it was no accident i was born on devil's night

my looong weekend was so busy and good. thursday morning was convocation & it went fairly smoothly. sadly, my dad's camera took very dark pictures inside the arena, but here are few outside pics for your viewing pleasure.



a few of my classmates (erin, mike, and jane) and i



my supervisor, duncan hunter, and i (andrea, you should appreciate this one!)



me giggling madly as my parents take a photo of my hood (preceded by 5 minutes of my mom straightening it), with my classmates looked on laughing & pointing

the excitement incited by convocation carried through into the evening, when we headed to the gentleman reg-controller.controller-the organ show at the grad club. rob has already adequately described it, so i shall defer to his musical prowess. the show was amazing, or at least... the music was amazing. there was a crazy height imbalance wherein it appeared you either had to be 6'4" or 5'4" to get in that night. therefore, the only visual i had of controller.controller's set was the shadows cast by the red lights set up around the stage, but the audio more than made up for it. sadly, the show got off to a very late start and since i had to do a presentation in the morning we had to skip out before seeing the organ.

friday night we headed to toronto to check out memphis. when we got there we were pleasantly surprised by the first opener, torngat, a montreal trio consisting of french horn, drums, and keys. sounds weird (and it was) but also very good. sadly the second opener literally put us both to sleep (zzzz), but when memphis took the stage, we were duly rewarded for sitting through the badness. my favourite part? birds chirping.

my birthday was looking grim when it started out with an awful breakfast & getting splashed by a cab, but then the sun came out & it became a terrific day. we went to see sondre lerche at an early show, and wow! soooo good!!! he opened with an acoustic version of 'track you down' that made my knees buckle a bit. sondre is dreamy! the first two-thirds of his set were solo, and although lee's was at or near capacity, it was practically silent for the acoustic portion of his set. one word describes the crowd: enraptured. in summary, it was a lovely birthday gift (thanks rob!).

later on we met up with people for b-day drinks at the beaconsfield, which was also super fun. although it was hallowe'en, and there was a massive party going on across the street at the drake, the beaconsfield was oddly devoid of costumes. which is a good thing, since i did not dress up this year. and now i am struggling to make it through a dreary monday, but i am somewhat cheered up at the thought of an absolutely scrumptious fruit & chocolate cheesecake waiting for me at home. that's a sensible dinner, right? mmm....