OK STOP COMPLAINING NOW

SHARON. Don't you have better stuff to do than read my blog anyways?

Mexico: Woowoo! Despite an ominous start (loss of sunny part of day 1 thanks to 5.5 hour delay at Pearson resulting from TOILET MALFUNCTION on plane), the trip was fantastic, with lots of guacamole and culture (well, as much as was possible from the day trips) consumed. Here is us at Pearson. Notice that its light outside - it's not supposed to be.


Dad and I were graced with wonderful weather (every day was sunny, nights were cool but clear) and lucked out with the resort. I'd recommend it highly. Pretty:



Since I'm not a huge fan of doing nothing for an entire week, we decided on three day trips to balance out three lazy beach days (and to hopefully counterbalance the excessive quantities of food available to us). Our first full day started with a breakfast buffet in a beautiful restaurant near the beach, where I satisfied the chorizo sausage craving that I've had since Cuba. The restaurant:


We soon realized that as good as this little place was, it had the downside of not having a serve-yourself station for 'champagne' and orange juice like the larger buffet. Did I mention that the resort was excessive? We then went to the obligatory 'meet your rep' meeting, where we met our rep and realized that she was a complete puddinghead, followed by a realization that she'd not be of much use. We did, however learn about the cheap taxis we'd find on the highway as opposed to the expensive ones to be found at the lobby. The rest of the day was spent wandering around on foot, and later on bikes. We had a late dinner at one of the a la carte restaurants (our first of four), and a fairly early night.

Saturday was our first excursion. We took the highway taxi into a town called Playa del Carmen, 30 minutes or so from the resort. It's a touristy beach town, with lots of little souvenir shops and many people trying to tempt you into buying timeshare property. Here's us after the animal guy stopped to ask us if we were from Canada:



It didn't take long to figure out that they're not actually interested in finding out where you're from, or if you're having a good time, but it's hard to just ignore them and keep walking. I think I would go insane living in a place as hectic as that, and I don't know if I would just develop a shell against the constant barrage of vendor appeals or if I'd become a complete shut-in. We did, however, manage to have a nice day once we found a spot on the beach.


Sunday was a resort day, full of snorkelling and reading and sipping pina coladas (beer for dad) on the beach. It was really cool to have actual reefs available to explore, and I managed to see a lot of fish. Dinner was at the seafood restaurant, where dad ate something called a hogsnapper.


On Monday, we went to Xel-Ha, a place that pretty much anyone who'd ever been to Mexico recommended to us. Paula especially recommended it, surprising because she is absolutely terrified by fish and by bridges, and there were many of each. Its name translates to 'place where the waters are born,' and is a lagoon that is fed both by the Caribbean sea and by three underground rivers emerging into it. It's become famous as a large, natural aquarium, where you can snorkel around and apparently see up to 100 species of fish. We meant to only spend a couple of hours there, and ended up spending the entire day snorkeling, walking around, and swimming in the (not-so) lazy river. It was absolutely beautiful.

Fish!

Hammock!

Courage!

Caves!


Tuesday was the Big Trip, to the Mayan ruins of Coba. On this trip, we learned that Cancun, in Mayan, means snake nest, that to 'wish' is to go to the bathroom, and malokine (sp?) means hello. We also explored some of the oldest ruins in the Yucatan, dating back to the first century. It was completely spectacular to see the immensity of the pyramids and structures, like the start of a road built perfectly level for 60 miles to a trading centre at a city near the later site of Chichen Itza. Here is the start of the road:


The ball courts were really interesting - they were ritual arenas where, in pre-colombian times relevant to Coba, political matters were settled peacefully by teams representing different cities (and later, not so peacefully).




From the top of the Nohoch Mul pyramid (tallest in the Yucatan peninsula), another large earth mound is visible, and our guide informed us that this is the site of another pyramid that could be even taller than the one that has been restored. To date, I think only 5% of the buildings have been unearthed from the jungle.

From the bottom:


At the top:
Inside the structure at the top (where the gods make the descent into heaven):


Looking down:


After the ruins, we went to a Mayan co-op, where each family sells their art to bring money into their village. We had lunch there, and I picked up a couple little things to bring home. Miriam, our tour guide, let me wear her beetles. They're real, but sacred, and have been adorned with gold and jewels - apparently their 'jackets' don't affect their lifespan.


Next we went to a Mayan village where we got to hang out with the little kids and give them school supplies. Here's a Mayan home, and garden (the most beautiful Mayan garden is the one which produces the most food):


A close up of the tree on the left - a monkey swinging!


A Mayan girl, with her pet badger:


After the village, we stopped at a cenote. Cenotes are caves/sinkholes, and are really common since the entire Yucatan peninsula is over underground river systems. This one was warm, and the water was clear, deep and beautiful. I jumped off an insanely high platform, since I knew it would make Mark proud. I ended up with the biggest wedgie ever. Here's my splash, unfortunately there are no photos of the jump itself:



Here's us with Angie, a really fun girl from Pennsylvania who was convinced to come swimming. This was after we gave up on our race to the far side of the cave:


The last day was the official 'relax' day, and we did nothing but lie on the beach, read, eat, and drink tropical drinks. Here's the sunrise:



The sunset:


And the coffee (so cool!):


Coming home:



It was a wonderful trip, one that I'll remember for the rest of my life, and hopefully I'll be able to visit again someday.

Coming home was really nice, as I missed Mark greatly. I have to send out a huge thank you to Mark and to my friends and family for the amazing birthday present. You guys are awesome and I will be appreciating you every single day (not that I wouldn't anyways). Hearts and hugs all around.

Back!

Mexican post soon... but first, happy birthday to Talon! Great things will come of him, just wait and see. And T, if you read this, I solemnly swear to never give you clothes again. Nothing but fun stuff from now on :)

Well folks, for the next week I'll be in Mexico trying not to be an obnoxious tourist. Promise you'll miss me?

Beautiful, Kiwi.

I NEED to get this project over with , so that I can move on and find some new passion for my life. I'm feeling so drained lately, trying to keep busy enough that I don't go insane. I'm also feeling like what I'm doing is not really leading anywhere - I'm not quite sure that I feel relevant, but I know that I want to feel relevant.

Also, I'm sick of dreaming of ex-boyfriends. I don't know what my mind is trying to do to me, but if it keeps this up, I'm going to get abusive. That's right, brain - one more Peter dream and I will hit you with a wall.

title track

I realized that I know the square root of three by heart, but only till five decimal places. Please comment with a random fact about yourself, even if I don't know you and/or you have just stumbled across this blog by accident.

