Yay.

Poor blog, I've been neglecting you.

I got a letter saying I'm on the Dean's List (means I'm in the top 10% in the arts/science faculty) yyyyayyyyy.. for some reason I'm not very pleased at this.. not to say I'm displeased, I just don't hugely care for some reason. Maybe it's the mood I'm in.

On Tuesday we'll see how fast I learn how to take care of a handful of two and three year olds. At least I can give the cheering a break.. I had fun this week but it got a little tiresome towards the end.

I feel so crummy for no good reason, this seems to be happening a lot in the past little while.. I think it's an "all the little things adding up" sort of deal.

RandyMcRandom

I feel a bit like Salieri in Amadeus, the champion of mediocrity. Everything with me has always been "ok" or "good" but I've yet to discover any true talent, anything great about me.

If you had to pick one word to describe me what would it be? (A very hard question, yes, make it two words if that helps :P )

The numbers fluctuate, but these days about 25% of me would like a significant other and the other 75% makes me feel rather surely that an emotional relationship can only ever inevitably lead to the sort of pain that I have no defense against. Stupid arguing and drama and the guy turning out to be a huge prick and being blinded to reason. I. Am. Terrified. Of. Experiencing. Any. More. Of. That. Sort. Of. Pain. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll throw fear to the wind if given the right circumstance.

Last week my clarinet teacher gave me Weber's Concertino.. this week we spent the whole time at the piano with her accompanying me.. it was -so- much fun.

Yesterday on the subway there was a little boy whose skateboard was taller than he was, after several minutes of complete silence, he asked his father: "Dad, do you think Steven Harper is a good president so far?" It was so cute. His dad went on to talk about multiculturalism and terrorism, using entirely adult language, stopping now and again to ask if the kid understood what this or that word meant. He even quoted Benjamin Franklin to him. That's gonna be one smart kid when he gets bigger. I was impressed.

When I'm first getting to know people, they always end up asking what kind of music I listen to and I can never think of an answer that doesn't sound like a cop-out. I'm the only person I know that puts Phantom of the Opera, The Folksmen, Simple Plan, Leanne Rimes, The Muppets, Pink Floyd, Christina Aguilara, Queen, and so on, all on the same cd. I drastically mix a wide variety of genres in a way that would make some physically ill. Very rarely do I have more than one song by the same artist on any given cd. I won't even begin to explore the dire psychological possibilities of such an all-over-the-place approach. We'll just say I'm unique!

HAHAHA

click here.. THERE'S A GIANT FRIGGIN PICTURE OF ME IN THE MARKHAM ECONOMIST!!

"with teh Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra" I could have done a better editing job..

Stop And Smell The Roses

Walking, frolicking, splashing, playing in the rain
Curling up warm and indoors and watching a thunderstorm
Walking through snow, the big fluffy kind that makes you feel like magic is in the air
Crunching through autumn's leaves, drinking in the magnificence of the leafy colours
Walking under a blue sky, feeling the new warmth and joy of spring sunshine
Snuggling up in your bed and drowsing after a long or tiring day
Singing at the top of your lungs when no one can hear you
Dancing with abandon when no one can see you
Fiddling on your instrument for fun when no one is around
Playing with a band, those moments when the music becomes a part of you, fills you, lifts you up and carries you away
Steering wheel drumming and mock double-tonguing to Persis (or what-have-you), driving laps around the neighbourhood not wanting to stop the car until the song is over
Stargazing, whether it's warm and comfortable or cold and crisp, when I look at a sky filled with stars I feel I can't tear myself away
Horseback riding.. the absolute thrill of a gallop, of flying over a fence, feeling as one with the animal.. even from the ground, the intense bond and affection one develops with those sensative creatures (I can only speak for horses as I've never had a cat or dog)
The luxury of melting into your own thoughts and philosophy, introspection reaching a point of spirituality

We get so caught up in the big picture. I get caught up in the big picture, or I worry about small troubles, and it's so easy to lose sight of what really matters. What really matters are the small pleasures in life, the simple things. Look how many there are, I've only listed the obvious handful.. every once in a while I need to stop, step back, and remind myself of all the beauty and joy there is around me if only I take the time to appreciate it. I fret about being lonely, being single, not having many friends around this summer to fill up my time.. but Jenn, look at all that you can experience without another soul in sight. I can be happy just being with me. Stop and smell the roses, my friends.

Walking through campus this time of year, there's an ever-present hint of flowers in the air, they're planted everywhere. It's absolutely lovely.

