It's a Beautiful Day

You know what’s sad about me? I go through phases where I watch and listen to a lot of news, I take everything in, and you could ask me anything about what’s going on in the world at any given point, and I can generally tell you. As of late though, I’ve been bad and not paid as close attention as perhaps I should. I still have a general idea of what’s going on, but I am not paying as much attention as I should. I did know that Barak Obama was being sworn in today, but I didn’t really think much of it. I didn’t watch the news last night, so lucky for me I didn’t see the ridiculous amount of hipe that surrounded this historical day, but when Dad called me at noon and reminded me that the inauguration was on and said I should watch it, I turned on the tv right away. I missed the VP being sworn in, but I caught the tail end of something… some oath Obama had to say. Then John Williams had composed a theme and variations based around the song “Simple Gifts” which was an old song that came from Stravinski’s “Right of Spring”, and I remembered hearing that song as a child. The composition was beautiful. Then, Barak was sworn into office, and then he gave his speech. I will readily admit that yes I did spend a quarter of it in tears, and yes I know I’m lame. It was amazing, absolutely amazing, to listen to this man, the first ever black president of the United States, speak and address people all over the world. He is a phenomenal speaker. His words really moved me, not to mention that his voice alone is beautiful. He has a lot to live up to. There has been so much hipe, so much leading up to this moment when he would become president. He has promised a lot of things, he has said a lot of great words that people will hopefully never forget. I just hope that he will live up to everything he promises.

The one thing I was sad about while watching this was the fact that I watched it alone, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it after. I sat on the floor with Rosamae, and we watched it together. I sat there and scratched her ears and petted her and hugged her and just bonded with her. I know she has no clue how this whole thing made me feel, but I’m glad at least that she was there and not off sniffing something or being silly. She sat very quietly and just let me pet her. It was great. And I realle liked the old reverend guy at the end. He sounded like a dinosaur, but he was so cute, and ha made the people laugh.

When Obama was giving his speech, there were two million people in the audience. Can you imagine that? Two million people, and they were all dead silent when he spoke. This man had two million people hanging on his every word. I think that’s the sign of a great speaker. I really would like to listen to his book “The Audasity of Hope” because he narrates it. I should rap this up and probably say something really intelligent about hope or chage, or there should be some good ending, but I have nothing. I guess here’s to a new United States Government not run by a fucking nut job. As I said, hopefully Obama will come through on the things he has promised, and I hope that the U.S can be more accepted and be thought of in a better light by the world.

Another Rap-up type thing

It’s more than two weeks late but I really don’t care. I’m doing this anyway.

Positives of 08:

• Getting into Queen’s!


• AS few jam sessions at Xanadu music


• Reconnecting with old friends Suzan and Roisin, both of whom I went to camp with way back in the day!


• Frosh week again!


• Getting together with Anna, doing a lot of just fun singing and even doing a duel performance in Toronto in September!


• Continued fun with Shout Sister


• One very memorable and fun trip to Brantford in June


• Making it through an entire year with the most amazing and beautiful guide dog ever! Also being told by Chuck on several occasions how well we were doing


• An interesting support group leading to a summer with a few new friends which was great times


• Many fun drunken escapades watching Georgette start doing Thursday night performances at Brandi’s


• Mindi!


• Shannon!


• One hell of a great Christmas… lots of awesome presents!


• Grandpa quit drinking May 21st


• Older step sister finally moving out


• Uncle Bill’s 50th birthday party


• May 2-4 crazy party in Ottawa with the crew!

Really excellent O and M lessons and finally having the ability to walk independently downtown therefore giving me a ton more freedom

Negatives of 08

• Constant arguments with my father


• Apendix surgery that left me in pain for a stupidly long time


• Still no job


• Hard courses last semester resulting in my realization that environmental science was not for me


• Old neighbour died of Cancer


• Grandpa’s liver started to fail


• Remember all that awesome weight I lost last year? It came back with a vengeance. Is it wrong that I joked with someone recently that if I were to gain much more weight I might kill myself by over dosing on diet pills so I could at least die trying? I thought it was funny… others were concerned for my mental health.


• Remember those friends I mentioned that I met at the support group? Not friends anymore. They loved drama and bullshit, and God knows that shit follows me, so this year I said enough and as a result don’t talk to those people anymore


• I sat around and did a lot of nothing for the first half of 08 because I was just lazy and complacent.

Hopes for 09:

• I’d like a job please.


• Getting off academic probation and not having to worry and stress so much about school.


