title taken from "A World Alone" by Lorde
Today I presented my mobile narrative about Knox Presbyterian Church in Stratford. It didn't go too well, because there was no one at the church and the doors were all locked, despite the fact that I told the church that we were going to be there and they had confirmed it with me. I heard back later from them and the lady said there was an emergency and she had to watch her grandson. So I understand; things happen, no biggie. But then she also said "I totally forgot". Which makes me a little less understanding. I'm a little disappointed that people couldn't experience the mobile narrative as it was supposed to be. But we still got compliments on it. I was really proud to have been chosen to be in the Student Showcase and have the opportunity to show it to a bunch of people. Hopefully it gets a good mark (it's worth 50% of my grade!).
And as of now, I'm basically coasting. I have three lectures left; one is a review session and one is just watching other groups present their projects. So not strenuous in any way. Three more days, then I'm headed home. Brief moment of true relaxation and then exams -_- I got my stats midterm back: 95.2% baby! Highest mark in the class, and it's worth 30% of my final grade :)
I was complimented the other day on my writing. One of my group projects was to write up a case study report, so we were working in a google doc together. They said, "You have great vocabulary. It's like reading a real journal article!" It made me really happy :) I know my love language is acts of service, but more and more I feel like it's words of affirmation. I never thought I was a particularly great writer, but my university experience has taught me otherwise. Some of the things I read written by my classmates is appalling. I seriously wonder how they passed English in high school. I'm not saying I'm the best writer, but I'm definitely better than the apparent average of my program. I love it when you write a sentence, and you just want to bold it and underline it and read it out to everybody, because it's perfect - couldn't have been said better. That's my favourite :D
329. How do you vent your anger?
Through rants to people who are not involved in the cause of the anger and/or can relate to my anger.
330. Do you have a collection of anything?
Oh, do I ever.
- stamps
- coins
- mini books
- objects that are not their normal size (particularly in the stationary / office department)
- Lego Minifigures
I used to have a lot of other collections as well:
- small little rubber lizards that were in the goodie jar at the dentist
- mini keychain board games
- Kinder Egg surprise toys
- mini erasers
But in fits of rage about having too much junk, those ones have been disposed of. I used to pride myself on my collection of collections.
Tuesday 31 March 2015
Saturday 28 March 2015
I was riding the bus and there were these two guys talking about how close University of Winnipeg was to the University of Manitoba. "They're only, like, 40mins away from each other!". And all I could think was, "You are currently in Waterloo, where there are two universities quite literally 5mins away from each other."
326. What does your URL mean?
obsessionsareme: I have a lot of obsessions. But I'm pretty sure the URL "obsessions" was taken. So this was the next best thing that I could think of.
327. What is your greatest weakness? Your greatest strength?
What is this, an interview? I think my greatest weakness is my lack of empathy for others. I struggle to feel what others feel. My greatest strength would probably be, I don't know how to say it, my self-control? When something needs to happen, I make sure it happens, even if I don't want to do it. And if I shouldn't do it, I won't.
328. Who is your celebrity crush?
Benedict Cumberbatch.
326. What does your URL mean?
obsessionsareme: I have a lot of obsessions. But I'm pretty sure the URL "obsessions" was taken. So this was the next best thing that I could think of.
327. What is your greatest weakness? Your greatest strength?
What is this, an interview? I think my greatest weakness is my lack of empathy for others. I struggle to feel what others feel. My greatest strength would probably be, I don't know how to say it, my self-control? When something needs to happen, I make sure it happens, even if I don't want to do it. And if I shouldn't do it, I won't.
328. Who is your celebrity crush?
Benedict Cumberbatch.
