shards on the tile, shards of my mind

is the glass half empty, or is it half full? because i find my glass has shattered on the tile, and i can see myself reflected in every tiny piece. here lies my eye, here my lip. here an ear and there an arm. no piece reflecting all, but each taking some small portion and throwing it back disconnected from the whole. do i mend it? or do i discard it? is it even worth thinking about, or should i just walk away and leave the shards lying where they fell, reflecting pieces of what they see? if i step forward or if i step back, my blood smears the tiles as the broken glass mercilessly jabs my feet; but if i stand unmoving, my reflection mocks me without remorse, all the tiny pieces jumbled together into a crude representation, not truly myself.

outside i see the trees. all the leaves are gone, vanished into some cruel fancy of the wind, or clustered on the ground in pathetic heaps. the sky hints of snow. the air is icy, and i shiver at the thought of going out.

if i had my way, i would isolate myself from everything and everyone, to go hide in some dark secluded hole, where no-one can find me. i would have no reminders of things left undone, of words left unsaid, of changes left unmade. i would see no shadows of things i could have done, should have done, ought to have done differently. and for once the snide and ruthless audience that resides in my head, and lives to tell me what i did wrong, will have silence instead of critiques. oh, to hear a void in my mind, rather than the opera-house full of mockery and ridicule, that would be glorious indeed.

my eyes sting with half-conceived tears, and a dull ache has settled in my heart. my emotions have tied themselves in a knot in the middle of my chest and will not come undone, no matter how or which way i tug, and the end will not show itself.

so is the glass half empty? or is it half full? or perhaps it is shattered.

A riddle.

One if the riddles of my existence is the fact that I judge other people based on my own judgments of myself.

Sometimes when I'm with a friend, and I'm having fun, I would be perfectly happy to hang out with them all day. But when I think about how they are feeling, I assume that they are totally sick of being around me, that they want me to leave them alone, and that I am being a total nuisance.

I then spiral into a black and self-hating hole, where I assume that since my friend, as I assumed, doesn't want me around, then I am a horrible person, and therefore the world hates me and therefore I should also hate me, and if the world hates me, then my friend does too, and therefore I am an even worse person for inflicting myself on them, so then I hate myself even more.

And this happens even when I know the person really well.

I try not to let myself go into that sad little spiral, but sometimes, no matter how careful I am, I still slip up and fall in.

It's not fun.

what i have learned.

you failed
the cry rang out across the hills
the world screamed out the words
you failed
and still my heart pounds louder than a drum
my ears have strained to hear
you failed
reverberates again
another shout, just those two words
you failed
no promise of later gain
no oath or pledge that i will pass the test
you failed

and a small quiet whisper in the back of my mind
insists to me
you failed, well done
you gave it your all
i asked no more,
you heeded the call
you failed
and i'm proud

now do it again.

it's a sea

oceans of words
ebb and flow with the tide
of emotions in my soul

many words are not enough
and a single word too much
to articulate my meaning

i want to say more
i'm afraid to say more
waves of words bowl me over

and you are the cliff
against which my oceans crash
but i don't want to overwhelm you

please don't crumble or give way
just because of me
even if i want you to

because the oceans are fierce
rioting waves and flat calms
unceasing change

oceans of words
ebbing and flowing
look out before you jump in

SQUEEEEEE!!

... as you can see, i am all full of fangirl squeals and geeking-out grins.

because *I* got to take some photos of the *EUREKA* series finale which they are filming in my town today - and not only photos OF, but photos WITH.

oh happy day :)

ten cent lies

when all is said and done
which is more important,
what is said?
or what is done?

all the words in the world
can't cover up an action

and words are so cheap
what price can you put on a yes
or a no?
a lie is easy
and practically worthless
ten cents each on a street corner

even honesty can be a lie
when it is belied
by action

and when you say what you mean
is that really who you are?
or is it what you do
that tells the world
what kind of person you are inside?

ten cents for a lie -
how much do you want for the truth?

oh yes. i can cook.

garlic paste

fresh basil paste

olive oil

dried oregano

dried basil

dried dill

salt

pepper

lemon juice

tilapia.












frozen veggie mix.


















yellow bell pepper

mushrooms

avocado

spring mix.





















orange juice concentrate

butter

cinnamon

nutmeg

frozen blueberries

ice cream

hand-whipped cream.

these are the results.

i tasted the fruits of my labour - and they were good.

i lied.

