Ugly Sweaters

So ugly sweaters are a major theme during the holidays, I recently just went to an ugly sweater party. It was great; we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and did a Yankee Swap, I came with chocolates and left with better chocolates.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to Holiday traditions so I began to wonder, how many people actually own ugly Christmas sweaters? Why are those sweaters even made? What constitutes as ‘ugly’? And I determined that the sole purpose was entirely for the ugly sweater parties.

But then it becomes like the question of the chicken and the egg, which came first, the ugly sweater or the ugly sweater party? And where did the first ugly sweater come from? How ugly was the first ugly sweater?

Personally, I don’t own any ugly sweaters so I ended up going to the ugly sweater party in a sweater of decent appearance; someone scolded me for it too. I should probably work on attaining more ugly sweaters to avoid awkward situations at any future sweater parties.

Finally, Does anyone else deliberately wear ugly sweaters during this season? Or attend any parties of the theme? As someone who is new to the trend I’m slightly curious as to how many other people actually participate instead of making jokes or references to it.

Christmas Endings and Beginnings

It really doesn't feel like Christmas now. There's no tree up this year, and the weather is surprisingly warm, so all of the usual signals that it's Christmas are absent. I'm just about done with my gift making/wrapping and have tried putting on Christmas music to get myself in the mood but it feels a little forced.

I'm hoping that getting down to the new place - which is decorated and Christmas-y - will help get me into the spirit, as will having a lot of time with family over Christmas and the following week; I get to go visit my boyfriend's family, my sister and new nephew, and finally come back to the city for New Year's Eve.

While I wouldn't necessarily wish it on anyone, it's kind of nice that my family's all broke because there isn't a large expectation for presents. I think the consumeristic Christmas bubble broke last year, when I spent the holidays stressing out because I couldn't afford both to buy all the things asked of me and afford food, and one elder sister was having trouble coming up with money for bills but didn't tell anyone.

The only thing I'm nervous about is one particular present this year. I've felt really hurt by one of my siblings who has inexplicably given me a hard time for making presents and expressed the expectation that one day I'll grow up and buy more things (this is inexplicable because she also makes some presents, isn't exchanging gifts with me this year, and just listened to me have a conversation about what to buy with my present partner).

I'm sending her a package filled with handmade gifts (well, except for the customary lotion-as-stocking-stuffer).

I'm not being passive-aggressive, I promise! I made sure they were all things that suit her tastes and needs, and I'm hoping to make the whole thing into a joke to ease some of the tension. But I realize that it's a tricky line to walk and that this could all blow up in my face, so I'm still trying to figure out whether to call or leave a letter in the package, bring the gift with me when I visit or send it in the mail, etc. It's tricky.

Wish me luck, nerdfighters, and DFTBA over the holidays! I'll see you guys just before the end of 2011.

My Christmas

I feel quite strangely un-festive this year. We’ve only had a small amount of snow this year, which never last that long, only a day or so. And I don’t finish college until the 23rd which doesn’t leave much time for me to kick back and relax and watch a lot of Christmas TV.

I think TV on Christmas day is probably one of my favourite parts of the day, the BBC is by far the best with great movies and Christmas specials. I’m fairly sure the TV is on all day on Christmas even if no one is actually watching it. And of course theres the Doctor Who Christmas special which I always look forward to every year.

And food too is massive part of my Christmas, I think I spend the majority of the eating even after I’ve finished our big Christmas dinner. I just stuff myself with cheese and cake and chocolate and whatever is laying around. It’s obviously not the best thing to do but I really can’t help it.

Really I’m not bothered about the gift giving part of day at all, like I really don’t care about it at all. I’m much more happy to just spend my day with my family watching TV and stuffing my face full of crap. To me that’s really what Christmas is about.

Making Christmas

I love Christmas.  I love everything about Christmas.  I love Christmas decorations, and Christmas food, and Christmas music.  I like the weather here around Christmas - refreshingly cold but not freezing, with just the right amount of snow.  I like family get-togethers, and I like all the time spent baking and cooking and getting ready, and I like the general cozy and cheerful atmosphere of Christmas.

This year is kind of odd in that it doesn't really feel like Christmas yet, even though it's less than two weeks away.  This year is actually the latest that I've had to do exams since high school, so I haven't been able to indulge in Christmasness as much as I usually do.  And the fact that we've had an abnormally mild December and only got one snowfall, back in November, really hasn't helped.  Also since I live with strangers I don't have a ton of Christmas decorations like I always did at home and when I had an apartment with friends.  I do have these two little friends on my windowsill though:

I also tried to make a TARDISflake during a study break earlier, but I gave up because I didn't have anything that was sharp and small enough to cut out all those fiddly little windows.  Here it is anyway:

I am listening to Christmas music now and it's helping a little bit.  Plus on Saturday I'm going to see the Nutcracker, so if I'm not in a Christmas mood after that there must be something wrong with me.

The Value of College

Since there's no other posts here this week, I thought I'd post something I've been thinking about for a little bit.

As tuition rises everywhere, and unemployment increases, I've heard a lot of talk about whether college is worth the time and money that it requires. For awhile I've been of the impression that, aside from certain fields (I'm not sure what to call them, but things like lawyers/doctors/therapists/etc that require a significant knowledge base and training that would be unavailable or incomplete without a post-grad education), the main value of college is getting to hold up a piece of paper to an employer and point out that you managed to get through 4+ years of school competently (or as a really good faker).

Over Thanksgiving break, my boyfriend drove both of us down to be with his family for the holiday. With a long car ride ahead of me I worked on a knitting project, and about half way through the ride realized that I'd made a mistake. We got into a conversation about whether or not I should go back and redo it, and he commented that after all of his work in applied computer graphics he'd learned that it is far better to go back and start again when there's a mistake than to try to fix it halfway through and get a shoddy product.

That got me thinking about things that can be learnt in college that are either not the emphasis of the major being taken, or that can be applied to many things outside of it. This is layered with some thoughts I've been having about the sustainability of my job, since it seems that most people in my position either go back to school to move higher up into positions that don't currently appeal to me, or move on to something else.


So here are things that I learned as a pre-credential teaching student that are still applicable even though I'm not a teacher:

• how to either plan out everything wisely, or deal with crunch time to get them done (I'd say the former is healthier than the latter, but without at least one of these I wouldn't get anything done).
• how to deal with conflict in a professional setting - even though I don't like it - by being clear about my own intentions and expectations, and working with someone else on what can be done better next time or to prevent the situation at all.
• that I don't have to only rely on my own creativity and knowledge. Google is my friend, as are blogs dedicated to niche subjects. In school, I used this to look up lesson plan ideas; now I use those same skills to troubleshoot technology, figure out how to make something, or find creative ways to engage the kids I work with.
• that there are always going to be people that I have to work with even when I don't want to. Whether it's a client's parent now or a slacker group member in school, I've gotten significantly better at seeing things from their perspective to be able to get through the interaction (and sighing a breath of relief when it's over).
• how to correct mistakes. I was lucky enough to have several teachers that, after grading our papers, handed them back to us and had us revise them. As annoying as this was at the time, it helped ensure that I wouldn't keep making the same mistakes. While I'm not writing a whole lot of papers now, this makes it easier to adjust when I receive feedback or procedures change at work.
• how to write in a formal tone. This is helpful for resumes, work emails, or trying to sound smart if I'm with someone I want/need to impress (I still write clearer than I speak, but college has helped).

That's all I can think of for now, but I think that's a list that alters my life significantly. (And just so we're clear, I also learned a lot of specific knowledge and skills related to teaching, and while I don't use it, having that stored helps me make connections when I learn something else that is relevant to my life).

What have you learned so far through college? Do you think it will still be applicable outside of college, or if you end up on a different career path?

