Winter of Discontent.

I am lamenting my own hedonism. I caved and ordered myself a pizza as a band-aid for my terminal ennui. Somehow this feeble attempt to cheer myself up just makes me feel more defeated.

My philosophy exam is in 16 hours and I've hardly cracked open a book; I attribute this gross neglect of my own academic welfare to a number of things: the weather, the fact that a lot of my friends and floormates are probably home and sitting by their Christmas trees already, a deep-rooted dislike of London Ontario, the harrowing decision of "to order a pizza or not to order a pizza," my discarded dreams of law school, my whacked-out sleep schedule, &c.

I want to be ordering Chinese with Steph or Dawson. Or singing songs in the car with J & K. Or breaking into Fort George with the boys. Or anything.
I want real life to go away.
I want to go home.

... I doubt even pizza can save me now.

(Edit: Turns out that, in spite of my pseudo-rebellious school-related apathy, I finished third from the top on my Anthro final. Pizza is now justified as a celebratory feast. I feel much better.)

Not-So-Objective Ministries.

So I found this website.

It's funny for a while, and then it just gets sickening. Long story short, I wound up wasting half an hour of valuable study time emailing this backwater Baptist motherfucker (pictured here in all his waxy/corpsey self-righteous glory):

"Dear Mr Paley,

I am a first year undergraduate student of English and philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. I wanted to share with you something we academics quickly learn upon arrival at such a highly-regarded and culturally-diverse university as this one, and that is the concept of objectivity, and furthermore, the idea of tolerance.

Of course, I am a “loopy Darwinist,” but I have always understood the idea of Creationism and allowed my Creationist friends to maintain their beliefs without preaching my “evil Evolutionist doctrine” to them. I do this because it is respectful, and true scholars are expected to be objective and to give concepts like religion and Creationism fair consideration despite our personal opinions. With that in mind, I have to say that I find your expressions of Creationist thought to be offensive, narrow-minded, and unintelligent; you are violating the academic credo not by promoting your Creationist beliefs, but by smugly attacking the Evolutionist viewpoint—a move that I deem cowardly, immature, and ultimately quite dangerous.

You, Mr Paley, are promoting a Christian-centric brand of hate and superiority. Sharing the “Word” with people is one thing—Christianity's high point is that it encourages hope and love, which I always think the world could use more of—but spouting insults against Evolutionists and including dramatic oversights on your arrogant blog (for example, the haphazard paraphrasing of that article on Nessie and circus elephants) is uncalled for and disgusting. You may dismiss my letter as some sort of demonized heretical rambling, but I am not preaching about the validity of Evolutionism; I am speaking towards human decency. Whether you like it or not, the members of your church are grouped together with all the Bhuddists, all the atheists, all the Jews, and all the indigenous “tribal” people of the world under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I’d like to remind you, now, of Article 1:

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)

Mr Paley, you need to work on your spirit of brotherhood because you are setting a horrible example for your followers. We are all human, and your conduct is remarkably undignified and unacceptable in the year 2007, especially in these "academic" circles you claim to be a part of. Are your beliefs so threatened by contemporary society that you feel these measures are somehow justified?

Or maybe you feel that Hitler was an instrument of God too? I’m curious to know your thoughts on genocide because your slander is just a stone’s throw away. Maybe we atheists are wrong (and maybe you are too), but we all ought to agree that hate is never justified.

Sincerely,
(Me)"

Let it be known that if any fanatical missionary approaches me at a mall while I'm Christmas (pardon me, "Santamas") shopping, they're going to be leaving with my snow boots embedded in their face. (But don't tell "Dr" Paley that; it ruins my whole angle).

(.... What?!)

Edit: I am officially the biggest retard in the world.

Snow in 'The Forest'

Today was a fabulous day.

I woke up next to the boy this morning (afternoon, really), who, I've learned, is the most ingenious cure for migraines, and after reaching my sleep quota for the rest of my life--I swear--I headed off for a baking date at Breanne's. We made peppermint bark and shortbread, snacked on smoked salmon, and had an impromptu musical performance (because that's what arts kids do), then on the way home, the most miraculous thing happened.

It snowed.

But like, one of those real snows--dry and crunchy, not too heavy, not too windy--where the whole world just screams Christmas and all you want to do is run around in it like you're 10 years old again. So we did, and I've been humming Sleigh Ride ever since.


Tomorrow starts the rest of my life again; it's off to bed, and back to essays, cramming, and maybe a little dusting if I'm feeling ambitious.

(But all I want to do is make snow angels.)

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I have emerged from my cocoon of oppressive burden a new and liberated butterfly. I have dropped Soc 020.

And I am happy as a little girl.

Goodbye crazy Luton and stupid incomprehensible paper-wasting slides! Farewell biased statistics and broad generalizations! And adieu to you, especially, excessive feminist crap (I don't care what Teevan&Hewitt think; I like Barbie just fine thankyouverymuch).

Hello again, three hours a week of my life that I'd been wasting staring at the clock and rolling my eyes! It's good to have you back.

(And welcome, extra make-up half course next year... the lesser of two evils, for sure.)

...Glad I never bought the other text book.

Reality Check.

So in case you didn't notice, "Positive Week" was an enormous bust. I've learned two valuable things from it, however:

1) I really don't have time to blog regularly.
and
2) I also don't have time for a massive personality overhaul.

Furthermore, doing both at once is damn near impossible and thus, so dies my feeble attempt at self betterment. Meh, I think I'm more fun this way, anyhow.

So let's get back to what I do best, shall we?

"Dear Residence,

I acknowledge that I'm paying you $8000 to live in a cramped room, eat crappy caf food, and adhere to your ridiculous policies, but you have the nerve to subject me to cold showers?! Are you effing kidding me?! Choke and die.

