Just your Friday evening existential crisis.

Today was weird.

It was like I should have had fun, seeing people I haven't seen for while, but hanging out with a group of people I haven't been around in several months that I used to be really tight with just gave me this moment where I stared at the bonfire and had a near existential crisis.

I mean, I love everybody I was with, it's just that something about our friendship has changed since we hung out last time: we've moved on to other close friends, other places, other things and the foundation of our friendship seems a little weird, if not shaky. We used to be kind of 'cliquey' I guess, but our entire dynamic has changed because we haven't kept up with each other.

Maybe we're trying to hold on to something that we don't possess anymore. Our hearts just weren't in it like they used to be. We were all kind of distant and distracted. Or at least that's how I felt. A lot of us don't even have that much in common anymore. I don't know how to describe it other than weird, even a little uncomfortable sometimes.

I think this bothers me the most because I'll probably have a lot of moments like this in the years to come in relation to friends and things. There will come a time just get over things and to move on. Change is a terrible thing to try to come to terms with while staring into a bonfire. I just feel sad and slightly jarred.

Now I'm trying to deal with the tail end of this existential crisis by drinking peppermint tea and listening to Sufjan Stevens. An existential crisis is a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 31: Obligatory summer reflection post.

Thinking back on this summer (there's still six days left), I notice that I didn't do that much or accomplish many things.

I mean, I didn't have a job, I went on vacation and only ended up soaking in boredom and had long periods where my friends were away so I resorted to marathoning Gilmore Girls and 30 Rock.

However, I also volunteered for an eventful week of choir camp and at a kids' theater company through a few acquaintances, had a wonderful time and made some friends out of people who were before only acquaintances. I took a ton of pictures on that vacation and a lot of them turned out really good. I read a lot for the first time in years. I went through a short period of abnormally fantastic luck. I volunteered at the library for an hour a week, learned my alphabet especially well and enjoyed mildly harassing the egotistical summer student. I found a mismatched group of friends that I feel really comfortable around. I started eating healthier in general, well, minus my pizza problem. I'm legally allowed to drive several thousand pounds of metal to get me from one destination to another and I've braved this city in it during construction season, not a task for the fainthearted. I went to my first grad year events. I laid in parks for long periods of time. I survived BEDA and liked it. I ate pizza on someone's floor at 2am. I saw my grandparents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. I made a sand sculpture walrus named Wallace. That, my friends, has got to be some sort of accomplishment.

If anything, I've learned to roll with whatever life hands you and try to have a good time. Because I've had a pretty damn good summer, considering.

Now I have my final year of high school coming up; a year during which I have to make some big decisions but also a year during which I'll have a lot of fun. Bring it on.

In six days, that is.

And BEDA, I may or may not miss you. For the next week or so, I'll probably keep feeling like I'm forgetting something in my day. It's been good but it's time to end. I'm quite glad I did BEDA.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 30: Pink streaks and pizza.

I got around to doing my pink streaks and I quite enjoy them. This is kind of a weird picture but it's 11pm and it's difficult to take a picture of the back of one's own head. Who knew.

Today held nothing particularly eventful, except I began assembling a group of people with the sole goal of someday inconspicuously sneaking a whole pizza into a movie theater. Everyday is an adventure in my shoes. But really, imagine if we actually snuck an entire pizza into a movie theater. I would feel such a sense of accomplishment, possibly my brightest moment. I might even start a movement of people sneaking whole pizzas into movie theaters.

I'll just go to bed now.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 29: Beach day with Wallace the walrus.

Today was Grad class beach day, our first grad event. When I arrived, it suddenly hit me that there are more than two hundred people in my grad class, and I don't know/like/can relate to/have ever seen a good portion of the people who showed up. It was basically athletic kids, a small group of music kids and a few outcasts here and there.

I still had a reasonable time and especial appreciation for the "Grad class 2013 Group Swim" when Ben, the grad class VP, yelled for us to assemble and run into the water. People took off their sweaters (because it was cold for a beach day) and at the count of three, around forty of us ran into the water to our waists, realized we had a hypothermia wish and turned and ran back out. Afterwards I overheard Ben saying that he never thought that would work. As a class, I guess we're just especially good at rolling with the punches.

The sand sculpture competition was also a pretty good time. The three teams that bothered to stop playing sports long enough to built a sand sculpture brought out their A game, with shovels, rakes and other implements essential to extreme sand sculpting. My team made a walrus named Wallace as the team beside us worked on a Sharktopus. David (the slightly awkward student council president who spends a large portion of his time endorsing the Liberal Party of Canada) had his team working on a witch between two slices of bread (a sand sandwiched witch) and added the final touch of stabbing a broom in the middle like a toothpick. The judges decided on a three way tie to avoid mutiny at the first grad class event. Good choice on their part.

I now have a small strip of sunburn under both my eyes because I halfheartedly applied sunscreen because it was sweater weather on that beach. 

Grad class events will be more fun when more people I know decide to go, as opposed to masses of jocks with who I have almost nothing in common with. At least I will always take comfort that my grad class will never be as bad as last year's, as that class was wholly apathetic unless it came to partying and everybody knew it. 
Love,
-J-

BEDA 28: My good luck and grad photos.