Thoughts from Nostalgia

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately as I'm getting ready to move since I've lived here my entire life. It's a fairly bipolar feeling, since I end up being excited to move to a city one day, and freaked out and sad the next because I don't want to end up leaving my friends and the only place I've ever really known.

I have a bucket list of sorts, people to see, places to go, before I leave. On Friday it happened that the person I was meeting up with got delayed, and so I got to cross something off my list that I didn't think I would have the chance to.

I wandered over to a local ice cream and candy shop that I haven't been to in at least a decade. I ordered a simple sundae and sat on a bench outside to eat it as I watched the wind rip through the street and the miscellaneous passersby.

There's nothing inherently special about that place, but it immediately brought me back to long summer evenings spent with my family out on those benches, eating and laughing before going home after a long day and falling into bed. Of course the memories are blurry, just like most memories, but comforting nonetheless.

Yet as much as I want to cling on to these places, I think it's probably time for me to move on. I've realized that a greater and greater portion of my conversations are about the past - people that used to be friends, shared experiences from years past, etc. That rapport is great to have since the common experiences create a foundation for other communication, but I can't help but think that I should be looking forward too, not just back.

The things I'm nostalgic about and that I'll miss the most are really all about the people attached to them and not so much the thing or event themselves. When I'm feeling optimistic, I think about the fact that I'll now have all sorts of room to create new memories with new people. And, there's always the bonus that I haven't ever really been able to experience the feeling of going away and then coming home to a familiar place, since I've never left.

So please pardon me if my next few blogs are sappy and/or overly nostalgic, I'm assuming that's just part of this transition and that as I settle in and create new relationships and memories it will start to lessen.

Yule Balls and Saints

For months now my friends and I have been planning a real Yule Ball, like in the The Goblet of Fire. And for a while it was just a thing, it didn’t really feel like something that was going to happen but now it’s a few weeks away I’m just like, “safhdkvbbvo!!!”

If someone had told me at the start of the year I was even going to be attending a yule ball I probably wouldn’t of believed them. Because mainly I wouldn’t of known any one nerdy enough to of gone with me and there is never anything like it held in the UK. I’m seriously looking forward to it.

I also noticed today when I was out for dinner with my friends that today is Saint Andrew’s Day. It just made me realise how little people actually care about it. It’s probably a bigger deal in schools and maybe if I paid attention to the news and stuff I would of noticed. But I kind of think if Scottish people had the same attitude as Americans, Saint Andrews day would be a much bigger celebration. But then again, I think I’m probably stereotyping.

Is there a patron saint of America or Canada? I know you can get lots of different saints for places but I don’t think I’ve heard of any for America or Canada. Even Glasgow has its own saint, Saint Mungo.

I apologise for that last bit of mindless pondering.

Bleh.

Guys, I just don't want to write a blog post today.  I mean, I do.  I like blogging and all.  But.  Ugh.  I just don't have it in me to write anything interesting right now.

Can I be whiny, just for a second?  Exams are really soon.  And law school exams are really scary and I don't want to do them and they make me so nervous that I've just been avoiding thinking about them, which means I've been avoiding studying for them but then I have more to do in less time and it just gets worse and worse and right now I'm so stressed out that I've just felt nauseous all day and I kind of want to just call my mom and cry about it.  I am a big baby.

Okay.  Um.  Happier topics.  I've been doing NaNoWriMo this year.  I haven't done it since... 2005?  That was a really long time ago.  It's been a little bit stressful, but also a lot of fun.  I've still got just under 4000 words left to write in the next 26 hours and 40 minutes, but that is totally doable.  The problem is that I skipped the 'boring' parts earlier because I was really excited to write the ending but now I've finished it so I have to go back and fill in the parts where I'm not entirely sure what's happening and I don't have a whole lot of motivation to write it... but I can't just give up at 46082 words.

Also I joined a youtube collab channel called TransCanadaVloggers.  I'm both excited and nervous about it.  We just started his week, and I haven't posted my first video yet, but I already filmed and edited it and stuff and videos are scary and weird.  But pushing myself outside my comfort zone is good, right?  Right.

Anyway.  Um.  I guess that's it.  Sorry.

Pumpkin Pie

(I need to get back on my feet for this. Katie, I feel really bad, it's like I'm stealing your day now. Yell at me or something. I promise I will try to post these sooner.)

I hate pumpkin pie. This seems to disturb the people that I tell this to. Everyone in my family and everyone that talks to me about the holiday season has always expressed their love and excitement for pumpkin pie. Sure, it's practically a given that when the whether gets colder and the leaves begin to change and then the trees become bare, that people are going to be making pumpkin pie.

But I cannot fathom what is so appealing about it. First of all, the only time I like pumpkins is when they are for carving on Halloween. Other than that, I honestly can't stand the smell or the feel of pumpkin, it has always bothered me. And then just the taste of it, I characterize it as a dull taste and then the aftertaste bothers me constantly after eating it.

I'm not very good at explaining why I dislike pumpkin pie. It could also just be that I trained myself to not like it because it used to make me ill and now that it doesn't I just haven't had it enough to develop a taste for it.

I do, however, love cherry pie. I believe you cannot go wrong with cherries.

I wonder what favorite pies say about a person?

Does a God metaphor count?

Ok. So maybe this is just because I really miss having a cat. It's probably a sign that I'm smothering my boyfriend's cats with attention while I stay with his family, though seriously, can you blame me?

But more on topic, I want Aslan. You know, Chronicles of Narnia Aslan?

Can you really blame me? He's a giant friggin' cat! Giant talking cat with a soothing voice and lots of wisdom, who is cuddly with good people and fierce toward any people who would cause harm. "Of course he's not safe, but he's good."

As for any issues that would cause, well... I don't know that most people would be comfortable living near me with a giant lion being kept as a pet. I don't think you ever see him eat in the series (I wonder if he needs to eat?) but if he did need to eat that would cost a lot.

It's a wolf but big

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what mythical beast I would want as a pet but I couldn't think of one so I think I made one up, it may actually be mythical but I'm not sure. I would like a giant wolf, the kind that would be as tall as me or maybe taller than that.

I think it would be like having a pet dog but only bigger. I could rid on his back and we could run through fields. In the winter we could cuddle up together and keep me warm. He'd keep weirdos away from me. I'd imagine it would make getting to and from college more enjoyable and a lot quicker.

Although that said trying to train a giant wolf will probably be pretty difficult and pretty problematic. It's like a dog only bigger... but maybe it would be smarter. And where would you keep a giant wolf, you'd either need a really big house or keep it outside and that doesn't seem fair. Plus how would you feed a giant wolf!? Where would you get enough food for it, it wouldn't be good if the local farmers came with flaming torches and pitch forks because it ate their cows and sheep.

Regardless of the cons, I would still really love to have a giant wolf. I think, the idea may of come from Princess Mononoke. There was some pretty big wolves in that wasn't there?

Pegasus! Pegasus!

My mythical pet would definitely be a pegasus.

I've always really liked horses, and I took riding lessons for a few years when I was in junior high and I loved it.  And pegasi are just like horses except cooler.  They have wings.  They can fly.  I think having a horse that you could ride but it could fly would be just the most amazing thing.

The difficulties of caring for a pegasus would mostly depend on how smart it was.  I mean, taking care of a regular horse isn't exactly easy; there would still be all the feeding, grooming, stall-mucking, hoof-caring, etc.  Plus I guess I would have to train the pegasus to let me ride it.  But the biggest issue would be whether it was smart enough to stay home, or at least to come back home.  If it was, then it wouldn't really be a big deal, but if it was going to go out and get lost or run away all the time, then you'd have to build some sort of enormous cage/building to keep it in, and that would be a hassle.  Plus you'd have to keep it climate-controlled and everything, and heating/cooling large spaces is expensive.

Overall, though, I think the pros would outweigh the cons, and that a pegasus would make a pretty fantastic pet.

I don't think I've chosen good pet.

I know it seems a little cliché, but if I would have a mythical creature it'd be a dragon.