Sunday 22 March 2015
They said get back Honky Cat
title from "Honky Cat" by Elton John
I'm glad I got to spend the weekend at home. I don't have a ton of work right now (strange, I know) so I would've just been sitting around my apartment with nothing to do. And now it's only going to be a couple weeks before I'm back again. My last day of lectures is on April 6th, which also happens to be Easter Monday. I thought that I wouldn't be able to go home till the weekend after. But apparently instead of the 6th being our normal classes, they're just bumping the Friday that we have off for Good Friday to Monday. And on Friday the only thing I have is a lab, which my prof said isn't happening since it's the last week. So I can come home for Easter :) And then I don't have an exam till the 17th, so I'll stay at home for a week, then go back. But to be honest, I wish my exams were all a week earlier so that I could be completely done earlier. Oh well. I'm not really stressed right now. In one of my classes I just have to do a presentation and then the rest of the time I'm just watching other people's presentations. Another class is the same situation. I'm not really sure what we're doing in one class, but there's no exam for that class so I'm not really concerned. There's really only two classes that I still am doing work in. Ha. It's funny I should think about this now because just earlier today I was talking to a family friend who is a teacher and she was saying that one of the hardest things for grade 9's to get used to is doing work right up until the end (as apposed to slacking off during the last month). But this semester is weird in that way - the rest of my semesters have definitely not been like this.
One thing I did this weekend was play old records on my grandma's record player that she said I could have. She also gave us a bunch of records. I love it. I just love looking at it and knowing that somehow the needle is picking up the music and sending it through the speakers. One of the only artists that I'm familiar with that my grandma had a record of was Elton John, so we were listening to his greatest hits as of 1970. The one thing that's annoying is that you have to flip the record over half way through the album. I don't mind doing it, but you only get like 15mins of music before you have to get up again and flip it over. But that aside, I really like it and if anyone wants to buy me a record of a modern album I'd probably love you forever.
I can't wait for camp to start :)
323. Simple but extremely complex. Favourite band?
Band, being more than one person and not just a singer, would probably have to be Bastille.
324. What was the last lie you told?
I have to spend 20hrs with my international peer mentee, and for our last meeting we spent just over an hour together, but on the sheet I wrote down that we spent 1.5hrs together.
325. Do you believe in karma?
Not really. Simple put, karma is "what goes around comes around". I believe that God will judge you based on your actions, so if you've been bad, then He'll treat you badly. But that's kind of a broader scope than I think karma looks at. I don't think that because I do something good today that something good will happen to me next week.
I'm glad I got to spend the weekend at home. I don't have a ton of work right now (strange, I know) so I would've just been sitting around my apartment with nothing to do. And now it's only going to be a couple weeks before I'm back again. My last day of lectures is on April 6th, which also happens to be Easter Monday. I thought that I wouldn't be able to go home till the weekend after. But apparently instead of the 6th being our normal classes, they're just bumping the Friday that we have off for Good Friday to Monday. And on Friday the only thing I have is a lab, which my prof said isn't happening since it's the last week. So I can come home for Easter :) And then I don't have an exam till the 17th, so I'll stay at home for a week, then go back. But to be honest, I wish my exams were all a week earlier so that I could be completely done earlier. Oh well. I'm not really stressed right now. In one of my classes I just have to do a presentation and then the rest of the time I'm just watching other people's presentations. Another class is the same situation. I'm not really sure what we're doing in one class, but there's no exam for that class so I'm not really concerned. There's really only two classes that I still am doing work in. Ha. It's funny I should think about this now because just earlier today I was talking to a family friend who is a teacher and she was saying that one of the hardest things for grade 9's to get used to is doing work right up until the end (as apposed to slacking off during the last month). But this semester is weird in that way - the rest of my semesters have definitely not been like this.
One thing I did this weekend was play old records on my grandma's record player that she said I could have. She also gave us a bunch of records. I love it. I just love looking at it and knowing that somehow the needle is picking up the music and sending it through the speakers. One of the only artists that I'm familiar with that my grandma had a record of was Elton John, so we were listening to his greatest hits as of 1970. The one thing that's annoying is that you have to flip the record over half way through the album. I don't mind doing it, but you only get like 15mins of music before you have to get up again and flip it over. But that aside, I really like it and if anyone wants to buy me a record of a modern album I'd probably love you forever.
