peectures

 always jumping

goodbye sweet summer

 home.

mack

ruler of all
he who lies in wonder
the earth, the sky, my heart, his home
never pausing with doubt, never starting with fear
his family, my family
my brother, my boo

don't do this...

1. Date a boy who owns a cat.
if he happens to live in a house that is co-habitated by a cat then that's okay.
I don't see the need to explain this one, cats are bitches. and no one wants to date a bitch.

delish!

2. Order pasta on a first date
or sushi (even though it's extremely tasty and highly addictive), especially if you can't use chopsticks.
pasta and sushi are not eaten in a sexual way and you will spend the majority of your date starring at the plate, awkwardly trying to consume your food, hoping you don't have sauce on your face and praying you don't choke on rice.
Tapas bars are the best choice, sharing and conversation friendly!



3. This should be a given, but don't date someone who smokes.
unless you smoke, in which case spread the lung cancer love (to each other, I don't want none of that shiz)

4. Movie theatre for a first date.
unless it's a marathon of your favourite director and he brought all your fav treats.
because that's just too cute to reject.
but movies=no talking and awkward avoidance of touching.

5. Buy pantyhose is a size you THINK you are
if at no other time, be honest with yourself on this one.
you're just going to feel fatter with that unforgiving waistband separating your midsection into "muffin" and "top"






6. Leave birth control to chance
no glove? no love
unless you're trying to have a baby, in that case do the opposite.

addiction

food
nicotine
aspartame

Lately it seems like I've been discussing addictions a lot.
I interviewed a girl yesterday for the school paper who won a thousand dollars for having quit smoking.
Where's the thousand dollars for people who stop over eating?
Or drugs?

Addiction is a tough thing to fight, and it's a personal fight.
You're alone with your addiction in your own mind.
It's not just a test of physical strength, you have to be so set in your will to conquer it to be able to stop.

Then once you do, your addiction takes it's toll on your body.

Having never been addicted to a drug or substance I'm not sure how easy or difficult it is to find help.
Or support.
It would seem that if you're an addict to a drug or substance that you would be surrounded by people who are also addicted.
How do you get support to quit from other addicts?
I know my brother has had a tough time quitting smoking, and while he has support on the home front, he also has his posse of cigarette encrusted friends.

So when you're addicted, you might be able to walk away from the drug, but can you walk away from your friends?

tick tock

For me, school is great.
I love it, I really do. I've always had a yearning for knowledge, though I didn't really enjoy the conventional methods of learning.

I always thought I knew what I wanted to do.
Fashion.
From grade 6 to grade 12 I was going into fashion.
Everyone knew me as the girl who drew clothes.
But never the fashionista. I've always preferred hoodies and jeans to anything risque.
I'm sure a shrink would love to dissect that as an attempt to blend in and not be noticed, but we can dive into the self-esteem issues later.

But when it came time to apply to Ryerson (my dream) I froze.
I didn't have a portfolio.
I didn't even know how to sew.
One sewing course, an ugly pair of pajama pants and an unfinished skirt later and I knew my way around a pattern at least.

It was enough to make me realize that perhaps it was time to find a different dream.
So there I was.
About to graduate and no career choice.
Because that's what it's all about right?!
Our whole existence here in North America is to go to school so you can get a job, which you will work at 5 days a week until you retire on a measly pension to survive on until you die.
Awesome.

So babies about to graduate into that wild and wonderful world of adulthood,
what will you choose?

photog blog

no man is an island

3 days.

That’s all it took for me to decide to go to another country.

I’m a procrastinator so all it took for me to pack was just shy of 24 hours.

In a few short hours a country had lost everything.

Getting off the airplane, breathing in the wet, heavy air and following the shuffling, nervously excited crowd through the open-air airport, none of the images I had seen streaming on TVs came to mind.The press conference held by the Govenor General of Canada that I listened to and cried to wasn’t registering.

A few short hours away from where I planned to be vacationing and frolicking on a beach was a country full of desperation and despair.

A few short hours away from the airport sat the border between Dominican Republic and Haiti.

How could one side of an island be flattened, while the other still stood?

Throughout the week there were often times when the reality of where we were would hit us.

Strangely enough it would come at the same time.

A group of young adults, our lives still full of potential and advantages we largely aren’t aware of.

Laughing about what had happened the night before while replenishing our hydration levels with the free beverages supplied to us.

Then there would be a lull in conversation.

Eyes would drift to the ocean and the mountain range we could see across the bay and someone would mention it.

No one ever had a response beyond a nod or a murmur of some kind.

It was more someone using their voice for all our thoughts.

Our resort sat right in the small town of Sosua and it was easy to wander the streets and experience real Dominican life.

In the streets shop owners, women offering hair braiding, manicures and pedicures would call to us.

Sometimes we would stop and talk to them and we heard some of their stories.

Many of them were Haitian.

We were broke.

Our trip was funded by my mother.

We knew when we got home we would have to face bills that we had no income to pay for.

But we still had a home to return to.

silence

there are two main places i've noticed where it seems customary for people to avoid talking.

the elevator

and the train station.

somehow the train station is always noisy, but it never seems like anyone is talking to each other. especially once you've gotten off the train and are shuffling towards the stairs. everyone is so caught up in their own escape route that you wouldn't notice if your highschool crush was the guy awkwardly trying not to bump into you.

it's not so much that elevators are free of chit chat, but conversations between friends or coworkers always seem to die out almost instantly after those doors hiss shut.

almost like you feel as if you might shatter the silent sanctuary of the elevator ride. or ruin someone's enjoyment of the award winning elevator music.

I can't think of much of a reason for the lack of chatter, so let's talk

how to effectively waste time online

So,

As a first time blogger I'd like to start off by asking you to be gentle with me.

I might look like an avid blogger, but I swear this is my first time.

Some websites I'd like to make you aware of, in case you haven't made them a part of your life yet...

First one I usually check is www.fmylife.com

We all have moments, or days (or weeks) that just don't go the way we would like. Here's how to let the world know how bad your day was.

This is a website filled with posts from people who have experienced an unfortunate event in their lives, which in turn makes me feel better about my own life.

Some of the posts are lame and the person's own fault, but overall it's still very entertaining and time consuming.

On the flipside is www.mylifeisaverage.com.

The lighter side of life.

The people who post on this site experience some of the same things as their FML compadres, only they don't consider it the end of the world.

Warning: they are die hard Harry Potter fans and do not like Twilight. At all.

For anyone who's ever worried about what they might have sent on their phones before deleting their outboxes after a night out on the town, then check out www.textsfromlastnight.com for a glimpse into what you might have sent.

Filled with random texts that are hilarious, embarassing and somehow familiar, always a good source for a laugh or a cringe.

Sunday morning hangovers have never had it better than www.postsecret.com

Every sunday secrets from the book series Post Secret are posted on the website along with videos made by the book's producers.

New posts only happen on Sundays so you have to wait to get your secret fix.

For music lovers sick of their playlists there's www.wearehunted.com

Uber easy to use and find new bands you may not have heard of. The music collection is chosen by taking what people are talking about on various online forums (Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc). You can listen to songs by the artists and download (for a fee) directly from the site.

Post one over and out.