My own personal song of despair.

After a four hour drive, sleeping after drinking dark roast coffee, eating half a grilled cheese sandwich at a truck stop in which the cheese wasn't even melted, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just really Hippie Jesus camp hungover. I feel so mentally and physically ajifilkdkfslakdkfjalwriohjtu right now. Or, as Allan put it so delicately when I looked like I was considering strangling people in the truck stop, it's probably because I'm on my period. Thank you, Allan. Considering I never even brought that up, I think that he has too many sisters.

Hippie Jesus camp was pretty mediocre. It made me feel bad about myself as a person and realize I have absolutely no direction in my faith at all right now. Everybody else seemed to have a great, enriching time while I despaired quietly while slightly loathing myself. I even cried once, out feeling little but despair in a room full of happiness. Then I was told that maybe I was having a mediocre time because I didn't put myself out there as much as everyone else did. Which, you know, was probably a bit true, but mostly because I was being overwhelmed by everything happening. The Vineyard isn't known for their subtlety. Somehow I left with a feeling of being overall personally underwhelmed by the events of the weekend. While everyone else appears to be high on Jesus and adrenaline, I now feel terrible.

And now I try to pinpoint why I feel terrible:

I'm not doubting my religion, I'm doubting my capacity to deal with it. Whenever I try to talk about that sentiment, I just can't express it. I hate openly despairing about this because it's like when you state you have a sore throat: everybody seems to have a differing, slightly condescending sure fire suggestion to fix it for you, which in reality, none of it works. Also, I hate being venerable by saying "Hey, I haven't been digging this Jesus thing lately and can you help me in a non-judgmental way without looking down on me?" No one knows how to deal with me because I'm born and raised Christian who is slowly slipping not into a path of distinct evil, but of consistent apathy. I'm not quite to that yet, but I'm getting there and feeling appropriately shitty about it.

It's especially hard at the Vineyard because there is so much going on and I'm so underwhelmed for no particular reason. My "I'm not feeling this right now" would probably frustrate people to no end because there's also a gazillion distinctly Jesusy things always going on.

Also, I've had way too many mental/emotional breakdowns at youth group through the years and I don't like how people have dealt with them. Blog quasi-breakdowns/rants are so much less memorable. You see, usually I'm so guarded that people are really thrown off when I have a moment of vulnerability. I'm so guarded I don't know how to cope with me, I just have sudden realizations of why things seem wrong.

Almost everything religion related has made me hate things lately so I must be doing something wrong. Which, again, makes me hate myself more. I'm doing bible camp/religion wrong and have no sweet clue what to do about it. This bothers me a lot, especially as a kid who grew up in church, has parents who were missionaries for several years, has spent multiple nights a week at youth group functions through most of my teen years, and worked at a church for a summer.

The especially weird thing about this is that for the first time ever, I feel like I've pieced almost every area of my life together in a satisfactory manner. Except this, which I'm downright hopeless at right now. #Juliannedoesreligionfor17yearsandsuddenlysucks

Now I'm going to ignore people and homework, listen to Sufjan Stevens to block out the annoying drones of my family and avoid pulling too much of my hair out. I want to go to bed, but I also want clean jeans tomorrow.
Love,
-J-

Pygmy goats and rap battles

Today I had an unnaturally emotional reaction to finding out that pygmy goats exist from Allan in second period. I couldn't even deal. I need a pygmy goat because they are by far the most adorable things to ever exist.There has been a lot of squeeing and preaching the good word of pygmy goats to everyone that crossed my path. Also, Will put this together for this when I said, in my pygmy goat frazzled state, that Looper sounds like a good movie but needs more pygmy goats:

I appreciate what lengths my friends go to in my semi-psychotic emotional outbursts about ridiculous things.

Also, I took part in a rap battle today. I joked a few days ago that we should show up with wrapping paper and wrap some boxes. Somebody decided yesterday to actually sign us up for it and I was torn over whether it would be funny or awkward. Thankfully, it leaned toward the funny side. We dressed like rappers to the best of our abilities. I wore a snap back.We still didn't win but the two scrawny white hipster guys we were up against were rapping entertaining trash talk as opposed to wrapping presents so I suppose they deserved it.