Sincerely,
Danny."

Much better. And now I'm off for a wonderful night at the boy's.

Positive Week

That's it. I can't turn a blind eye anymore. I've brought this new blog into the world and now I've gone and neglected it. I thought, today, what if I've stunted its early blog development? What if my blog never learns to do the things all those other blogs out there do? What if I've ruined its whole blog future by denying it the very things which blogs thrive on--you know, photos, background information, readers, hell, entries?! No more. I'm out of excuses; now it's time to commit.

I mean, it's not like I haven't thought about posting. During midterms, I came really close to ranting and bitching on here about everything from residence life to feminists to--gasp--even real-life drama! Deep down, however, I know I don't want this to be a forum for all the things that piss me off (and there are a lot), so to crush this inner blogging turmoil, I've decided to do something highly out of character. I'm taking this post-midterms-pre-finals break to reacquaint myself (and you) with the sunny parts of life. Thus, I am dubbing this week "Positive Week", and from now until next Sunday, I will be on my best, most tolerant and most optimistic behaviour.

________________________

So to kick off "Positive Week", here's the DL on what I've been up to during the last month between cramming, essay writing, and snarling at people:

1) Steph's Birthday.
Shafted out of a Tower of Power concert due to an unfortunately scheduled choir rehearsal (hers, not mine), Steph and I were stuck in London for her 19th. We made the best of it with a group dinner date, followed by some delicious-but-spilly martinis. Of course, we had to try out our new collective "nineteenness" by making an appearance at Jack's where we were bumped, grinded, and eyed by a couple of fifty-year-old olds dressed suspiciously like university football players... Despite the undeniable grodiness that is Jack's and the apparently torrential rains that night, we managed to have a pretty good time... except for one of us (who shall be not be named) who learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of mixing. ;) Ohohoho, good times.

2) Hallowe'en.
While Hallowe'en generally falls on the 31st, my Hallowe'en this year seemed to hit its holiday acme the weekend I went home for Canada's Wonderland's FearFest (now known as the "Hallowe'en Haunt"... but we diehard fans know better). As it's "Positive Week", I'll omit my feelings on the overcrowding and organizational issues I had with the event this year, and launch right into how spectacularly creepy everything was. We had a great group of people and got to see some seriously brilliant haunted houses. My particular fave was the Asylum, because, seriously--who can resist the allure of crazies? Not me!

Oh, and Krista made a friend. I think he's dreamy.


Hallowe'en night involved a pitcher of Alexander Keith's, a skimpy Minnie Mouse costume, and JJ dressed like Ace Ventura. Obviously, I skipped class in the morning. ...But I had a patent leather tail, so the sheer coolness of that balanced out the bad student behaviour. Duh.

3) Residence Stuff
Naturally, there's never a dull moment when you're living in rez and Deli's Creative Arts is no exception. While every moment spent with my floormates is one to be cherished and written about on the walls of my closet (as other frosh have chronicled in black sharpie before me), some of the more notable adventures were our Anything-But-Clothes escapades in celebration of Laura's birthday and our recent "Dress to Impress" soirée for Mike and Kat's 18ths. It's got to be something about artists--for some reason, there's always a costume involved in drinking. I'm not complaining though; I got to construct a skirt out of my scarf collection and that was pretty badass.

4) Misc
And, you know, there was some other stuff. J and I saw the English department's She Stoops to Conquer (which was great), I bought a stellar pashmina, and I swore at my kettle... a lot, but the majority of the last four weeks or so has been sucked up by school. I went home for the first time in over a month this weekend and I've never been so happy to see my own bed (and Misener... but not at the same time, that'd be weird). While home, I learned that gambling is the devil, that Chinese is always better when my mom orders it, and that, much to my annoyance, my salon closes at 2 on Saturdays. My roots, they weep... but it's Positive Week, so I guess, my roots are "unique" (...until Sunday, when they're just shameful again).

Stay tuned for more sunshine tomorrow!

Mid-Midterms.

Yellow and red abound, leaves falling, stylish jackets, cool breeze... ah yes, it's that time.

It's midterms.

... And they blow.

I feel a certain sense of duty to my new blog, like I really ought to be updating more often to break it in... but every time I sit down to regale the world (read: handful of people who read this; maybe Craig and/or... my mother) with whatever I've been up to, the big bad "you should be studying" midterm guilt monster swoops down and smothers my creative "chi". You know, kind of like that stupid hand in the Forest Temple in Zelda: Ocarina of Time when you're in the middle of finding that last poe and---hmm, no. We'll leave that reference there.

Tonight, however, I'm putting aside "critical thinking" and the Peloponnesian War(s) and getting "crunk" for my wife's long-awaited 19th. It will be a celebration of class, style, martinis, and the fact that now Steph can actually come to bars with us.

... Screw you, midterm hand monster.

Typical Western Blog.

I've moved house (read: blog). For years I've been threatening to do it, so I decided there was no better time than now to grow a pair and make the switch. New school, new city, new life; it's an opportunity for a sort of renaissance, if I may say---to reinvent myself (hopefully for the better, and not in a skanky Britney Spears nosedive sort of way), and find a new identity. Or even, maybe, to remind myself that I actually have an identity and that I haven't lost it in a pile of text books and essays... you know, I guess it could go either way.

As an English student, I maintain that starting a blog is practical. It keeps my writing sharp and gives me a pressure-free environment to play around with style and structure. As an almost-twentysomething single girl, however, a blog is a great venue to rant about pop culture, shoes, and what fabulously interesting stuff is going on in my life, even if I secretly realize the painful narcissism of it all.

So count that as my ice-breaker. Let the one-man (read: woman) party begin!