I've had really good luck lately in regard to buying things and I have no idea what I did to deserve this. On Friday, I went to the grocery store and bought ghetto juice and cupcakes for half price and then I got the free Arby's. Today I went to Starbucks for the first time in months and found a toonie sitting on a chair, completely unclaimed. The universe went from being like "Hey, you deserve this for half price" to "Hey, you deserve this for free" to "You know what? Just take this money. Take it to keep up your streak of wonderful luck."

How long can this keep up? When does my good karma (or whatever this is) run out?

I did eventually give the toonie to a lady collecting money for a cancer charity in (1) and attempt to continue my good karma and (2) because I felt bad after I accidentally enthusiastically yelled "NO" a few days ago when I walked past the same lady in response to a different question.

In another attempt to increase my karma and preventing my demise into a terrible person, I went to a restaurant with Tatyana, only ordered an ice tea but I tipped an extra dollar. That's a 75% tip, my friends.

Also, in this episode of "Julianne looks vastly uncomfortable in preparation for her senior year," here is the proof sheet of my grad photos:

Crappy picture of them, but the best I could get. I think that C or E are my favorite, despite what weird flippy thing my hair is doing in C (because about fifteen minutes before these were taken, I ran six blocks in the rain because I suck at arriving on time, as well as maintaining straight hair). As a whole, the sheet just makes me look really quite uncomfortable, probably because the comically flamboyant photographer made me pretend that I had unrealistically good posture and it was exhausting. However, looking at one at a time isn't that bad. I probably just feel bad about them because I was looking at Britney's in the waiting room and her incredibly photogenic-ness puts me to shame. I exclaimed that she was a sexy beast for all ten people in the waiting room to hear. Because I have little/no shame.

Now that grad photos are over, I'm putting some pink streaks in my hair. Cause YOLO.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 27: The Summer of the Ghetto Juice.

I will always underestimate my sanity because today I went to a thrift store 50% off sale. Thrift stores are frequented by interesting characters on a normal day, but on sale day, everybody has a little extra bit of crazy. I was curious where Sunday drivers go for the other six days a week and I discovered them in that thrift store, making sure their carts were in the most obnoxious position possible for the other few dozen people in that aisle. One lady unashamedly situated her cart not just in the middle of the aisle, but turned it sideways to prevent any possible way around it. Despite the insanity of this venture, I still managed to buy $50 worth of clothes and I feel better mentally prepared for school to begin (I've kind of been panicking the last few days about not being mentally prepared for my senior year).

This afternoon I accomplished my aforementioned want for the steadily decreasing time left in summer and chilled in a park on a comfy blanket with nowhere to go and nothing to do with some lovely people. We thought to bring some bubbles and a communal bottle of ghetto juice (see below picture). The park we keep being drawn to is slightly sketchy in the type of way that a lady walked over to us and asked us if we wanted to pet her dog, asked if we had a smoke (we didn't), came back after she had bummed a smoke from someone else and talked to us for an abnormally long time as we played with her boxer puppy. This wasn't a surprising experience in the least as I always end up petting a stranger's dog in this park. Eventually we accidentally collected the brothers Nick, who (characteristically) was jogging through with purpose, and later Aidan, who (also characteristically) was wandering through looking lost in a polo buttoned to the very top. It was a wonderful lazy summer afternoon.

After that I went to Tatyana's and laid on her floor (as I seem to do every second day or so) and watched part of an episode of Kim Possible as I drifted in and out of sleepiness. I approve of places with exceptionally comfortable floors.

As the label says, 'Simulated flavour Peach Drink.'
Aka, ghetto juice.
It also warns that it may contain traces of milk.

Grad pictures tomorrow and I'm slightly annoyed that I have to put effort into looking presentable. I'm to the point of despising the one day I'm obligated to look presentable, even if only for some small pictures that will be sent to my distant family to remind them that I'm graduating high school and that it's time to pelt me with more questions about my future than they already are.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 26

So tired. Can't comprehend BEDA. 'Night.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 25: Coherence is overrated.

Currently feeling a mixture of lethargic and apathetic so BLEUG. Right now, in my eyes, coherent thoughts with transitions are overrated.

On the camping trip I lent a middle school girl my camera and now I have this painfully clichèd picture in my possession:


I bought a new bag today and it lives up to my purse expectations of having the ability to carry at least three books comfortably at one time, easily carried, easily squished to take up less space and sports a slightly odd pattern that I enjoy despite that it probably clashes with multiple items in my wardrobe. It will be my third consecutive bag that fulfills all of the latter characteristics.

I want to curl up on a floor and ignore real life because this responsibility thing is slowly creeping up on me with the beginning of school. There's slightly over a week and I'm not mentally prepared for my senior year at all. I need more days of mindlessly laying in parks with nowhere to go and nothing to do with other people who are in the same situation.

Today I tried filling out job applications in another desperate attempt (one of many in the previous four months) to get hired and one online application made me go through twelve pages with about twenty questions on each. I was going to do something drastic, like punch an old lady, but I was already most of the way through before I was reaching my wit's end. The same application required a ten minute timed test that was essentially testing math skills, number patterns and ability to match massive, pretentious words with other massive, pretentious words in multiple choice. Michael's had better hire me because I wasted over an hour of pure misery on them.

Everything is suddenly hanging over my head in a ominous manner today. What's with this? *curls up and continues alternating being apathetic and annoyed.*
Love,
-J-

BEDA 24: My sprinkled with sitcom moments day.