... i mean, i didn't REALLY lie, just changed my statement.

um.

what i mean is, i switched one of my courses - now i only have to go back and forth to abbotsford once a week:

Mon - Web Publishing - 8.30-11.20 - Abbotsford
Tues - System Hardware Concepts - 10.45-2.25 - Abbotsford
Wed - Principles of Computing - 10.00-12.50 - Chilliwack; Intro to Programming - 2.30-6.10 - Chilliwack

same courses, different schedule - and my mom says i can sleep over on monday nights at their house.
yay!

i was very lucky, actually - there was one seat left in the tuesday class. i SO ninja'd my way in there. hah.

okay. back to bed for me. night all!

exciting times.

so. i have registered for classes.
oi.
i'm half really excited and half freaking out. kind of like when i got my tattoo, but less painful and more expensive.

my schedule is gonna look like so:

Mon - Web Publishing - 8.30-11.20 - Abbotsford
Wed - Principles of Computing - 10.00-12.50 - Chilliwack; Intro to Programming - 2.30-6.10 - Chilliwack
Thurs - System Hardware Concepts - 1.00-4.40 - Abbotsford

now i have to buy my textbooks, and make sure my student loans will go through, and apply for scholarships and bursaries, and stuff.

oh boy.

never fear! i've returned!

so i got asked recently why i haven't blogged in a while. "had i run out of things to say?"

no, but i have a great excuse!

my lappy, my lovely christmas lappy that my dad put together for me, decided, suddenly, that life was not worth living any more, and shuffled off its mortal coil, ran down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! it became an ex-laptop! ... er. i mean ... the motherboard died.

so i purchased this:

it's a thinkpad t61p, and it's fantastic. yes, used. can't afford new. but it works great anyways.

unfortunately, ubuntu won't recognise the built-in webcam, nor does it currently recognise the ever so cool fingerprint reader - though i think there may be some software for it; i'm looking into that as we speak. if it doesn't work, well, it's really kind of non-essential, but it would be neat if it did work.

ah well. the small things we sacrifice for a slice of natty narwhal awesome.

in other news, i'm starting school for reals in september - i'm taking the CIS (computer information systems) diploma. heh. computers.

anyhow. that's all i got for now - but i'll be back! and in larger numbers! ... never mind.

edit: my bad, thinkpads don't have built in webcams. whoops.

frustration: a protest in silence.

click the photo to see it bigger.

pretty pretty please....

so i'm going to do something i have never done on my blog before:

i'm going to post a youtube.

reason being, i saw this video when i was watching tv with my roomie. it's a music video by someone i've frequently heard of, but never really listened to. the first time i saw it, it made me cry. which is unusual, for me. i don't generally cry during music videos. movies, yes, absolutely. Passion of the Christ, anyone? actually bawled my eyes out during THAT one. but i'm digressing. i just love the message in this song. it's something more people need to hear. so. without further ado:




...

i cried at the end [not where i would have expected given the content of the rest of the video], at the very last chorus when you see her daughter in the bed.

anyways.

what's YOUR reaction?
what did this make you think of?

3/14 ...

march 14th is Pi Day! go eat piiiiiiiie.
[i'm such a geek.]

so i did the thirty day challenge - successfully, i might add, all 30 in a row with only one or two late posts. but now i don't know what to do with myself.
i have no poems floating around in my head at the moment.
i have no awesome photos to share.
and nothing super-duper interesting has happened lately.
besides the two random customers (both guys - coincidence? mmm probably not.) that have given me their phone numbers. THAT'S slightly disturbing. particularly as one of them is - well - probably as old as my dad. and i likely WON'T be calling him. he's a customer. that alone makes it weird. ah well.

the thing is, most of my day is centered around SLEEP. i spend all day sleeping, and all night working. my evening is mostly cooking.
so there's not much to tell, mostly.
i have the odd moment - like the day my coworker went to the drivethru window and informed the waiting customer that he had just finished devouring a soul, and that it tasted like lemon - but mostly my life is sleep.

speaking of which - it's approximately bedtime.
also - i must go shopping soon. maybe tomorrow. the pantry's looking bare.

haHA. i laugh in your faces.

sillies!

