Saturday, September 24, 2011

My Drunk Blog

A personal favourite that I've published here has been The Drunk Post: while it doesn't look entirely good for my reputation if all the wrong people read it, rereading it sometimes gives me a laugh, and I'm sure it somehow makes you the reader laugh as well.  Sitting alone last night, I decided to evolve The Drunk Post(s) into an installation known as My Drunk Blog, where instead of rambling about nothing and seeming like more of an absolute train wreck than I actually am, I'll specialize on a topic where I'll give an intoxicated praise or rant.  (most likely rant) Perhaps this new idea was in part due to the fact that I was drinking all by my lonesome, and thus to produce a creative result in the end, I'd feel like I had purpose.  Either way, I woke up this morning (very painfully) to this, and now that I've watched my fill of Parks and Recreation for the day, I've decided to write my little preface and publish.  Apparently I decided I would speak to goals and expectations, which, now that I recall, was a premeditated topic decision between me and my friend Amy, who I happen to shout-out during this.  Do enjoy.


In the words of my queen, Lady GAga, I've had a little bit too much.  Yes indeedums, I've decided tpo have a solo drinking night in place of a drinking night with a friend, which didn't occur due to frenzied scheduoles.  Instead, I start confiend to my room, drinking beer while waching Jersey Shore and feeling sympahtiec towarsd my poor bueautiful Snooki.

firs toff, I'm alone at nome, as my roomie has gone to her aunt's house for the weekend or somethign like that.  it's only Friday night and I'm already bored off of my ass, not from being alone, but probably because I'm ahead on my readings and because I don't have class for the next two days - it's le weekend, duh.  Also, a big ass congratulations to one of my best friends, Amy, for earning a callback for her school musical, which happens to be Rent, and her audition happened to be but five hours ago and bitch already got a callback.  Mmmmmhm.

A new idea for the revolution of my drunken posts is to have thewm be in repsonse to a certain topic rather than just islly ramblings.  Thus, My Drunk Blog has been born this way hay.  What I mean by that is my previous drunken bloggings have been nothing but installations of mere humour, and while I very much presevre that humour because hey, I'm drunk off my fucking ass, I'd like to at least make them worth something in the end.  (perhaps that's my conscience talking - by making My Drunk Blog I'm excusing the fact that I drank tonight.  It's all in the efforts for creative liberty!)

Thus, this drunken post's topic (I'd say week, but I can't guarantee I'll drink every week, or if I do, I might not reach my comptuer.  Well, I hope to): goals and expectations.

I've spoken at great detail about the expecation family has put on me here on this blog int he past.  Society's current expectation is that a person graudtaes with a degree, whetehr it be from a university or college.  Further, society dictates that the better degree you have, the better job you'll end up with in the end.  AS I've previously argued, I'm a firm beliveer that salary or intellectual level of a job does not guarantee happiness: a person who goes to school for a neurosurgeon finds the exact same level of happiness than a person in a nursing program simply because they're following through witl what they are truly passionate about.  For me, the number takced on to a job as its salary is not definitave; while it is for my parents (that the greatest job for me is the one tha pays the most), I could care less if I earn a dollar an hour so long as I truly love what I'm doing.  I'll be just as happy being a high scool english teacher than I would be being a university english professor - when it comes down to it, I'll be invested in what I love, and the distinction between "high school teacher" and "professor" will mean nothing to me whatsoevr.

Switching gears: I've never been one to fulfill my goals.  Perhaps tonight was one of the more successful bouts: I ffirmed to a friend thaat I had to get myself drunker before I attempted My Drunk Blog - and that, I would say, I succeeded in, because the graveyard of beer bottles on my desk is depressing.  Otheriwse, I rarely achieve what I set out for myself.  I began to go to the gym now that I literally live two minutes away from it and that its memebershuip is included in my tuition, but morning after morning I wake up far past my alarmm and say fuck it, no gym todya.  I buess it comes down to a person's individual level of motivation: if you're a lazy fuck like me, you won't get shit ccomplished, but if you're a productive fuck, you will.  Ican't even begin to imagine what truly inspires motivation, but I do know my eyes are getting heavy as SHIIIT.

Well now, that turned out to be sexy.  Despite my speling mistakes here and there and everywhere I still rather sound liek an intellect, although inebriated. (The squiggly red lines in my page are glaring at me like a hooker who I didn't pay.  [I have never been with a hooker.  I am a colourful metaphor user.])  Anyways, adieu, adieu, to yuh and yuh and yuh.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A week in review

It's been forever since I've posted here, and for that, I am sorry: not just to you, the reader, but I commission that apology to myself, since I've let a true joy of mine slip into a busy obscurity.  But then again, I prefer having posts with legitimate quality over posting a large senseless quantity, so hopefully the reward is that much better.