• Find a major or medial that I can actually stick with and finish


• Work on the self-esteem. It’s slowly getting better.


• Lose weight… but when do I not want to do that?


• Move out on my own again.


• Learn better tolerance, patience and discretion because these lessons seem hard for me.


• Work on building a more stable relationship with my parents


• Work on being more positive in general because I can be pretty bitchy.

Over all, I’d say that 2008 was a great year. I feel like I’ve made progress with meds and things. 09 looks like it’s going to be a good year if everything works out. I’m relatively happy today. Went out with Shannon last night, made new drinks and had a really good time. The Pizza Hut Delivery guy made good fun of us. It was a good night. I hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend.

Thoughts on Marley and Me and other random crap

One of my favourite books of 07 was turned into a movie that came out Christmas day. It had a sweet cast, the main characters being played by Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston! Two of my fav actors!!! Playing in a movie about one of my fav books!!! How can you go wrong? Oh boy… oh boy… oh boy… let me tell you…

First of all, Marley the dog was supposed to be a yellow lab! People! Pay attention!!! In the book, they made a huge deal about telling us that Marley was an English, pure bred yellow lab. This was important because they wanted to show him at dog shows. As far as I know, you can only show pure bred dogs at dog shows. Never in the movie was any of this mentioned at all. Marley, in the movie, was a labradoodle!!! A fucking labradoodle!!!

Second, I don’t recall ever reading about the author/main character’s friend Sebastien. Maybe he was in the book briefly, but this guy was all over the movie. I don’t really remember him at all. Third, I really hate it when movies change the chronological order of events. That really urks me. Certain things happened before certain other things, and they were changed around in the movie. I’m not really sure why… There’s a part where Marley is tied to a table at an outdoor restaurant, and he runs and drags the table with him. That was after they’d had all three of their kids… or at least two of them… I’m pretty sure it was three though. But in the movie, Jennie hadn’t even miscarried yet. Sorry if I just spoiled anything for anyone. It just bugged me.

Another thing, they skipped some of my favourite parts, like the part where John and Marley actually go back to obedience school and they actually finally passed! Methinksa that was pretty important.

All in all, it was a cute movie, but there were a lot of inconsistencies that I was not a fan of. Oh well… what are you going to do eh?On another n
Ote
, I have a new cell phone!!! Ah, how I am in love!!! It’s the Nokia 6682 RVI, so it has talks on it! Go Talks!!! Now I can use my cell phone for what it really should be used for… texting!!! Ha ha

I had my first class of the new semester yesterday. IT was a world drama course, and it was pretty interesting. I think I’m going to enjoy that course. I have Tuesdays and Fridays off, and tomorrow, I have drama again followed by a course in the global development of aboriginals. And then Thursday night I have aworld music course!!! This semester is going to rock rock rock!!!

I’m off to eat steak and parogies now. Hope everyone’s having a good week back at whatever they’re doing.

Viva la Mehico!~!

This is the log I kept on my new years vacation!!! It was amazing!!!

We're taking off from Kingston airport. We're in the air, going up, up up. God I love flying. You have no idea how much. Since both my grandfather and uncle were fighter pilots, I guess it's in my blood. It's now 10:15. First, we fly from Kingston to Toronto, then we have a bit of a layover, and then it's Toronto to Cancoon! Then, we drive for an hour in order to arrive at the condo where we will be staying. I love this feeling where it feels like the back of the plane is going up. This is cool! I didn't take Rosamae on the trip, because it would have been too much of a hassel. I miss her already. Dad, if he isn't being a complete cocksuck like he was this morning, is taking care of her. God, how exciting is this that I get to spend New years in the tropics on a freakin' beach? Or in an outdoor hot tub? This is going to be amazing. I love the sound of the plane's engine. It's so loud and powerful. That's partly the same reason that I love when Rosamae barks, makes her sound so strong, like she would protect me from anything. Last time I tried to write one these travel logs, I completely forgot about it, so hopefuly this one will do better. I also brought my digital recorder, as well as my COULD player. I'm set for life! I'm going back to reading now. I will write when I get to Toronto.

I'm in Toronto, sitting in the Air Canada lounge. Since Mom has super elete status on Air Canada, we get to go in the lounge. Hell yes this is sweet. We get free food, all you can eat soup, salad, these yummy veggie chips that I have not a clue what they're called, but they're delicious and I enjoy them more than regular chips. I was going to read on that flight from Kingston to Toronto, but I fell asleep. I'm going to eat some salad now. More from the big plane later!

