Sending April off with a bang!

April has been an otherwise annoying month. Thankfully the end of April is beginning to turn itself around (which still brings high hopes for May, which has some exciting things planned in it). I look forward to seeing what the future has in store.

I'm currently editing a paper in my office. I tidied my desk early (both a form of procrastination, and for my sanity). The paper is significantly better than the previous versions, and I think that that ought to be true, since it was first written by Josh in his second year, long before he had really gotten into his research. Now as a fourth year it seems to be a much more together and focused paper. I'm proud of it.

I got a goldfish plant for the office. Meghan said that she liked it. I really like it, it brings a bit of life to the office, and will make me feel less depressed while working here in the summer. I also brought in a butterfly chair. Granted, it's not as nice as JD's new office chair, it's a real improvement on the current sitting situation in the office. Maybe sometime over the summer I can replace my desk lamp.

Since my last post a lot has actually happened. Some of the highlights include: meeting Jorge Cham of PhD comics, sitting through the first GASP meeting of 2011-2012, booking the first stage of my trip to Colorado, permanently changing my appearance, and spending more time with my fellow classmates (no sign of desirable number one, but i'm pretty sure that that is destined to go nowhere, so i'm glad to at least be seeing more of the others). Sana and I started talking again and I'm glad.

Anyways, back to listening to Parachutes (Coldplay) and editing!

March 2004

Since it was quite so depressing to start at the beginning of my blue journal, I decided that it would be better to start at the end. The book ends on April 2, 2004 (near the end of my grade 11 year). I found a page where I asked a series of questions, and a friend took it upon herself to answer them (her answers are short, and vague).

1. How can you understand death?
2. How would you know if your time has come?
3. What if tomorrow never comes?
4. Is anything a coincidence?
5. What can you do?
6. How would you feel in you knew that for you 1:51 will never come?
7. What can you say?
8. Is there a reason behind everything?
9. Does fate exist?
10. What does God have to do with it?
11. Does romance exist?

I think that this fell at a time where I believed that love was about as real as god, fate, and Santa Claus. If you can't see it, if you can't test it, then who is to say that it exists?

brief updates

because twitter limits my updates, i'm using this page as a makeshift twitter account...

since all my plans got cancelled, i went for coffee with niya instead, and became less focused on this paper. i'm just downloading "game of thrones" so that i can watch it again (maybe i'll understand more if i can actually focus on it, instead of having to watch out for my grandparents as well). i figure that since i have pretty much 75% of my paper done, that it is time to have a little more fun. this time tomorrow night this is all going to be over... sigh.

i started reading my old journal, and thus far have learned 2 things about past me:

1. my writing was slightly loopier, less consistent, angled funny, and in my opinion just plain bad. sure my current writing has its imperfections (sometimes i write "e"s on the end of words without "e"s, and make my "n"s look like "m"s and so forth), but it is pretty tidy.
2. i was pretty depressed, or at the very least reading my half-entries from grade 9 / 10 are depressing.
3. i was obsessed with the idea that music was saving my life... crazy.

determination

i'm working on this paper in sections, and skipping back and forth between them (it takes a lot of work these days to get through a paper). i'm determined however to get this shit done pretty soon. I'm about halfway through it, page-wise. But I really want to see Devon and Konrad tonight (so I am aiming for 10 pages before I go out), and I want to have lunch with Em tomorrow (which means that by the time I go out / go to bed, this paper not only needs to be nearly finished page-wise, but that it needs to be conceptually near done).

when this is all over i want to post some things from my teenage journals (i used to keep paper journals). i'll either type them up or scan pages. since i've been packing / cleaning my parents house, i've come across these wonderful little finds. they're quite great, i was a pretty passionate teenager (which is a stark difference to my apathetic 20s). they'll also highlight reasons for which it is sometimes better to be apathetic and emotionally stable, then wild and out of control. while i miss my days of more reckless spontaneousness (i still feel impulsive, just in a more controlled way), i don't overall miss my teenage years.

screw april forever

i'm super looking forward to this month being over. may is looking better and better by the day! warm weather, biking, photographing, reading papers under the sun, picnics, parties, friends, the usual. i'm now 3 full pages into my 12-15 page paper (yay, 25%... now if only it were going somewhere). given that i am writing it in the middle of the night it is going to need some serious editing tomorrow.... you know, to take out all of the non-sequitors, and to fix the super long run on sentences that are inevitable at 2 am).

time for bed, i'd say.

good night, world.

Little known fact

I can't deal with left justification. All of my writing needs to be justified; it just looks all nice and tidy!

They want to own you but they don't know what game they're playing

Hopefully a short post. I've been home for 2.5 days, and I've really accomplished nothing. I've sort of sorted through some of my stuff in my old bedroom (and found some money from my high school graduation), and spent time helping my grandmother get up and down in our living room. Both of these things are actually a little exhausting, not to mention the fact that I don't know when they'll get here, so I wake up at 10 every morning. Now you may be saying to yourself, 10 am isn't so bad, but it really is when you compulsively stay up until 3 am. There is something about this house that tires me... maybe it's the fact that I haven't taken an iron supplement lately, or dealing with my father pressuring me to pack and having to watch out for my grandmother, all while still trying to recover from a cold and a twisted ankle (insanely, it still hurts a little, and there is still a lump on my foot...).

In case you haven't guessed, I've been listening to the Arcade Fire's the Suburbs a lot. Which makes a little bit of sense while sitting in the suburbs, but the truth is that I have to get back to my real life. I'm certain that a lot is happening in my absence in KW, and I'm going to try to not think about it until Sunday. But somehow between now and then I have to finish this semester, which means buckling down and writing my final paper for Mathieu's class. I just feel so unprepared to write. I really want to be done so that I can spend the time with my friends without feeling bad about it...

More on my non-existent secret second life next time...

An Important Experiment

Between high school and undergrad I was really happy to move to my cottage for the summer, and be free of all of the social obligations that resulted from having the internet. Unfortunately, I lost this battle early as my parents bought me a laptop for graduation, and installed the internet so that my father could work from the cottage. Disappointed as I may have been to lose my excused freedom from the keyboard, I managed it well. I only used the internet after the sun went down, and only when I was alone without a friend in town. Here we are 6 years later, and yet again I find myself wanting the same things. So I cancelled my internet for the summer... and maybe longer. To be fair the stakes have changed since I was 17. For one, I'm paying for my own internet, for another I have an office with unlimited internet at my disposal all day (I also have to impose a rule on myself to leave the office at a reasonable hour and enjoy all that the summer has to offer), and lastly, I have a phone with a great dataplan that can save me in times of need (sometimes you just need to look something up quickly). To be clear, I'm not cutting myself off, I'm just using moderation.

Giving up the internet means gaining more time, and with more time comes great responsibility (to not waste it elsewhere). As a result, I have decided to make a list of new season's resolutions.

1. Read more (fiction and non-fiction)
2. Write more (fiction and non-fiction)
3. Bike more, explore more
4. Photograph more
5. Swim more
6. Cook more (I want to try a new recipe every day, and why not? I will allow days to be skipped if instead of coming home to cook, I spend time out with others)
7. Commit more (I said I would join the basketball team, and the dodgeball team... now if it would just happen)
8. Socialize more (visit people more)

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it!

In the suburbs i learned to drive and you told me we'd never survive

Well... I survived. Now if I only I could make it through to the end of this paper. The end is in sight, I just have to figure out what it is... seriously, how do I wrap this up? What is the answer?