Resolutions: 2011

Happy New Year!

To start, some words of wisdom from Frankie (excerpt of "My Way" as sung by Frank Sinatra):

"Regrets? I've had a few - but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway, and more, much more than this, I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew, but through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out, I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried; I've had my fill, my share of losing, and now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing to think I did all that and may I say, not in a shy way; "Oh no, oh no, not me, I did it my way.""

Now for the infamous New Years Resolutions; I do these every year, but always break them. This year, will not be different except for this year, I have told the world here.... still going to break them though. That's a given.

My Resolutions for 2011:

1. Sleep more
2. Facebook less - deactivated facebook account at 1 am January 1, 2011. I am wondering if my ipod will reactivate it when I turn it on. Note to self: delete fb app.
3. Clean (and keep clean) bedroom.
4. Watch less TV/movies - watched very little all of December.
5. Gym more.
6. Candy less.
7. Use debit card more and keep track of balance.
8. Use credit card less/not at all/chop that sucka in half.
9. Visit the Mendel often enough to see the new flowers each month in the observatory (aka go once a month at least).
10. Read more books; this will be helped by resolution #2 - facebook less.
11. Be smarter about love and relationships.
12. Graduate - this year, I am fairly confident I can and will achieve this.
13. Get a sweet job.
14. Move out of my parent's basement (and move up to main floor :P just kidding).
15. Continue streak of being awesome!

Alright, here we go with that. To start, I should go to bed soon. Ok, done.

Happy New Year everyone - I hope you were able to ring it in with those you love and cherish around you :) May this year be the best one yet!

School started and I got lazy here

...I've been neglecting this.

What's new?

Back in school now; busy.

Full-on midterm mode right now.

"...when the world keeps spinning 'round,

My world's upside down,

and I wouldn't change a thing.."

So Intuitive...

These horribly lit photos are of my favourite creature on the planet - one of my parent's pet cats, Kiko (incredibly photogenic, isn't she?).

When I finally grow up and move out on my own, I one day hope to have a cat just like her.
Like I've told her before: Kiko, I quite easily love you more than I could love any child ever.

Watch this video, especially the graph about "how attractive the girl is vs. how long I'm willing to listen to how intuitive her cat is" - that's me!

Dirty Little Secret

This song, at the end of Transformers II: Revenge of the Fallen, makes me cry.

Been a long time coming...

Technically, it is the first day of school...

First class of the 2010-2011 School year in ~8 hours from now - Pavement Design :)

Parking pass: check.

Textbooks: check.

Grad check: must get that done still...

Feeling poor? Yep.

...BUT hey - IT'S MY FINAL YEAR!

Nostalgic Playlist

As a kid there were certain songs, by artists that my parents liked, that I could listen to over and over and over again. Now, these songs draw up feelings of intense nostalgia and memories of childhood. (All are linked to youtube videos.)

"She Drives Me Crazy" - the Fine Young Cannibals

"The Red Strokes" - Garth Brooks

"I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" & "I'm Still Standing" - Elton John

"Down to my Last Teardrop" - Tanya Tucker

"Everytime I See Her" - Dave Edmunds
"The Ghosts That Haunt Me" - Crash Test Dummies

"Wouldn't it Be Nice" - the Beach Boys (or any song by them off the one cassette tape that my older sister had when she first got a Walkman... that tape got a lot of air time :P)

Mom & Dad had video tapes where they'd recorded the music videos of favourite songs and in the evenings, my sisters and I would request the ones we liked the best. Dad would fast-forward to demanded song (and often rewind it again because we'd call for an encore)!

Then, in mine and my sister's adolescence, there was the HitList and we'd watch that every weekend with my Mom. We'd tape the videos we liked so we could listen and watch them over and over again (I think we might even have a couple of the tapes lying around still :S).

"As Long as You Love Me" - the Backstreet Boys

"Misery" - the Moffatts

The 10 songs listed are only a small amount of the ones that strike up those memories of the past - these are the ones that came to mind first when I began to think of songs for my youth (I left Spice Girls off, but they were implied :P).

...look for the stars as the sun goes down...

"Today was a fairytale

Time slows down whenever you're around
But can you feel this magic in the air?"

