I'll just imagine the caffeine I would intake right about now if I wasn't a broke student without the funds to purchase it.

Today is going to be an interesting day. I can tell. I should know, because I've only missed about two and a half hours of it since it started, and it's going to continue on for about twelve more hours, and I will probably be awake for most of that too. November... definitely the season to make Christmas/ winter break far more appreciated. Today, instead of being frustrated or feeling dead, I'm surprisingly wide awake. The feeling of accomplishment (finishing the essay of DOOM), of having a far better idea of what to do for my final project for my Communications Research class (which, if you are not mathematically minded or miss a lab, is painfully difficult), and probably the haze of cloudy brain-fog keeping me from panicking. One more essay, one more project, and then I'm done until exams. Granted, exams aren't that far off....but still. The momentary release from the pressure of school work is appreciated.

I don't really have anything particularly insightful, deep, or hilarious to draw out of this for you...sorry...but I'm in a good mood and I have a few minutes to kill before class, so I thought I'd try to lighten things up around this blog o'mine and give you some menial day-details. Charming, I know.

Peace out, girl scouts.

Well, hello again.

I don't want to face my demons this time.

Feeling like I left my army behind and I'm stranded in the front of my makeshift battlefield as they're marching towards me with the hot stink of regret trailing behind them, soaking into the ground through their footprints.

There is no real reason to think this fight is winnable, and there's no way to realistically feel justified in my self-pity, since this time I've handcrafted each of my specialized tormenters, one by one.

But you can't run away from concequences.

You can just hide, and hope they take longer to find you.

emotional striptease

standing in front of you
with shaking hands
unbuttoning the fabric of this so-called relationship
piece by piece
bit by bit
going so, so slowly.
not for the dramatic effect
not for the prolonged anticipation
nor for the pleasure of your frustration
but because fear moves with trepidation
creeping along
thawing its freezing hands around my heart
until it melts enough ice,
and the cold slows my pulse enough
to move faster
unraveling the warmth of my comfortably vague assumptions
cutting through the layers of unasked questions
and laying them out on the floor
shrugging off hesitancy and of waiting for the never-to-happen “right” moment
untying my tongue till all the stored-up words fly free
I am all exposed and bare and breakable
and you are here
and I need to know if you want me as I am

Only skin deep

When I was growing up, one of my main goals in life was to be beautiful.

I really couldn’t have cared less what I looked like for my really early childhood…I was too busy playing “pigs” in the mud with my brother (which is essentially a game of rolling in the mud) and building lego palaces. And I couldn’t really tell you the day I (Noticed? Decided? Figured out?) that I wasn’t beautiful, but I remember a lot of times when this was reinforced. I remember one Halloween when I went out with my sister and two brothers (and my mom) without really thinking about how I looked all too much (I was mad about having to wear the winter jacket under my dress, but you know…a pumpkin bag full of candy cures all). And it was all cool until we got to this one house where the guy decided to have his own costume contest, where the “cutest kid can come get candy first”…I was picked last. At the time, this was slightly depressing, but that was quickly solved with a mars bar. But it was just one of those moments I remember, to this day, crystal clear.

Later, I was an awkwardly built grade four student with a mushroom cut. I’m pretty sure most kids had to go through the unfortunate mushroom-cut phase…but mine was especially unfortunate since I didn’t have a bubbly personality to make up for it. There was this one older girl at my elementary school—I think she was in grade six at the time—who I thought was the coolest person ever. Her name was Nicole, and I wanted to be exactly like her. So, you can imagine how exited I was one day when she and one of her posse hollered at me and came over to the soccer field where I was playing. They started walking over and I hurried to meet them mid-field, thinking they were going to compliment me on my awesome soccer skills and tell me they needed someone with my athletic ability in their group (side note: I wasn’t remotely coordinated, nor was I capable of understanding that diversity wasn’t a key factor in the development of elementary school-age girls friend groups. This was delusional on my part)

Anyway, when they got there, the other girl spoke up. She said “Hey…we were watching you guys over there, and we were wondering…are you a boy, or a girl?”
That was…depressing.
My heart sank, but I was mostly bewildered. I mean, I remember looking down at my pink shirt and my favourite flare jeans with the pink flowers embroidered on them and wondering how they managed to get me confused with a boy. But you know how it is, Over time, every incident adds up and the face in the mirror begins to look a little more unfortunate. I remember that every time I had a shower, I’d imagine that the last little bit of water that came out of the tap had the power to make me beautiful, so I’d always wait and rub it on my face…just in case. I’d pray that God would make me beautiful, one day.

And these little childhood moment stories are nothing without the story of who I became because of them.
It’s not like the ugly duckling story…sometimes, an ugly duck is still a duck, and isn’t gonna turn out to be a swan. However, it can still grow up to be a better looking duck.