I can't wait for camp to start :)
323. Simple but extremely complex. Favourite band?
Band, being more than one person and not just a singer, would probably have to be Bastille.
324. What was the last lie you told?
I have to spend 20hrs with my international peer mentee, and for our last meeting we spent just over an hour together, but on the sheet I wrote down that we spent 1.5hrs together.
325. Do you believe in karma?
Not really. Simple put, karma is "what goes around comes around". I believe that God will judge you based on your actions, so if you've been bad, then He'll treat you badly. But that's kind of a broader scope than I think karma looks at. I don't think that because I do something good today that something good will happen to me next week.
Thursday 19 March 2015
Jimmy Fallon: Worship Leader (?!)
I think this article is a really good (short) read about worship leaders and Jimmy Fallon: read it here.
Tuesday 17 March 2015
You know I'm bad at communication/ It's the hardest thing for me to do
Title from "The Wire" by HAIM
Today my friend and I were chatting in her car on the way to Stratford and she started talking about friends. She talked about how high school was rough for her, and that she felt like she didn't have a lot of friends. At first, this was shocking to me, because she's the kind of person who, after having one conversation with you, will deem you her friend. But as she continued to talk, I could see that they way she classifies friends varies significantly from the way you or I would. She went on to say that she has best friends, but then the people who most people would consider friends, she considers mere acquaintances. For her, a big part of friendship is seeing the other person, definitely more so than for me. Obviously seeing your friend contributes a lot to your relationship, but it soon became clear to me that she took the amount of time spent together as a direct indication of your friendship. She said that she didn't consider one of the girls in our group of four to be her friend. And not as in "you can't be my friend any more", but rather that she felt their relationship was fading away.
She clearly thinks about relationships and friendships more than I do. It's true that we haven't been able to hang out with our one friend for a while because of a variety reasons, but I wouldn't say our friendship with her is anything less than it was a couple months ago.
She had her birthday the other week, and quite a few people were not able to make it to her party. Some had legitimate reasons, others simply backed out at the last minute. Especially because she likes birthdays so much, this affected her quite a bit. She had hoped that by not putting a lot of effort or thought into planning the party (she simply asked people to hang out at a pub), that she wouldn't be as affected by it, but she was. So clearly this has been on her mind for a while if she was thinking about it before planning her party.
It's times like these that I wish I was more socially attuned to what to do in a situation like this. Obviously she needs comfort and reassurance, but I'm not great at providing that. I don't know how to. I tried, because I felt so sad that she thought I was her only friend. And while I wasn't able to completely reassure her, I think I did help a bit. I told her that we're all friends and that I enjoy hanging out with her. She feels things very deeply, so that meant a lot to her.
I was going to bring it up to the other two friends in our group, that she was feeling a bit down and it would be good if we could hang out all together. But then she said that I wasn't to tell anybody about what she said. While I understand her desire to keep her feelings and thoughts between us, it makes it a lot harder to try and help her. And I'm sorry I've betrayed her by talking about it here (although no one involved in the story knows about this blog), but I felt so helpless knowing this information, so I had to do something with it.
Today my friend and I were chatting in her car on the way to Stratford and she started talking about friends. She talked about how high school was rough for her, and that she felt like she didn't have a lot of friends. At first, this was shocking to me, because she's the kind of person who, after having one conversation with you, will deem you her friend. But as she continued to talk, I could see that they way she classifies friends varies significantly from the way you or I would. She went on to say that she has best friends, but then the people who most people would consider friends, she considers mere acquaintances. For her, a big part of friendship is seeing the other person, definitely more so than for me. Obviously seeing your friend contributes a lot to your relationship, but it soon became clear to me that she took the amount of time spent together as a direct indication of your friendship. She said that she didn't consider one of the girls in our group of four to be her friend. And not as in "you can't be my friend any more", but rather that she felt their relationship was fading away.
She clearly thinks about relationships and friendships more than I do. It's true that we haven't been able to hang out with our one friend for a while because of a variety reasons, but I wouldn't say our friendship with her is anything less than it was a couple months ago.