Listening over and over to two versions of the title track to this post - I will maybe post it here later. Not now. Today has been a good day for music though, in the blogs AND SUCH, and I'm seriously considering caving and replacing my dear departed iBROKENFACEpod.

I'm getting scared at how much of a scaredy-cat I am in French class. I sit there, hoping not to be called upon, counting down the minutes and holding intense internal debates over whether I should stay for the whole thing, or skip out at the halftime break. I'm not sure how much I've learned over the past five (well, 4.5, see above) classes other than that making something into a past tense is a complicated ordeal, and maybe talking in the present tense all the time wouldn't be such a terrible thing. One good thing (?) is that after last night, I will now start referring to everybody as 'mon petit chou' and by chou I mean 'dear,' not 'cauliflower.'

Tonight, I'm finally getting around to seeing a St. Mike's Majors game after having lived across the street from the arena for the past 15 months. This is an OHL game, and they're playing the Saginaw Spirit (yes, I give full permission for the wtf? to anyone who knows anything about Ontario or Michigan geography). I'm pretty sure Mark and I will have Sufjan Stevens in our head the entire time (saginaw! saginaw! public trans! public trans!). If anyone is confuse at this point, let me know and I will email you a song.

Enzymatic!

I stupidly cut up a papaya (mmm - thanks John!) on the same cutting board that Mark had used to prep stuff for a yummy black bean soup without washing it first. Now my papaya tastes garlicky... damn.

Also - for anyone in Toronto - Borat tonight?

It's the weekend update!

Raptors! Since I don't know very much about b-ball, highlights included seeing some beautiful slam dunks, and the cutest little girl sitting behind us ("mom, when can I talk to Chris Bosh? I want to tell him that I saw him on TV!"). But the best thing ever: Samuel L. Jackson was there. So cool!

On Saturday, Mark, my dad and I went house-checking with Sharon. We saw a couple out on the Danforth that were fantastic - one felt like a really homey cottage, but would have been too small for a family. It did end up me want to buy a house... and it's nice to see that there are some homes that are nice, IN Toronto, and slightly affordable. The last house we checked out COULD be perfect - if nobody snaps it up before Sharon's house sells. SO - if anyone knows anyone who has a perverse desire to live outside of London, I know of a lovely end town-home for sale for a very reasonable price - jump to it! I also got an out-of-the-blue call from John, finding out that not only was he in town, but he wanted to do stuff! After I cured my withdrawal headache with an emergency choffee, Sharon, Mark and I headed down to the old Spaghetti factory and had a mini Cuba reunion (although, there was no ham in sight to go with the cheese). We took the party back to John's hotel, where Sharon and I bitched about the ignorant people in her life, and then watched SNAKES ON A PLANE - finally!!

Yesterday ended up being one of the most productive days that I've had in a really long time - Sharon dropped us off just past 9 am, and we proceeded to 'get shit done' for a whole 8 hours. Cleaning, laundry, cooking, purging... it was unbelievable. The result was a very clean apartment, and a successful (if tardy) Cuban feast (so the tardy kinda works if we think of it as a theme dinner...) with Mark's family, and a mini-celebration (also tardy) of Matt's birthday. John came by for that too, so the conversation was lively and the night was very enjoyable. So much John in one weekend!

All in all, it was a successful, and unexpectedly friend-filled weekend. I'm declaring myself officially recovered from my blahs.

The Come-Down

So this week is supposed to be good. At least, the nights are.

Monday: Deerhoof concert. AWESOMENESS, right? And, I was feeling pretty awesome already, thanks to a new, wonderful coffee machine at work that may end up saving me lots and lots of money. And then I played stupid video games when Igot home and went to the deerhoof concert for 9:30 - to find out that they started playing at 9 - #$@#%$^%&^! The 15 minutes that we caught was fantastic though, with the encore (Gore in Rut) almost making it worth the $17/ticket. We left two songs into the next band (Fiery Furnaces), and were in bed by 11. Boo.

Tuesday: Halloween. Traditionally, one of my favourite nights of the year. I stayed in all night. Boo again. This I blame on everyone being to far away - I miss my girl's halloween nights! Also, I felt pretty uninspired in the costume department - even though I bought the clouds and snowflakes for my "cloudy with a chance of flurries" costume, I couldn't get over the fact that I was just ripping off Megan's idea. Again, this could be solved by having people live closer - my best inspiration ever came from Sharon's unfortunate raccoon-slaughter on her way over to my place one halloween (Jen = Roadkill Raccoon).

Last night worked out slightly better - after last week's class of defeat (I left halfway through feeling like I would NEVER grasp la Francaise), I had a good class last night. No feelings of panicked helplessness! Afterwards, I met up with Mark and Sara for some sushi, and felt like all was right in the world. Mark and I walked home, enjoyed our chats, and relaxed. Hopefully, tonight will be equally nice.

Also, I need to take Sharon's advice about appreciating things before you're forced to. But it's just so hard to be nice and rational and cheerful when you only have 25 minutes left for sleep...

Montre-awesome!

(two days late, sorry)

As expected, Montreal was filled with enough wonderful times to keep me going for quite a while :) My favourite part was how even though we did a lot, we were still able to make it feel, in part, that we were just doing some low-key hanging out chez Megan.

Thanks to weather and traffic, we made it to Megan's place just after 2am. Now, normally for Mark and I, this would mean that the fun would start whenever we woke up the next day. NOT THIS WEEKEND. Thankfully, Megan had started the party by herself (with some help from Tycho and some vodka and some mudshakes), and it was in full force when we got there. We then dug into Megan's bucket-o-kahlua and joined the fun, managing to stay up till after 4, when the sugar wore off and the alcohol wieghed down our eyelids.

Saturday, we woke (quite late) to downpour and decided (to Mark's dismay) to head to the underground malls for some shopping. I'm jealous of Megan's awesome new boots and coat - but am pleased that someone else is reinventing themselves via higher heels. We can compare our back pain and terrible knee joints in solidarity when we're 50. Around three, we caught a bit of Mark's underground mall hate - but thankfully stumbled into the movie theatre just in time. It was then, officially, that Saturday became all about the dark - we had a perfect amount of time to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas(IMAX!!)" before our dark dinner. The best part was when we all put on the glasses JUST TO LOOK COOL:





(yes, I lifted those directly from Megan's blog, which also has an entertaining description of the weekend's events)

On to the exciting part: I scored some BLOW! And by Blow, I mean this, not drugs...

