Nepalese/Northern Indian + High Table = stuffed.

Still busy but getting little done. Yesterday I stayed home and ran errands (while sitting at my desk) until EC summoned me to go to the grocery store with her. She was very excited about Loblaws. I am not kidding. She was dismayed that I wouldn't let her walk down ALL the isles and take it all in. But she lives 5 minutes away, so she can go again. EC then made this super-yummy veggie oven-baked concoction which we ate with good old fashioned tortière (AKA meat pie). My mom would be proud.

Today was filled with more eating, as you can tell by the title. EW (who does not like that I refer to her as that), YT, HD2, AT (who came uninvited) and I had lunch at this fabulous restaurant on Bloor. Mmmm. After that we (minus AT) headed off to a meeting of our student association. The meeting was good. I think we completely confused the new kids. There's just so much going on and it'll take them a while to get in on everything so they know what we're talking about. But it's really good to have a lot of new bodies involved this year. Let's hope they stick around!

I headed home after the meeting to chill for a bit and catch up on my e-mail before I had to leave again for Massey. It was the first "High Table" dinner of the year. My. What a feast. Let me explain, briefly:

Massey is an exclusive community associated somehow with U of T. It has a "Master" who heads the college (sort of) and who lives there with his wife. There are junior fellows (both resident and non-resident, which would be me), senior fellows (professors attached to the college), and a few other kinds of people, including journalism fellows. It's kinda like a graduate residence, old boys network, English-style club, Greek house, Oxbridge, and boarding school all rolled into one bizarre, but calm and friendly (and slightly pompous) place. A few of the people there give off a "I'm better than you" vibe, but most don't.

High table dinners happen every two weeks, and they are like regular formal dinners---if you go to a regular dinner you have a wear a gown---plus free wine and fancier food. With a break for speech-making between the main course and dessert. This is what I did tonight. I traipsed over to Massey, borrowed a gown (size small), and off I went to hob-nob with the Masseyites. Dinner consisted of salad, tuna (etc.), and fancy custardy dessert. Afterwards there was port and coffee and tea. I was told that the port was "vile," but I didn't have any myself.

Because of my fear of walking home alone at night, I left relatively early. During dinner and afterwards, I met and talked to a few cool people---not including slighly wierd law student guy who was of course there and talked to me for a minute. It was nice, but I couldn't stay for a party on the grounds afterwards. I did, however, talk to handsome guy for a bit. Are you proud of me, FN?

I think I'll head to bed early tonight. Yawn. I will have a very full weekend of socializing. I need to start cutting myself off from people and all the other distractions on campus. Must start working!!