This evening I stopped by the camp staff social.. apparently I'm in the "Koala Unit"... what on EARTH possessed these people to put someone with NO experience with children, especially not young children, in charge of 2-4 year olds!!!! It's going to be a learning experience let me tell you.. but a good experience, I think. I think they'll be adorable (when they're not crying) and I'll get hopelessly attached to them. I'm a little disappointed that I won't be getting to run around playing sports all day (woulda LOVED the exercise) or doing crazy crafts or whatever (maybe next year).. what do you even DO all day with 2-4 year olds?? On the bright side.. the "koala unit" ends at 1:15 pm!! (The rest end at 4 pm) so what does the staff do all afternoon after our kids go home? We shall see, but hopefully it'll be something kickass and not like.. dirty work of some sort. We shall see indeed. Also, being in charge of little'uns means not having to stay for overnights which means.. less time working for the same pay! Hey! lol, so it has both it's up and downs, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

I didn't stay long because we had an SCP rehearsal.. do you know what I love? How clarinetists can stop mid-Mozart's Magic Flute and all randomly break out into Rhapsody in Blue! Haha! We watched the end of the hockey game (that last goal was infuriating lol) and ate Helen's delicious cookies..

I'M MAD LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEIN ALL MA TYWO PEEPS ON SATURDAY NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! PAARRTTAAYY!!!!!
Think there'll be any naked hot-tubbing this time? Oh crazy band geeks :P

Face Value

Yes, it's me, posting again. AGAIN. For two reasons:
1. I'm waiting for my KD to boil and there's no one currently online to occupy my attention.
2. I've been reading through Kev's archives from YEARS ago (so as not to miss out when the journal pulls a Marie Antoinette and gets AXED) and reading such concentrated blog (contrablog! like.. contrabass! Am I being weird? That happens sometimes!) makes me want to do more blogging myself. It's like a DISEASE.

Anyways, today's random thought is about appearances. This is not a new thought, not at all, but makes for an interesting ramble I think. The key fact here is that I don't care what you look like. Well I do, but it's not quite so straightforward. The thing about me (and everyone?) is that there is a HUGE discrepancy when it comes to finding someone attractive vs. being attracted to them. When I meet people for the very first time I'll probably label them as HAWT or *shrug* (hey I AM human and all) BUT that judgement has absolutely no application. Very often the people that I find the most attractive off the bat are the people that I am the least attracted to. Maybe because very pretty people have a very intangible, untouchable quality about them. It's a little hard to explain, but you kinda get what I mean? So Jenn, what the hell are you attracted to if not attractive people?! Well, you see, I AM indeed attracted to an attractive appearance BUT the sort of attractiveness that comes with ATTRACTION stems from personality. Let me clarify. When I meet new people (should I be saying "guys" instead of people so as not to confuse you? Girls are different, I find them attractive but am not attracted), the attraction is sort of neutral, and often I'm neutral about whether I think they are attractive looking. If I get to know someone and think they have a great personality that fits my own, I will become attracted to them and will begin to find them more and more physically attractive, increasing the more I like them. It actually works out really well for me.. I'll never date anyone ugly because if I like you enough to date you it means your personality has already made you appear physically attractive to me whether you actually are or not! ("are or not" in terms of majority vote? Whatever) Hahah! It works the opposite way too. On several occasions there have been people who I've found attractive off the bat, you know the people who everyone thinks are gorgeous.. well, if I get to know someone and dislike who they are.. I stop finding them attractive and they lose any physical appeal.

Kinda cool eh? I think so. I DON'T GIVE A RATS ASS WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE! Well, I do.. but.. yeah, you hopefully understand now what I mean! (That is, you understand if you've managed to keep in mind the difference between "attractive" and "attraction" but that's not a hard one.)

I am going to post a few (ok, maybe several) pictures. Mostly because they make me really excited. But they are Jessica's... GORGEOUS, AMAZING, INTELLIGENT JESSICA WHO IS SUPER-AWESOME AT PHOTOGRAPHY! (I couldn't wait to get your permission, I'm impatient and excitable like that, but tell me if you want me to take em down and I shall.)

I LOVE this picture.. I love you guys so fucking much!! (Jesse, Jessica, Helen, Me, Ronnie, Gita)


**To see the rest of the pictures that I have posted, please go to LJ to see them since I cannot do a cut on blogger like I can on LJ.. and because it's easier to post pictures on LJ, and because it's late and I'm lazy.

Crazy Adventures

Friday Night-
Jamie's brilliant idea: CARVING CONTEST! We drove out to the 24 hour Sobey's and were allowed to buy whatever we wanted to carve (of the fruit/vegetable persuasion mostly) and then whipped out the knives and had at! AJ and I constructed likenesses of Jamie and Kate from potatoes so that they could be arranged into sexual positions (we gave Jamie the benefit of the doubt :P ); Jon made a hilarious and actually really good figure of Nelson Mandela out of a yam, some broccoli hair and some radish limbs; Kate carved a pretty awesome dolphin; Jamie, before being viciously attacked by his Jamaican peppers (Telehealth is USELESS) made Jon's head out of a melon.. it looked hysterically terrifying, and we left it later on Mark's porch for him, or someone in his family, to discover in the morning haha!