Do you remember all the city lights on the water?

"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go. "

- e. e. cummings

...and then, Taylor Swift's "Mine", because it's stuck in my head:

http://www.directlyrics.com/taylor-swift--mine-new-song-news.html

What can I say? I'm just a "home-wrecker"...

Yesterday I broke the basement shower at Kelly's; when I went to adjust the shower head so it pointed away from my legs, so that I could shave them without the shave foam being washed away, the shower head snapped off! I learnt later on in the day that the shower was apparently previously broken...

BUT now it's all fixed! Went to Walmart and got a shiny new shower head - it's the very least I could do to say "Thank-you" to Kelly and her family for their extreme hospitality; they're so amazing and I could not ask for a better home away from home / second family!

Today is the Annual Vetcetera Dog Wash that Kelly helped to organize. I'll be joining her there in a little bit, but for now it's back to writing the rest of my postcards!

Greetings from the East Coast!

Yesterday (Aug. 19th/10) was a shopping day. Kelly and I went to Halifax Shopping Centre, MicMac Mall, Dartmouth Crossing, Sunnyside Mall, and even a Walmart (we needed velcro...).

Aside: Yesterday was also the 2nd Wedding Anniversary of my older sister, Amy, and her husband, Landon, so, Happy Anniversary to them! It was my father's 50th birthday as well!

At the Halifax Shopping Centre we went to RW&Co. and found some really nice clothing. At MicMac, we visited the new Bath & Body Works, which had its grand opening just last week. It's the first one on the East Coast, so it was fairly busy but we still came away with plenty. We also went to the Toys 'R' Us to price out a diaper disposal system to use for the poop bags of the cat & kittens that Kelly and her family are fostering. After MicMac, we went to a Chapters in the hopes of finding a cookie cookbook that I own and Kelly wanted a copy of as her birthday gift; they didn't have it, but we looked it up in the computer system and the Indigo at Sunnyside had a copy. We then went to the Costco at Dartmouth Crossing, in search of clothing. After that, we headed over to a Walmart, looking for velcro so that Kelly could finish the display boards she's been working on. Last, but not least, we went and found that cookbook.

Upon returning back at the house, I set to work defacing the cookbook. I brought my own copy with me and transferred all the little notes and marked out the same pages that I had flagged.

After supper, Kelly and I went to see her friend, Inge, who also fosters animals. Inge had recently gotten a miniature weiner dog, which by the end of the visit was named "Winnie"... Ah yes, Winnie the Weinie. Tee hee.
Inge fosters really young animals - puppies and kittens so tiny that their eyes aren't open even when they first arrive! She cares for these animals until they are old enough to be adopted and then finds them suitable homes :)

All in all, it was a fairly eventful day.

Plans for today? Take Kelly for blood work, possibly visit the harbour front (YAY!), and hopefully go shoe shopping! We're also going to drop off one of her display boards at the office she works at.

Talk to you later!

Hello from Nova Scotia!

Excerpts from my journal from yesterday's travels (written with same abbreviations as in the journal):

Aug 18th/10

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Thru security + boarded up w/o a hitch. Was in the security line behind a family w/ the biggest stroller known to man. Saw a girl in the absolute skinniest of skinny-jeans and she really had no business in them... plus, her fly was down. Seriously debated alerting her to this but decided against it because others would have heard and she looked capable of eating my soul.

Aside: What might a soul taste like?
"Chicken" seems only appropriate on a coward...

Am on board now. Going to enjoy my window seat + takeoff, then watch "the Green Zone" I think.

In the T-dot

Watched "Date Night" instead; enjoyed that. Have realized that the TV offerings on the entertainment system are lacking this time around. I think I'll watch "Shrek 4" on the Toronto-Halifax flight.