... let me back up and explain.

my bike got a flat in the back tire. so today i had to fix it, otherwise i can't go to work. or - well - i can, but it'll either take me an hour's walk, or it'll cost me $15. since i'm cheap and i don't want to spend an hour on my feet, i'd rather fix my bike. so i went and bought a new inner tube, fetched the necessary tools, and removed to the parking area under our building where i keep my bike, whence i proceeded to remove the back wheel. you know. basic tire-changing stuff.

so i have the wheel and tire laid out and i'm just going through the tire with my fingers to find any puncturing culprits [which in this case was a blackberry thorn - gah. those things are murder!!], and along come two or three guys - in their mid? twenties? ish? - slightly older than me, anyways - and they're all giving me weird looks. one of them asks me if i need help. i'm all, "no thanks i got this :)" so they carry on heading for their car.
but it was so funny, i could see the phrase, "she's a girl! does she know what she's doing?" going through all of their heads.

but my tire is back on, the inner tube is properly filled, the chain is around the gear correctly, and i even straightened a wobble in the rim to top it off.

take that, male-gender-types who doubt the ability of female-gender-types to do dirty work. haHA. i laugh in your Hairy Faces.

[... please note that i do NOT laugh in the faces of the male-gender-types who Cheer For the female-gender-types who Do Stuff. you male-gender-cheering-types are okay. even if your faces DO grow hair.]

end of blog for today. must sleep.

some girly eyecandy

so i was watching tv yesterday...
and sort of accidentally caught the last half of a couple shows. one of which was hairspray, but that's not the eyecandy i'm talking about.
what i AM talking about was a movie called Life as a House, and a Doctor Who episode called Midnight.

hayden christensen. in Life as a House. with piercings. and black hair. oh my. so pretty. and then he took the piercings out in the movie. i was all, nooooo! put them back!! TT_TT but movie people like to pretend that people take out piercings when they get all happy and stuff. oh well. silly movie people.
and then...

colin morgan. in Midnight. with black nail polish. and skinny jeans. and leather cuffs. and a skull chain on his pants. mmmm. so beautiful. but then again, colin morgan is just beautiful in general. i mean, anyone seen him as Merlin? ogosh. and then there's the british accent. *sigh*

anyways. that's all i wanted to tell you. toodles. i'm off to drool some more.

day 30 - movies you can watch again and again

1. Serenity
2. Amelie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain)
3. Pride & Prejudice
4. Princess Bride
5. X-Men (any of them)
6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
7. Iron Monkey
8. Pirates of the Caribbean (any of them)
9. Lord of the Rings (any of them, as long as they're the Extended Edition)
10. Tarzan (Disney version)
11. Atlantis
12. Prince of Egypt
13. Lion King
14. Star Trek (the new one)
15. I'm Not There
16. Beauty and the Beast
17. 10 Things I Hate About You
18. Harry Potter (any of them, with the possible exception of Half-Blood Prince - that one sucked bad in some spots.)
19. Sense & Sensibility
20. Shrek

and thus ends the 30 day blogging challenge. whatever will i do now?

day 29 - favorite tv shows and why you like them

ooookay. this one's EASY.

1. Castle.

reasons i like it: a) nathan fillion. b) cop show. c) awesome characters and great tension between castle and beckett. love it. but i'm still anxiously waiting for castle to ask beckett out.

2. Eureka.

reasons i like it: a) sci-fi. b) general oddballness. c) awesome characters and some tension in this one too, between carter and allison. love this one as well.

3. Firefly.

does this one even need me to list the reasons i love it? really? any browncoat should know why firefly is lovable. so i'm not even going to go into it.

4. NCIS.

reasons i like it: a) abby sciuto. b) cop show. c) awesome characters. and really, tony, you're perfectly happy to hook mcgee up with some girl, but yet you haven't asked ziva out once. doesn't make sense.

day 28- cruise a thesaurus and pick out 10 words you like the sound of

mmmm - words! my favourite!