I’m getting all rattled with what my point is now, since there are people who actually read this haha, but the point is…everyone has moments that make them who they are. Things that hurt, things that build you up, and sometimes those that do both. Not everyone gets a fairytale ending where they triumph over all of their flaws—sometimes, you just get strong enough to get through them. As a kid, I had an awkward smile, a series of unfortunate haircuts, and my mom insisted on dressing all of us kids in fluorescent clothing with weird patterns. And I mean, I’ve grown up some—the braces helped, I developed some social skills, a slightly better fashion sense, and my hair grew….but I’m the same person.
Beauty isn’t the point of all this, though.
I mean, there’s been enough said about it…probably too much… and it’s destroying people. It’s beneficial, I’m sure, but it isn’t what’s going to save us. It won’t make significant others stay faithful, it won’t save your dying child, it won’t bring inner peace.
The point is that our childhood fears and insecurities sometimes get carried around with you without you even realizing it. And then some days, bam, they come back to you, and you have to decide if they matter or not. I’d say that they do, a lot of the time, because they influence our fears and insecurities in the present time. Which in turn impacts how we treat others. So, personally, due to my relived memories of childhood, I resolve the following:

I will never have a child cuteness contest
I will never ask anyone what his/her gender is.
I will never dress up any child of mine in bright paisley, nor will I give him/her a mushroom cut.

And I will never again start a blog entry without a clear idea of where I’m going with it :/

Whatever. Take from it what you will. I’m done.
peace.

It'll just take a second (chance)

You only get one opportunity to have a second chance.
Maybe you will get a third, or a fourth, or a fifth….but here will only be one time when the people you screwed over once will trust that it was a one-time thing, and believe that you’re not going to do it again.
The problem is, as a general rule, humanity makes the same mistake twice. Three times. Four times. A hundred and four times. More.
And while you might still get chances, they will show more about the person/people giving them than who you are. More chances show more grace—more faith in your ability to change, and to keep from doing it again.
Any chances granted past the second require the person giving them to believe that, although you have let them down twice before, and even though your forgiveness wasn’t enough to make them change the first time, maybe this one will be different.
And there are a lot of reasons you can need a second chance…

Getting the family car in an accident
Cheating on your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse
Forgetting plans and standing people up
Not following through on a business deal
Showing up to work late
Breaking someone’s trust
Breaking promises
Breaking rules
Breaking hearts

Obviously, the list goes on. For every possible way one person can trust another, there is a way to screw up. There is a way to let people down. Intentionally or unintentionally, all of us do. And the reason this is addressed to “you” is more so we can all realize that we guilty.
We are ALL guilty.
It’s easy to think about all the people who’ve wronged us, all the people who’ve made you mad because you make yourself vulnerable to them in one way or another, and BAM. They let you down. And it’s sometimes easy to forget that we let people down too- a lot. So, instead of thinking about all the people who’ve wronged you (easy enough)…maybe we need to think about the people we’ve let down. And how we can make it right.

Sick and Tired

So I noticed that I've been on a kind of downer note for a while. Sorry about that. I can promise that as soon as the nice weather comes back and the sun sticks around longer and-oh yeah- school's out for the year, I will be more positive. And I mean, it's not that bad right now. It's just that it's almost exam time and I'm worried about grades, like everyone else. And therefore, my eating habits are off, my sleeping habits are off, and basically everything else is too. Oh, and I might be sick. But not too sick thankfully.

But on that note, one of my friends has recently become rather sick. Chicken pox. In university. Now, that is rather unfortunate, since the older you are, the more dangerous it is to have it. Oh, and the timing is off too. So I've had the opportunity to help out in the past few days--you know, sick meals, that kind of thing. It's kind of odd, but I really like helping people when they're sick. Or just not doing well in general. It might be because of some sort of twisted psychological thing where I like it when people are vulnerable and I have the power to influence their health, or at least to glorify my own...or it might just be that I like helping. I'd prefer to think it's the last but I'm not entirely sure.

Tomorrow's a busy day and I have a ton to do so really, I think I ought to head to bed now. One smart(er) decision after a slew of bad ones (I really like that word...slew...magical). And I'll work on updating this more often. And being happier and more entertaining. But no promises.

peace.

Nellie Bly and the curious practice of stunt reporting

After my most recent journalism project, I have made a discovery:
I want to be a stunt reporter.

And just in case you didn't know or aren't suitably impressed by that statement, I'll explain what that means.
The woman who I researched in order to complete my project was a woman who went by the pseudonym Nellie Bly. She was the pioneer of women's stunt reporting, and did a bunch of ridiculous stunts for her job, such as faking insanity in order to be committed to an asylum, and therefore being able to observe the treatment of its inhabitants from the inside. She also posed as a prostitute in remission, a shopgirl, shoplifters, underage prey for prostitute recruiters...she was a woman of tenacity and courage, as well as an undeniable draw to the sensationalistic and dramatic.
But hey, that's why people read her stuff. She entertained them, and she was honest about her experiences and observations: a sort of combined hard news/soft news story that had both the news and opinion, intermingled so much that it would be difficult to tell where one element started and the other ended. But then, modern news can be kind of like that anyway.

All the same, it's unlikely that I'll ever do this, for several reasons: first, there is far less of a draw for stunt reporting now. And lawsuits have a lot more prevalence. Women are also far easier to find in terrifying circumstances, and there's also the safety aspect.

And of course, there's the fact that journalism isn't the profession it once was. In fact, it isn't the profession it was ten minutes ago. Always, always changing.


NOTE: This was a draft from last year, approximately this time. It still stands.