On to the really exciting part: We ate in the dark!

I'm not talking moonlit night dark here, I'm not even talking moonless night - I'm talking can't see your hand in front of your face dark. It was absolutely pitch black, and gave a sense of what it might be like to be absolutely 100% blind. Unbeknownst to us, we were sat at a table with two other people, which was a little bit disconcerting at first. It ended up being a non-issue as the place got really loud really quickly, and we ended up only being able to talk to each other over the din. One thing that I noticed is that it's really hard to eat a meal without eyes - I had no idea how I was cutting my food, and as a result, frequently had forkfuls of nothing, or forkfuls of way too much.

It was interesting hearing how normal social attitudes fell away - the place was filled with obnoxious laughter and yelling - not normal restaurant behaviour. We had some fun imagining what they could be doing in the dark to provoke such laughter (some people must take advantage of the complete anonymity). It was fun though - I'd like to try it again, but maybe as a small party with friends rather than a whole bunch of strangers. Blackout night anyone?

We left the restaurant (with me making Megs and Mark carry out a recovery from dark adaptation experiment, massive failure) and headed down to Brutopia, where Mgan was convinced that she would get me to like beer (no dice), and from there we headed back to her apartment to curl up watching Donnie Darko. Sunday we shopped some more and had a fantastic Montreal breakfast of REAL hotchocolate and lovely flaky pastries, and then headed up to the marche Jean-Talon for some fresh veggies and final good times. We dropped M off, Mark got his poutine fix, and we hit the highway at around 3, with me falling asleep around 3:30. A successful, relaxing, and exhausting weekend :)

Hundreds and Thousands

Proof that people with posh accents are cooler than we Canadians will EVER be. Thanks to Mark for being the cute-finder.

THEY CALL SPRINKLES 'HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS.' How cute is that? Can you not picture a little British kid going and asking for a doughnut?

"That one, ovah there - wit the hundreds and thousands!"

Also, in all of the excitement of the past few days, I have forgotten to mention this:





(and, by 'this,' I mean being at stupid York all day on a Saturday)

Exciting times!

Things to be excited about:

In two days, Mark and I will be on our housewarming roadtrip to Montreal. We will warm Megan's apartment whether it is cold or not. We will also eat in the dark (expect a full report on MONDAY), eat croissants, and possibly dress up like zombie bears. Ce sera superbon!

More long-term excitement:

1. Sharon is moving to Toronto, with T, for an amazing opportunity. I couldn't be prouder! Looks like my wish is coming true - now I just need to work on Megs and Paula.

2. My dad absolutely has to use his vacation time by the end of the year, or he'll lose it. VACATION!!! Looks like we'll be going somewhere warm, possibly all-inclusive, and hopefully involving cultural exploration (Mayan ruins?) and sailing! I wasn't sure I'd be able to get time off, since I'm only here for a short time and Fran would like to get some papers written, but it turned out to be no problem at all. It's going to be soon, too - likely the week after my borthday. BORTHDAY!

Everything's coming up Jenhouse.

!!!

OMG I am so excited.

V&V

I have a new rule for my friends: get jobs that bring you to Toronto every once in a while. Better yet, get jobs in Toronto. I got to see Sharon last night thanks to a two-day meeting that she's in town for, and it was so nice being able to have someone just drop by and save me from my normal routine (home, six feet under, sleep). I think that if I could have anything right now (other than secured admission to med school), it would be to take Megan, Paula, Maggie, and Sharon and place them all in apartments on my floor. And I'd move my floor up to the top floor. Brilliant!

French is coming along.... I was able to tell my teacher last night that I forgot to bring my homework, and also to answer a question, in French, without feeling like a total dolt. Before you know it, I'll be able to talk about how much I don't know, but IN FRENCH! Mes devoirs pour cette semaine (Megs, Shar - is that right?): compile a list of 3-5 phrases about what I did this summer, oh THAT will be fun.

Tonight will be nice - relaxing, possibly look for something cheap and nice to wear to convocation on Saturday. Tomorrow Mark and I are going to a "velour and velvet" party with his Frisbee team (they won the B division national championship!!), but I have nothing velour OR velvet to wear. Salvation army? Or - American Apparel?! I think it might be a little bit cold to wear THIS (but think of the awesomeness!):



Also - got my mcat scores, and they're pretty much how I expected them to be. Not so swell in the sciences, since I had no time to study thanks to the thesis, but I'm really happy with the other scores. My essay score was shocking - v. high score for basically the worst writing I've ever done in my life. It's making me feel a bit more confident that if I can get down to studying for the January or (more likely, the) April exam, I can actually do a really good job at it.

Quiet-Time Activities

Despite my memory telling me that Miss M was not too fond of it, I started reading "No Great Mischief" by Alistair Macleod and I'm really enjoying it. It seems that as much as I try to get outside the rural/maritime themes in CanLit, I keep falling back into it. It's all Megan's fault. Upside: not having to read the Metro on the Subway. Update: The M loooooves the MacLeod. I'm just crazy.

The weekend was nice, lots of family and friends and time for naps. If you have naptime, and wake up early, you can print and colour your own Jen.



Alternatively, you can bake her some cookies (for the real Jen, please).

Avec... Grandmere?

Now that I'm in my down-time period, I've started taking French classes Two hours a week, nine weeks. Last night was my second class, and we discussed the importance of having a good French-English dictionary.

Mme. Francaise: (In French) you need a good French-English dictionary, with grandmother.

Me: (in head) Whaaaaa???

Me: (2 minutes later, in head, still stuck on the grandmother dictionary untilll... la bulbe de lumiere!) OHHHHH!

Avec grammaire! I, apparently, am more in need of a good translator even more than I originally thought. Ne grandmere PAS!



Aside from feeling very left-behind at times, I'm glad that I signed up for the Intermediate level. I've noticed that I can usually pick up on what's being said, even if I can't yet respond. I think I'd be grumpy if I had to look at picture cards name les chats, les pommes...

I'm feeling very challenged, which is nice, and hopefully, it will really force me into making serious progress.