As I mentioned: my week was just slightly hectic!  Given that all of my classes have moved past the introductory mechanisms onto actually course content, my nose is constantly in a book doing the assigned readings.  It doesn't help that I have four courses on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, three of them English courses; needless to say my Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights are busy.  Aside from my readings, though, I've somehow kept myself busy in and around campus, so my transformation into full time hermit has been yet again delayed.

Save me, Dr. Kate Winslet

Last Wednesday night, I saw Contagion with my roommate and one of our friends.  Really well done movie, highly entertaining.  The star power alone was nearly blinding, what with the likes of a woman I love, Kate Winslet (I wish she was given more to do - if you've seen it, you know what I mean, and if you haven't, go see it, and then you'll understand), and a woman I don't exactly love, Gwenyth Paltrow , gracing the screen, joining Matt Damon (Matt! Damon!) and Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne and Marion Cotillard and Jennifer Ehle (don't recognize the name?  I didn't either; she was fantastic, and I was shocked to discover she was Elizabeth Bennett in the Pride & Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth - ahhh!).  I particularly liked the music: highly glacial and machine-like which fit the mood perfectly.  My biggest gripe, though, was that the movie made me extremely paranoid.  My one friend coughed throughout the movie (not as a joke, he was genuinely coughing), which was frightening, and looking back and thinking about the lingering shots of dirty surfaces and door handles made (and still makes) me squirm.

Thanks a lot, Contagion.  I'm going to die

I got sick over the weekend.  The height of my cold was yesterday, and after seeing a movie where a large amount of the world's population was wiped out by a sickness, I was extremely paranoid and was therefore writing my will and calling up local priests and nuns for my last rites.  Luckily, my throat remained unscathed, and I was able to actually drink water and eat without it tasting like ass.  My nose wasn't so lucky.  I have some sort of psychological block in my mind where, congestion-wise, I'm doing fine - until I get to class, where my nose literally runs nonstop and I sniffle or blow my nose to the disdain of my neighbours.  Upon my exit from class, then, my nose cackles at me, and clears up momentarily.  After sleeping for a good thirteen hours, I'm almost entirely better now.

There's no place like home!

As I outlined in my more recent blogposts, I haven't yet felt that my residence is 'home' to me - yes, I say things like "I'm going home after class," but I by no means consider this to be my home.  I'm surrounded by comfort in all aspects, but my home is and will always be, well, back home, at least until I sign a lease for my own place with my wife, two to three children and two to four Bernese mountain dogs in tow.  To my point: I went home over the weekend which was simply lovely.  It felt like absolutely nothing had changed - that is, aside from some of my favourite items being absent from my room, or my bed being made up of sheets and pillows we keep for guests.  My grandma's birthday was on Sunday (when I began to get sick), so I was able to see my whole family.  By luck, two of my best friends were home for the weekend, too, and I saw them both.  I blame them for my sickness, as they both were sick/were just coming off of a sickness.  You bitches.

The Boy Who is Obsessed with Some Girl with a Dragon Tattoo who Kicked a Hornet's Nest and Played with Fire

I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo without time between chapters to breathe - it's SO DAMN GOOD.  I'm officially addicted to the Millennium series, and I hastily went out and bought the next two books.  I also watched the Swedish version of TGWTDT, and to be totally honest and blunt, I didn't overly like it as an adaption; as a movie, it was fine, but even still, the obnoxious differences from the book were a little too much for me (and I'm usually not a snobby book purist bitch) and the movie itself was slightly bland.  That being said - and given that I'm usually against remakes, especially those of foreign films because Americans can't be bothered to read subtitles (and yes I'm generalizing to Americans) - the remake coming out this Christmas by David Fincher looks bloody PHENOMENAL.  Greatest movie trailer I've ever seen.  Now that I've read the book, the glimpses are so not enough for me.

 

OH MY FUCK

I know it technically doesn't fall into the parameters of a week - uh, the True Blood finale last Sunday!?  HOLY SHIT.  And that's all I'll say.  (they killed four main characters.  GODDAMN!)

Now that I'm slowly getting a handle of my reading schedule, I'll do my damnedest to keep up to date with my blog - it seems like an empty promise, I know, since there have been many times where I've fallen off the face of the earth with deep regret.  But, like I said, if I were a reader, I'd prefer quality over senseless quantity, so hopefully this was everything you ever wanted and more.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Not dead yet

My first full week of living alone has come and gone and I'm still alive!