Adam, a comedic genius of my school (his accomplishments including standing on a table at the musical after party and reciting Aragorn's speech while waving a legitimate sword, and his "kind of long jokes" that turn out to be hour long stories with hugely intentionally unsatisfying endings) eventually decided he would give rapping a try. As his lanky frame hopped around the stage, my favorite lines include "I got hoes in different area codes" and ended with "You can't phase me, because I'm taking full IB!" Had he been using a mic, I feel that at that point he would have dropped it.
Love,
-J-

Employment, yo.

The mug from church that I have designated as mine but do not understand in the least.

Well, I'm employed now. I don't start training until October 9th, but hey, that's okay. I have a little while to settle into my Co-op placement before having to settle into a job that involves hot liquids and aprons with pockets. Perks include that I get a consistent income and acquire lots of barista knowledge, along with getting a pretty decent resume during my senior year, between Co-oping at the library and a barista job. Also, free Starbucks during work breaks. This Christmas season will be fraught with calories.

This is going to be one busy semester/year. But that's not an immediate concern so I'll just ignore it for now.
Love,
-J-

Of Swedish electronica and sweaters.

 The more I drive, the more I have this rapidly increasing love of electronic music. Moriah and I rocked out to the above song all day (disclaimer: a bit of swearing). I want to go to a party just so I can awkward-white-person-dance to this song and then leave. Or, the likelier option, drive around, obnoxiously blasting it to the best of the Jetta radio's ability without damaging my eardrums, wearing a ridiculously teenaged outfit and dance at stop lights while people in other cars judge me. I'm currently alternating between that one song and Sufjan Stevens to contrast enough to make it as danceable as possible every time. It makes me want to consider trashing any life plans and become part of a female electronica duo from Sweden. Anyone want to join? I need to use my endless sass and lack of sentimentality for something. From what I see here, Swedish electronica seems like a good outlet for those two qualities. Also, I could probably wear whatever I want for the rest of my life and everyone would be ok with it. 

This weekend was pretty great. On Saturday, I spent a few hours at the library (which has magical de-stressing properties), ate a skor cupcake, went thrifting and got both a mug with a face and a new sweater.* After baking cookies with opera in the background, I went to watch Doctor Who at Tatyana's which didn't happen because the TV guide was lying to us and said it wasn't on.**

Today I ate breakfast at Moriah's, as is our weekly pre-church tradition, and caught up because despite the fact that I have three classes with her, I rarely get a chance to talk to her. In the afternoon, we curled up and watched "Legally Blonde: The Musical" and I'm sorely disappointed that this was my first encounter with that masterpiece.

This had all the elements to make this the weekend that I needed. Library, friends, laying on Tatyana's floor and consuming lots of food containing loads of cheese.

* I have a continuously growing collection of old man sweaters, which thanks to the Canadian fall being upon me,  I get to start wearing on a steady basis with my equally large collection of scarves. I should start posting pictures because those sweaters are really fantastic, especially as a collection. In related news, I don't even know what has been going on with my clothes lately but I appreciate it. I think it clicked that I'm a senior and somehow my clothing choices are affected by that. I mean, I unashamedly wore bright blue tights last week and didn't feel self conscious in the least.

(Today's fantastic sweater and not fantastic hair.)

** I would be infuriated with the lying TV guide, but I was invited to a Doctor Who party next Saturday. A bunch of people are gathering to eat Doctor Who related food stuffs, drink tea and be emotionally supportive to each other during the big episode. There is no more enjoyable way that I can think of how to spend a Saturday night. Why my friends so cool.
Love,
-J-

Good gravy.

I got asked out yesterday.

By who I will now refer to, for simplicity's sake, as QHD (Quasi-Hipster Dealer). You know, my new friend from a few days ago. Who was drunk during the second day of school. The one I air high fived for being Ravenclaws. Yeah, that one.

The entire situation is layers of hilarity and sad.

Because I responded "no, sorry" in the exact same manner that I had five minutes earlier when he had asked if I had headphones. He really is a good guy and I have a lot in common with him, but he is also really screwed up (and one of my friends has a 'history' with him which in this situation is just vastly uncomfortable). And everything in my being screams that everything about this would be a terrible idea.

That was reinforced by Will being heartbroken that I didn't say yes to QHD, as I quote "WHAT ABOUT THAT SITUATION WOULD NOT BE HILARIOUS/AWESOME/TERRIFIC." With that advice, I think I should retract any legitimacy of future 'sassy-gay-friend-who-isn't-gay' dating/relationship advice. Basically, I realize that 90% of the time if Will thinks something is a good idea, it's a downright terrible idea. The conscience part of his brain is missing so I have to fill in occasionally.