I just think that a dragon would be amazing, useful and although difficult to take care of, worth it.

First of all, you'd never have to worry about someone coming after you, even if the dragon is nice as a kitten, they look fierce enough to keep you safe from any creeps wandering around the area. It might even be possible that the dragon could out with transportation, it could fly over traffic during rush hour and long distances to avoid paying those ridiculous fuel costs these days. A dragon could also be helpful with keeping warm, a creature that can breathe fire must generate a lot of body heat, in the winter you could just snuggle up to it and keep warm.

I also just really like large animals and dragons can be huge. I like large animals because they appear less fragile, I can stand worrying everyday over a small pet getting behind a door and getting locked in the closet or being hurt by another animal. Large creatures make me feel better, because they can't get locked in closets, they're hard to lose and some (like a dragon) can take care of themselves for a while if I'm not there.

But there are disadvantages that come along with the size as well. Could you imagine how much a dragon would eat? All the gas money saved flying on it would not compare to how much it would cost to feed it all the meat and water it would need. I hope there are vegetarian dragons out there, or at least ones that like fish, I got an ocean nearby for it in that case. And then there is the space necessary for the dragon. I got space here but it's all full of trees and I'm not sure the neighbors would appreciate a giant, fire-breathing and flying lizard living next door.

The size may not even be the largest problem of living with a dragon. Just trying to keep his behavior in check is going to take a lot of work, patience and, more than probably, a really strict mindset. Dragon are predators, right? They've got to be very fierce, powerful, and likely aggressive creatures. You'd need to train it to not eat the neighbor's chihuahua or burn down any homes in the area (especially your own). You'd have to teach your dragon that humans are not food either and that we are okay to be around and not a threat. You'd also want your dragon to come home after flying around so it's going to be a job to make the dragon also feel at home and like the place and people it lives with.

So having a dragon may not be financially wise, but if you could build a strong and friendly relationship with it, I think it would be worth it. I would totally have a dragon if I could.
That's about it, I'm completely aware the reasons for not wanting outweigh the reasons for wanting one. This clearly shows I'm not the best when it comes to making logical decisions and should not be asked for advice.


A long time ago I had this really weird dream about a mother dragon and woke up thinking that dragons would be really awesome moms. I've really liked dragons since.

A toad is my spirit animal.

Since we didn't set a theme for this week, I'm just going to tell a story.  (As it turns out, this is a fairly long story.  Sorry!)

My high school used to have this event every year called Stay in School for School to support a charity called Wadeng Wings of Hope.  Anyone who made a certain minimum donation to the charity could stay overnight at the school.  There were always a few 'poverty awareness' type activities in the evening, but for the most part we just had the run of the school to do whatever we wanted.

When I was in grade 12 they introduced a few workshops in the evening that we could go to.  I don't remember what most of them were, but I think there was yoga and tai chi and maybe acupuncture?  Those sorts of health and wellness type things.  We were supposed to go to two different ones, but I went to the guided meditation workshop, and the guy running it said we could stay and do it a second time, and everyone did.

So basically what happened was there were all these squares of felt, and we were supposed to take the one that we felt the most connection with, and he explained what they all meant, and there were also these 'power crystals' and we had to like rub them or something.  I don't really remember.  Anyway, after all the explanation, we laid down on the floor, and the guy was playing a little hand drum.  There were four different drum beats.  The first one was to go in: we were supposed to envision walking through a field, finding some kind of hole in the ground, walking through a tunnel, coming out into a different place.  The second one was for while we were there: we were supposed to be looking for our animal guide.  We would know which animal it was because we would see it three times.  The third drum beat was to call us back: when we heard it we knew it was time to leave.  The fourth one was just a fast running beat while we were coming back.

It was really hard to get into at first, because I had to focus so hard to picture everything and it felt like I was forcing it so much.  By the time I got out of the tunnel, though, my subconscious had taken over and I wasn't controlling anything but my own actions within it.  My tunnel came out into the woods, so I started to wander around.  My first meditation was kind of rushed and weird.  I don't really remember a lot of it, I was just running around through the woods looking for animals.  I remember seeing a toad, an owl, some sort of bobcat or lynx or something, and a mother skunk with two babies.  I'm pretty sure there were others, but those were the ones that stood out.

After we all came back from our meditations, we went around the circle and said what our animal was and told as much about our meditation as we felt like sharing.  My skunk family didn't count because it was definitely three different animals and not the same animal three times, so I technically hadn't found my animal yet.  The guy leading the workshop asked me which animal I felt like I connected with the most, which was the toad; it had caught my eye and looked it me in a way that felt like it knew everything about me.  He asked me what I thought it would have said to me if it could say anything, and even though I had barely thought about the toad until that moment, out of nowhere I realized that it would tell me "everything's going to be okay."

On the second meditation I tried to go back and find my toad.  It was enormous and orange, and it had been sitting on a flat rock next to a little pond.  I got back to the pond, but the toad wasn't there.  I looked into the pond and there were a zillion tadpoles in there.  I carried on to keep looking for the toad somewhere else, but somehow came out at the pond from the same direction I had come from before.  The toad was there this time, and it didn't say anything, but I somehow knew what it wanted me to do.  I laid down on my stomach at the edge of the pond to look closely at it.  The tadpoles were gone now, and I just laid there looking at bubbles coming up out of the mud at the bottom of the pond and floating to the surface.  I stayed there until we got called back, and as I got up and started to run the toad spoke to me.  It said "slow down."

That ended up being a very important experience in my life so far.  "Everything's going to be okay" ended up becoming a bit of a mantra for me after that, and "slow down" was advice that I followed for the next couple of years.  It's sort of a weird thing to talk about, telling people that a significant event in my life was talking to a big orange toad in my subconscious, but it's true.  It doesn't influence me as much any more, but sometimes when I'm really confused about life and having a rough time, I wish I could meditate again so I could go to my toad for some more advice.

Descriptions and Speculations

When I describe myself, I say I'm nerdy, crafty and quiet. If you've caught me when I'm being more blunt, I'd also point out that I'm sometimes socially awkward, easily distracted and a habitual multi-tasker even though I'm awful at it. I try to generally be optimistic, but when it concerns something I really care about I become pessimistic so that I don't get my hopes up. I've been working on trying to be more straight forward rather than a people pleaser, so I try to speak my mind.

Friends have described me as pragmatic, accepting, silly, down to earth, and perpetually unfazed (I was near some friends while writing this, so I asked them for suggestions). I think that since I hang out with people that are similar to me, I sometimes underestimate my level of nerdiness. As I hung out with my sisters last weekend, it was jarring to get laughed at for talking about missing my Dungeons and Dragons group when I move away, and I had the sudden realization that to many people that might seem weird, even though to me it was commonplace.

My sisters have also referred to me as a little rebellious since I have some opinions different from the rest of my family and, with my effort to be more straight forward, have been more open about them in recent years.

The silliness is also a new thing; since I've started spending chunks of my day with kids - and often playing with them and goofing off to get them interested in me - I've gotten much sillier.

Someone who doesn't like me could easily describe me as being stuck up (an unfortunate side effect of being introverted), awkward, weird (due to geekiness), messy, and absent-minded.

I am ... oh shiny!

I'm sorry abou the late post, but better late than never, right?

I would describe myself as a happy and optimistic person and sometimes overly sarcastic. I'm also a massive procrastinator, which has came back to bit my quite a lot, it probably has quite a lot to with the fact I'm easily distracted and rather forgetful at times. For example in process of writing this I was distracted by TV and tumblr, two of my greatest enemies when it comes to getting stuff done.

I think my friends would describe as an honest person, and I would agree with them I don't really see any need to lie. They I hink they would also I'm not someone you want to get on the wrong side of, when I'm angry I am angry. Most of the time all sunshine and rainbow but on the odd occasion something gets me mad you better hope that it's not you. I will say I'm only angry about 0.01% of the time so it's something to worry about.