It still really hasn't hit me that I moved out, and at this point, I doubt it ever will.  Everything just feels so natural that the jarring change of circumstances never affected me at all; even thinking to myself, "I don't live at home," doesn't bother me.  Time has flown as much as it's crawled by: looking back at the week, it went by rather quickly, but remembering times throughout the week where I was shocked by how little time has passed reminds me that time is in super slomo, too.  I have all the time in the world, and while it gets away from me - take for instance this afternoon where all I did was do my readings for three classes then read some The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which is fantastic) and then bam it's now after 6 - it still feels so slow.

All of my classes have started up, and following a few last minute schedule changes (involving a less-than-desirable English course I was enrolled in being dropped out of severe disinterest in the subject and fear of the professor who is allegedly a hard ass), I've settled into my schedule.  (I still can't remember it at all, though, and I have to write down room numbers on my hand every day) I found a common trend amongst all of my classes is that I expected much more from all of them, as all sort of underwhelm me even now as I look just above my laptop monitor to the six course syllabi I have tacked up on my desk's bulletin board.  I feel like attending all of these classes will be a drag, no doubt a result of iffy content (Postcolonial and Transnational Discourses - I mean, what the fuck is that?  Taking it to fill a requirement) or unimpressive (thus far) professors (like a creepy old man for my writing class or a 40-year-old Snooki for my cinema class) or rather frightening material (I did the readings for my Rhetoric class and woosh, they went entirely over my head).  Either way I know I'll survive the year.

Aside from my classes, I'm actually going to the gym, whose membership is included in my tuition and who is, physically, gorgeous - it's state of the art.  Somehow, additionally, I'm still alive foodwise, and I haven't yet found myself starving even though I eat considerably less than what I did at home.

Well, anyways.  I'm sure the stress levels are bound to mount like never before now that all of my classes have progressed from the introductory blather to actual course content.  It won't be long before I'll be writing essays or studying for midterms, but in that sense, it won't be long before it's Thanksgiving or Christmas.  At least now I know I can't accidentally kill myself through my sudden independence.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Flown the coop

Today, I officially moved into residence on-campus at my university for the first time.  After two years of my parents' persistent denials - okay, one; they refused me residence for first year and for second year time just passed to the point where I thought to myself, well, shit, I guess I'm living at home again - I've packed up my obscenely large wardrobe and carefully selected favourite movies and to-be-read books (that process was brutal) and settled into a two-bedroom apartment-style flat with my roommate (weird, saying "roommate") Steph.

It never really hit me that I moved out.  Sure, a week ago, the stresses of moving began to creep up, but I became so accustomed to the idea through constantly thinking of what I needed to bring and pack and buy that come this morning when I woke up in my own bed for the last time I was nearly unfazed by my relocation.  Now that I'm here, I still haven't become attentive to the gravity of everything; going out to eat at the cafeteria felt like any other school day eating there; the buildings all seem familiar and I'm eager to get back to class.  I think, if ever a time for an emotional breakdown, it'll come when I turn in to bed tonight or wake up in the morning to think to myself, yeah, I live here now.

My parents, on the other hand, have felt it.  My mom was mostly good in the days leading up to today, but sentimentality came over when she'd say things like "I'll miss you at the dinner table" or "in a week you won't be here."  She held it together when moving my stuff in, but when it came time to our goodbyes, I could tell she was fighting back tears.  My aunt later informed me through text message that my mom is an absolute mess (most of my mom's side was at my house today for a family function this afternoon once I was gone) - so just break my heart - and that my grandmother also cried a lot and that whenever someone looks into my empty room it's sad.  I hope that whenever I visit - which, really, might be often, given that I live thirty minutes away and that the months from September to March are packed with almost all family birthdays and major holidays - the "pain" of my not living at home doesn't revisit.

My move-in day was somewhat strenuous.  I'd never done it before so naturally the proceedings being unknown to me gave me a bit of anxiety.  Upon arrival and back-breaking unloading of my two (yeah, we took two) cars, we came to realize the place is a damn dirty MESS.  On the upside, though, the place is pretty big, although the lack of furniture in the living room and ominous echo due to emptiness is less than ideal.  Steph and I spent the better part of the entire afternoon washing every single surface in the place and washing the floors - the amount of dirt on the Swiffer pads was absolutely disgusting - and it didn't help that it was a fairly hot day and that we don't have air conditioning.  Seriously?  We did a damn good job, though:


By the time I exhausted myself I had to tackle my own room, which began looking a bit like this:


And now:

A little bit of Gaga to reside over my bed
..okay, the amount of Gaga in this picture is a bit much, but note the amount of books
that I'm crazy enough to think I'll be able to read on top of going to class.
Naturally.

I'm pretty excited for the upcoming year.  Call me crazy but I truly miss going to class (despite how much I complain about it while in class), and the change of pace and fresh new upcoming courses is somewhat exciting to me.  I'm sure actually living on-campus - and not having to wake up three hours in advance to travel all the way to my school just to attend one class - will be blast.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

We'll still have the summer after all redux; or, the dreadful anxiety

Well, it's now officially September 1st.  Considering I choose to be ignorant to school's rapid approach, I'll just pretend it's still August 31st because I haven't gone to bed yet so technically it's still my Wednesday.  So suck it, time.