Tatyana used to be friends with QHD and she was practically in hysterics after I told her because everything about that whole thing is just incredibly amusing and improbable.

Oh well, life goes on, but still feel a little bad about turning him down. But the entire thing is still pretty damn funny.
Love,
-J-

I'm pretty much a badass.

My predicted future vehicle.

 I got news of my Co-op placement today. (*note, Co-op is a course in 12th grade where you spend the entire morning or afternoon of a semester in a workplace of somewhat your choosing.)

More or less, it looks like the plan will be that I'm shared between two libraries. From what I understood, the Co-op head person in district office asked the fairly impressive main branch library down the road from school if they could take me and they were like "dfakajfdk, I have so much going on I can't think straight but I can ask the other branches." The pitifully small branch close to my side of town was like "Hey, I can take her but there's no way I have enough around here for another person five days a week. Heck, we're not even open Mondays." Then another person at the main branch got wind of the situation and was like "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? DID YOU JUST SCARE OFF A POTENTIAL LIBRARIAN? YOU IDIOT, WE NEED TO PASS ON OUR LEGACY" and offered to take me on for a few days a week. They compromised and now they both get me. That's the gist of it.

I feel so wanted. This shared deal is nice because I don't want to spend every lunch hour on a city bus going east, or have to go through hell to get back uptown for extracurricular things. I hope I get to spend more time at the uptown library, as more things actually go on there, but I'll just have to see how things work out.

And I'm kind of nerding out over the prospect of spending the afternoon in a library for five days a week for two school credits.

Now I will proceed with my mini essay that I'm writing about Bismarck, while in my pjs, which I put on at 7:30 and then pondering going to Tim Hortons without changing my attire. Then I decided this neighbourhood is far too suburban for that and I know people who work there who would probably judge me.
Love,
-J-

How do I emotions and stuff.

I had a small series of existential crises today.

In short, I hated (nearly) everyone and their opinions, felt like a shitty person (because youth group is a large series of guilt trips that make me feel like a shitty person on a moral level), felt weak because I felt like a shitty person and have little desire to do anything about it, schoolwork is building up, applying for universities begins soon, there are scholarship essays to write, extracurricular stuff to attend and I might have a job soon along with a Co-op placement at a yet undetermined workplace. I probably will be found weeping over my agenda at some point in the near future. I kind of want to maintain a small social life, too, but that comes depressingly low on my priorities.

I'm not adjusting well to things picking up again. I've felt increasingly not cheerful for days and I think I'm inching towards a bout of depression or a small mental breakdown. I know my patterns. Hopefully it's just a false alarm and everything isn't so terrible after a few days.

I just want to punch things. And to sleep. And to lay on Tatyana's floor while watching movies without anything else to do. I miss the cheerful simplicity of summer.

I need a weekend so bad. A real, nearly homework devoid weekend.
Love,
-J-

I think I befriended a drug dealer.

I haven't quite bounced back from my cold yet, as in I feel pretty good but my appetite is still weird and I'm still noticeably irritable.

I was pretty grumpy until Co-op this afternoon, when the class ran out of things to do and I ended up having spirited conversations with the guy who was drunk during the second day of school. Despite the fact that he got kicked out of school for dealing last year and originally appeared to be a complete burnout, we have a lot in common, aka, we bond over nerdy things. We argued over some logistics of several different situations at Hogwarts, air high fived over being Ravenclaws, argued over marijuana legislation (which led him to tell me a detailed recipe for weed brownies which I will never use), and laughed about the description of the time that his cat ate shrooms. The mental image of shroomed cats brightened up my day. We talked about all sorts of things while the rest of the class sat there looking boring and/or stoned.

Guys, I think I befriended a drug dealer.

At least my other friends got some humour out of the situation because I'm the Christian, straightedge, responsible one. But when put in a room with a lot of boring people, I move towards the interesting ones. I hold being boring against people way more than I should.

I also had my senior interview with the guidance counselor today. Basically, he printed out my transcript, saw how many credits I have (I need 17 and by the end of this year I'll most likely have 24), briefly glanced over my marks and asked me questions about my plans for next year. He surprised me by being a competent guidance counselor, as my school has rarely had those in the past. Apparently, if I raise my grade average by 2%, I can get a lot more money to help with paying for university. I can do this. I also now know where to find scholarship information and that will likely take a bit of my free time from me. I plan to write some awesome essays and get money so the prospect of paying for university doesn't scare me as much.

