I was so dissapointed". He was just kidding around, but he said it infront of the co-ordinator T, so I said it was a 1-time thing, and I did try really hard to focus and take notes etc. :) It was all amusing. Later I saw one of the girls trying to tickle and squish S's cheeks. Poor fellow. She was larger than him. I sat with the Spanish boys at dinner. It was fun. I like them. After dinner, me L, M and S hung around. We went to our room. I bought chips from the vending machine! Then we found counselor W, and began talking. She is very very reserved and speaks really softly and is rather nerdy. After this we found F. He is uber cool. He is cuban living in Canada who lived in South Africa and has Chinese Ancestry. He's rather good looking, but that's not why he is cool. He speaks four or five languages and really loves playing piano and violin. -sigh-
Me, F, L and W went to a music room and played on the piano. They're so awesome. It made me think of the many many things to do in life, and made me want to be Chinese :P or to be F. After this I hung out with Saudi girl J, and we had a really deep conversationn.It was a nice day.
Friday, presentation day as usual. The teams in the finals were one with a really cool "who wants to be a millionaire" presentation, a couple more skits, and V & C's presentation which included a video of one of their group members acting as if he had ADHD. It was all amusing. The millionaire one won. I was also taken aside for an interview about the program. I think it might go on the internet. That evening we went to a baseball game. It was Blue Jays against Red Socks.
 I was originally very unenthusiastic about this prospect, but it was mandatory, and when we went I thought it was fun in the end. L sat next to me and explained the game. I really enjoyed the cheering and the atmosphere. M missed this as she had left for her aunt's before.
Next day, Saturday, we went to Square One. We watched Harry Potter 6 (which I didn't find so horrible, but T was adament it was awful. I couldn't remember the book at all and didn't read the seventh book either, so I guess I'm not the best critic.) It was really fun, I was with J, L, V and S. Funfun. S made lots of perverse jokes. When we got back there was a barbeque. S and I didn't think we'd be able to eat, but in the end we found Veggie burgers. While waiting in line (as they take awfully long to cook) we met S(she). As it turned out she was jewish. This lead to a discussion about Halal and Koshur and the difference. Apparantly they can't eat Halal but we can eat Koshur. She was very nice. It then started to rain and we all went inside. So we went to S(He)'s room and hung around, and played Truth or Dare. I was dared to tie a carpet round my neck and pretend to be superman. V vidoed it. It was all rather fun. Later on C was online and introduced me to he and V's friend at 7oaks. It was a nice day indeed.
Sunday was a nicer day still. In the morning, we hung around, while everyone else was at the beach. One of yesterday's dares had been to make V wear a dress (she is a total and complete tomboy and this was apalling to her, she kept banging her head on the walls :P) Anyway she wore this dress (for about 5 minutes). She looked cute. Then C and her left with her parents for lunch in Chinatown. J and I went for a walk around and then Mamu & Y came and picked me up. We drove to Missisagua and ate lunch at a Lebanese restaurant.
 It was nice food, except I got shat on by a bird. -SIGH- We then drove around downtown. When I was dropped back, C, V & L had been to the supermarket and bought supplies to make Curry. We then did this. It was Japanese curry. We then cooked it, unfortunately the meat was not Halal. It was DELICIOUS though. I cut my finger peeling a potato. No severe damage done. I felt quite hostile to T because he really reminded me of N and I was feeling quite URGH. We played Truth or Dare again, and L was dared to kiss a guy. She went towards S (who had in fact been the darer) but he freaked out because of M. I feel he shouldn't have dared such a thing in the first place. In the end she kissed C (with tissue paper between them) Then a bunch of us started watching a movie. It was fun, but we had to leave half way through for attendance. It was a shame. We went back after, however everyone was gathered around councellor S, talking.It was fun, and there were lots of perverse jokes made :P. Apparantly he has a brother who looks just like him. Everytime I asked his name S would say Ping Pong. I hope to see him soon. Also one of the other councellors turned out to be councellor W's brother. This was quite shocking. I am now back in my room after all this, M is back. This weekend was fun however and I would have to say I liked being alone :P Ah well. |