She had her birthday the other week, and quite a few people were not able to make it to her party. Some had legitimate reasons, others simply backed out at the last minute. Especially because she likes birthdays so much, this affected her quite a bit. She had hoped that by not putting a lot of effort or thought into planning the party (she simply asked people to hang out at a pub), that she wouldn't be as affected by it, but she was. So clearly this has been on her mind for a while if she was thinking about it before planning her party.
It's times like these that I wish I was more socially attuned to what to do in a situation like this. Obviously she needs comfort and reassurance, but I'm not great at providing that. I don't know how to. I tried, because I felt so sad that she thought I was her only friend. And while I wasn't able to completely reassure her, I think I did help a bit. I told her that we're all friends and that I enjoy hanging out with her. She feels things very deeply, so that meant a lot to her.
I was going to bring it up to the other two friends in our group, that she was feeling a bit down and it would be good if we could hang out all together. But then she said that I wasn't to tell anybody about what she said. While I understand her desire to keep her feelings and thoughts between us, it makes it a lot harder to try and help her. And I'm sorry I've betrayed her by talking about it here (although no one involved in the story knows about this blog), but I felt so helpless knowing this information, so I had to do something with it.
Monday 16 March 2015
Life's for the living so live it, or you're better off dead
Title from "Life's For the Living" by Passenger
This weekend I had the great pleasure of having my sister come visit me in Waterloo. It was a ton of fun, and we packed so much into the 30hrs we had together. Freshly baked donuts were first on the list. We stopped at a bakery that I had never been to before, but according to reddit, had great donuts. And they did not disappoint. Then we headed to the mall in Kitchener. Next, unfortunately, was the looong bus ride back to my apartment (never before had I realized how much I ride the bus, and how much it would cost me if my student card didn't work as a bus pass). We then went to the World's Largest East Side Mario's for dinner. (I wonder why and how the World's Largest East Side Mario's is in Waterloo...). Back at the apartment, we watched Pitch Perfect, because that is a great movie (thank you J for Netflix). My favourite scene will always be the riff-off. On Sunday morning we went to Cora's for brunch/lunch. I had breakfast poutine, which was delicious. It was home fries with bacon, sausage, and cheese curds covered with hollandaise sauce and an egg on top :) Alison got pancakes with mini Oreos mixed in. That was also delicious (for the record, Cora's pancakes are huge - much larger than they appear in pictures on menus). Then we went to see Cinderella. It was well done, but because it's a remake, you already know what's going to happen, so the excitement from not knowing isn't there. But I would say still worth watching. One of the highlights was the short at the beginning, Frozen Fever. It was so cute. The songs were a bit of a let down, but there's little mini snowmen that are so cute :) Then I made dinner and we watched Friends.
Alison, we didn't have a lot of time together but we made the most of it and I'm so glad you're my sister. See you in 4 days ;)
320. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
"A little brown house sparrow swoops out of the rafters and lands..." from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
321. What's your religion?
Christianity.
322. If you are outside, what are you most likely to be doing?
Going for a walk (whether that walk be just a walk or walking to a destination).
This weekend I had the great pleasure of having my sister come visit me in Waterloo. It was a ton of fun, and we packed so much into the 30hrs we had together. Freshly baked donuts were first on the list. We stopped at a bakery that I had never been to before, but according to reddit, had great donuts. And they did not disappoint. Then we headed to the mall in Kitchener. Next, unfortunately, was the looong bus ride back to my apartment (never before had I realized how much I ride the bus, and how much it would cost me if my student card didn't work as a bus pass). We then went to the World's Largest East Side Mario's for dinner. (I wonder why and how the World's Largest East Side Mario's is in Waterloo...). Back at the apartment, we watched Pitch Perfect, because that is a great movie (thank you J for Netflix). My favourite scene will always be the riff-off. On Sunday morning we went to Cora's for brunch/lunch. I had breakfast poutine, which was delicious. It was home fries with bacon, sausage, and cheese curds covered with hollandaise sauce and an egg on top :) Alison got pancakes with mini Oreos mixed in. That was also delicious (for the record, Cora's pancakes are huge - much larger than they appear in pictures on menus). Then we went to see Cinderella. It was well done, but because it's a remake, you already know what's going to happen, so the excitement from not knowing isn't there. But I would say still worth watching. One of the highlights was the short at the beginning, Frozen Fever. It was so cute. The songs were a bit of a let down, but there's little mini snowmen that are so cute :) Then I made dinner and we watched Friends.