PDDS I just had this awesome green salad, and the part that made it the most awesome was this creamy dill dressing. Dill anything is good really. I went to Wild Wings the other day, and had wings in a creamy dill sauce and they were to die for.

We're now en route to Cancoon. I think we're somewhere over New York right now, I'm guessing but I can't tell. I am trying to get radio stations with my radio COULD player. Very illegal, but I can update as to our progress every so often, maybe.

Sarasota Florida 15:30

I find it interesting that this is now the second time that we've been to Mexico, and both times, somehow we've been fucked over in some way.

We are in Cancoon now at the resort. It is a huge condo, going to bed now, will write more tomorrow when I am more awake.
It's Tuesday. I am sitting on the balcony with Alexander, Chris and Lisa's son, and Lisa's mother. I'm reading this amazing book that my friend Suzan wrote and I really hope that she will find a publisher for it. It needs to be on book shelves everywhere!!!!! So so so good! Have I mentioned that I may or may not be completely in love with Shivrayis and may or may not want to sleep with him? Keera is pretty cute too. I didn't like her at first, but now she's cool! Mexico is beautiful. Right now, Alexander is making me a bacon and egg McMuffin. Damn that was tasty. Ok, so last night we went to this dolphin nursery and saw a baby dolphin that was about the length of one of my shoulders to the other. It was so so small, and it swam with its mother, they would come up out of the water for air and we %d hear them jumping. If I'm lucky, I may get the chance to swim with dolphins and touch them. That will be the highlight of this trip. We went to a restaurant last night, drank margaritas and listened to some crazy guitar dude from Long Beach. That was fun, there were a lot of drunk people from Michagon there who were hilarious. It was a good night. This morning though, I woke up with what feels like a cold. Apparently it's not, it's just the air conditioning, but that seems odd. Oh well, I hope it passes. Not sure what the plans are for this morning but I am sure we will be swimming in this kick ass pool that's four pools interlinked by a bridge. I hear it's freezing, but if anyone knows me, they know that I don't really care. Ok, back to reading for now.

We just got back from the beach. The ocean is as amazing as always. God how I love the ocean. It's one of my favourite things. At two, we're going on a snorkelling tour with a sailboat. I myself won't snorkel, but I'll watch everyone else. There is something to be said for having a drink beside a pool on December 30. This is brilliant!

So we went on a catameran tour. That was actually amazing! There were these nets on the front of the boat, and we went over five foot waves. It was so so so much fun!!! We hung out on the boat, we drank margaritas while we were sailing. It was incredible.

Oh, and just to make my life wonderful, I have one hell of a cold. It's my vacation, it's 20:51, and I'm alparently going to bed, because my head feels like it's going to explode. Mom and everyone went to get some decongestants for me, I hope I will feel somewhat better in the morning. Good night. I'll write tomorrow, although everyone's going to see this as one big, long entry, but that's ok.

Mom is going to be some pissed this morning, since I doubt she got any sleep cuz I kept coughing and moving around and generally feeling like ass. What the shit just happened to my file? They went out and bought me liquid benedrille, which made it possible at least to breathe out of one side of my nose. Gick, why must I have a cold during my vacation? Why are the Gods pissed at me? First, I almost lost my passport, now this. But I will not let this ruin my holiday, no way! I think today is dolphin discovery day. I'm super excited, and tonight? New Year's eve!!!! Woo woo!! Going to blow my nose now.

If everything goes according to plan, I will have pictures of my trip. Did I mention the Captain yesterday let me sail? Yeah, that's right Barb sailed a big ass boat! What's the point of going somewhere if you don't get to have tons of crazy new experiences? There are a lot of really interesting and different sounding birds all around. One in particular likes to squawkstscream at me whenever I come out onto the balcony. It's kind of neat.

The weather has been perfect since we arrived Monday night. Due to the humidity, the air feels like velvet on our skin. It's so wonderful! I hope Mom and Cam get back soon and give me something decent to take for my cynuses, as in not Benadrille. I wonder why the pool isn't on yet? It's 8:42. I haven't been in the pool yet, so I am excited to go. Since Mom didn't have any lemon tea, she heated up sprite. It was different, it loses it's fizziness and it tasted like there was not much sugar, but Mom may have watered it down, I'm not sure.

