The Avocado

It's one thing to go camping, grope blindly in the dark for everything, play lots and lots of frisbee, show everyone you meet the insect bites on your leg, get the urge to urinate as soon as you've settled in your sleeping bag, and forget all about basic hygiene, but it's another thing to do that with people you are fond of. For the record, I am very fond of the people I went camping with. It may seem otherwise sometimes, because I am a mean and sarcastic person, but really, I love them all. I would go for sushi with them any day.

Note: Someone mentioned that you cannot tell who went on the camping trip from my pictures. I am aware of that. I figured that people would not want their faces shown on a site that is frequented by people who got here from google searches for "Lindsay Lohan's boobs", "braces are ugly", and "avocado skincare products".





We had fabulous cooks, who not only made the best sausages I have ever tasted in my life, but also created a drink out of concentrated orange juice, water, and the ingredient you see in the picture. That drink became the love of my life. I still dream about it every night. One of the guys in the group brought little wine glasses which made the experience all the more exciting.


Behold the trees. I love trees.


A Picture Of A Flower That Did Not Turn Out So Well.








The electric pump was loud, and it didn't work very well. We eventually turned to the primitive foot pump for inflating and leg firming.


Hot damn.


Home Sweet Home. This tent belongs to my lovely friend Carol and it's awesome because you can stand up in it. Unfortanately, we discovered too late that it can not hold us all, so Carol had to sleep in the suv. I hope she wasn't too uncomfortable. On the bright side, we had lots of bugs in the tent, and the night was punctured periodically by my shrieks.


My awesome friends lent me an air mattress for the trip, saving my prematurely aging back from further damage. It even came with a pillow. I mean, how cool is that?

Camping always brings a sudden flow of love and admiration for existence. Many feelings erode over time in the city, but the breathless sense of wonderment and a complete separation from trite worries rush back like falling liquid into my astonished senses. My awe falls into two categories. The close-up and breathable kind, where I can touch and explore the trees, the rocks and the trails. I can stare silently at the surrounding growth, the gently waving branches set against a perfectly blue background, the dense leaves with sharp lines of escaping sunlight. I can look at those things tirelessly, but a certain anxiety accompanies the profound appreciation, and the aching realization that it's impossible to take in every detail. My eyes try to devour the shades of green, the flickering shadows, and the constantly changing patterns. Nature is so flawless, so perfect in itself.

The other awe I feel when I am kayaking alone surrounded by towering mountains, an open sky, and the endless water. The mountains, with layers and layers of green, are amazing, and the calm lake, a deep dark green, shimmers in the sunlight. The sky, a perfectly even blue that is comforting to the eye, has a few clouds, so it looks realistic. The three agglomerates into a scene that's, well, awesome. And overwhelming. Like endless anticipations built up of crescendoing glissandos on strings, each image falls on me like massive chords, each change like gripping key changes, all reinforcing the beauty of the landscape. Failed metaphors aside, it's quite a view. The precise image is always fleeting, which is why I never tire of kayaking, because it's less of an activity than a deep observation. I remember two years ago I went on an overnight kayaking trip, how wonderful it felt. The lake we kayaked on was the source of BC bottled water, so we were told to dip our waterbottles in and drink the water right from the lake. I loved that.

I am going to post some pictures of the camping trip soon, but they won't be of the lake or the mountains because though pictures are nice, they don't capture the grandeur of the moment. The proportions are all wrong. In any case, camping should be a regular thing.

I went on the camping trip, and it was excellent. I shall post pictures soon, but don't hold your breath because it might take me months. A certain incident made me a little angry the night before the camping trip. Angry enough that I wrote angry paragraphs that were almost published here in the Avocado. But lucky for you, my random readers coming here in hopes of seeing pictures of avocados, I didn't. But I did save it as a draft, which I deleted just now. It had a lot of swearing, just so you know.

Oh look, font color. Just because I can.

I used to live near Main Street three years ago, and while there, I thought Main Street was the most boring street on earth. I walked on Main frequently, and would always walk north, because I thought shops only existed north of where I lived, and north was where the community center was. In the area between my house and the community center resided approximately eleven antique shops, several hair salons, one very cool hair salon, and the usual delis and restaurants. Not the best window shopping, if you ask me. Because I was an extremely cool kid, I spent most of my time in the Main street library. That's what cool kids do. Overdue charges didn't apply to me then, so I revelled in keeping books for long periods of time. Funny thing is, the Main street library had to be the smallest library in Vancouver, and not surprisingly, it didn't hold many books. As a result, I read a variety of books. I remember once, out of a lack of books to take out, I took out what seemed like a cowboy book, because it had a cowboy hat on the cover. Turns out to be a plotless story based mainly on the lewd experiences of an oversexed boy with old toothless sluts.