I don't really know what else to say, it's pretty difficult to describe myself just because it requires me to think a bit about everything about me.

I guess it's a good thing my parents like me.

I would describe myself as stubborn.  I consider this both a good and bad thing.  The same goes for the fact that I am a huge introvert.  I am easily overwhelmed, easily upset, and overly anxious.  I am absolutely horrid at making decisions.  I would almost always rather listen than talk, but when I do talk I want people to be listening, I hate being interrupted and I really hate repeating myself.  I used to be a perfectionist but it was too stressful so now I'm just a slacker.   Except really I'm still a perfectionist who doesn't bother trying which is the same as being a slacker who feels guilty all the time.  I tend not to enjoy doing things I'm bad at, and I don't take criticism very well.   I feel like I'm still looking for my place in the world, and I just don't quite fit properly anywhere.  As is somewhat evident from this list, I tend to be a  hard on myself and don't think I have very many positive traits.  I'm pretty good at being happy most of the time, I guess.

My best friend has told me on several occasions that I have "the patience of a saint."  I've also been described as a 'silly catalyst' because as soon they're around me they start doing ridiculous things.  Also probably that I'm pretty silly myself.  I'm generally pretty agreeable about doing whatever other people want to do.  I think they would also say I can be a little distant at times, and I'm not super great at keeping in touch.  And I can be a little whiny at times.

For the 'enemy' portion, I'm going to go with "things an ex-boyfriend said in post-breakup emails" (and some things he didn't say but I think were evident from the way I acted, so they were probably implied), since that's pretty much the nearest thing I have to an enemy.  I run away from my problems.  I don't like talking about my emotions, and I if I'm trying to avoid telling people something I think will hurt them, I will push them away in a way that only ends up hurting them more.  I am bad at taking responsibility for my actions.  I say hostile things without thinking it through and then try to apologize for them later.  If I'm mad at someone or I am trying to avoid them, I tend to make them feel worthless.

I'm a bit of a cloud person, also this is late

Describing myself is a tad awkward for me so I'll leave this short.

I would describe myself as a bit of a daydreamer, and it's not such a great thing to be I find. I get lost in ideas and story lines and all other sorts of thoughts. My head has a permanent residence in the clouds. Therefore I often find I've forgotten some really important tasks I needed to do, my habit tends to get me into trouble sometimes, I space out into something frequently while someone is talking and then I feel embarrassed and the feel offended when they realized I've missed more than half of what they said. Daydreaming is nice thing to have when you have a need to not think about something but too much is just harmful and I'm on the side of having too much in my everyday life. That's one way I would describe myself.

I'd also describe myself as a pretty awkward person. I'm very bad at meeting new people. I tend to be very quiet and am not good at thinking about what to say to a person or have a conversation. I kind of always hope the person I meet is the kind who can't stop talking so I won't have to feel too awkward in a conversation. Yet with the people I already know, I can talk for a good while and comfortably. But I've always had poor friend making skills on account of being so shy. I also had a difficult time growing up with understanding social cues, facial expressions and voice tones. All those have had an effect on how I interact with people. So I'm not the best in social situations.

So that's how I'd describe myself. Not very down to earth and with poor social skills.

I don't really want to think about what other people would say about me. Probably the same.

The Scrooge of Halloween

I hope you guys don't mind, but since we've already had a few posts about Halloween costumes, I thought I'd talk about something a little bit different: the evolution of what I've done for Halloween over the years.

The Christian/Secular Blend (age from "as early as I can remember" to about middle school)
I come from a family that felt wary about Halloween. It was the mixed emotion feeling that on one hand, the whole occasion was doused in the occult and was a bad influence - the same reasoning that meant I didn't get to read Harry Potter until I started sneaking it in high school :( - but trick-or-treating is pretty wide spread and it feels strange to outright not do it and not allow kids to dress up.

So we hit a compromise; we'd trick-or-treat the night of Halloween, but we also went to a local fall or harvest festival. Kids run around in their costumes, often there are game booths and people giving out candy, and the whole thing is remarkably similar to Halloween except, er, not? Halloween was weird as a kid.

The "I'm Not Too Old!" Stage (middle school through the first half of high school)
After feeling left out of most Halloween stuff as a kid - partially due to parental influence, and partially because I was homeschooled and didn't have many friends - I tried desperately to hold on to Halloween as long as I could.

I remember dressing up in group theme outfits and running around the rich neighborhoods (they give out full size candy bars!), with at least one person losing a shoe or accessory, or falling down somewhere since the rich neighborhoods invariably have hills. Our rewards were a copious amount of blurry photos, enough candy to keep us hyper until Thanksgiving, and experiences to laugh and make jokes about for the rest of the year.

The Working Years (junior year of high school until about last year)

I had a string of food service jobs during and after high school, and every year I forgot to take Halloween night off. Or, if I didn't, I was so fried from school and work that I just took it as a regular night off and plopped into bed.

I remember one year when I wasn't working that night, I had just dyed my hair, and came into work to get my check before starting my homework. When asked what I was for Halloween, I claimed that I was dressed up as my evil twin.

My sense of humor has not gotten better with age :P

I'm Old! (now)

So now, finally, I'm at the point where I don't have to work nights, I'm out of school, and theoretically have some disposable income.

And I still don't really celebrate Halloween.

This year, I didn't even get off work until 7, was a 45 minute drive from where my friends were, and lacking a costume for reasons described before. Since we're all of legal age, we decided to go out to one of our favorite bars since they have delicious and wide-ranging flavors of long island iced teas, and we figured we'd get one, then wander around downtown for a bit.

Of course, we didn't think about the fact that this is a college town, so the whole scene was packed and too loud to have any sort of conversation. After silently sipping our teas and occasionally nudging each other to point out costumes, we headed to a slightly quieter town favorite and hung out until it started getting rowdy.

As I drove* home that evening, all I could think was: "Wow, I may officially be old."

It's funny, because in theory I quite enjoy Halloween: it promises the chance to dress up, possibly even making a costume, and hang out with people I'd probably hang out with anyway, plus an opportunity to indulge in candy. However, as I wrote this I realized that I may inadvertently be a Halloween Scrooge!

I may need to put some forethought into what I do next year; I realize that part of the problem is that Halloween sneaks up on me while I'm not prepared. Hope all of you had a great All Hallows Eve!



*since I know my mom occasionally reads this, I would just like to reassure her that this was several hours later and long after the effect of alcohol had worn off.

Costumes through the ages.

I guess we're doing costumes this week. This is just going to be a history of most of the costumes I've ever had.

My favourite costume I ever had was one my mum made me when I was in nursery. It was a Little Miss Muffet costume. My mum sewed it all together, it was a little bonnet and apron which had a pocket with a spider on it. It was pretty cute. If I was at my mum's I would take photos of it to show you because for some reason I still have it.

I'm pretty sure between the ages of 6 and 11 I was a witch every year for halloween. I'm also certain that my intensity of wanting to be witch increased when I got into Harry Potter. I even remember making my own wand one year from a stick I found in our garden.

And between the ages of 12-14 I think I was a vampire. I remember one year me and my little cousin went out trick or treating (which in Scotland we call guising which comes from the word disguise). My little cousin was about 9 years old at this point and looked up to me and copied just about everything I did, so we went out both dressed as vampires. We only went down our street and across the road but we got a decent amount of sweets and couple of pounds from neighbours who had forgot to buy sweets.

And from about the ages of 15 to now my go to costume tends to be a zombie. Like I have so much fake blood laying around it's unreal. In 2009 and 2010 there was zombie walks on Halloween both of which I attended with friends. The zombie walks are pretty fun and it's alway great to everyones costumes and the effort put in to them. My favourite was a pregnant zombie with a zombie baby sticking out from the stomach.

