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.