 Today was one really weird day.

This morning, I woke up in a tent by the beach, snuggled in my sleeping bag. I poked my head out into the light (a very terrible sensation if your head is a buried deep inside your sleeping bag) and got up to make nine people's worth of toast. This was followed by packing up the site and waiting to be picked up by my dad on his way home from work, as well as drinking a reasonably substantial amount of orange juice from a carton because it was just little enough that no one wanted to take it home (hence the above photo).

I got dropped off at the library at 11:30am as an obligatory fulfillment of a promise to Sasha, a library summer student that Will, Maegan and I went through with.This called for an hour and a half of alternating between comforting hungover Will and laughing hysterically over his texts from the previous night, including "WHY AM I NAPOLEON" and "jfhjdaoireinjnnkasdkPocahontas*." A ten year old boy who was running around the library got past our mildly cryptic conversation and told him to never drink again. He didn't even know him. Will was a poster boy for discouraging heavy drinking. Even I couldn't bring myself to berate him.**

Sasha's lunch plans fell through so we all went to lunch together and had conversations including (1) Sasha's series of communist themed shirts that he used to wear to the gym just to be that guy and (2) the fact that he was texting his friend honest to goodness serious advice involving Russian mail order brides. Will occasionally sat up at the table and looked like he was going to say something but then slammed his head back on the table. He eventually tried figuring out what to say to his parents later and conversation went something like this:
Sasha: "Well, you should probably avoid the word 'drunk.'
Maegan: "Especially in all caps with four 'n's."
*cleaning lady blatantly cracks up from a distance*

The worst thing is that then Will had to go drum for a kid's camp thing. He was not happy (for this moment as well as the rest of the entire day, which was incredibly uncharacteristic). Later, however, he was very proud that he didn't projectile vomit on small children singing showtunes, which was the our predetermined lowest of low moments. Maegan and I decided that in preparation for our possible moment of definitive realization that we're in the darkest timeline, we're preparing goatees (Community reference, anyone?).

I got home and went back out again to hang out with Tatyana at Queen's Square. We went on a quest for ghetto juice and cupcakes and found both on sale. When I went home and stopped at Arby's and they gave me my sandwich free. I've never been so happy about saving four dollars before in my life.*** I considered hurdling over the counter and giving the cashier a hug because I'm really unemployed.

Now I just have to unpack my camping clothes that all smell like bugspray and second hand smoke because Allan took camping as an excuse to smoke anywhere and everywhere.

*It will be an eternal mystery to how he spelled 'Pocahontas' correctly, all considering.
**Kaelen, don't berate him, he's suffered enough already. He was unfortunately really amusing in his suffering. Also, you didn't hear it from me.
*** Today I've gotten so much free/low priced food that it makes up for the fact that I bought that hungover kid a BLT. Karma?
Love,
-J-

BEDA 23: Time thingy let me do this.

I'm camping, but here's a picture the picture of mustache man in the market and me in the process of falling off a chair:

Chair is slipping from under me.

And over on to the floor.

 I'm a winner.

Also incredibly amusing stumbleupon time killers:
Circly thing
Clinky thing
Love,
-J-

BEDA 22: Camping

So, camping trip later. It has potential to be the weirdest camping trip of all time as so many people bailed. SO MANY PEOPLE HAD LEGIT REASONS TO BAIL.

I mean, the only people left going (along with Lindsay and Jen, our youth leaders) are me, my brother, Allan, Travis, Calista and Liz. It has potential to be a weird two days and/or the most anticlimactic camping trip of all time. We don't even have a hurricane to interrupt our trip, like happened two years ago.

I may or may not be outgrowing this youth group but I suppose it was inevitable. For some reason, my youth group goes in distinct generations and my time to head out is near (as is Moriah's and Allan's), as our generation is being over run by the next generation. When I was in 9th grade, the previous generation to me left. My time is near, which is kind of depressing because that means it's the end of my youth group era. I have so many fond memories of my four years of Wednesdays evenings hanging out in an old grocery store turned sketchy/hipster church.

I hope things look up and that my negative mood is only caused by not eating yet today out of laziness and running into my former boss in the mall and just being unbelievably pissed at his existence.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 21: Seasonal accomplishments

Things I have already accomplished this summer:

• Volunteered at two day camps
• Stayed up until 3am
• Got my first text from an intoxicated person 
• Discovered the joys of driving
• Got hit on by a five year old ladies man
• Slept on various couches and floors
• Spent many hours in the library between volunteering and puzzles*
• Read seven books

Things I am yet to accomplish this summer, but plan to:

• Camping with youth group**
• Start sewing my purple polka dot dress
• Watch some superhero movies (a severe gap in my knowledge)
• An Apples-to-Apples rematch
• A late night pizza run
• Do something mildly funky to my hair after grad photos***
• Take 200 more pictures (to reach my goal of 1000 for the summer)
• Read three more books

* Kaelen and I volunteer while Maegan, Will and Tatyana lurk around, do puzzles and befriend the library summer student who gives us great life advice, like (1) IB is a bad decision and (2) to drink before we're of age because after it's not fun anymore. He also laughs without smiling which is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.
 ** With a group consisting of 90% of the people who have potential to drive me crazy. I'm probably going to want to pull my hair out. Everybody who I can handle for a decent amount of time bailed so this should be interesting. Hopefully I keep the strangling down to a minimum but I've already thrown in some preemptive threatening.
*** Small amounts of a bright color, I'm thinking. Hair is cool.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 20: Apologies, internet accountability gods.