Alison, we didn't have a lot of time together but we made the most of it and I'm so glad you're my sister. See you in 4 days ;)
320. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
"A little brown house sparrow swoops out of the rafters and lands..." from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
321. What's your religion?
Christianity.
322. If you are outside, what are you most likely to be doing?
Going for a walk (whether that walk be just a walk or walking to a destination).
Thursday 5 March 2015
Monday 2 March 2015
So Will You Be My Life Support?
(title taken from Sam Smith's Life Support)
I am emotionally unstable right now. Case in point: I was taking a walk around campus to stretch my legs before class and I was listening to Sam Smith and I started crying (not a lot, but there were definitely sobs). I've never been like this before. I'm pretty sure it's a mix of everything that's been going on over the past couple weeks. I haven't been in my routine for over two weeks now and I don't like it. Although I'd much rather be at home doing nothing, I'm glad I'll be able to get back into my routine. Unfortunately I can't get back into my routine quite yet because I'm trying to catch up on work that didn't get done this past weekend. I have a midterm later this week and another one early next week, and I haven't started studying yet. And this basically leads back to my previous post about stress and not being able to cope.
This weekend I'm going on a day trip to Niagara Falls with my international peer mentee. It looks like it should be fun. The only thing I'm worried about it my mentee is bringing a friend so I'll probably become a third wheel on this expedition. But it should still be fun. And it will be a big step towards the 20hrs we need to spend together this term, which had me freaking out.
I'm just praying really hard that this all works out.
316. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Benedict Cumberbatch (and his wife and baby).
317. What do you think about most?
How I'm going to survive what's coming up next.
318. Ever had a poem or song written about you?
Only poems that start with "Roses are red / Violets are blue..."
319. Do you have any strange phobias?
Not that it's really strange, but I fear the unknown in the not knowing what's happening kind of sense. I don't fear the distant unknown. But more like if we're going out for a day, I need to know when we're going, who's going, why we're going, when we'll be back, etc.
I am emotionally unstable right now. Case in point: I was taking a walk around campus to stretch my legs before class and I was listening to Sam Smith and I started crying (not a lot, but there were definitely sobs). I've never been like this before. I'm pretty sure it's a mix of everything that's been going on over the past couple weeks. I haven't been in my routine for over two weeks now and I don't like it. Although I'd much rather be at home doing nothing, I'm glad I'll be able to get back into my routine. Unfortunately I can't get back into my routine quite yet because I'm trying to catch up on work that didn't get done this past weekend. I have a midterm later this week and another one early next week, and I haven't started studying yet. And this basically leads back to my previous post about stress and not being able to cope.
This weekend I'm going on a day trip to Niagara Falls with my international peer mentee. It looks like it should be fun. The only thing I'm worried about it my mentee is bringing a friend so I'll probably become a third wheel on this expedition. But it should still be fun. And it will be a big step towards the 20hrs we need to spend together this term, which had me freaking out.
I'm just praying really hard that this all works out.
316. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
Benedict Cumberbatch (and his wife and baby).
317. What do you think about most?
How I'm going to survive what's coming up next.
318. Ever had a poem or song written about you?
Only poems that start with "Roses are red / Violets are blue..."
319. Do you have any strange phobias?
Not that it's really strange, but I fear the unknown in the not knowing what's happening kind of sense. I don't fear the distant unknown. But more like if we're going out for a day, I need to know when we're going, who's going, why we're going, when we'll be back, etc.
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