With that interview, suddenly my senior year got serious in my eyes. I need to get my responsible self together and get on everything. Get that 2% and get some cash in scholarships. I literally can't afford to burnout this year.
Love,
-J-

Cold meds make one feel floaty.

Today was a weird haze of cold med-induced disorientation. My words were vocal equivalents of keyboard smashes. I felt like I was floating down the school hallway and I think that I might have scared some of my friends with my general over medicatedness and disdain for everything. I was mildly freaking out while I hugged my binder for comfort and blurted about how I almost seriously thought for several seconds that I was invisible. Yeah. Don't take cold meds on an empty stomach. However, directly after that I wrote half a research essay about Bismarck in one class. I guess that IB has conditioned me so that I can write an essay come hell or high water.

We started singing Christmas songs in Madrigal/Jazz Choir today. Madrigal/Jazz Choir is basically an additional choir for people who really like choir and want to feel extra pro. Therefore, people are extra competent and I feel slightly bad about my musical ability. We started Carol of the Bells today and I got excited as I do when nifty choir music starts falling together. I will repeatedly sing "ding dong" and "da da ba dop" with the best of them. I will alto the heck out of this. 

I got my hair cut and I feel like a sexy beast. Or at least one with fairly well groomed, semi-tamable hair as opposed to the sporadically wavy/curly/frizzy/somewhat straight thing I sported during the summer. I actually had a fairly decent conversation with the hairdresser, which was something that never happens. I was mentally preparing myself for half an hour of silence, punctuated by the occasional slightly tense, halfhearted conversation starter that generally falls flat a minute later.

Now I'm painting my nails a ridiculous bright pink that won't match anything while listening to hipster music (finally, after months of peer pressure) and drinking green chai tea because it was on sale because I felt that I deserved a new type of tea after three days of a miserable cold where tea and cough drops were my main food groups.

I'm pretty convinced that tea solves or at least alleviates most problems. Colds, stress, insomnia, sadness, what have you. Tea just gives little moments of happiness no matter what is happening.
Love,
-J-

Dammit, young porcupines.

Being sick is actually just terrible.

I mean, I know there are bigger problems in the world, but having a cold where your throat feels like young porcupines have taken residence in it, your face is constantly leaking alternately a watery or gooey liquid, your nose is chapped, breathing is a difficult activity, food has no appeal and you feel obligated to ostracize yourself from society to prevent passing on your fate, life just feels like a pit of annoying and not fun things.

Not to mention that I have to hardcore journal about Pablo Neruda today because it's due tomorrow and I can't handle this volume of lovesick metaphors usually, not to mention with the extra attitude of animosity that I possess because of this cold.

I just want to crawl into a hole with lots of tea, sleep and Gilmore Girls. I can crawl out when I feel better.
Love,
-J-

Football and bus rage.

I forgot what was so bad about school until I realized that I looked forward to this weekend since Wednesday fully, anticipating that I would have to use about half of it for homework related purposes.

I went to a football game yesterday and felt like the American Dream in its entirety is sorely overrated. Sports in general utterly bewilder me and football even more so than usual. I had no sweet clue what was going on 99% of the time. I was more amused by timbits and the inflatable noisemaker sticks that I kept using at the wrong times. Eventually just found people to sword fight with them. There were many sword fight related casualties of noisemaker sticks, that night.

Also, the kids on my school bus have been progressively pissing me off more and more. Apparently they mock me all the time, even as lame as when I laugh, I hear people in the back of the bus imitating me. The only reason I can find for their mocking is because I don't hold up to the general mannerisms of a generic suburb kid. I'm not going to lie, I am kind of mean to them occasionally but it's provoked.  One thing I'm glad of, however, is that I actually don't care at all. They don't irk my self esteem in the least. If anything, I feel sad that their lives are so lacking that they get validation from incessantly mocking people who take their bus. Haters gonna hate.

But, damn, are they annoying. I will probably feel a small twinge of victory if I find them working at a gas station in twenty years as I'm moderately successful in my own special, currently undetermined way.