1. proleptical 
2. maverick 
3. concordance 
4. bisulcated 
5. protuberance 
6. acrimony 
7. occlude 
8. adumbrate 
9. malkin 
10. recondite

day 27- my day job versus my passion

day job: graveyard storefront & production at Tim Horton's. so technically not a "day" job :P

passion: music, painting, drawing, sewing, designing, knitting, researching, finding out geeky details.

gee. not very similar, are they.

day 26- list 10 things that you are thankful for

1. vitamin C & handkerchiefs (why yes, i do have a cold, how ever did you guess?)
2. night off work on friday, so i get to go see my mama in her play
3. turkish delight is going to be sold at the play's concession (why yes, mama's play is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, how ever did you guess?)
4. own apartment, own kitchen, own kitchen sink to keep shiny (thank you FLYlady for that one)
5. the clouds that enabled me to get some sleep today
6. my grandma, who decided that i needed a ride to work last night and then a ride home from work this morning.
7. payday is this week
8. my guitar
9. the snow is nearly non-existent, so i can actually ride my bike to work
10. my friends and my family

day 25- what I would find in your bag

this depends on which bag.

if by bag, you mean the backpack i take to work every night, then you would find:

• uniform, consisting of
• pants
• belt
• visor
• shirt
• apron
• non-slip shoes
• wallet
• phone
• knitting
• hairbands
• change from tips
• notepad and pen.

if, however, you mean the purse that i now very infrequently use, that contains:

• deodorant
• guitar picks
• wallet
• phone
• keys
• miscellaneous junk, including, but not limited to:
• safety pins
• erasers
• tampons
• bullet (yes, i have one real actual bullet and somehow it ended up in my purse.)
• button
• focus on the family fridge magnet
• squashed jones soda lid
• ticket to a bruins game from last sunday that i didn't need because i was part of a booth
• sharpie
• tiny picture of me that ellie drew
• dog collar
• eyeliner
• mascara
• eyeshadow
• burt's bees lip balm

.... yeah. it's time to clean out my purse. maybe.

day 24- post your favorite quote or verse of scripture and why

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill: you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

and why do i like this quote?
i'm not sure. i think it may be the invitation to experience reality. to leave the world you thought you knew but were starting to doubt, and find out the truth. plus i like the reference to alice in wonderland. heh.

day 23- something you crave a lot

day 22- what makes you different from everyone else

oh my.
different.
well.

• i sing random songs at random times at work
• i knit (which for my age group is not too common - i actually had some friends laugh at me because they brought me along to a bar, and i brought my knitting along to the bar too)
• i like to make bread from scratch - i made another batch this morning at about 3am, and it's turned out better than the first batch did, so i'm reasonably happy about that.
• i live at night and sleep during the day - that's different from most people :P
• i remember stuff. really well.

the thing is, there are probably people out there who match some of these, maybe there's even someone who is the same, point for point. so i'm not different from EVERYONE else. but you take these and all the other things that make me ME, and you have a unique person, but i don't have the time or the brainpower to list EVERYTHING about myself, because i would have to do that in order to show exactly how i'm different from everyone else.
oh well.
this will do.

day 21-a picture of something that makes you happy

 

the things in this picture that make me happy:

my camera

and photo editing.

day 20- write a letter to someone

[please nobody get offended at the beginning, kay? keep reading to the end before you judge me.]

dear beloved tim hortons customers:
i would like to say thank you for contributing towards my paycheque. it's much appreciated. because of you, i can pay rent and eat food.
however. i would like to make note of a few things.
first of all, it's an everything bagel. herb & garlic is a cream cheese. let's not get them mixed up, okay? because when you ask for a herb & garlic bagel, we kind of get confused, since you can put herb & garlic on pretty much any kind of bagel you want.
speaking of which: i do not understand cinnamon raisin bagels with herb & garlic on them.
secondly, you can ask for a double double all you want, but we still need to know what size it is.
third: no, we can't take your [insert name of disposable item here] through the drive-thru window. there's a garbage can just before the speaker box for a reason.
also, if you're in the drive-thru and we ask you to wait a moment at the speaker box til we can take your order, that is not the cue to tell us you want an extra-large french vanilla and a regular ham-and-swiss on white, toasted, extra ranch, no tomato, and a box of twenty timbits, half sour cream glazed, half honey cruller. because we can't take that order.
and if we ask you to speak up when you're in the drive-thru lane, it's because we can't hear you, not because we're stupid.
lastly, the vanilla dip has a name.
 