We went to the beach again this morning. The ocean is so nice and lovely and warm. I smoked my knee on a rock, but nothing serious. All I have to say is thank God it was not a sea urchen. That would have made me cry. After awhile I sat on the beach and waited for Mom and Cam to go snorkelling, and this really nice American family came and sat with me. Turns out the father is getting his EMBA through a video corespondance course at Queen's! We're about to have some nachos. Not sure what the plan for the rest of the day is, but I will write whenever something interesting happens. This is a way better journal than the one I kept at Goodb, which , never actually did. Oops!

This is getting a wee tad ridiculous. We've been sitting here for the last half hour and the annoying cleaner has been playing this same god damn song five times now. I might shoot this guy! It's not a bad song, but seriously? Five fucking times? Good, time number six. I can tell I'm starting to get cranky due to lack of sleep and mood stablisers, Lois Eastwood Lisa's mother keeps coughing up all this nasty fucking flegm. Time number seven. Eight... Ten... fuck people seriously turn this fucking sddong off! Eleven? Are you fucking shitting me? Twelve... I may or may not go downstairs and punch this woman who keeps playing the stupid song. So, after literally 18 times of that crazed woman playing that song, a swim in a pool that was blessedby cold, and going shopping (I will never understand sighted people who just go to a store to look at stuff! A store is for buying shit!) So now we are back on the balcony eating more nachos and drinking and stuff. I have been so fucking cranky all day. I hate the fact that I can't taste a thing. Nor can I smell anything. I'm so thirsty, but seriously, what's the point of eating/drinking anything when you can't taste it? Tonight we're going to Cringo Dave's for dinner and tomorrow at one PddM it's dolphin time.

At this rate, what with my cold bullshit, this new year's might be the first in 4 years that I haven't drank. I'm all dizzy and spinny and I'm not sure I like the thought of drinking right now, although our really attractive boat captain informs me that if I drink tequilla it will kill my cold... interesting theory. It'll kill the cold... or it'll kill me.

Is it sad that we couldn't even stay up till midnight last night? Damn cold. Wow, that last sentence I wrote at 5 A.M. in my sleep and it really needed fixing.

This morning, we went for a walk. Fuck blisters are a bitch. I know I'm so whiny. There's a bird outside that sounds like the sound Mom makes when she whistles for the cats. I blame this cold or whatever it is.

It's 14:22 and I just swam with the dolphins. They are massive creatures! And they're so nice and graceful. It was a bit tacky, we got them to dance and sing, which is kind of silly, but I got to play with a baby which was so cute. Kind of pissed it off though when I accidentally poked it right in the eye. Oh well, it came back and I talked to it. I held it. It was so small. God Alexander's a fucking brattty kid. But dolphins! They were adorable!! I'm going in the pool now cuz I'm roasting here in the sun.

We went to a restaurant in the village last night. The steak was delicious, the shrimp and the salad... not so much. I had the world's strongest margarita, which pretty much had me hammered, which was fine and delicious. Then, Alexander, Lois and Chris taught me how to play four handed Uker. It's kind of a fun game! It's 5:12 A.M. here. We leave in three hour;. I can't wait to see my puppy doo! But for some reason I've been up literally all night. I had one dream about eating salad with my brother's girl friend, but that's it, so I've resigned myself to sitting out on the balcony to read.

I realize this has pretty much been one long ramble, but it was fun to actually keep a decent log. I had a few new experiences this trip. For one thing, I felt a live starfish. Xinteresting to feel him move through my hands. Starfish, for those who don't know, are very spiny little guys. They're not sharp per say, but they have little sort of spikes all over their bodies. I'm curious how they defend themselves though, because that one really didn't do a whole lot to get away from me. And the spikes don't hurt, they're just sort of soft, maybe tentacles are a better way to describe them.

I also, of course, pet dolphins. They are so smooth to the touch, almost exactly how I imagined they would feel. The one other thing I felt for the first time was a dead but fully intact moth. The only reason I found this guy so interesting was because I never realized moths had feathery wings.

Well, I think this is about it for this log post entry whatever you want to call it. I hope everyone's Christmas and new years was as awesome as mine has been, and here's to an awesome year aeead!

One more thing. Apparently, while Chris was asleep, this conversation went down

Lisa: (hears Chris's phone go off) Christopher, who's texting you?
Chris: I dunno, the same person that keeps emailing me. (Chris starts to text back)
Lisa: Why are you texting sone if you don't even know who it is?
Chris: I dunno (slams phone shut and falls back asleep)

Apparently this morning when Chris looked to see who he texted, it was his daughter Melissa. He wrote "Hey Lissie what are you up to?" and she responded with "going to bed" at three in the morning. Chris was asleep the whole time. Classic!