I'm late for a very important date! Or rather, Tatyana's rather belated graduation party that I have to be ridiculously early for because of transportation reasons.

I promise a good BEDA post tomorrow.

But in the meantime I'll put this here to make myself feel guilty for skimping with words two days in a row:

 Love,
-J-

BEDA 19: Slack Sunday park picture post.

Slack Sunday BEDA is a thing I think I can deal with.

I was whisked away to the park today for a family outing so I took some pictures. Have a lovely day.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 18: Useless skills I have.

I was complaining a few weeks ago that most people seem to have things that they are especially good at, but that I'm just mediocre at an assortment of things. 

Moriah retorted that actually, I'm pretty good at some things (but they don't help me determine what career path I'll take). I'm exceptionally good at subconsciously absorbing useless information (in a time where trivia is no longer appreciated) and being an over the top perfectionist about things that don't matter. I can remember names and wikipedia articles. I'm also an exceptional googler. My friends ask me to google things for them sometimes because I am a google whisperer. Can these traits be useful for something? (If you actually can think of something they're good for, for goodness sake, tell me because I'm yet to discover it).

I like writing and photography but I'm pretty average at both so I'm fine with dismissing them as hobbies and looking for another career in which I would starve slightly less.

I wish I was exceptionally good at something that was useful in an occupational level but I'm not even particularly passionate about anything. I feel like I have a bare outline of things that I would consider doing in the future. I'll roll with things, I guess, and see what happens. That's what I've done so far in life.

I feel like somewhere out there, there's a really obscure nook of a career where I will fit and be happy. However, I'm not keen on potentially twisted and confusing path to get to this unknown destination that may or may not exist. I should probably relax, get through high school and a few years of university, drink lots of coffee, read lots of books and meet lots of good people before I deal with this too much.

But all these family visits make me so stressed about this because relatives keep asking me about my future and I fail to have satisfying answers for them. My usual "Well, I'll go to university somewhere for something" isn't enough for them. I think I give them the impression of being much smarter than I actually am and so they've set high hopes for me but are gradually lowering them as I give them increasingly ambiguous answers.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 17: My cheap grad fashion, yo.

Excuse me while I write about trivial things about grad year to avoid panicking about whatever happens approximately a year from now. 

I went on a quest to Fabricville today with my grandmother to acquire supplies early for my prom dress. Like, ten and a half months early, but I'm pretty content with this because (1) it's early enough that I won't have time to be anxious about something as frivolous as prom during crunch time of my senior year and (2) prom dress stuff is massively on sale right now at Fabricville because they ordered so much of it that they still have an unreasonable amount in August. 

By massively on sale, I mean that the fabric for my dress (light green satin, which the colour is difficult to distinguish in the above picture) in its entirety cost $12, a third of its original price. The pattern was $15 and with the other assorted dodads to make the dress, the total comes to just over $30. For an entire (not assembled) freaking prom dress. And people laughed at me when I said I wouldn't spend over $100 on prom. I am the master of sales and taking advantage of more than willing sew-happy grandmothers.

When we were in the store, I also realized that this would be a good pattern to make a white dress for graduation (my school has a tradition of the grads wearing white dresses and suits in place of caps and gowns). For $15, I had the means to make a white dress, as well. I plan for it to be shorter than my prom dress (about mid-calf length) but the same style other than that.

Now I have my two (what I thought would be pricey) big purchases for grad year over with and plenty of time for my willing grandmother to help me piece them together for a lot less money than I was expecting. I feel like I'm cheating grad year because I'm not only sufficiently preparing but in an inexpensive manner. Now I can spend my money on things like saving for university and pizza. Things that matter.

I'm so happy that I'm feeling no guilt whatsoever about the price of these mildly ridiculous but obligatory purchases.

Oh shoot, I need to buy shoes to go with the dresses. I'll hopefully find something inexpensive.What shoes could go with a long, flowy, satiny light green dress? I don't know shoe etiquette in the least. 
Love,
-J-
PS- Also, since I'm being really prepared for Christmas, Prom and Graduation, I think that the world should refrain from ending on December 21st because that would be kind of a mean trick to play on me.

BEDA 16: J'aime beaucoup le camp.

I helped out at camp today and have decided that those children are the most adorable things to happen to the world. I mean, one guy is major ladies man and he's all of six years old. There's also these two brothers who wear nail polish because their parents are apparently attempting to make a statement against gender roles. Another guy's father believes "that all food should have personalities" and draws faces on his bananas everyday. I also like that everybody running the camps are lovely people, especially Hannah, who is just a lovely person and John, who is a flamboyantly gay is all the best ways possible.

Today included sidewalk chalk, freeze dance parties to One Direction and a massive game of wink murder (in which I was first to die multiple times). I also saw several of my friends in a small play version of the war of 1812 which outdid my expectations*. Seeing eight people reenact the entire war of 1812 is entertaining in a odd way.

I actually just love camp so much. It's the best type of good chaos in existence.

I've come to this realization that despite the fact that I'm doing BEDA and labeling each of my posts with a number, I still can't remember what day it is.