Holi-dayyyys

Thanksgiving was super nice. I got to enjoy lovely family times both with Mark's, and with my family. I made rosebuds out of maple leaves found on the nicest drive of the year, and got all mushy about Mark. Mark's mom and I made a Bourbon (ok, we cheated and used JD) Pumpkin Cheesecake, and sipped some straight bourbon while we were at it. We finished watching season 4 of SixFeetUnder, and are going to try and hold off till we're closer to the Montreal visit to start on season 5. Also, I think I LOST weight this weekend - definitely a rarity on Thanksgiving.

I was thinking about Halloween, and I'm considering going as a Can-Lit heroine. I might have to think of something simpler, because to do justice to the image in my mind, I would need numerous unwieldly props. Like a dinghy, in which I would struggle through a stormy sea to get the doctor for my sister, who would be in chilbirth, and would later die and I'd have to raise the baby on a remote Newfoundland rock. I would also need a weatherbeaten window to look through, at my desolate surroundings. I'd have to wear some worn-out grey dresses, and maybe I'd hold a candle (that would keep going out). Possibly, I'd make myself up to look like I had TB. I'll also need to recruit someone to be the incestuous male in my life. I hope someone else goes as a psychologist that can give me some prozac.

I played a what?!

Yesterday turned out to be unexpectedly fun. Mid-afternoon, I received an email asking if anyone was available for a fill-in slot on CHRY that night... so I signed up. I haven't done much at all at the station in recent (and even not-so-recent) months, so I was a little bit nervous (and excited!). So I called up my Mark to be a co-host, made up a sweet-ass playlist from recently loved music on my computer, and hauled my ass up the stairs to the station. Mark hauled his ass too, but due to all the frisbee he's been playing, it wasn't so much a haul as it was a complete lack of effort.

The show started off well enough, with the new version of Basia Bulat's Snakes and Ladders, which is a thoroughly awesome way to start a radio show. Next, we tried to play a Polaris-themed set, starting off with the New Pornographer's "The Bleeding Heart Show, when we noticed that my newly burned playlist had not burned a track, screwing up the whole song order - oi. Anyways, no big deal.

NEXT - a girl from a group of people standing outside the studio comes in to talk to me. She was there with a band that was scheduled for an on-air interview and live performance on the show we were filling in for!!! 1) I had no idea this was going to happen, 2) I knew NOTHING about this band, and 3) I'd never had to set up the mics/etc for an on air performance before. Anyway, I would feel completely terrible if these guys had come all the way to York to promote a show (tonight, at The Absinthe pub on York Campus, 9pm, free) and didn't get to do anything. End result: we interviewed them, and gave them half an hour to play, which was really, really fun.

The band: Basement Arms, a happy, really nice, and really fun 3-piece jam band. Now, normally I don't go for jam bands, but last night I really saw the appeal. These were guys playing music because they love it, and because they're good at it. They're as big as the audience, and as diverse as the number of instruments and people willing to play them present. I played some hand-help cymbals on one of the songs, keeping my rhythm for the most part, and having a really great time. Finding out later that the cymbals were called a "hand-job", on-air? Probably priceless. Anyway, Mark and I are going to go see them play in a couple of weeks at Grossmans (Spadina and Collece, across from the ElMo) with Laura Barrett - should be very fun!

Anyway, the rest of the show went fairly well, and I'm looking forward to my next opportunity!!

Here's one song that we played - Lose My Breath by Deerhoof (the song was originally by My Bloody Valentine, and my favourite song of theirs EVER. I was SO excited when I found the Deerhoof cover, because they're the bestest). Deerhoof is playing in Toronto at the Opera House on the 21st of October, and it's the first show in a really long time that I've been super-excited to see! WOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Deerhoof - Lose My Breath

HAHAHA

Yeah, unbelieveable is right!
Originally uploaded by stevegan.

Ok - after yesterday's not so happy post, I give you this wonderfulness!

O RLY?

I really don't want to get into this too deeply because it's really upsetting me. I just want to vent a little bit. I've been thinking a lot about personal safety lately, as a woman. Nothing has happened to cause this, it's just been happening. But the gist, basically, is that it really sucks that as women, we have to be more cautious, more "on" in terms of awareness of our surroundings, because of vulnerability. Now, I know this can be remedied somewhat by taking self-defense classes etc, but that can only help so much.

Today's Star:
Page A1: Amish school shooting. 11 young female students bound and shot.
Page A16: Violence against women drops.

I can see why they buried that second one. Honestly, even if the statistics are showing that sort of a trend, does it make anyone actually feel safer? Not me. Generally, I try not to worry too much about this sort of thing. There's no way to see such an event coming, and realistically, it's very unlikely I'll ever directly experience something like it. I'd rather go around normally rather than be on the constant watch for __________ (pick one: terrorists, armed psychopaths, corrupted businesspeople, evil pharma companies, etc). But honestly? when something like this happens, something in me just feels sick. Why is this guy targeting young, innocent girls? I really don't even know where I'm going with this... I guess I just wanted to express a bit of how angry I am that as a woman, I can't feel completely safe, and how I don't really expect we'll ever get to that point.

And of course, my heart goes out to everyone affected by yesterday.

A brilliant, but old, 16 year old.

I went over to Maggie's last night to help her practise administering clinical tests - specifically the wisc-iv. The plan was for me to go, get tested, and the rest my brilliant brain in her hot tub. Instead, I went over, and got tested for 3.5 hours, and then dragged my tired brain home on the subway because it was too exhausted to fathom staying up any later despite the lure of the hot tub. I learned that I'm a pretty smart lady (well, compared to the average 16 year old), and that I have better memory for reciting numbers backwards than forwards. Also, I'm pretty decent at finding missing eyebrows. Downside: I STILL have a headache - this brain apparently doesn't like being put to the test when it is supposed to be resting.

Tonight: I'm going to hit up some shops to fins some cute but cheap longer sleeved shirts to get me through the winter. I'm going to also try and arrange some transportation to fun things. I'll most likely watch House, possibly pick up the new issue of the New Yorker, and generally just enjoy my newfound temporary freedom from responsibility. Hooray for me!

This weekend? It's application time. Yikes. I'm managing to hold off my urge to procrastibake an apple crisp right now by blogging (hey - I'm at the computer at least), but I know that I'm getting close to my 'git down git'r done' point. Speaking of - I saw a big-ass sticker on the rear window of the truck the other day that read "Git'r Done." Yee-haw.