I'm glad I've got to this point fairly early in my life, the point that I couldn't care less that a bunch of asshole strangers don't like me. I know that I'm accepted by the people that matter. I have no idea when I picked up this self esteem, as several years ago this would have hurt me greatly. With all this self esteem, I'm glad that I'm just self deprecating enough that I won't develop too large an ego.
Love,
-J-

Life lesson: wish lego upon the feet of your enemies.

Today was the first grad class dress up day: dress as your favorite childhood character, i.e the one that you have to put the least effort into looking like. I dressed up as Emily Elizabeth from Clifford and felt happy that I had an excuse to wear striped knee socks and a skirt all day long. I think the costume that gave me the most amusement was Allan's, as he was dressed as Steve from Blue's Clues but didn't have a dark green and light green striped shirt. He solved this by taking a blue and green striped shirt and halfheartedly covering the blue stripes with light green painting tape. It looked good from a distance but when he walked into math class, it took me a full five minutes to recover from my hysterical laughter. There was also David, the SRC president, who dressed as a local newscaster and walked around trying to interview people all day. It suited him, as I have heard David described as "a forty year old man stuck in a adolescent 118 pound frame." I suppose it goes hand in hand with the fact that his favorite childhood character is a newscaster.

Choir also started today and I feel fulfilled again with music, teamwork and happy thoughts. Our choir is suddenly bordering on around a hundred members, which means about one in every twelve people who go to the school is in choir. Team Alto has twenty people, which is ridiculous. I don't know what prompted this sudden jump in numbers. I guess choir just became cooler this year than ever before.

Something I suppose I've learned from tonight is that if you don't want to do homework, hang out with your friends over facebook in a group that was created for little purpose and is now just used for mediocre details of our lives that are mildly amusing.

 . . . such as Maegan and I wishing terrible things on poets, the fact that Will's mom is making beet pancakes and a picture of Tatyana posing with her oversized teddy bear that we nicknamed the Comfort Slut because everybody hugs it when they are sad and we're abnormally eloquent. Tonight, I covered six post-its with notes on Pablo Neruda and that's everything I've gotten done on my homework night. I think I can piece together enough information tonight to make myself feel productive.
Love,
-J-

Face poking and plastic dinosaurs.

I got a root canal today. After my mouth was frozen, I was left alone in a dentist chair for around twenty minutes and, not going to lie, spent the entire time poking my face. Then they drilled my tooth while I closed my eyes and fought all my panic instincts. I hate the sound of ice scrapers on car windows so I especially hated that sound in my mouth. Now my tooth feels strange but thankfully my face finally unfroze. It was weird not being able to use two thirds of my bottom lip, especially when it came to trying to drink a glass of water and unintentionally spitting it everywhere. 

In school, sometimes I like the occasional assignment where I get a bit of freedom to be a fool, such this one from our creative non-fiction unit in English class. One of the questions asked what I had in my backpack, to imagine that these things were now in an alien's backpack and what I could tell about the alien. I answered the following:

Some of the items I carry in my backpack include a water bottle, a chapstick and a plastic dinosaur. If this were an alien's backpack, I could deduce that it's a life form that requires water and has opposable thumbs, or uses bottles as club like weapons. I can also assume from the chapstick that it's slightly vain and wants to keep up an unchapped appearance. From the plastic dinosaur, I can speculate that the alien can time travel and wanted a memento with which to remember prehistoric earth. 

I haven't heard back from Starbucks yet and I'm dying a slow and painful death especially because Maegan was hired on the spot at another Starbucks yesterday and I don't want to not get hired and unintentionally hate her. Because that is a thing I will do if that happens.

What did I used to do with these school evenings? They're so uneventful and I can only procrastinate for so long from homework that inevitably needs done.
Love,
-J-

I feel pretty, oh so pretty.

I think that my job interview went quite well. I found out early in the interview that the lady was a pastor's wife and that made playing up my church summer student job quite easy. I also name dropped Moriah's sister because I knew she worked at that Starbucks for a long time because the opportunity arose. Considering she wrote down on the paper 'Friend of Hannah's' I think that the name drop will work in my favour. Whahahaha. #Juliannefinallygetsaninterviewanddoesitlikeaboss. The way she was talking to me makes me think that I have a seriously good chance at getting this job. I also want to sell my soul to Starbucks because they have a ton of benefits like free coffee and tea, free drinks during work, the ability to transfer to another if you move (aka, university), and after working there for a year they help with paying for your university. Also, the lady gave me a free tea at the end of the interview. My old supervisor had better not screw this up for me, being my reference and all. If he doesn't say nice things I will never talk to him again. I want this job because it would give a steady income and a sort of financial security I probably wouldn't have otherwise in the upcoming years.