I can't really think of a decent way to conclude this, so I'm just going to stop.

Halloween Costumes

We never really did officially decide on a theme for this week, so I'm just going to write about Halloween costumes.

My favourite costume I ever had as a kid was an old lady with a baby on her back.  My mom is really into holidays and decorations and stuff, and she saw this costume in some sort of seasonal Halloween magazine that she had.  Everything except my head was dressed as an old lady.   I had a stuffed backpack on under my clothes to create a hunchbacked effect.  Then I had an old lady mask stuffed and attached to my chest.  Then I had a baby outfit stuffed to be baby shaped and pinned to my back, with a baby bonnet on my head, so that it looked like a little old lady carrying a baby on her back.

Also, a costume that I think is really great is this one:

It was in an article about homemade Halloween costumes that someone sent me a few weeks ago and I just think it's fantastic.  I was considering doing this myself, but a) I didn't do anything for Halloween this year and b) I think in adult size the balloon would float high enough to make it difficult to get through doorways and such.  But I still think it's lovely.

Hunting for Nerdy Costumes

I was moderately excited for Halloween this year. A friend and I decided to go as Sherlock and John from BBC's Sherlock, mostly because the costumes would be fairly easy to find since it's set in modern times. Unfortunately, somehow I just couldn't manage to find the pieces I needed to be John.

"Well, okay" I thought, "I'll be the Eleventh Doctor! All I need is a button up shirt, suspenders, boots and a bowtie!" But I didn't have much luck there either.

I ventured off to the college town's thrift stores, and one that's very popular for finding cheap last minute costumes. At this point I was just looking for some sort of costume, but I got entirely overwhelmed when I walked into one to find massive piles of miscellaneous clothing, some random sparkly accessories, and people milling about, squeezing past each other through the piles.

As a last ditch effort I stopped at one of those stores that pops up around town around Halloween just for selling costumes, and seems to be vacant the rest of the year. I was a little amused to watch the owner (who happened to be wearing an Eeyore costume) wander around and vaguely hit on college girls. I attempted to piece together a non-slutty pirate costume, and while I found a couple of pieces that I really like I couldn't find anything for the bottom or a decent pirate hat.

So... another costume-less year for me. Since I started working when I was 16, I haven't really done anything for Halloween, either because I got stuck working, or was so tired from taking too many classes and working too many hours, and just enjoyed sleeping in on the weekend.

But, as an entirely different subject, I'm getting some couples portraits done early tomorrow morning. While this means that I'll need to be in early tonight, it's nice to have something else to look forward to after my costume fails.

Happy Halloween!

Bah Halloween

I really like the idea of Halloween, dressing up and eating sweets and scaring little kids but I don't actually like it in practice. I don't think I've ever really had a good Halloween. And I guess as I've gotten older they've gotten more sucky. I'm like the Scrooge of Halloween. Only no ghosts will try to show me the spirt of Halloween.

So this year I am not going out and I am not dressing. I had been offered to go to a couple parties but really it was a bit too late to even think about getting a proper costume put together. Which actually leads me nicely to one of the things I hate most about Halloween: slutty costumes. It's pretty much impossible to find a female costume that doesn't leave you showing off everything and it really bugs me. I remember a couple of years ago I wanted to be Claire from Heroes but I couldn't find a cheerleading costume that wasn't slutty.

But I don't want to put a downer on everyones Halloween so I will say that so enjoy carving the pumpkin on Halloween, in fact it's probably my favourite part. Although I should point out that here in the UK our pumpkins are tiny compared to the ones you guys can get like seriously pumpkins here aren't much bigger than maybe the size of my head.

Really all I'm just look forward to some extra chocolate this week.

Hocus Pocus

One of my favourite Halloween traditions is watching the movie Hocus Pocus.  This was a tradition that two of my friends and I started back in junior high, and carried out through high school.  We were having a sleepover at my place one year and it happened to be the weekend before Halloween, so my friend Sarah brought Hocus Pocus with her so that we could watch it.  She had seen it a bunch of times, but Lindsey and I had never seen it before, so she had already assigned who was which character.  (This was a thing that we did at the time.  Not just us, but our entire class.  We'd assign all the characters in movies and books and things to be people we knew, usually based on what was the most hilarious.  There were two people in our class who were especially prolific at this, there were a bunch of different movies and things that they did for everyone in the class.  When they did Harry Potter I was Moaning Myrtle, and in Finding Nemo I was the anglerfish.  This is a long aside.)

Since the main characters of Hocus Pocus are three witches, and there were three of us, Sarah had decided we were the witches.  She was Winnie, the bossy one; Lindsey was Mary, the kind but clumsy one; and I was Sarah, the ditzy one.  While we watched the movie we assigned all the other characters to be the rest of our friends.  It became a tradition, and we watched it around Halloween every year for three or four years in a row.

Hocus Pocus isn't the greatest quality movie, but it's pretty hilarious, and it always reminds me of my friends.  Even though it's been quite a while since the three of us watched it together, and we don't even keep in touch very much any more, I still watch it every year if I have time.

Seven Days...

It's Halloween in a week!

I'm really excited. I was working a late shift at Starbucks last year on Halloween. Really depressing. I have super special plans this year, unfortunately.

I wish I could go to Salem this year on Halloween. Last year I went on October 30th and it was crazy. They have all sorts of events around Halloween and the streets are just filled with people dressed up. I primarily loved the old buildings and my favorite was the House of Seven Gables, which is also known as the Turner House.
They give pretty interesting tours there this time of the year.

Back to this year...

I have no costume planned this time 'round. I might go digging through the closet, though I'm pretty sure I'll end up being a pirate-fairy if I do. I actually want to be Marceline from the Cartoon Network show Adventure Time.

She seems like she'd be a simple enough costume to make, all I'd really need is the face paint, a really long wig and a tank-top. I have boots that are similar. However, costumes seem to have gone up a bit in price, I hope it doesn't turn out too expensive just to get those couple things.

Actually, I could use some advice now that I'm thinking about this, anyone know any good face/body paint or makeup that wouldn't lead to a disaster on clothes or skin?


Finally, Halloween snacks. I'm planning to do my best to make some really good snacks this year. Butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies, butterbeer drinks and cupcakes (for an added HP theme), pumpkin seeds, brownies with frosted cobweb designs, etc. And the usual bags of candy from the super market.


That's my Halloween rambling for tonight. Hope you guys have a great Halloween this year.

My Happy Place

So this might sound a little weird, but my happy place is oddly specific. I think it started as a teenager, when I was getting increasingly busy - particularly my senior year of high school as I also went to college and worked far more hours than I really should have.

During the summer when I got a break from most of my busy-ness, after a morning or early afternoon shift at work I'd often snuggle up in my bed for a nap. The air conditioner would kick on, gently humming me to sleep, and I could nap without any worries about setting alarms or getting up on time for something else.

My happy place is curled up in my bed for a nap, without need for an alarm, and preferably with either the heat or air conditioning coming on to give me some white noise to fall asleep to. This has become my default reaction - when it's possible - to stress and strong emotion as well, since it seems like I always think clearer after my mind's been reset from an hour or two of sleeping (or maybe I'm just more well-rested and able to deal with it).

Safe in my room

When I was a kid, I grew up in a rural area, just down the road from a dairy farm.  Much of the land in the area belonged to the farm and was used for hayfields.  My house was surrounded by fields on all sides, and the fields furthest from the road were bordered by forest.  There was a tractor path leading through the forest, and beyond the first little stand it became a mixture of forest and fields.  From the age I was old enough to walk the path on my own, this was my happy place.  Whenever I just needed to get away from things, I would walk to the end of the path and back.  It was so familiar, and the fields and the forest were always so peaceful.  At the very end of the path and across the last of the hayfields, you came out at the ocean, and this was also a good place to be.  Along the way, off the path and into the woods, there was a stand of boulders, which is where I would take my journal to sit and write if that was what I needed to do.