At this point though, I'm afraid that anything I do will be in vain - I was informed of another BRILLIANT York administrative policy stating that no student shall have their transcript updated to say they've finished their degree untill after the graduation ceremony. This is the most ridiculous piece of garbage I've ever heard - it basically means that my transcripts that I'll be sending off with my applications (which are going to cost me $500+) are going to list my master's degree as as-yet incomplete. Which basically means that I'm no more competetive than I was last year, which means, yay me, I'm screwed. But, I'll be trying my best and hoping for the best anyways.

Pass the tissue...

Argh - It seems that I'm getting sick. I debated for a while whether to come into work this morning, but decided at 8 that I felt significantly better than at 7, I made a mad rush to get in by 9. I probably would have stayed home had this been a less busy day, since I really don't want to pass anything to people here or on the subway, but at the moment I'm not feeling anything worse than a runny nose. It's funny though - being sick is really encouraging me to take good care of myself - I'm eating really well, tons of fruit, juices, soups - and wondering why I can't just do that all the time.

My childhood best friend got married over that weekend, which was strange and wonderful at the same time. My mind kept flitting to memories of us going to see movies, drooling over rock stars and having sleepovers. We haven't kept in touch as much as I'd have liked over the past few years, but hopefully that can be changed in the coming years. The wedding was nice, and most importantly, they both seemed really happy. Also, everyone got some good entertainment out of me attempting to watlz (can't really count to three sometimes...) and polka.

Also: apple picking! Yay! I had the best apple of my life on Saturday morning, fresh from the tree. The orchard we go to has an attached winery, wonderful for relaxing after picking bags after bag of apples - I tried about 5 different types of fruit wines, and picked up a few for Girls Christmas!

Savoury Dreams

In my dream last night, I cooked a Turducken. For some reason, I missed consuming the actual bird, but did get to try some of the skin, which apparently was mighty delicious.

I DREAMT ABOUT A TURDUCKEN.

WITH BACON.

SFU (not STFU, that would just be rude)

I suppose it's fitting that with the onset of Fall (Ok, I know it's not techically for another couple of days, but c'mon), Mark and I have started a new TV addiction. Following the lead of Megan, we've started going through the seasons of Six Feet Under. For those who are unfamiliar with the premise, it's a drama (also, comedic) that revolves around a family that runs a funeral home. These characters are all incredibly flawed, but interesting. Magnetic. Each episode begins with a death, and the focus of that episode is shaped in some way by the death. I think part of how wonderful the show is is that it forces the viewer to confront death, accept it as a natural part of life that not only brings sorrow, but also can be the starting point for some very positive shange, or at least some honest introspection. My point: excellent show, not guilty about watching due to instructiveness of content.

I'm being truthful when I call it an addiction: we think about it when its not on, we're driven to consuming far too much of it, and when we run out, we almost instantly need a new fix. Over the last week, we watched all of season one (it was fantastic, of course), which was a wonderful intro to a series that hooked us last year with only a few episodes late in the series. Anyway, on Monday night we finished the season by watching four episodes. FOUR. Yesterday, I felt withdrawal coming on - no episodes waiting for me to come home and watch them. That, coupled with a lack of yumminess in the fridge and no desire to go grocery shopping, led me down to Bloor, where I placed my takeout sushi order (mmmmmmmm AND cheap!), and headed on over to Queen video (yes, Queen video is on Bloor, but named after Queen st...?!) and grabbed season two. Saw a look of confusion enter sales clerk's eyes. "Umm, so did you know that Mark, the other person on the account, already took this same thing out a couple of hours ago?" I left feeling absolutely elated, Mark beat me to the punch on my sweet surprise, and I have the comfort in knowing that my addiction is fully and completely shared.

So... what's next?

Try to take over the world? So far I've got North America:



Aside from world domination, I have a vague idea of what this next year is going to bring. I've already mentioned that I've signed up for French classes. These will hopefully get me to a state where I feel comfortable enough using French that I will be able to nevigate myself around frenchland without upsetting the locals. And hopefully, I will have some lovely friends with me. I checked out the Go Abroad fair downtown yesterday, and unfortunately it was pretty much a complete dissapointment. Basically, I learned that I can definitely go anywhere I want, but I should really go learn hotel management at a foreign school that will charge me a BMW for admissions, or, I also have the option of teaching English. Not exactly the life-changing experiences I want. Looks like I'll have to do some more research!

Also: we've had these chairs for almost a year now. They're scary, unless you're a fierce cat:



(due to Risk lasting till 4am before being abandoned, this post is scattered and short on content. It's a good day.)

JERBSCMA

Two years, and two letters appended to my name. I defended my thesis on Tuesday, and apparently it went pretty well (I'm a very poor judge of my public speaking, so I have to rely on other people's reports). I was taken out for lunch, for dinner, flowered, and peachy penguined. And oddly enough, when it was over I didn't even feel good. For the first day or so, I actually felt like crying, and not even in a relieved way! Saner heads have told me that it's a release-from-stress reaction, and I believe them, but I really can't wait for the belief and the relief to hit. I imagine that probably won't come until the graduation ceremony, but I guess as long as it comes at some point I'll be happy!

Ok, before anyone sits here thinking that I'm some crazy, depressed little girl, let me point out that I'm actually pretty happy. Just not the expected state of ecstatic. I'm fine - I actually have time to DO stuff now, and I've been starting to get excited about that. I'm also still working on some applications, hopefully to be finished in the next couple of weeks.

I may get to see Sharon tonight on her way back to Ingersoll via Toronto, and possibly even a lil' bit o Paula this weekend! If not, I will make sure all of my ladies get plenty of Jen time very soon. For now, they will have to settle for internet love. Thanks for your patience!

Something I do feel bad about: Not giving a huge public shout out out out out to Mark, who was super to me this week, and who also birthdayed this week. Thank you for letting me practise my defense on you rather than go out partying on your birthday. I'll make it up to you by playing RISK like a champ this weekend. I loooove you!

Ch-ch-changes

For the first time in my life, I'm not starting a new school year. For now, I'm done school, although I'm not quite able to relish in the doneness yet. This has led to a really strange feeling - I realize that a new year is starting up for pretty much everyone around me, but I don't FEEL it yet. For now, I just have this really odd, strange feeling of being stuck in a lengthy transition. I'm a little bit jealous of people starting their new years, and a little bit sad that I have no high-level courses to challenge me.

BUT

This time next week, everything will have changed. I'm getting quite anxious about my defense, but I'm plugging away at making a sweet presentation, and gearing myself up for the grilling. Oi. So that's why I'm not blogging much - interesting things have been happening but I'm not at liberty to fritter my time away right now.