Also I'm nearly finished my pretty purple polka dot dress. It's turning out really nice, all I need to do now is sew the neckline/straps part on and it will be in a wearable state. It's really freaking adorable and I want to wear it to tea parties with the floppy brimmed hat that I recently acquired from thrifting.

Other than that, today was super mediocre. I went to a grad class barbeque and was awkwardly present. I got lost three times on the way there and two times on the way back. I am so directionally challenged and somehow this means that I always head the opposite way than where I want to go. At one point I got stuck on the highway going the wrong way and had to back track nearly twenty minutes. I spent about two hours altogether trying to get across town and back and now I have this lurking paranoia that I have the inability to drive anywhere without ending up somewhere completely different.

I will now fill the rest of the evening with jazz playlists from 8tracks, homework and Gilmore Girls. I like staying in on Saturday nights more than I should for a teenager, but what can you do.
Love,
-J-

Oh, high school.

The second day of school proved to be another interesting day.

I received my books for IB English this morning, all eight or nine of them. I carried the whole stack to my locker all in one trip and felt a significant increase in my nerd cred. The first assignment is on Pablo Neruda; a poetry collection titled "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" sounds right up my alley with my emotionless shell of cynicism and general hatred for all that is cheesy.

I also stood in line for over half an hour for a free barbeque. Goodness, what I am willing to do for free food. At least I was standing with a line compatible group of people. I've waited so long to find a group of line compatible people.

I've decided that my Co-op teacher is awesome. She told us a bit about herself today, after everyone else in the class also did, and she's one of those people who I really admire because they have drive to do things. She was bored with school, so she did her bachelor's degree in three years instead of four. She was going through an uneventful period in her life, so she went skydiving. When she told us about her life, it felt like a subtle motivational speech for us to do awesome things with our lives.

It was a contrast to the fact that there was a kid sitting in the class who was discernibly drunk. Between hitting on a girl in the back row, bumming papers to roll joints in, subtly offering to bake the class hash brownies and asking uncomfortable personal questions to people, he was quite the sight. Being drunk during class on the second day of school kind of is conclusive proof of giving up on everything. The only redeeming thing he did during that class was briefly speak in the Batman voice. I've decided he is "that guy" who is referred to when people say "don't be that guy."
Love,
-J-

Don't do caffeine.

This is a caffeinated Julianne staring at the computer screen.

Today, after managing a whopping four hours of sleep last night, I went to my first day of 12th grade. I came to the conclusion early in the day that my options were limited: grumpiness or caffeination. I went for the second option a little too eagerly and it resulted in a twitching, bug eyed pile of anxious Julianne. I may have become the female equivalent of "that guy" in my afternoon classes because I wouldn't shut up. I looked and sounded quite crazy. (In other news, I'm keeping the crazy hair around this year, since it defies most attempts at taming and I've made a vow to be as unselfconscious as possible this year. Being a self conscious teenage girl has been too time consuming in the past.)

Well, other than feeling like a crappy mess of coffee twitch, I found that my classes are fantastic. My IB English, Math and IB History classes have a lot of fantastic people and awesome teachers. It's going to be fun. My History textbook contains so much knowledge that there's a little star on the front proclaiming "Reinforced binding." The thing about IB History is that everyone was excited over the prospect of a huge textbook.

All afternoon this semester I have Co-op, where in approximately three weeks I will get placed at a workplace of somewhat my choosing for fourteen weeks of job experience. I realized for this year that I could easily schedule in all the required and chosen classes so I figured Co-op would be a useful elective. I'm really hoping for a placement at CBC, but the teacher seemed a little skeptical of that becoming a reality. If I actually want to do journalism in university, this would be a useful step but I'm not going to be unhappy if I don't get that placement. I'm sure there's lots of other lovely places out there where I would enjoy quasi-working.

I've had this feeling the last few days that my life is in an upward spiral. However, it might just be because during the summer, I learned to be content with pretty much just existing (or laying on a floor and drinking tea). I'm not sure if that's an attitude I want to keep or not. I don't want to be a burnout, but I don't want to be set on overachieving, either. Like everything else in my life, I suppose I need to find a balance.
Love,
-J-

A positive outlook: that's new.