Along with this, I'm going through a weird phase where I accidentally think the occasional random phrase in French, which is strange because my French abilities are really limited. I usually refrain from saying these aloud because when there are people around who actually speak French, I feel kind of like a pretentious poser. But I continue thinking with the occasional small snippets of French and I feel weird about it.

* I'm going to see again tonight not because I fangirl the war of 1812 or follow my theater kid friends around, but because I'm hanging out with people afterwards.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 15: Just your friendly August Christmas post

I went through my pictures from the last year and this will always be irrelevant to everything. So here you go.

I'm considering this thing this year where I might try to plan ahead for Christmas presents.

I've already started my own Christmas list (which so far contains one item: a quote dictionary). I've also started forming an evil plan this year where I will stealthily convince all my relatives to give me Starbucks gift cards so I can have Starbucks guilt free for a long time. I'm still drawing out my $25 gift card from last Christmas.

I kind of hate the fact that I'm socially obligated to give Christmas presents, the same way I hate that I feel socially obligated to go to prom. I'm not opposed to either idea, I just feel like they escalate into something far more frivolous than they need to be. In large doses, consumerism makes me uncomfortable.

For example, my dad's side of the family is really big on gift giving. Gift giving on a reasonable scale is lovely, but most of their stuff is acquired solely for the purpose of being acquired. Within several months, most of the gifts are forgotten about, in storage or given away. Some of my more distant relatives all seem to have massive collections of ranging obscure items and legitimately have multiple Christmas trees to put things under.

I go to their house over Christmas and roll my eyes. My parents see the above as pretty unnecessary way to celebrate the holidays as well. They go for more practical or thoughtful gifts and I didn't realize how thankful I was about this until lately. We're not very materialistic so this approach works well. I like that for Christmas I get socks, mittens, a calender, candy and a few small assorted things that my parents know I like, such as nail polish or scarves. I give them practical things like kitchenware (because they immediately abandon anything not practical) and they're pretty content with that. Being poor missionaries living in Kenya made my family so practical.

 I think that I'm going to go for homemade presents this year. Which means that I should start early and figure out what to do.

I can't believe I'm discussing Christmas in August.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 14: Casual monkey costume.

I was told to look casual. Hence the expression.

This week I realized I had an extremly small amount of things to do, so I asked a friend* if I could volunteer at some day camps for the kids' theater company that a bunch of my friends are involved with. I actually had a lot of fun because (1) these children were better behaved than choir camp kids and (2) the group of people running the camps were equal parts creative, chill and practiced at running camps. The building also amuses me, as it's in a former church but not completely church or theater company. In several place it looks like a theater company set up on top of the remains of partially decayed church apparel.

There was spy camp in the morning, which meant we had to create 'disguises' at one point so Hannah and I ended up in the monkey suits. I like the fact that I found so many ridiculous costumes that I could fit into. It was a unparalleled moment of joy, despite what you can tell from our faces.

*Actually, someone who is teetering on the edge between an acquaintance and a friend but after today I think I can safely say a friend.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 13: I have a buff left calf.

This morning, I hopped into a car at about quarter to eight and drove for an hour and a half to drop my brother off at a kind of camp thing for a week. My dad and I took the opportunity after we dropped him off to find a Christian bookstore to buy Dutch Blitz* and go to the local Value Village because thrifting** in different cities means an entirely new selection. After lunch of Indian food simply because we stumbled across a place that served Indian food, a thing which my life sorely lacks, we headed back home, me driving on the highway for most of the way with a fair bit of ease. When we got home, I then drove back across town for an appointment and got stuck in traffic for an annoying amount of time and witnessed someone aggressively run down several pylons in place of me. Construction season is the worst season.***

Tonight I went to see The Dark Knight Rises and it raises the question why this is the first superhero movie I've ever seen. It was so perfect. It helped that I was eating snuck in gummy cherry twists and waffle pretzels.

* Strangely which is available exclusively at Christian bookstores, despite having no relevance to Christianity whatsoever. Actually, to be honest, it's kind of a violent game. It just brings out the worst in people while being the best card game of all time.

** I've deciding to saw 'thrifting' more often because it sounds better than 'buying most of my clothes second hand because I'm cheap.' Out of the two, 'Thrifting' sounds infinitely more entertaining.

*** I presently blame whoever decided it was a good idea just to pave over streetcar rails instead of removing them several decades ago, only to have them discovered recently, causing extra hassle for the roadwork and causing me weeks of pain getting across town. However, my left calf is probably gaining a significant amount of muscle from hitting the clutch in stop and go traffic.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 12: Noncohertent Sunday post of obligation.

 I watched ten episodes of Community today and my brain is so dead that I can't even begin to comprehend putting together a coherent post. Watching Community is good but watching ten consecutive episodes isn't good for one's overall mental health.

Today I realized that I suck at parking lots. Didn't hit anything, just held people people up from getting their coffee as I made a 120 degree turn while people laughed at me. Mildly embarrassing moments FTW.

Slack Sunday post is as slack as this Sunday. Because my head hurts and I want to sleep.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 11: Family reunions and my Broadway car.

Today was a quasi-family reunion for my grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. Being my family, this meant gathering in a church basement for two hours with a spread of small sandwiches and old people that I don't know.