A little over four years ago, we moved out of that house, and I've moved another six times after that, so I don't really have that kind of dedicated happy place any more.  Mostly now it's just my room, wherever that happens to be.  Even though the actual room, the furniture in it, the decorations, and everything else, have changed quite a bit, my room is always my sanctuary.  It has a door that can shut out the world, and a bed where I can either sleep my troubles away or curl up to lose myself in a book or a movie.

Other than that, just Halifax in general is kind of my happy place.  I used to hate the city, but now I just like to wander around and experience all the familiar sights and sounds and smells and watch all the interesting people.  I also have a few favourite stores and coffee shops that I like to go to and just hang out for hours even though I don't really want anything (especially used clothing stores and this bookstore (it looks like this)).

Anywhere but Here

I don't know if my "happy place" is normal. I keep thinking that the answer people expect to hear or what people are most likely to say is a certain room in their house, like their bedroom, kitchen, library if they have that much space for books.

My happy place is anywhere away from home. I really feel at peace in hotels, to be honest. It's just something about feeling like I'm traveling and therefore in the world. So if I feel like I'm out there and doing something, even if I'm not really, I feel calm. Does that make sense? It probably has something to do with moving and living overseas as a kid. I need to be in different settings in order to feel like everything is right and good, so hotel rooms might be the obvious choice, it's like moving into a new house, minus the fact you leave a lot sooner.

That's where I can feel relaxed and safe and happy. In new and unfamiliar settings. The same sets of walls every day tend to get me anxious so I need variety. But I can't often just find a hotel room and sit in it, can I? One, they are expensive. Two, there aren't many I can go to where I live. Three, I get the feeling there's a negative connotation with hotel rooms and feel awkward to say that I like them. Four, I am not twenty-one (the legal age to rent hotel rooms here). So most of the time I just have to pretend I'm traveling somewhere else and use my imagination that I'm nowhere near my house. Books help.

Cookies, Commutes, and a Late Night "Oh Crap I Missed My Blog"

So I wrote this out this morning, drew some pictures, and took a photo of it. I've waited hours, but Blogger still refuses to acknowledge that I have that picture on my system. *sigh*. Here's the transcription I wrote out since my handwriting's messy; if I can get this to work, I'll put the picture in later, but I'd like to at least have something here!

UPDATE: Here it is! That is much messier/blurrier than I thought it was, so you may still want to hit up the transcription below.

I had a good Friday. I didn't have to leave for work until almost noon, so I spent my morning baking goodies for a potluck I was going to that evening and tidying up areas I'd let get messy during the week (drawing of a cookie that kind of looks like a deformed smiley face).


When I got to work, I remembered that I had a 3 1/2 hour break, which was unfortunate because I was in the middle of nowhere and my next client was even further from town (disproportionate map)


I decided to buck up and deal with the extra mileage and visit some friends. I had meant to write out my blog post in this time, but seeing people I hadn't hung out with for awhile, along with the lure of a free Mexican lunch, distracted me. After lunch I went back to work, spending more time in transit than I did actually working with the kid.


I had fun at our potluck that evening; it was just the right amount of people and all of them were nice to hang out with. REmembering that I had work the next day, I opted to leave fairly early and fall into bed when I got home.


At 2 a.m. the next morning, I woke up and remembered that I hadn't blogged. I promptly fell back asleep because I don't have the best attention span when I'm half asleep. When I woke up this morning, I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something, and when I finally remembered, I wrote this (picture of me waking up, yelling "BLOG!", falling back asleep, and later thinking "did I forget something?")

I can't think of a title

In which I say "so" a lot

This is exactly what I've been doing.

I am really bad at drawing furniture so I'm not drawing the guys who came to assemble my brand new super amazing bed that creek when I move or stab me in the back every night with springs that have broken free of their poorly made mattress casing.

I am going to give you the drawing that has been taking up most of my life these past couple days. It's actually an English assignment, but I took the art option so I wouldn't have to write another essay.

Here it is.
Image import quality is bad.

I am not an art student, and I'm not very proud of this image, it's out of my comfort zone and preferred style, but I've had to spend a lot of time on it today and every other day so I think it counts. This is what I did today. What you see isn't the real background, I'm still trying to fix the original one.

But anyways, if we're drawing a picture of what we did. This is what I've been doing for a really long time. The actual background has skeletons in it. I hate drawing skeletons and it is incomplete, I made a very light/not dark version of this for the post.

Time Out!

At first, this question seemed really easy - I would've opted for Sophie's answer of teleportation and time bending (particularly now that I'm spending a couple of hours driving every day now), and as mundane as it may sound, it would be nice to pop back home for a nice, warm lunch in between clients instead of a cold lunch with whatever I hurriedly packed that morning. Or if I've run out of forms at work, no problem! Pop to the office, grab what I need, pop back. (Can you tell that I'm about to leave for work) Particularly with the time-bending, this would make my life significantly easier.

Except that I already don't exercise enough, and I'm pretty sure I'd abuse teleportation so that I'd never have to walk anywhere, and I don't know if I could keep all of my timelines straight with time travel.

I was also thinking about an answer I've heard someone else give, which is the ability to 80's montage through anything, but I'm pretty sure I'd use that too much as well and end up inadvertently skipping a lot.  There are times where I'm not looking forward to learning something or doing something, but the process of doing it is often better than the end result, and I think skipping that would cheat myself out of the experience.

There's a video I watched recently on this subject (which is NSFW, so I'm not posting it here), the gist of which is that any single superpower probably isn't that great. Having only super strength or telekineses means you'll have lots of people asking you to help with things, "spidey-sense" without the agility to dodge a blow just looks like paranoia, and flying without either invulnerability (to not injure yourself upon landing and/or get hurt by other flying objects) or super speed (to get away from people that might attempt to hurt the only person in the world who can fly) might be tricky.

So, I realize this is a cop-out, but I'm going to go with the same thing that they ended up on: the Saved By the Bell time out. If you haven't seen this, or don't remember it, here's a reminder (the main character, the one who uses it, is the blonde guy):

This doesn't draw attention to you, and doesn't have the possibility of getting lazy (I'm not saying that's necessarily an issue for you guys, but it would be for me), things just always kind of.... go your way.

Space and time bending please!

I can’t remember what TV show it was but someone said they wanted to have ghost powers because it was like having three powers in, invisibility, flying and walking through walls. I thought that was really creative but I don’t think I’d want any of those powers. Invisibility is cool but I don’t think it’s really that useful, flying is cool too but it’s a bit Superman and I’m not sure I could pull it off, walking through walls would be good, I was going to say for robing banks or something but it depends if it’s just you or you and the objects you hold that can go through walls.

If we lived in a world where everyone had some form of superpower I’d quite like the power to use other people’s powers. Which I know is cheating but really everyone knows that Peter from Heroes was the best and a total bad ass.

I think that on a regular basis that I wish I could teleport. Like when I sleep in and am running late for college be able to teleport would be good because then wouldn’t need to worry about the long bus journey. Or when I’m really tired I could teleport home. It would be really useful if I had to carry heavy stuff. And I guess if was able to travel through space I’d also like to time travel. Time travel would be pretty cool but I’d only use it to witness important historical events. And also to buy as many 1950’s dress I can. A lot can go wrong with time travel but I think it could help me with handing work in on the deadline, I could do the same 10 minutes until it was finished.

Yeah, so basically I’d like the superpower to bend space and time.

I could be anything

I had never really thought much about what superpower I would like to have, so I've been thinking about it pretty hard the last few days.  There are so many options to choose from!  And they all have their own advantages and disadvantages.  I was having a really hard time deciding, but I was leaning slightly towards flying, and figured I'd go with that if I couldn't come up with anything better.  Then Sarah pointed out that with terrakenesis she could fly on a rock, and I figured that there had to be something else like that where I could fly but also get other sweet powers in with the deal.  I still wasn't coming up with anything, but then today I was sort of wishing I was a jellyfish (I always wish I was a jellyfish when I'm stressed out or upset or anything.  I don't know.  They just seems so chill, and they probably don't have too much to worry about, and it would be nice to float around in the ocean doing nothing for a while) and I realized that the best superpower would be transformation.