My flight from Saskatoon was full of children:

• Babies, who were awesome and well-behaved;
• Toddlers, who ran amok, escaped their parents, and had to use the washroom every 10 minutes;
• Children (extra annoying), one of which decided the flight was a good place for their musical debut and sang/screamed "Oh Canada!" for the majority of the trip, and
• (A group of) teenagers wearing matching homemade tie-dyed t-shirts saying "Team Jesus"; at first, I thought this was a sure sign that the plane would be safe, but as my friend pointed out, "perhaps they were just making it easier to differentiate who to save". :S

I hate those toilets all the airports have now - the ones that flush themselves. They never flush when you actually need/want them to, only when you're still sitting on them or not at all, and I wish people would learn to push the override flush button when that happens!

Going to attempt a nap now because I've got ~30 minutes before boarding starts.

Today's plan is to get most of our planned shopping out of the way. Kelly's getting ready to go, while I blog about yesterday. Not entirely sure where we'll go but it's going to be a fun day no matter what :)

Aside: Can you imagine if a Tyrannosaurus Rex had had to shave its legs?
That'd have been ridiculous; those short short arms...

...so kiss me and smile for me...

I should really be working on packing up my suitcase, but it's Tuesday now and that means new releases on iTunes; new free tracks! The free French music track for this week leaves me wondering why they keep being rap songs. I like listening to music in French, but am not a fan of rap, so I'm torn about this.

In approximately 36 hours I'll be 2 hours into my 3 hour flight to Toronto :)

My Elevator Story

One of the funniest things to ever happen to me at school occurred in an elevator...

Get your mind out of the gutter.

I was in an elevator in the Spinks building with my friend, Tammy, when a caretaker boarded the elevator as well. Suddenly, I developed a case of hiccups. The caretaker looked at me and said:

"got the hiccups?"

"uh-*hiccup*-huh" I answered.

Then there was silence for a few seconds. The caretaker turns to me again, and screams:

"DOES SCARING YOU HELP??!!"

My initial reaction was "oh my god, why is this man screaming? Why is this man screaming AT ME?" and then I realized what he was doing, and then realized my hiccups were gone.

"It did. Thank you" I replied.

She hasn't always been this way

I really hate packing for trips, so I am currently procrastinating on that. I have finally gotten my suitcase out and spent the evening lazily grabbing clothing and heaping it on the suitcase. Eventually, I will fold them - that is the goal before sleep... well, that, and find some place that is NOT my bed to keep my suitcase on; either that, or I'll sleep on the floor... *shakes head*

Don't get me wrong - I'm SUPER FREAKIN' EXCITED to go to Halifax on Wednesday, and to spend a day flying (I love flying (takeoffs and landings? *SWOON* this is also my first ever time flying on a confirmed ticket (since my dad's a pilot, it's always been standby before this)) and I love spending time in airports like Toronto, so that will be awesome as well). Oh wow, is next week ever going to be amazing :). I'm so happy to get to see my friend, Kelly, and to spend a week hanging out with her!

Kelly and I met in our grade 10 year in English class. We immediately bonded over our fathers being Air Canada employees and having been moved around the country. Turns out we'd originally both started school in BC and knew many of the same people. The kids I went to kindergarten with? She went to middle school with them! SMALL WORLD, eh?

After grade 10, my family moved back to Saskatchewan, while Kelly and her family are in Nova Scotia still. So once a year or so, we try to visit one another!

We've got big plans for next week - and by "big plans", I mean a shopping trip mainly... and sleeping. Ooooh am I ever hoping to catch up on sleep! :)

I'm also pretty impressed with my idea for souvenirs: get mailing addresses and send postcards while there! So I am currently collecting mailing addresses of friends and family so I can write them while on vacation :). I'll make sure to keep my journal too so I can blog my entries when I get back.

For now, I should get back to packing :)

P.S. I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this afternoon and it is fantastic! As someone who has never seen or heard of anything to do with that beforehand, it was still very funny and really enjoyable :)

keep our memories warm

I won't mistake you for problems with me
I won't let my moods ruin this you'll see
I won't take everything good and move it away
I won't be left dancing along to songs from the past
Would you stay home and keep our memories warm with me
Would you give all your love for a run at the past with me
I know you're sad even though you say that you're not
I know you're scared even though you say that you're not
I won't get mad when you say things are getting too hard
I won't make all of your love so scared to come through our yard
I won't scream in my head and let it isolate me
I won't be left dancing alone to songs from the past




Random aside: I rabidly love watermelon.