(PS - I'm frittering a little bit - I did my tried and true procrastibake tonight ;)

Thinking

-That Paula should only get a tattoo if its of ballet slippers. Or possibly the pontiac symbol.

-That this weekend will be both sad and fun - lots of exotic wedding celebrations, but Seema will be leaving too soon.

-Even though I wouldn't be seeing her now anyways, I miss Sharon.

-Am slightly jealous of the exciting time Megan is starting into. Am happy that she may get some new experiences and away from things that make her upset.

-That I really need to try Duff's wings soon - Mark and I came sooo close last night, but after walking all the way there, found out that plans had changed and people were elsewhere.

-Instead of staying for wings, we walked home, had some hero burger, and watched the incredibly cute Dear Frankie.

Parentheses

I'm super excited about the new Blow album that's going to come out in the near future. I've heard two songs from it so far, and have completely fallen in love with "parentheses." Such a cute and catchy song, and I can't wait to hear a better quality version (myspace isn't really known for it's great sound...). Anyways, I've never seen the Blow, and don't yet have any of their releases, but I'm pretty sure that they're my favourite cute band. Best.

Camping recap: fun! Aside from packing in everything but the kitchen sink, it was awesome. We had a beautiful site on Stratton lake, a short hike away from natural water slides! NATURAL WATER SLIDES. I'm hoping to get some pics soon to put up, but to sate your questioning minds, naturatual water slides are big smooth boulders in rapids that you can slide down without too much discomfort or skin scrapeage. These were also very close to small cliffs above deep pools of water perfect for jumping and practising your best corkscrew/jacknife/cannonball. There will hopefully be some videos coming soon to a youtube near you.

Two weeks to thesis defense.

Lemieux and Lewoof

There is a new addition to the love apartment:
 

Mark made me proud last night, and won me this absolutely gigantic penguin (and bebe) from the basketball game at the Ex. I don't know what it was, but I was absolutely elated - I felt like queen of the cavepeople after my man brought home the prize. How unfeminist of me. However, they are fantastic. The little one's name is Lemieux, and the big one is Lewoof.

And now, it's time for a little back country camping (sans penguins). 

Tealicious

I'm consideriing trying to kick the caffeine habit. Now that I've finished all of my pressing committments, I no longer need anything to push my body to work longer than it wants to (granted, it wants to work less because of the caffeine) and thus don't need 3-4 cups/day. However, my cold turkey attempt yesterday failed miserably, which resulted in a zombie-like Jen from 10-12 & 2-6 (the two hour reprieve from zombieness was due to a NAP), and caving to the temptation of tea with dinner. I felt SO good after that tea that it actually made me reconsider my desire to cut caffeine from my life. I know it's part of the addiction process, but the contrast expeienced post-caffeine really makes you appreciate how good you feel. I guess if I didn't have caffeine withdrawal making me feel like sleepy poo in the first place, I wouldn't need my dose to make me feel better, but then, would I really appreciate the goodness when I can't compare it to the badness?

I guess for now, I'll try and limit myself to that one delicious tea per day.

Also, I finally bought me some new shoes, black pumps with a heel that's not too little or too big. It's time to go somewhere fancy enough to wear them! Possibly... a tea party?!

Woo! Summer!

Hooray for me, my summer has finally begun! Things I'm going to do:

Shop! I need a new dress for the upcoming weddings, which probably means that I get to buy shoes as well.

Learn french! I've even signed up for courses; optimistically, I placed myself in the intermediate class. I'm gonna bust my ass, ou, ma derriere (is that French, or do we just pretend it is?).

Alternately bake and do yoga. Hopefully more of the latter, as I would like the balance of the two to shift me to svelteness.

Also: play manhunt, frisbee, go to the ex, go camping, go on the boat, and most importantly, defend la thesis and apply to schools! Hopefully, that will be with decent mcat scores, although that may be askng too much of the multiple choice gods.

Joy of joys, I am done.

I give this day 6 stars.

My thesis is done!!! Done, and wrapped in stupidly expensive covers, and all but one has been delivered to my committee! Also, labmates have made today "baked goods day," so I've been indulging in delicious oatmeal cookies, egg tarts, and at may point might get into some cake. Because MY THESIS IS DONE! And not to jinx myself before I actually have to get up and defend it (Sept. 12), but I think it's pretty darn good. It's a tight little bundle of concisety (don't worry, I didn't use any made-up word IN the thesis). In other goodness news, my supervisor took the lab out for lunch, and remarked about how good mine and Seem's theses were, hooray!

As if the goodness was going to stop there: the news has been good too! Merck was reprimanded for the Vioxx fiasco, the NSA got told to stop eavesdropping on people's phone calls, and snakes on a plane opens tonight. Hooray!

I will return, and start fully celebrating, after saturday.

The days of no fun

On Saturday, Mark did this:



And I stayed in and wrote my thesis. So jealous - the first Fake Prom was amazing, but I haven't been able to go ever since. Blah. I hope next year, I'll at least have a fun reason, like being in France. Thesis will hopefully be done in 4 days.

Compulsions

My revisions are going pretty well right now - my supervisor said some pretty nice things about the state of my thesis and right now, I'm feeling a bit good about it. My problem, however, is that any time I need to connect to the internet to look up an article, I feel compelled to do something - anything - else on the internet. This has led to a whole bunch of new music from music blogs to listen to, an obsessive search for a video made to tease Peter from .moneen. that I had found years ago (I didn't find it today, boo), and various blog reads. I figured this time, I might as well be a little bit productive and blog something myself.

I'm in a writing mood, so stuff is flowing out easily. Unlike yesterday, my use of grammar is not completely incomprehensible. I'm generally in a good mood, and enjoying the constant stream of goodness coming out of iTunes. And hopefully, I should be able to get my intro completely reworked by the end of tonight. WOOWOO!

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Whitby in between thesising to attend a bridal shower for my childhood best friend. I'm really excited for this, since we unfortunately drifted apart due to some stresful life events, and probably mostly because I moved away to London. Tomorrow, we'll get to catch up, and hopefully rekindle a more stable friendship, cause I miss her craziness.

OK - break is over, it's back to the couch far far away from the internet for me now.

Irish Scotch

Apparently, an addled brain from too much thesising plus sleep deprivation = very stupid things being said.

Irish Scotch. Without a hint of a joke. Sometimes, I'm a smart one.