I could be anything!  I could change into a bird so that I could fly.  Any kind of bird.  I could be a swift or something so I could go really fast, or I could be a hummingbird so I could hover, or I could be a duck and just hang out at ponds all day.

If I needed to cross a body of water, I could be fish.  If I needed to get somewhere quickly, I could just turn into a cheetah.  If I was trying to see over a crowd, I could be a giraffe.

And when I was stressed out or upset, I could be a jellyfish.

I would be able to fly on a rock

Does anyone else have those ten-minute to half-hour fantasies every once in a while where you think, "If I had this power in that situation, I'd totally... (insert actions) And it would be awesome."? I do it in my more non-exciting classes. Meaning there are tons of cool superpowers I'd like to have. But not Spider-Man's.

I thought pyrokinesis would be cool, terrakinesis even more if I got plants with that. Electricity/lightning could be the most practical, my computer, iPod, phone and other gadgets wouldn't ever die because I could zap them and they'd continue to work. If I lost power at my house I could just zap everything into functionality again.

But I couldn't wear metal.

Or go out in the rain.

Or the beach.

Or on an airplane.

In the case I lost control of it.

Hydrokinesis I believe to be the most powerful on account of how many things contain water. People, animals, plants, other organisms, the air, the ground, rocks, a lot. It'd be cool, you could probably surf a wave over a cloud if you wanted without causing any mishap on the ground.

But honestly, I think I want terrakinesis with the ability to influence plant life as well. I could climb any tree. It would be awesome. Gardening would be a cinch too. It would certainly make walking long distances simple, I could fly around on a rock. If I fell from a high height I could bring some earth or trees closer to me to break the fall before I gain too much velocity or momentum. I wouldn't want to cause any earthquakes, I would never want or use a super power that strong. Terrakinesis doesn't seem all that practical but it seems sturdy, fun and not so dangerous to have as lightning.

(As I wrote this someone started to play the Captain Planet theme and I did not know how to feel)

I kind of stick to considering elemental superpowers, partly because I'm not original and partly because if you have control over something basic, you get an even wider range of influence when you apply it to different situations and items.

So that's the superpower I would have and the thought process that got me to it.

Out of curiosity, do any of you watch(ed) and/or like the show Heroes?

October Unprocessed

So this is going to sound kinda weird, but food's been on my mind a lot this week.

It's stemmed mostly wanting to be healthy, and after two weeks of tracking what I eat, realizing that I have significantly worse habits than I'd thought.

Full of determination, I headed to the grocery store to pick up lots of fruits and veggies and lean, healthy meat.... And cringed the entire time because living mostly off carbs has gotten me accustomed to having a very, very low grocery bill. Then, when my week got a little crazy, I ended up not even eating most of it yet. It hasn't gone bad or anything, but I feel a double guilt trip: a) I haven't eaten it yet, and I should, but also b) it's more expensive than I'm used to, so I also want to make it last longer (did you notice how those two are in direct opposition to each other?)

Since I'm also saving up to move in a few months, it started to feel like I need to make a choice between being healthy and feeling financially secure. After a bit of contemplation and some nice, deep breaths, I headed over to Poor Girl Eats Well and Budget Bytes to get some ideas for how to eat cheaply and still healthily.

That calmed me down a lot, since I realized that it's possible to both be healthy and not break the bank. Not too long after that, I found October Unprocessed, a challenge to go the entire month of October without processed foods and decided to go for it.

It was funny, my first thought was that it would be fairly easy since I make a lot of my food at home. Then I spent the last couple of days checking labels on things I use - Cheerios, ketchup, bread, etc - and found that they all have ingredients that I don't have access to, everything ranging from "natural flavors" to words I can't even sound out, which by the challenge's definition makes them out of bounds (the suggested rule is that if you couldn't recreate the item in your own kitchen with all of the ingredients listed, it counts as processed) and I've had the dawning realization that this is going to be harder than I thought.

Other than that, not too much has been going on. I started up my craft blog and have a whopping 1 post and 1 email subscriber. I'm working on a couple projects to put up in my spare time, including a paint chip mosaic table. This should be interesting :)

What I've been upto

What have I been up to... Hmmm. I started back at college about three or four weeks ago so I've had plenty of craziness with that trying to get back into the swing of things with deadlines and doing work and getting up before noon. I also used a large chunk of my loan and saving splashing out on a MacBook for college too and I'm glad I did because it is so much faster than my old laptop.

Something I'm really excited about is my friend and I are working on a short graphic story for a competition. I'm doing the artwork and he is doing the writing part of it. It's really great because we've been saying that we're going to work on something together for a while now and never really done anything. We had no idea what we were going to do so we went for coffee and batted ideas around and ended up with thumbnails for our four pages by the end of that one meeting. I am hoping to have it all finished by the end of the week, which is a tight deadline but I think I can make it.

I'm hoping if the graphic novel thing works out well that I could hopefully make some sort of career out of it but I'm pretty nervous about it because I don't really read comics and I didn't read them growing up, so I always kind of feel like a noob when it comes to that sort of thing. But I guess if we place anywhere in this competition I'll probably give me the confidence to continue.

I guess that's all I've really been up to, it seems like so much less when it's all written down.

Where I'm At

As of the beginning of September, I moved back out of my parents' basement and returned to Halifax.  This is a good thing.  I love my parents, and it's not like they're strict or even tried to control my life in any way at all, but after being independent for several years, moving back in with them was kind of brutal.  So I'm glad to be back out on my own.

Most of friends graduated with me last year, and have moved away to jobs/further education in other parts of the province/country/world, including both of my roommates.  And all of the friends who did stick around kept the same living arrangements as they had before, which left me kind of stuck for housing options.  I considered living completely on my own, and that was always the back-up plan, but I'm scared that if I lived alone I would just become a complete hermit, and never leave home except to go to class, and talk to myself all the time, and fall out of touch with all of my friends, and just generally not be in a good state of mental health.  So instead I moved into a house where all the rooms are rented out separately, meaning that I now live with three total strangers.  Well, I guess they're not entirely strangers any more, since we've lived together for a few weeks, but it's still weird.  They're all really nice, but it still seems odd to be living with them.  Living with strangers is just a completely different way of life than living with friends (or parents).

I love the house, though.  It's bigger than my old apartment, and it's above ground instead of in a basement, so having enormous windows in my room feels like such a luxury and I love it.  Also there's a nice backyard with a deck, and the "furnished downstairs" includes a PIANO in the dining room, which is really exciting.  Plus it's closer to campus than my old place, which is nice (and will be even nicer once winter hits, I'm sure).

Of course, the reason I'm back in Halifax at all is because I've just started law school, which is also weird.  I can't even decide yet whether or not I like it.  It's just all so completely different than anything I've studied before that it's hard to get my head wrapped around it.  On the bright side, I was sort of expecting the profs to be strict and stern but they're totally just regular profs, and the other students aren't as competitive and snobby as I was afraid they would be, so that's all good.

Other than that, at the end of summer my friends and I went on our annual backwoods camping trip, which was excellent, and we went for five days instead of just three like we usually do, so it was extra-excellent.  This past weekend I went rock-climbing for the first time, which was fun but also difficult and somewhat frustrating.  I would really like to go again, because by the time I felt like I was starting to figure out the strategy and technique side of it, I was getting too physically tired to actually do it.  Also this weekend I went to the Word on the Street Festival and appreciated all the books and all the book/writing/literacy related organizations and all the people being interested in and excited about books, and I picked up a copy of Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which I'm really excited to start reading.