Thankfully, after wandering awkwardly for around twenty minutes, during which I was asked 'Who [I] belong to' and had to explain a good portion of my family tree to answer this question and was mistaken for being thirteen years old, I surfaced some Dutch Blitz cards with my cousins (who were also not fully obligated to eat small sandwiches and make polite conversation with relatives we didn't know existed or random elderly people who lurk around my grandparents' church, like the "real adults" had to). We hid in a back room and played some intense Dutch Blitz until our presences were required for the cake cutting. It was a good time, especially because I haven't actually hung out with some of my cousins for years.

 My grandparents, great aunt, aunt, uncle, cousins (+ one gf and bf), 1st cousin, parents, brother and me.

Me, my bro and my grandparents.

My nail polish matched my dress perfectly. It was a good moment.

Now that I can drive, my cousin Leigh Ann (who, unfortunately for my relatives, as well as having similar names, we also look and act alike which confuses the heck out of them) offered me an open invitation to come up and go to Treego some weekend.That would be awesome.

In other news, I discovered the therapeutic powers of driving around in the beautiful little Jetta by oneself and singing Broadway music at the top of one's voice. I think my car will be a Broadway car. I'm also progressively growing to love that Jetta more and more. It's just so cozy and standard and adorable and not a minivan. Basically all the things I look for in a car. Also, the ability to drive a standard makes me feel special.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 10: Rant day.

I feel like I need to write the Al(l)ans of my life:

I would tell Allan that if he wears backwards baseball caps as much as he does in the pictures I scroll past on facebook of him in Quebec, that I will kick him and stare at him disappointingly like sad Tennant here. Because backwards baseball caps are terrible and I don't think I'd be able to endure it. I can handle to gangster rap CDs in his car, but mixed with backwards baseball caps means all shame is gone.

I would tell other Alan that he needs to grow up and deal with things instead of dwelling on them and choosing to let them rule his life. By 'rule his life,' I mean causing him to be an unbearable person who does nothing but complain and spew negativity into the universe. He is actually incapable of saying positive things. He is the dementor of people. He sucks happiness from the air and makes people around him feel sad and angry. He doesn't seem to realize that bad things happen to everybody and that people can move on from them. He still dwells on a kind of break up he had over a year ago with a girl he was never really together with. Like, he practically claims that she ruined everything. He bitches about her all the time. Then he blames the rest of bad things on his parents for breaking up. He has the most average middle class problems yet they've completely destroyed him as a person. Now there's some drama that him and Tatyana were kind of together for two days, she decided to call it off and he cried and said that "she's the reason [he'll] never procreate." That's how ridiculous he is, not only that he actually said that but that he said that when he is seventeen years old. He's actually just the most self centered asshole I know and I feel no pity for him whatsoever. I want to aggressively slam his head against a table often.

/rant over/

I figured this was my BEDA day to rant. I apoligize, but I think I'm going to send Alan a facebook message right now. I'll deal with other Allan when he gets back, it's less urgent.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 9: THE WORLD IS MY DOMAIN.

I'm a licensed driver, guys. I took my test in standard, even. I only stalled twice, despite the hilly nature of the route and I am actually just so freaking happy. At one point during the test my foot was practically having a seizure from nerves but I still parallel parked satisfactorily, despite the shakiest clutch foot of all time. I think the standard actually helped me because she gave me the benefit of most doubts because of it.

Now I need to go on a quest but I don't know where because THE WORLD IS MY DOMAIN.

I'm actually just ridiculously excited to have accomplished this milestone in my life because over a year and a half I failed my learner's permit the first time, nearly finished driver's ed at a place that shut down and only allowed me partial credit, did half of driver's ed over again, failed my road test the first time, and passed it today after all these shenanigans. In a Jetta that one has to win its affection.

Now to bother my grandparents with links of cars from kijiji so they find one to buy so I can buy their old car. It's the least annoying form of nagging I know how to do.

Commence questing.
Love,
-J-
P.S.- I think this is my first BEDA that hasn't been published last minute. That's how freaking happy I am.

BEDA 8: Galavanting on rooftops, Egg McMuffins and assorted badassery.

I came across this picture from the only legit party I've ever gone to. As you might notice, it was pretty legit. I mean, only the most legit parties have a cake with a picture of Charmander on it. At least, the drunk people thought so and the sober people weren't opposed to cake in the least.

In the interest of a speedy post, today I realized just how straightedge I am and how I have to keep to that because I have thrown myself into the position of keeping (a few) people accountable for things. Strangely enough, one of my ways of keeping people accountable is by posting this on the occasional facebook wall. I'm a ridiculous human being but it works strangely well. I just have so much of a conscience that I have some to share. Don't send your kids to Christian school, friends. Only two years did this to me. I suppose if I had been there any longer I would have rebelled and been crazy instead.

Tonight I went on a roof after dark. It was sketchy, I had to climb about ten flights of stairs and I felt strangely daring. I live such a dangerous life of occasionally going on rooftop parking after dark. Also, one time I ate an Egg McMuffin in the library, even though eating isn't allowed in the library.

I really hope my writing conveys sarcasm in the right places.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 7: Unashamed #nerdcred

I heard two words today that cracked me up: swagedelic and dipsydoodle. In other news, I also saw a traditional Scottish band (yes, with bagpipes) practicing in the parking lot of a seniors' home, by a main road. Whenever bagpipes are involved, I usually approve and appreciate.