Paula: I <3 you. Please remember that you're never alone, and that you can call me ay time, day or night (but I secretly know you have about infinity times the strength you need to get through this) and this birthday will be the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!! I volunteer to be DD since me + beer = unpleasantness.

Little Miss Rainstorm

I took a break from thesising tonight to go watch a free screening of Little Miss Sunshine with Mark and Sara. It was such a good movie - Mark summed it up with "It's one of the only movies where you cry tears of sadness and laughter." I'd add awkwardness in there too, but it was a good awkwardness, the kind that works. Basically, it's about a little girl getting to live her dream of being in a big beauty pageant, a cocaine-snorting grandfather, a brother who's taken a vow of silence, a delusional dad, suicidal uncle, and relatively sane mom. And a VW bus. And - everything works. I felt a little bit like I did with Me, You and Everyone We Know - you leave the theatre feeling like you've seen something special.

And then on the way home, it started raining.


Unexpectedly.



It's been a good night... now back to the thesis!

A Brief Update

After a great weekend, I've finally kicked in to full thesis/study mode, which means that you'll probably hear very little from me in the weeks to come. However, rest assured that I am alive, just in a slightly altered state of consciousness and if I hide from human interaction, it's because I'm shifting into a state of being that is not compatable with thinking/speaking like a normal person. I am become the scientist.

Says Megan:

To Study for MCATS:
1. Drill hole in top of head
2. Insert MCAT book in hole
3. Dr. Island!!!!


Except I'm not really even studying - just writing, like a fiend. And looking forward to October.

a not-so-coherent post

Sorry about the lack of updates - the last few days have been quite busy, and there has been a lot of home/family stuff. On Saturday, Mark and I made our way over to Brampton to see Sharon play some softball, and I get to add the skill of shoulder-rehabilitator to my resume. Shar's brother's family was also there, resulting in me holding 6 week old baby Olivia. It was determined that baby-holding automatically results in hip-swaying... it's like human arms have baby receptors, that, when activated, turn on the sway mechanism. Afterwards, I went out for Maggie's birthday which contained good times with Mel and Fadi and drunk Maggie.

Sunday was the anniversary of my grandfather's death. The whole family got together for dinner, and my nana had a mass said for him. It should have been sad, but my family has a special talent for bringing lightness and humour. Anyways, I think he would have liked that we celebrated him with a fancy dinner at one of his favourite places :)

The plan for now is to stay in Whitby for the week and look after the dog, which has meant really shitty commutes for yesterday and today. I think I'll work from home for the next couple of days, and hopefully that means I'll actually work. And sleep, I need sleep. What I don't need is another 2.5 hour commute - yuck!

Brave New Frontiers

Last night, I ate one of these:



Except in biological form. And it was actually six of them. I still can't get over the thought-barrier that lets me thing that I'm eating a slimy graden-crawler, but if I separate the thought from the experience then it's all good.

It was a pretty great day/night - I got a lot of work done on my thesis (data analysis = almost done!), and spent the night with my parents and maggie doing fun stuff in the city. Mom and dad took Mark and I out for dinner - we did the summerlicious special at L'Escargot (hence me eating snails) and we had a really lovely time. The restaurant was quite nice, with an inviting atmosphere and excellent food quality. Afterwards, we dropped off some buckets and a mom at Maggies, and then walked to College and Spadina to see Basia play her best show yet. Good times; and hopefully people will stop tempting me with good things to do for a while.

Frisbee-licious

Phil came in yesterday and asked if I felt like playing some frisbee - his Ultimate team was apparently missing a girl or two, and I had previously mentioned to him that I used to play, and used to like playing. Figuring Mark would be jealous if I got to play some wicked-cool Ultimate and he didn't, I okayed his play too. It turned out that it was a good thing we both went - the addition of Mark meant that our team (the skin-tights) had two full guy lines; with the addtion of me, we had just enough girls to play.

Wow.

I cannot remember the last time I worked so hard physically. Since there were no girl subs, Emily and I had to be on the entire game - all 105 minutes of it. I'm not a runner, but there I was, running up and down the field (and having nice little walk breaks when I got to cover the slow girl). I didn't score any points, but I came close a couple of times, and I think I did a pretty decent job of covering. I almost got my first awake shin cramp. Our team lost, but not by much. I got to recover some honour for us by winning the frisbee-joust round after the game (against the girl who owned me at every other aspect of frisbee). As I said to her, I may not be fast, but I am very good at knocking stuff over.

Mark gave me a pretty awesome back/shin rub, and today I am moving aroung gingerly, but proudly. I can't wait to play again!


Highlights: Making some sweet passes, giving a great first toss, winning the frisbee-joust, and learning how delicious lychee gels are.

Lowlights: Other team's captain twisting her ankle, me thinking it was halftime and going off the field - ok, it's not really a lowlight but it was slightly embarrassing.

Stormwatching

Last night ended up being an unexpectedly late one for me. I didn't get home until close to 10, and a lack of Mark and heavy eyelids almost drew me in to sleep. But then, I called Megan, and was infused with the usual lifey-giddyness that occurs during our brief plan-filled calls. I was sorta hoping she wouldn't be able to go to Montreal anytime soon, because I really should be studying, but she has promised to make me study, so.... road trip! Next weekend. And I'm not driving, so much fun with Orgo will be had in the car; enough fun that when we drive past the big apple I will be able to describe its comonents in intimate detail.

Than, Mark and Kurt came in, with Slurpees. And we watched the storm. We headed briefly towards the parkette across the street from the apartment, but thought better of it and sat on the stoop after seeing fantastic lightning. At one point, the winds picked up enough to bend the trees right down, and I was sure some of them would just break. The wind made its way over to us, but managed to sand-blast us rather than bend us down. Good times - I've missed seeing storms like that. I used to love watching them from the guest bedroom windows back in Whitby, but its hard now, with me living by windows that only look at the apartment across the alley.

Also, check out bloglines. It's kinda like a friends page for blogs - saves having to check out each site individually! Also, it lets you know when there are updates.

You waited for Saturday

It's ten past nine on Saturday morning. I'm sitting at my desk at York, and have been here for about a half hour now. I've felt a change in myself these past few days - if it's not exactly 'motivation,' it's at least a 'get stuff done' drive. I've turned down some super fun stuff this weekend in order to focus on studying and my thesis, and I'm hoping that I can carry through. Studying is going pretty well - I'm almost through biology, and then I get to have some fun with orgo chem. I think I'm actually looking forward to reviewing physics (although after orgo, anthing will be a welcome break).