BUT.

if i didn't enjoy serving you your four-by-fours and boston creams, your sausage breakfast sandwiches and your ice capps, i wouldn't still be doing it. yes, sometimes you frustrate me. yes, sometimes you irritate me. but sometimes you bring a smile to my face.
and i honestly enjoy hearing the order "two large double doubles, extra-large triple triple, extra-large double double, and a sesame bagel toasted with herb & garlic," every morning at 2.30-3ish, and being able to say, "you know your total, please pull up to the window!"
some of you only turn up once in a while, some of you are regulars. some of you order exactly the same thing every time, some of you like to switch it up. it doesn't matter. i still like you. you're all awesome people.
so thank you, tim hortons customers.
please keep coming back.
just get your order right, kay?

day 19- write about a sweet memory from your past

so i was racking my brains and couldn't think of anything. but then i was snacking this afternoon and thought, hang on! how about a literally "sweet" memory?

it was when i was in maputo, mozambique.
we were at the iris ministries orphanage.
and one night we all gathered in this covered area, i don't even remember if there was a name for this place, or where it was in the layout of the orphanage, but there we were, a handful of white people in amongst a ton of african kids, watching The Lion King. and the kids were handing us pieces of sugarcane to chew while we watched the movie in the dark.

and the reason this memory came to mind? stupidstore - er, superstore - was selling pieces of sugarcane about 3ft long the last time i went grocery shopping. so naturally i grabbed a piece, and that's what i was snacking on this afternoon.

i know, it doesn't look like much. but believe me. it's tasty. and it's raw. hah.

day 18- plans/dreams/goals you have

some of this i already covered in the bucket list but we'll do some repeats. cos i'm going to be typing as i'm thinking.

1. write a book
2. go to school
3. own a house/apartment
4. not being klutzy any more would be amazing (as i spill part of my bowl of cereal on my leg - at least it's not a hot drink!)
5. a dream would be to have all the time and money i needed so i could just do art and sew stuff. far-fetched, i know.

... it's three in the morning. this is all i can think of right now.

day 17- someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

so this is the first blog challenge day that's late so far - but i had a busy day for an excuse.

plus i couldn't think of any one person. especially cos i wasn't sure if fictional people were allowed.

at first i thought Bono - cos he's a rockstar. and it would be fricken awesome to be Bono for a day - i think. besides the opposite-gender thing. anyways.
and then i thought of Isis Mussenden - she did the costumes for Narnia. and i would know that cos i'm a geek. and i would love to do that.
or then i thought it would be awesome to be a librarian or a museum curator or something for a day, not a specific person but a type of person.

but if i could be a fictional person, i would be Arwen, or i would be Harry (short for Angharad) from The Blue Sword.

day 16- a picture of yourself

wait - didn't i do this already?

oh well. i don't mind an excuse to take pictures of myself :P

day 15- put your ipod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play

halfway through the challenge - i haven't missed a day so far. go me! so. an iPod one. here we go.

1. Things I'm Gonna Do - Rasputina
2. Already Home - Thousand Foot Krutch
3. Come Clean - Eisley
4. Come Back Down - Lifehouse
5. Fight Inside - Red
6. Relentless Intolerance - Demon Hunter
7. Wait - The Afters
8. Acoustic #3 - Goo Goo Dolls
9. How We Quit The Forest - Rasputina
10. If Only - KT Tunstall

so easy.

clicky here if you want to hear them on my grooveshark playlist!

day 14- a picture of you and your family

i actually don't have a picture of just our family altogether. odd, considering all the squillions and bajillions of other miscellaneous photos i have, that i don't have one of our family. so here's one with me and my siblings and my grandparents and my cousins on my dad's side, no parents.

and one of the recently extended-even-more family on my mom's side.

day 13- your 5 favorite books and why

oh man. how do i choose. i love books. i love finding new books.
but. there are some that i will read and reread and reread.
so this is the list.

1. The Riddle-Master Trilogy [particularly Heir of Sea and Fire]

i love these ones because they're epic fantasy with brilliant characters, and i always discover some new detail every time i read them.

2. Busman's Honeymoon

this one i love because it's a Lord Peter mystery (and i just love those in general) but it's also a love story at the same time, and it just makes me happy.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

this one makes my list of favourites because of the ending. i just love how it ends. it couldn't have been better.

4. The Space Trilogy [particularly That Hideous Strength]

well now. first of all, it's C. S. Lewis. so that makes it automatically awesome to begin with. and then there's space travel, and angels - excuse me, eldila (singular "eldil") and Oyeresu (singular Oyarsa) - and the end of the world, and just awesomeness. read it.