This summer has been a definite improvement over last summer despite a series of extremely unfortunate and sporadic events.  Technically, I treat this summer as the first where I was actually of a legal age to go out to bars and clubs and other grungy and unacceptable establishments - by that I mean last summer, although I was 19, only one other friend of mine was of age, so our drinking nights were still confined to basements and backyards as opposed to barstools; therefore, with all of my friends now at least 19 (I still weep for the loss of my teenage years and dreams), going out at night was actually an option.  Thursdays became a regular outing for karaoke at a sports bar.  Downtown was visited as much as possible despite my city's decision to make almost all bars 21+ to coincide with the 0.0 blood alcohol level restriction on drivers under 21.  The fact that I was able to actually go out for drinks was somewhat liberating while being constantly fun.

Aside from the frequent drunken outings, my summer passed without any massive highlights unlike last summer's where I saw Lady Gaga live or traveled to Costa Rica with my family.  I went on a camping trip with my friends for the weekend, but as I've said time and time again, I'm seriously not an outdoors person.  In place of epic day trips or vacations were days spent simply hanging out or wasting around watching all seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy.  (which I've now actually caught up on.  It's funny - now that I'm done I don't know what to do with my time) I would've liked to have traveled with my family, but nah, they didn't want to spend money on another trip this year, the other being Myrtle Beach on March Break which I wasn't there for and won't be yet again this year.  I would've liked to have gone to Canada's Wonderland - goddamn it, people! - but days off never seemed to be entirely synchronized.

Ah, work.  My job was a bit of a scheduling roller coaster over the summer.  My original plan at the beginning of my summer break was to get a second job, but my mind was changed in May when I got a fairly good amount of shifts - not too much as to give me a life, but enough to make a substantial contribution to my bank account.  The hours quickly faded away to my dismay, and following my sickness in August, I never quite went back.

Bronchitis.  I got bronchitis mid-August.  That week was harrowing, and honestly, I would've wanted sweet, sweet death if it wasn't for my dearly beloved Grey's.  Day after day of bad health standing still took an emotional toll on me, not having drive to even get up in the morning with the knowledge of still poor health.  Aside from that, I broke my knee.  I broke my goddamn knee.  I can't freaking believe it still.  Time to time I feel a slight tingle of pain on my right knee serving as a reminder that oh yeah, I did break my knee in May.  My weeks as a cripple were painful and disgusting.

Now that the summer's come to a close, I face the now familiar feeling of saying goodbye to my friends.  It's hard to grasp that in just four days - god, that made my stomach drop - the feeling I've gotten used to, the feeling of knowing my friends are around that I take for granted will be gone once more.  It's surreal, and it won't hit me until we're all moved away.  It takes adjusting, but I look forward to readjusting to it once more next summer, or even next winter break.

I think, though, the severity of the loss of comfort in friendship will be lessened - if not masked - by the jarring transition I'm stepping into in which I actually move out onto residence for the first time.  Again, the thought is like a punch in the gut; sitting at home in my last days, I can't stop myself from being overly dramatic and sentimental in thoughts like "huh, that's the last Wednesday morning I have living here" or "next week when I watch True Blood (OMGTRUEBLOODISINSANE) I won't be living here anymore so I won't have HBO."  My mom literally almost cries every time the topic of my moving out comes up, and honestly, if I didn't have dignity, I'd probably cry, too.  It's so strange, collecting things like my favourite books or movies or all of my clothes, or similarly going out and buying a set of dishes or a housecoat or a laundry hamper.  This is a very new feeling to me, and honestly, it scares the living hell out of me like nothing has before.  On the flip side, I'm eager to jump into something I've never experience, and my sheer terror has been coupled with a genuine yet cautious curiosity about how my life will unfold for the next year.  I'll be surrounded by those with expertise and I should hope they treat me as a noob with compassion.  Good god.  I'm moving out in four days.  (okay, three.. let me be ignorant and pretend it's still Wednesday!)

Aside from my moving anxieties which fail to be wrangled, I have a mixture of excitement and disdain for the resuming of class.  I miss going to class, I miss learning, but I'm sure if you talk to me in a week (god, in a week I won't be living here..) I'll speak differently.  Regardless, I'm slightly eager to get my reading lists and start writing papers again and I'm excited to finally stop attending classes I know I'm going to fail in.  (science)

Well, it was a fast four months, and I'm quite sad in its passing, but it was a good four months.  I hope the next eight will be spectacular.  Wish me luck.