As well as that, I continue my love of amusing office equipment by considering a love affair with the machine at the library that re/desensitizes books. When you put a book in it, it gives a nice little satisfying click. I love it almost as much as folding machines, possibly more.

Volunteering at the library every Tuesday, I'm getting to know my alphabet so well while shelving books. I didn't realize I sucked at the alphabet until I was handed a sheet to practice putting books in shelving order. Soon, I will be a shelving master, along with being skilled at many other things from the library that are nontransferable to any other real life situations. The smooth operations of the library are strangely comforting to me, as organization often is to me. It's the epitome of complex organization with systems that work and competent people. The OCD part of my heart rejoices.

Also, the library has both seasons of Sherlock to be processed in the Technical Services room. They just keep winning my heart.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 6: Happy Civic Holiday!

That is, if you live in Canada. I get celebrate the holiday of New Brunswick day, which I'm not totally sure what I should be celebrating. It's not like we have anything that defines us that we can celebrate. We're actually just a really mediocre province. It falls under the category of 'bank holidays that nobody knows why they exist.' I suppose we could go around being bilingual all day, but what fun is that?

However, if there's bouncy things and free cotton candy uptown like there was on Victoria day, I am completely willing to acknowledge this as a legitimate holiday. I'm not sure if they do that on just a regular holiday or if they were just trying to impress Prince Charles and Camilla when they swung by (in a manner befitting royalty) on Victoria day. But, this being the slightly underfunded place that it is, I'm pretty sure they blew all their money for such things (demonstrated by the extremely underwhelming firework display on Canada day.)

Every year, the August long weekend marks the second half of the summer, an annual reminder that there's about a month left until school resumes. Time to start panicking about entering my senior year of high school and applying to universities and going into the world, worrying about money (because university is fracking expensive) and growing up. I have to make decisions on my own that can make or break me. I foresee the making of innumerable pros and cons lists in the coming year.

The incredibly irritating thing is that when I mention this, people often are giving me the "Live in the moment!" BS. No, just no. I plan things far ahead of time, I don't go where the wind takes me. One of my friends this year applied to only one university, got rejected, but managed to just slip into a different program in June. I don't take well to leaving things up to fate and there's no way I'm going to cut it that close. I'm applying to at least three schools, most likely more, and I'll probably have large, in-depth charts on the pros and cons of each.

So far for this year, I know I will have to balance schoolwork, yearbook, choir, musical and most likely a job (because fees associated with graduating are also fracking expensive). My workload for school is probably going to be significantly lighter than the past few years, as I'm only taking English, History, Math and an assortment of bird courses. Still freaking out quite a bit. This year still has such an ominous feel about it.

I know it'll probably work out wonderfully and be a great last year of high school but I've not quite come to terms with what I'll be facing after this.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 5: Books and my opinions on them (no spoilers, I promise)

My current pile 'to read' pile of books. I got pretty ambitious.

I have this problem with books that I really like to read them, but I rarely sit down to read for more than an hour at a time if I have a working internet connection/plans for my day. I've been slowly getting over this and with this has come lots of ambition to read and friends who periodically make piles of books for me in the library.

I've read a substantial amount of books in the past month, so I figured I would go over some of them and what I thought of them:

Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams: After around two years of causual reading, I finally finished the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It's definitely helped foster my appreciation for quirky things. Words cannot describe my love for this. I have such respect for Douglas Adams for creating (absolutely ridiculous) setting after setting and having it all fit together and still have some believability.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: I was rereading this for the second time because even with wikipedia, I was in a huge pit of confusion. It's great, but I feel like everything is going over my head and that I still don't quite 'get it.' I feel like it's the type of book that all the symbols are actually purposely implanted there by the author and not just figments of an English teacher's imagination. I like it but I can't get over the feeling that in many places it's trying too hard to be extremely pretentious. I like that I read it because now I can make the occasional reference to it.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: This was a really short read and I didn't like it as much as other people seem to. It felt a bit bland and lacking in details (somewhat intentionally, I think), in a format like it was almost like it was written for a children's reading level. I suppose that it's purpose is to be thought provoking, but it just didn't speak to me very much. Not that it went over my head, but that the message it was trying to get across wasn't applicable to me.

1984 by George Orwell: Unlike Fahrenheit 451, 1984 far exceeded my expectations. The setting was quite intricate but well maintained throughout the book. I felt like I was sucked into not only a completely different world, but was edging in on a different mind set. I was terrified while reading a lot of it but genuinely awed by it ('enjoyed' doesn't seem like the right word) and I feel like I'm a better person for reading it. Also totally prepared for studying the Cold War in History this year.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling: I've been slowly rereading the Harry Potter series over the past few months. I first read the series three years ago* and haven't read it or watched the movies since (with the exception of the movies that have been in theaters). This time around, I like that I'm rediscovering them from the point of view of seventeen year old me instead of fourteen year old me. Our points of view are quite different. I've determined that Harry Potter will just always be amazing.

*My Christian school told me from a young age that Harry Potter was evil so I was late on the band wagon after realizing that a book about a young orphaned wizard couldn't possibly be that evil.

And that is all I have time for today, folks, as it's nearing midnight.
Love,
-J-

A comic for your viewing pleasure

BEDA 4: Uncomfortable fish and buttloads of egg salad

That funny thing I said yesterday about a legit post today? Yeah, no.