5. The Blue Sword

oh my gosh. i freaking love this book. and i don't know if i have a why. i just love it. i read the prequel once and i love this one better. it's a fantastic book.

man i love fantasy. and yes i cheated by sticking trilogies in. but really. i can't just pick five books.
anyways. gotta go make dinner.

day 12- write a poem to someone you love

i know you miss me
and i want to let you know i still love you,
and that i never stopped - 
but you know that,
don't you?

some songs on the radio
make me think of you and chuckle to myself
"... do i really feel the way i feel?"
and i know you'd chuckle too

so many memories
holding hands, walking down a road
lots of adventures, just you and me
both recent and long ago
and so many songs sung together

i'm looking forward to many more years
and many more adventures
clever plans and silly songs
visits and movies and inside jokes
i'm so glad i get to share them with you

and you know i'll always love you
you'll always have a special place in my heart
cos i'll always be your daughter
and you'll always be my dad.

day 11- write a bucket list of things you want to do before you die

1. see Wales
2. ride a rollercoaster
3. get a tattoo, if not several
4. go on a road-trip
5. dance in a cemetery in the moonlight
6. cut my hair into a mohawk [if only for a day]
7. build myself a coffin bed
8. learn the violin [and own one, too!]
9. get laser-eye surgery
10. learn how to be neat
11. finish all my UFOs
12. join a group of LARPers
13. write a book

(I am keeping the strikethroughs current, as of May 8 2013.)

day 10- songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped, mad

oh boy. a song day. my favourite. i was going to go All Out and pick a bunch of songs for each mood, but i don't have much time left cos i still have to sleep before work. so here it is.

HAPPY.
Light Up The Sky, by The Afters.

SAD.
I Don't Love You, by My Chemical Romance.

BORED.
DwarfStar, by Rasputina.

HYPED.
Dark Holiday, by Dommin.

MAD.
Dear X, You Don't Own Me, by Disciple.

day 9- something you're proud of in the past few days

1. making bread all by myself
2. getting [somewhat] unpacked
3. biking to work - 1/2 an hour one way, and that's if i'm going fast.
4. getting through a shift at work while training someone - and it was just me and her the whole night - and we didn't do too badly either! go Zoa!
5. making good [&healthy] food - seems i'm following in my mom's footsteps :)

 those are things i'm proud of right now.

oh and i have a story from work.
i got to work on monday night, and one of my coworkers noticed that the roots of my hair are ... well ... not black! and this is the conversation that followed.

She: are you blonde under that? [it should be noted for the sake of accuracy that i am not exactly blonde. more of a light brown. but in comparison with the black, it does look more like a dirty blonde.]
Me: sort of, yes.
She: you shouldn't dye your hair. the blonde looks good.
Me: but i like the black better than i like the blonde.
She: i don't; it makes you look gothic.
Me: ... that's ... kind of ... the point.
She: but it makes you look dead. do you really want to look dead?
Me: [lols] i guess if you want to look at it that way...
She: don't gothic people want to look dead? and act dead?
Me: i suppose some of them do, but not all ...
She: [isn't really listening to me] so if you want to look dead, and act dead, then maybe you should just BE dead. i mean it. go kill yourself.
Me: [trying to laugh at it like she's joking - but she's so not] i don't want to be dead.
She: well, you're trying to look dead, so maybe you should just finish the job.

.... i'm trying to decide whether this should come under the category of harassment, or whether i should just leave it - she has a kid, so once he achieves teenagerhood, i suspect she'll be changing her tune just a little - but this was the first sort of anti-goth perspective i've heard from anyone since i discovered Goth.

and for the record, i don't intend to follow through on her suggestion at all :) i believe it was spoken from a position of bias, prejudice, and a lack of understanding, and as such, has no merit in my situation. actually, let me rephrase that: suicide has NO merit in ANY situation. there is always some other way to deal with problems.

so there.

day 8- short term goals for this month and why

oh man.
i don't do the goals thing much.
i know one of my goals is to get my boxes unpacked and stuff set up and so on, and i should think that would have a fairly obvious "why".
another one would be to find a schedule that allows me to get enough sleep while still getting stuff done. again, a fairly obvious "why" on that one.
i also need to go talk to someone at UFV. or something. to try and figure out what to take for school. oi.
and i also need to finish my WIPs, as mentioned in day 4 - because it's depressing, knowing they're sitting there awaiting your attention.

day 7- a picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on you

how do i pick just one thing or person? every place i've been, every person i've met, everything i've done has made an impact on me somehow.

domestication!