I think that is everything important (and a bunch of things that aren't).

Late Post

This one is long guys.

I'm really sorry about about being late with this.

I'm pretty sure this is a free week, right? Time to talk about what's been going on lately. Well, things have been pretty unpleasant and confusing for me ever since around late March/early April this year. And I feel comfortable enough to talk to you guys about it.

So I got really sick early this year and neglected to tell anyone about it. I spent over a month in some really bad pain and it wasn't until May that I told anyone and about two weeks later that I got a fever of 104˚F and was made to see my physician.

But the reason I don't go to doctors is because I'm absolutely terrified of them. I had a major anxiety attack when my physician told me I should drive over to the emergency room just so that they could do some blood tests and a possible scan just to be more accurate than they could at the local clinic. But the idea of the hospital sent me to hysterics and I was given Ativan just so I could enter the hospital without freaking.

I was just planning to go for maybe a total of three hours, they would take maybe two samples of blood and then I could go home. But instead I got a drive-by IV and was left to sit in the hall for 12 hours, they took 15 samples of blood. When they finally told me I could leave and that they had diagnosed me with something, the nurse noticed that I really did have a fever of 104 and they told me I couldn't leave. First, they said I could leave in the morning, then they said I could leave the next day, but it ended up being a week and they still kept trying to have me stay longer. It was a horrible anxiety filled, painful time for me there.

All that was back in May, but I'm still sick now and in therapy to deal with the anxiety that I have over everything and anything medical so that I can actually let the doctors diagnose what I may or may not have. I know that I need to get over this and see a doctor but it's just incredibly hard and mortifying for me, people I know keep trying to just talk me out of the fear and the anxiety but if it were as simple a conversation, I wouldn't need to be in therapy for it.

Sorry if I seem like a whining mess to you now. I thought if I wrote about it I'd feel more comfortable about it.

On the bright-side of everything I went to King Richard's Faire over the weekend. I loved all the costumes and event there. I went to a costume shop and tried on one of the corsets. Not the lingerie "sexy" corsets. They were all really beautiful and made in very vintage styles. It felt really weird, I was not used to the tightness of it but it wasn't painful like I've heard them to be characterized. Ridiculously expensive though they are, I'm thinking about saving up for one for cosplay purposes. Particularly era related ones and steampunk.

Also, while I was there, I got this really beautiful journal. It was handmade and leather-bound with a tiger's eye stone in the center of the cover. It's got really nice fabric based paper and just feels great. I can't bring myself to write in it because it's really gorgeous. I need to take a picture of it for you guys.

That's all, I needed to talk about some stuff that was bothering me but I wanted to talk about something that made me happy too.

TLDR

I've been sick and can't confront it. I also got a cool journal.

My first painted model

Late last week I happened upon a DIY project I wanted to finish to show you guys this week, but unfortunately it's taking waaaaay longer than I expected. Seems like that always happens...

Anywho, instead I'd like to show you something else I'm proud of - the first model I ever painted.

I spent most of the day before I painted it fiddling with palette creators, never really happy with what I was coming up with. Finally, I copped out and settled for one of my favorite color schemes: purple, blue and orange (or, if you'd like to get technical: red-violet, blue-violet, and red-orange).

If you're thinking of the three colors as the ones you find in the rainbow, that's a really loud combination, but when they're muted, tinted, and/or desaturated, it can end up looking really interesting.

I was a bit worried about choosing to make her skin blue, since it wasn't too long after a particularly popular movie with scantily clad blue people came out, but I think it works. It's tinted and grayed out enough that she doesn't look like a Na'vi.

I had a lot of help painting it since I was with several other people, but this was really fun to do, and I even got to do a wash and some dry brushing. Even with her base showing some white (whoops!) I'm really proud of this one.

True Beauty

For this week's topic, I'm going to share a story that I wrote.  It's from almost five years ago (though I edited/improved it last year) but I still think that it is one of my best pieces, which is why I'm proud of it.

            He was a beautiful man.  His skin was tanned bronze, his golden hair shone like the sun, and his green eyes were as bright as the ocean at midday.  He was like a young Apollo.

            We met on the bus.  I was on my way to work.  He was going to the hospital.  His brother had leukemia.

            He told me his name was Matt.  I told him mine was Salacia.  It isn’t.  I wanted him to remember me.

            Each Thursday, we shared our morning commute.  We talked for the forty-five minute ride, telling each other anecdotes from our weeks.

            Sometimes he shared cookies with me.  They were from the bakery below his apartment.  They were very crumbly.  They were very good.

            It rained, once.  It was ten steps from my stop to my office.  It was ten minutes from his stop to the hospital.  I gave him my umbrella.

            The next week, he wasn’t there.  An old lady sat in his usual seat.  She smiled when I sat down, and asked if I wanted to see pictures of her grandson.  I said no.

            Where could he be?  Maybe he had moved away.  Maybe he had switched bus routes to avoid the annoying woman with the weird name.  Maybe he had the flu.  Maybe he’d be back next week.

            He wasn’t back the next week.  Or the next.

            I bought a new umbrella.  It was green.

            He was an ugly man.  His skin was pale and sallow, his brown hair hung limply, and his grey eyes were as dark as cobwebs.  He was like a young Hephaestus.

            We met on the bus.  I was on my way to work, fretting already about the day ahead.  So was he.

            He told me his name was Anthony.  I told him mine was Sally.  I didn’t care if he remembered me.

            Every day, we shared our morning commute.  We barely found words to fill the time, but those we spoke were always the most important ones.

            Usually he brought coffee.  I had my own.  It came from the Tim Horton’s on my corner.  It was very hot.  It was very good.

            It rained, once.  From my stop to my office building was a ten step walk.  It was ten more to his.  I walked with him, sharing my umbrella.

            The next day, he was still there.  He sat in his usual seat.  He smiled when I sat down next to him, and asked if I wanted to go out for coffee.  I said yes.

Where would this lead?  Maybe I would gain a coffee buddy.  Maybe we would date.  Maybe it would last a while.

            It lasted the next year.  And the next.

            I bought a new dress.  It was white.

I saw him once, at the café.  I said hello.  He returned the greeting.

His brother had died.  He hadn’t needed the bus anymore.  I sympathized with his loss.  It was a long time ago, now. 

We chatted about the weather, and about the bus.  The bakery had closed.  He made his own cookies now.  They were very crumbly.  They weren’t very good.

He commented on my wedding ring.  I smiled sheepishly.  He showed me his.  I laughed.

There was silence.  His coffee was gone; he paid his bill.  He gave me his business card and said he’d see me around.  He went home.  I never saw him again.

I went home to Anthony.  I wrapped my arms around him, and I cried.  I cried because he was perfect and beautiful.  I cried because I loved him.

proudness

I have no idea what I've created that I'm really proud of. So I'm going to talk about some things I've done that I'm sort of proud of while I think about this.

I have some major fears and anxieties that I have to deal with and go to therapy for. One of them is a fear of heights. But I went on a trip with one of my best friends for her eighteenth birthday present to Six Flags, and her favorite ride was the Bizarro, which is massively high and frightening to me. But I managed to handle my fear and anxiety for her that day and go on it with her. So I'm a little proud of being able to do that with her.

Okay, figured it out. I'm really proud of my weeping angel cosplay from earlier this year. It took ages to make and I did get a lot of help on it because in need help with the sewing process, but painting the costume and carving and painting the wings were some of the processes that I think really helped make the cosplay and I put so much effort into it I'm glad it came out semi-decent for the convention (The wig didn't get enough grey paint on it). While it was basically a one-time deal (tons of face paint gone and a broken harness by the end of the weekend), I learned enough to make it ten times better in the future. I also learned that I really want to make more cosplays from scratch.

I'm know I already posted pictures of it in a post a long time ago, here's another.


At this point in the day my gloves had gotten wrinkly.



So that's what I'm proud of.