Well, tomorrow I get back to school; I get the overwhelming feeling that this year will be really awesome. I mean, last year was ok, but I was still kind of feeling out my place in the overall picture of my school. This year will be really fun and eventful. I will let myself be miserable as little as possible, make the most of school assignments, take part in as many school activities as I possibly can and hang out with people who make me feel happy. And you have the formula for a good senior year.

Also, exciting news, I have job interview on Saturday! I looked at my phone this afternoon and I had three missed calls from home and a text from my dad that said "Call Mom asap" (there was more, but I just read the line at the top of my screen.) I called, kind of panicked as scenarios raced through my head and my mom calmly told me that Starbucks had called and wanted an interview. I got an interview for Saturday and I was really freaking excited, to the hopping up and down levels. My friends who were present received this information with varied reactions. Maegan got slightly annoyed because she has one eight hour shift at a gas station every Saturday and hates her life because she has to interact with people and locate the right types of cigarettes in the massive shelves. Tatyana half heartily congratulated me, as she is also job hunting and also now has some student loans. Will took the opportunity to scroll through his iPod and suggest pretentious hipster bands that I would have to listen to if I became a barista.

Out of all the places that could call me back from the forty resumes I have dropped off, I figured Starbucks was one of the least likely to call. But alas, they proved me wrong. Still really happy and I hope I get hired because I've accidentally let my expectations get really high. I mean, Starbucks, I would be a kick ass barista. I like coffee and people. I'm competent at remembering things. I'm just artsy enough to be a convincing barista. I am freaking adorable and eloquent. Just hire me, please, so I can stop throwing resumes at places to no avail and finally get money and stop owing my parents gas money. I was willing to flip burgers, but I would be super happy if you would save me from that fate for something I would actually enjoy. Also, drinking discounted/free caramel brule lattes during the winter would be heavenly.
Love,
-J-

Labour day 'adventures'

• I named the beavers in fountain in the above picture Harold (far left), Bentley (middle bottom), Ringo (far right) and Alfalfa (middle top). 
• As I sat at the said fountain, I was approached by a homeless guy who used the winning line "Do you have a quarter? It's not for food, it's for liquor." I appreciated his honesty and gave him that quarter. He then said I was cute and walked away, but later briefly serenaded Tatyana and me. I think I was mildly hit on by a homeless guy. Awks.*
• I went to a big flea market on one of the main streets uptown and observed the junk with amusement and wanted a snow cone but didn't have enough money.
• Sat in Queen's square and watched an elderly man from a distance as he sat on a bench, smoking a pipe and reading a Maclean's magazine.
• Made baked macaroni and cheese (as I appropriately felt like a stay at home mother for toddlers) and a taco quesadilla (and felt like a single guy who lives alone and can barely cook).
• Tried to explain my relationship with Doctor Who and failed miserably because I had too many emotions about it. I cursed Moffat for a while and then remembered ballerina dalek and felt a little better. I may or may not post about it later if I can get through writing without launching into all caps. 
• Apparently my dad's friends dropped by my house with their month old German Shepard puppy and I missed it. Sad day.
• Considered doing things but then didn't.
• Researched Mormonism for multiple hours just for the heck of it.
• Listened to jazz on 8tracks.
• I should get some tea now.

*I'm not even surprised anymore. Something about me attracts crazy people. You ever been pursued by a guy who is a hick conspiracy theorist who has a facebook group for their personal political party and a legitimate a plan to take over the world? Because I have. I wish I was exaggerating. If anyone is interested, he also once stated a brilliant plan to kill all religious people as a solution to war and he openly supports many aspects of Hitler. I approach this as follows:

Love,
-J-

Happy.

Today is a day to start sewing my purple polka dotted dress, read some books (2 away from my summer goal), take some pictures (53 away from my summer goal) and paint my nails TARDIS blue in preparation for the Doctor Who series 7 premier. I'm also wearing an exceptionally comfortable cardigan, just drank a cup of coffee and balance feels restored to the universe (unlike yesterday night).

This was a bit of a strange week and now I'm so happy that this day exists at the tail end of it. 

I'm still stuck in BEDA mode. I'll probably be posting an above average amount.
Love,
-J-

Remember - Misty Miller

An exceptionally adorable song that my friend Moriah plays often on ukulele. 

I like Moriah's better. Probably because I always sing melody and she sings harmony and it's happy.