What a good time, this random shit is what I live for!
Though.. when one really thinks about it.. it's a tiny bit sickening that us middle-class-suburban-brats buy food and then waste it for our personal amusement.

I discovered the benefits of being (seemingly) overly friendly to the kid with the late shift at Tim Hortons, he gave me like a million more timbits than I paid for! Score!

Saturday Afternoon-
Jamie's brilliant idea TAKE TWO!: We + Kate + Mark drove a good long while but finally made it to JUNGLE CAT WORLD!!!!!! Don't you just want to say that with an asian accent? Try it.. JUNGLE CAT WORRLLDD!!!!! Basically a zoo, somewhere around Oshawa, except not huge and featuring cats of all sorts (lions, tigers, leopards, lynxs, panthers, jaguars, etc etc) as well as some random things like monkeys, and some arctic wolves (which I particularly liked). There was a big ass pen filled with BUNNIES!! Also bunnies and goats wandering free range all over the place. And in the playground.. one of the goats climbed to the top of the slide and was sitting there.. (I'm the king of the castle!) Very amusing.

Saturday Night-
STRAHAN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY! It was awesome. Poor M. spent a good few hours on his back on the front lawn haha (I'd feel more sorry for him if I didn't feel a whole lot MORE sorry for Strahan for having to clean up after him.. and a couple other people..) Highlights include: dancing with Jessica in the basement (ow ow!!), Strahan and his kilt.. and the mark his face left in his cake hahaha, getting better acquainted with Ronnie (him assisting me with verticality for an extended period of time haha), ummm what else.. I can't remember a ton off-hand. Anyways.. GREAT party Strahan. Awesome to see lots of TYWO folk. I crashed there and dreamt about Jesse all night (I hope that doesn't freak you out Jesse haha we had adventures in NY.. there was a crazy like alien flying saucer that would appear in the sky and when it did everyone would start screaming and freaking out and run away and we were like WTF?! and then noticed that the people who didn't run away in time were getting like.. zapped.. scary) and awoke with Skittles the cat on my leg, she stayed down there with me all night, DAYUM I WANT A KITTY! I needs me that unconditional love!

P.S. Me + Kate + Jamie before heading out to see Alkaline Trio.. ignore that I look like a cow in this picture, doesn't Jamie look freaky with eye-liner?

While I Pondered, Weak And Weary

There is a time somewhere between night and morning when my mind opens up a little. It's a time for inquiry, for examination, for retrospect- contained neatly within an arms length- a time when the boundaries of my thought expand just enough to give a sensation of breathing room. Room that allows me an opportunity to take that step back and look around. Enlightenment comes from the objectivity gained from this side-step, or maybe not enlightenment at all, maybe just a new, distorted perspective hidden behind the elation of what presents itself as clarity. Fantasy is at it's prime, imagination bounding uninhibited through the expanded space. The nouns beg the adjectives to paint them a portrait and the adjectives crowd about me like children eager for permission. Time and space seem altered, they belong to me. This time is mine. More alive inside of my own mind than at any point where touched by sun. When I look at the stars, I belong to them. Ambiguity is my play-mate. Concision is my sword. With them I play-fight -en garde!- until a seeping reality again hardens the table-top beneath my finger-tips, or until the pull of drowse surfaces an awareness of the pillow beneath my cheek.
Until then, dance with me in the moonlight.

Nerds4Life

I met Carolyn on the first day of Eng110. We discovered we had many things in common. We both play clarinet. And we both love Star Trek TNG. We're taking summer school together. We often have extended nerdy music and Star Trek discussions.

Tonight in class during our break we were doing just this, towards the end talking about Cmmdr. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and the authenticity of his trombone playing in various episodes. The guy sitting next to us was visibly listening in. As we were finishing, he jumped in: "I must say.. I am SHOCKED... I'd heard that female trekkies existed.. but I've never actually met any before!!!!!"

He just seemed so impressed and incredulous.
We got a good laugh out of it.
Being a nerd rocks.

Speaking of which:
There's something extremely satisfying about driving home listening to the rich, ominous chords of "Of Sailors and Whales" (a piece of band music you've probably never heard of- unless you went to MDHS- based upon scenes from Melville's Moby Dick) while spectacular lightening crashes above in the clear, dry, night sky.
*shiver*
Had to be there, I guess.

Of What Dreams May Come

This may be a rambling sort of post. We won't call it rambling.. more of a meandering.