I've also been having some serious trouble sleeping - I've had to resort to taking mild sleeping pills for the past two nights. Mostly, this is because I've had no option to sleep in in the morning, which I'm hoping to do a teeny bit of tomorrow. I think that starting Monday, I'm going to try to shift into healthy mode and see if that fixes it.

(ps - in case you wondered why I'm at York so early, it's because there's a migraine workshop going on. I'm hoping it will give me good thesis ideas)

AMV Comedians 4 (Mitch Hedberg)

Today has been busy, and there has been a lot of herd thinking going on. My awesome break has been spent watching Mitch Hedberg on youtube. I have no idea where it comes from, but this video is fantastic.

Just for Sharon!

I officially tested my last subject yesterday for my thesis, which means fun time with stats and discussioning starts now! I've already made some ghetto graphs, but there are more important things to take care of - like talking about Canada for Sharon, who has ended herself up in Washington, DC. Now, I'm not sure *exactly* what she's doing there, but I'm pretty sure it has something to doing with saving the world from cancer, or becoming president (not having citizenship is surely no roadblock for Sharon).

In other news, I had an x-Men dream last night. I was Storm, and was with all the other x-men, and we had to go save the professor from Kevin Spacey (who had a super-cool mansion himself, I might add). On the way to said mansion, I had a tracking missile shot at me, and had to fly around dodging it until I finally shot it down with lightning.Normally, my dream flying powers are somewhat lacking, and I tend to fall pretty quickly, but I was super-awesome last night. Anyways, I ended up saving the day by pointing out how cool fireworks are, and how it's fun to bounce them off water. Apparently, this makes nice guys out of super-villains. Also, I got to see pretty blue fireballs bouncing off water.

OK - now it's time for some statisticalizing.

This is getting to be a problem...

My weekends are seriously becoming an issue, because they're just too much fun. I really need to get more than a minimal amount of studying done, but right now, that's all I've been able to accomplish. Aside from the events included in my last post, a gazillion other great things have happened in the past 48 hours. Yesterday was 'Love Day,' a term coined by Kurt to describe the bi-annually occuring event where Mark and I plan extra-special date days (as opposed to normal date days). Mark had planned a full day full of stuff for us to do, and all of it was top-secret, so I've spent the last week or so in anticipation and sneaky/wily mode to try and find out what was the deal. We left the apartment around 1 pm, me in my new dress (SHARON: apparently Paris Hilton bought the same thing), and headed off to parts unknown. Turned out that Mark had lied to me to protect the secrecy of the date: we ended up in the Distillery District to see a play, and I'd guessed at both of those somewhat seriously. The play ended up being standing room only, and Mark didn'r want to have his special lady have to stand around in the dark for ours on love day, so we went to the Toronto Outdoor Art exhibition instead, where we:

a) Bought a fortune cookie that won us an arty prize.
b) Found out that I know the sister of his artist friend that he met in Saskatoon.
c) Didn't buy any art.
d) Got kicked out of the reflection pool.
e) All of the above.

We spent hours there gawking at really cool art of all shapes and forms, while wishing we had the money to buy it, and then headed off to SECRET DINNER LOCATION. Which ended up being Bloom, in Bloor West Village. Mark had picked it solely on its Summerlicious menu selection, and it was PRETTY GOOD. I think he had pork something, and I had Swordfish. We also had wine, and damn our consciouses, because we told the waiter when he forgot to add the bottle to the bill. I'm feeling pretty giddy around Mark lately - I think we've settled into a really nice stage of our relationship :) Anyway, thank you Mark, for yesterday, and everything.

I'm getting tired now, but today was also cool. I'll write in point form.

-Slept in (after a night at the Madison with John and his friends)
-Walked across St. Clair after deciding walking past World Cup Action was as much fun as watching the game on tv
-Found a random street celebration closing off the street in honour of Italy (before they won)
-Had Gelato at La Paloma
-Walked down to Flash & Crash, today is it's last day ever. Mark bought many CD's and I bought one (Ida)
-Had Sushi on Bloor with John-Gave John the Love Apartment tour
-Finished my Stillepost mix - only a week late, hooray!

Goodnight :)

Trashbag update!

Sharon and I have secured our BFF status, as we now have matching tank tops, hair bands, and dresses. According to our logic though, if our friendship disintegrates, we'll both owe American Apparel about $20, so we'd better not have any fights. Although, if it's her fault, I'm totally making her pay my $20 too. Also, Megan called me last night at almost midnight just to tell me that she'd be my trashbag bikini BFF! Hooray. Also, for anybody who has not expressed a desire to be my bff, you should still consider buying the dress, because it is super flattering (adjectives! Just for Sharon!).

Today, aside from spending money that I shouldn't have, has been all kinds of awesome. I met up with Sharon around 3, found out that her interview went really well. Upon arrival at her car, we found that not only had it not been towed, there was no ticket even though she hadn't paid for parking. We went to York, and had about as much fun as can be had while doing psychophysics. Then, shopping and dinner with Mark at Jalapenos, where we had delicious food and a brief feeling of being back in Cuba. I wish every night was like this!

Tomorrow: hopefully get to see John at some point, and super-secret-exciting date day with Mark. I'm going to wear my new dress.

Let us welcome to the stage....

I forgot to mention that I saw this guy last night, perusing the hoodies and golf shirts at AA (that's American Apparel by the way, I'm years away from being an alcoholic):



While google searching for Chris Murphy, I also found this, which is highly appropriate considering that I saw him shopping. For do it yourself fun, carefully cut these images from your screen and you can dress chris for hours!


SLOOOOAAAAANNNNN!

An Open Call

As three of you may recall, I sent out a call for submissions in my "rename the iPod which hath doth cometh back to life" contest. Well, I'm pretty sure the iPod is dead, but you tried, so here are your coconuts. I was too lazy to tranfer the photo of MY coconuts (this isn't any sort of euphemism - I have three coconuts in my kitchen right now), so here is one I found on google. Apparently they were used in a wedding:



My new open call is for people to be my bff. Specifically, my trashbag bff. You see, American Apparel is having a BFF sale, so if you and your bff (I'm typing it so many times because its such an amusing/annoying acronym... bff!) buy the same thing, then you each get 25% off. Originally, I thought I'd go for this, if I had a bff with me:



But then, I saw the trashiest of trashy:



Awesome. WHO'S WITH ME?!

(Ps- I'm actually pretty serious about wanting both of these)