Today I went on a day trip that included going to a (really small) aquarium. Know what I learned about aquariums? I dislike them, quite strongly. Fish are incredibly boring and the place kept giving me flashbacks of a biology field trip in tenth grade that was cold, miserable and involved prodding sea creatures far more than I was comfortable with. It smelt like stale ocean and fish legitimately make me uncomfortable. *conclude rant about fish* The only thing I enjoyed about the aquarium was seeing the seals (even though they were only swimming in a circle) who's names were Snorkel and Loki, which was too much adorable for me to handle.

The rest of this post shall be delivered in a disconnected point form list: 

• I've decided twitter is hilarious. Hopefully it doesn't go all tumblr on my life.
• It's Obama's birthday. I don't know how that's useful information to the majority of people, but there you go. Happy birthday Obama! 
• I actually have nothing planned this coming week except for my driving test on Thursday.
• A week from today, I get to drive for two hours, sit in a church basement for an afternoon with my extended family, people I don't know and probably a buttload of egg salad sandwiches for my grandparent's 50th anniversary. This week will probably have a bunch of miscellaneous prep work for that.

 Love,
-J-

BEDA 3: Ten minutes until midnight.

Let's see, ten minutes to fit this post in before midnight and it'll be tomorrow: challenge accepted.

Firstly, I got twitter because my mind is full of thoughts that I want to tell someone but my friends don't always see them as awesome as I do when I text them at all hours of the day or night. It's not much yet but I have great plans for it. Or mediocre plans, not sure yet.

The last day of choir camp was good, minus about four kids have simultaneous meltdowns.

Also, kids plus glitter and glitter glue is a disaster waiting to happen. I cleaned that craft room. I saw things. It was a battle field of cardboard, tin foil, paint and glitter, fought into shapes resembling costumes, no matter how homemade looking. There was many casualties of small pieces of everything everywhere.

Just had a hardcore Gilmore Girl marathon and walked to Maegan's house because she made cake balls and I have no shame.

It's 11:59. I'm good. More legit post tomorrow.
Love,
-J-

BEDA 2: Children

I can honestly say that in previous times, that I have liked working with kids but after this week, I'm beginning to question this.

I like being around kids who are pretty chill, possess only mild levels of mischievousness and listen to what you have to say. The kids at choir camp this week have not been remotely close to a good example of these traits. Maybe it's because I'm used to working with kids who are (1) ages two to four or (2) into middle school. Everything in between is foreign to me, and in light of the fact that these kids at choir camp are (1) mostly from inner city sort of areas in (2) a city that has mostly blue collar work that (3) also has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Canada; these kids are usually not your well trained kids who grew up in the suburbs with a white picket fence*. Basically, not the kids I'm used to.

Don't get me wrong, most of them are sweet and obedient, but when there are forty kids and ten leaders of varying ages, the five or six mischievous kids quickly become a huge handful. Today, one child managed to intentionally get stuck in an elevator that needs a card to use, just because she could. Not cool.

I do my best to get to know the kids and have a good time, but it's just so damn stressful to make sure nobody insults somebody to tears, runs and hides in an unknown crevice of the church, or bludgeons somebody to death with a chair. I've given up on keeping paint off the floor in crafts, as it's the least of our concerns. At camp, I'm easily wiped after three hours. Even Moriah has stopped being excessively cheery and just wants to take a nap.

To conclude, I think I still like kids, I'm just not sure if I ever want one of my own or to intensively be in a leader like role for forty of them for an entire week ever again.

One more day.

*These are vast generalizations but you get my point.
Love,
-J-
P.S.- Today after I scrubbed every surface of the craft room of paint, glitter glue and sharpie (only to have it destroyed again), the lady who was running the kitchen told me I'd make someone a good wife someday. I scowled to a new level of disdain. 'Housewife' is incredibly far from my ideal career path, as well as modern society, as far as I'm concerned.

BEDA 1: No didgeridoos for you.

I'm going to embark on Blog Every Day August. Because it's August and face it, nothing will probably happen in August to prevent me from such shenanigans. Look forward to seeing lots of me, but I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath all day every day, anyway.

Today started off pretty annoyingly and I have this subconscious belief that once a day starts off badly, it can't fully be recovered. I had to go to the dentist (I look forward to my root canal), I got impatient with my mother because I had to explain what a two inch binder was repeatedly, and then the kids at camp were really crazy. At one point I washed and dried fifty juice glasses to escape their insanity. I lasted about three hours at camp before I was having flashbacks of summer student hell last year.

When I was given the okay, I made my way to buy peach tea and I curled up in the library for half the afternoon. I've spent five hours in the library in the last two days, which is slightly less weird of late because I volunteer there one hour a week. It was bliss after attempting to tame forty children to reasonable levels of crazy. I spent a while working on the puzzle of dogs dresses as Wizard of Oz characters. I also partook a power nap but unfortunately the security guard woke me up. I discovered Scott Pilgrim, which I think I might like so far. The library is my happy place, full of paper, knowledge, quiet, free wifi and nice librarians who encourage coloring in the teen area.

There was also much spicy hummus consumed today. Hence a day not entirely gone to dust.

^ Possibly the most instagramy picture to ever instagram. I'm the one in the purple who isn't the guy from Bangladesh.We're sitting on the base of big gun that pointed towards the harbour during WWII. Now it's a burn spot. People get high there. #class
Love,
-J-