I feel extremely unsettled.
It's been this way ever since I moved back home, I'm not sure what the dealio is. I pass through these jaded halls feeling as though I'm a guest in someone's house. When I was small, "home" was always my default page; any onset of illness or discomfort would automatically trigger the impression that if only I were to get home and be in my own bed again everything would be alright. Perhaps it is still so, but nonetheless this house no longer speaks to me of comfort and familiarity and belonging.
Maybe I just need a routine, to drown my alienation with productivity.
Maybe this is less about my physical surroundings and more about the recent surfacing of my on-going concerns about life.. the fear of never becoming something worth-while. The fear of reaching middle age and feeling as though my life has been empty or meaningless, but with it the vague sense of helplessness and inability to make something of myself, or to find out what I even want to make of myself.

It's not monstrous, just a discomfort; a leaky faucet that goes drip-drip-drip in the back of my conscious.

In the next week or two, Laura and I will begin apartment hunting- I await this eagerly, I believe I'll feel more at ease in a place I can call my own.. as I felt in my residence room. It's peculiar that now home feels more like borrowed space than the actual borrowed (rented) space.

The nature of the books I've been reading for Can. Lit. ("Always let a man think how fine and tolerant he is to put up with you") is filling me with rage and a determination to never fall victim to the subordinate house-wife malaise. I used to think it'd be kinda nice to live back in the old days.. stay-at-home and have a nice dinner ready for the dominant husband. ("I sobbed it all foolishly, clinging to him, trying to make him look at me, but he helped me to my feet and said I had better lie down for a while. A few minutes later he went out.")
I've changed my mind.

Speaking of class, you know one of the things I love about English? It's so breath-takingly intellectual. My class, consisting mostly of those with years experience on top of my own, has me listening in silent awe at the level of intelligence in their on-the-fly analyses of the literature we examine. You'll read a book, I'll read a book, and think 'oh, that was an interesting story.. girl does this and that and then it's over' and you don't really think very much more about it. But there's so much more. There's a startling amount hiding where you'd never see it unless you took the time to look. Astonishing levels of symbolism adding layers of dimension and psychology, a subtle shift of diction which changes the entire tone, a sublime manipulation or blurring of genre, a synonymity hiding cleverly behind a polarity of characters and a relationship to nature that can only end in a poetic justice, an extreme irony, and sometimes in a series of frustrating paradox.
The intellectual stimulation leaves me in a state of exaltation.

Let's dumb it down a little now: MMMMM FOOOOOD.
On Tuesday I made Jamie a cake as part of his present, since I missed his birthday while we were in NY and all. I thought it would be hilarious to make it big (4 layers) and, thinking to myself "what a monstrosity", I decided to give it a monster face. Goblins having also been on my mind, since the last two times I'd seen him there had been goblins involved in some way.. (watching "The Princess and the Goblin", then looking at the picture book of it the next time, and then watching Labyrinth last night... wow Jamie, the last 3 times we've hung out it's been goblin themed.. wtf is wrong with us?! haha!) Anyways, I thought I'd show it to you because it amuses me and looks delicious! (It also just occured to me that I made a monster cake on 06/06/06 haaaa haaaaaaa)



Speaking of Labyrinth, have you all seen it? Another favourite childhood movie.. starring David Bowie as the Goblin King haha found that we could not stop ourselves from looking at the blatant bulge visible from his wearing tights. I NEVER noticed as a child.. I didn't even notice like last summer when I watched it.. HOW COULD ANYONE NOT NOTICE!!! Oh lord.. yeah, and we caught one of the goblins saying something rather inappropriate.. you know those scenes where a bunch of characters are muttering? But if you actually listen you can distinguish what maybe one of them is saying? OH BOY. "You heard that too, right?" *we rewind and watch it again like 4 times*

Hy-larious.

I dreamt last night about driving, and true to any other dreams I've ever had about driving, no matter how hard I press down on the brakes, I can't make the car stop. The obvious meaning behind that almost has me thinking that it has no meaning at all.

Apart from this, most of last night's dreams were fantasy. It's pretty awesome living out in a dream what you'd fantasize of while awake. However, today these dreams left me awaking with a sense of discontent. Less of a "that was awesome" and more of a "stop rubbing in my face what's not going to happen in real life".

"Change" Therapy

I don't care whether you like it because I love it!

Do -you- see it?

My Web Skillz.. WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!

I'm really really bad with computers.. I kind of know almost nothing about them or how to work things on them.. BUT I needed somewhere on which to share with you all of my New York pictures!!

SO.. it's not brilliant.. it's nothing hardcore or incredible.. but it's damn brilliant, hardcore, and incredible relatively to the person who created it!!!

Go to it, look through it, love it.. love me for it :)

http://a.domaindlx.com/jennandnewyork/main.htm