day 6- favorite super hero and why

oh dear. this one will be a little harder, i think. cos when i was a kid, we didn't really watch any superhero movies or read any superhero comics. so everyone knows the story of superman, or batman, or all these other superheroes, but that wasn't really part of my growing-up experience. the most i think we watched, superhero-wise, was larry-boy. larry-boy and the fib from outer space. larry-boy and the rumour weed.
good times.
but.

i recently was able to watch Batman Begins, and i find myself intrigued by him - a superhero ... who's not super.
he wasn't bit by some weird spider like Peter Parker, he didn't come from a different planet like Superman, he didn't have whatever the Hulk had (radioactivity? help me out here.), he's not a mutant like the X-Men. he's a regular human who just happens to want to fix the world - but has awesome gadgets for doing so.
yes, i admit, the black and the bats kind of make me happy too.
but that's not the only thing.
my sense of justice is also liking the vigilante persona, where people get what they deserve.
and he conquers his fear of bats by becoming one, in a way, which is awesome. people are by nature fearful, and they tend to avoid their fears, rather than facing them dead-on and saying, "i'm going to identify with this".
so yeah.
regular guy who pushes himself to the limit. and comes out on top.

so i'd have to say, my favourite superhero is Batman.

day 5- a picture of somewhere you've been

how about several places i've been?

First, BC Canada - where I was born, and where I live now.
Arbroath, Scotland, a two year sojourn.
The next two are Maputo, Mozambique.
Then Dondo, Mozambique.
Hole-in-the-Wall, South Africa.
Johannesburg, ditto.
And last, BC.

two hundred and ... one?

oops. that last post was my two hundredth. i was intending to make excited noises over the two hundredth. but i didn't even realise. my bad. guess the excited noises will have to wait til 250. then i'll be halfway to five hundred. okay? okay.

day 4- a habit that you wish you didn’t have

unfortunately, i can't do this day justice, as the habit that i most wish i could break requires photos  to properly explain, and that would mean fishing through endless numbers of boxes to find everything, because i just moved, and that would be very annoying and probably wake my roomie up.

however.
the habit i most wish i didn't have:
UFOs.

that is, UnFinished Objects.
i have a terrible habit of starting Something Awesome .... and then not finishing it, or taking months and months to do something that i could really do in a couple weeks.

case in point the first, there's a cloak. or rather, there's pieces of a cloak. mostly put together. and it's for someone. and i'm so so SO sorry it's not done yet.
however. moved = sewing machine OUT = i WILL get it done.

case in point the second, there's a pair of socks. or rather, there's half of one sock. i'm knitting it for ME, so no rush. but i still feel it sitting there giving me the evil eye. and now i'm thinking i'll frog it anyways and start over, possibly using a different pattern, and possibly making my own pattern. [definition of frog for non-knitters: rippit, rippit, rippit....]

case in point the third, there's a cropped sweater. or rather, the collar of a cropped sweater. i already frogged a cowl-scarf-dealy to produce the collar of said sweater. again, for me, so no rush. but again, feeling the evil eyes.

case in point the fourth, there's a corset. or rather, there's a pattern for a corset. i haven't got as far as the actual corset yet, cos i keep having to start over on the pattern because of how difficult it is to fit a corset. again, just for me, so no rush. but i'm STILL getting the evil eye thing.

see how bad this is?
and i still have bajillions of ideas in my head for more Awesome Things. like a painting. i definitely have paintings in my head.
and there's a dress i wish i could make, if i were ever able to do any screenprinting - even diy would be awesome.
and i want to build a bed.
and on and on it goes.

i wish i could just focus on one project at a time, and get it done. but i find that really difficult, apparently.

day 3- a picture of you as a child

well now. i don't have too many digital photos of myself as a child.
one of the only ones i have available was already posted by jay, in HER day 3 post.

see? i'm the one with the thick-haired bob on the right.
we should hang out again sometime, you and i, jay.

this was several years later, during my two years in scotland. i'm the gawky one with braces. my sister lakebythepond is in the canada shirt to the left, and my brother nathan is the brown one to the right. the other two are my scottish cousins. i seem to have a penchant for awkward haircuts.

and this one was shortly before the last one, before i got my hair cut. my brother is on the far left, that's me with the stripey scarf, and my dad is on the far right. it's kind of hard to tell what we're doing, but it was snowing and we were rejoicing and trying to catch the flakes on our tongues.

[blogged from the new apartment!!]