Whenever I needed to go shopping, I went to malls. Malls, as we all know, are a waste of time if you actually want to buy decent, useful, things. But malls I went. And malls I hated.

Three years ago on a halloween night, I moved far away from Main Street. I was separated from those antique shops that just wouldn't go bankrupt, the pool that smelled of chlorine (I mean, what's up with that?), and the general boredom that I associated with Main street. As soon as I left Main street, I started hearing of the wonderful things that went on there from my Main street buddies. Interestingly enough, I started hanging out more with my Main street buddies. Whenever I commented on an article of clothing, it would turn out to be purchased on Main street, so close to where I lived. I also found out about other attractions, such as cafes with live performances and poetry readings.

After being told countless times of the wonders of Main Street south of where I lived (a little late though isn't it), I went back to main street this week. I ventured south, and sure enough, it was a different world. Small, independent clothing shops; good consignment stores; shops sponsoring local designers; shops selling one-of-a-kind clothing. Some were celebrating a ten or eleven year anniversary. A freaking cornucopia of good clothes. Had I known of this, this land of little unique shops earlier, I could have saved so much time and sanity. Not to mention bus fare.

On Monday I got a haircut at the 'very cool hair salon' mentioned above. I've had my eye on it even while living there, but I couldn't afford it then. I still can't, but I went anyway. I don't go to the same salon twice, but I think I might actually return to this one. It's amazing, and I had a great time getting my hair cut. A few days ago I went shopping on Main and went in almost every one of the little shops. Oh Main Street, why did yee hide from me?

Lindsay Lohan's boobs. WHOA.

They used to be kind of small, somewhere towards the cute side when she used to be cute. But suddenly, they weren't small. They're enormous! I suppose she's still growing, but is that the reason? Her clothing hangs precariously, and keeps you at the edge of your seat because you don't know how long things will remain PG. Her face is so sweet - albeit overloaded with black eyeliner - yet she doesn't look so innocent anymore. She a little scary looking nowadays, and I'm always afraid that her boobs are going to fall out of her shirt.

As I'd mentioned, I finished my exams and have quite a lot planned for August. Among the list of to-do's, I'm still going camping, although physical exertion in the heat amidst mosquitos does not sound so appealing at the moment. Now a note about the exams. I took two RCM exams, and they took place last Friday and Saturday. It always amazes me how a disproportionate large amount of people who take RCM exams are Chinese. By disproportionate, I mean that maybe 4 out of 200 are not Chinese. Also interesting is how young most of these people are. I started music later than most, and would often sit next to someone in grade four taking the same paper. Last weekend the most notable was a blonde woman of about 40 taking the same exam as me. She was, by far, the oldest person in the exam center, and I felt like yelling 'Go woman!' across the big exam room .

My parents have only been involved for the most part in the financial aspects of my musical pursuits - and for this I am extremely thankful - so it is always amusing to see parents who are more involved than their children. Parents who call theory teachers every day, parents who sit there and watch their children do music homework, parents who could probably take the exams and score one hundred percent. Those parents dish out hundreds of dollars for exams alone because their kids failed the first time, and maybe the second time.

My point is, actually I really can't remember what my point was. I suppose I just have built up anger from years of wanting to study music and being told I have more important things occupy myself with. I'm angry because I have wasted so many years that could have meant something, that could have led me down a different path. I am happy with how everything is going and am glad to be able to take music lessons without guilt and arguments. However, whenever I see people whose parents really want them to learn this magical thing I call music, but throw away this opportunity and their parents' money by complaining, failing, and quitting, I feel like it's a personal insult.

Anyway, I went off on an unexpected tangent. The people who supervised the exams were quite funny, and though three hours is a long time to sit and write for, I had a good time, believe it or not. I do hope that my run-on sentences for the history exam will go unnoticed.

My exams are finally over. The pictures are reminders of the last few weeks. I woke up one morning, went to the kitchen for breakfast and my brother asked me, "Do you like what I did to your table?" I went to see, and alas, I would have done that myself had I been in possesion of warning tape. A danger zone indeed.