Relocation?

I've relocated my personal blurbs to tumblr because I like the format better. It works better for my university induced word vomit. Because I don't have time to put up forming multiple consecutive coherent thoughts.

http://passiveperfectionist.tumblr.com/

I'm unsure if this is a temporary or permanent relocation but I'll still be lurking around the blogosphere.
Hearts,
Julianne

"The god of chaos touches our lives..."

After just 19 days here, I'm planning a weekend escape to my cousin's camouflage wedding. I've got my bus tickets and I'm ready to leave this sometimes suffocating campus for a few days.

University life is too intense right now and I just need to back up so I can get a grip on reality again. I had a bit of a bad experience a few nights ago that left me in pretty rough shape* and I can't stand being in this city for another consecutive weekend after that. I'm angry at a few people, as well as this city collectively. Much like Hannah and I, we'll take some time to figure out living together and things will be peachy after that. But as of right now, Halifax and I have some things to work through.

Somehow, my attempt to relocate reality includes a ring bearing dog in a camouflage bow tie.

Liberal arts might be driving me to insanity.

*Don't worry, I'm ok. It's quite a story but I need some time before I can tell it. If you're too worried about me and you have the means, send me a message or something.
Hearts,
Julianne

Unobtrusiveness, vegan baking and party Mondays.

People are slowly but surely turning into distinct friend groups and, much like high school, I haven't found myself in any of them but rather on the outskirts of many. I suppose it's a good place to be and there's still a lot of time for this to change but there are advantages to not having a super defined friend group at this point. For example,  I can feel out who will and won't annoy me come a few months from now. If people annoy me after a week then I can drift away and no feelings will be hurt. Bam, I can be around the people who are worth it in the long run. Another perk is that because I'm only one person and I don't have a posse, I'm competent at crashing parties and other social events. It's not particularly hard to socialize with some people for a while when you have no obligation to stay for a particular amount of time. My high school experience was pretty devoid of parties but the skills of finding a group of people to prevent me from aimlessly wandering during lunch have paid off. I think that I fall into the female category of 'chill bro' because very few people have ever been offended with my personality or presence. I'm pretty unobtrusive.

Yesterday I made vegan baked goods with my cool vegan friend Catherine from next door. She's really cool and we made friends with people in the kitchen who were cooking massive amounts of Kraft Dinner and eating it out of the pot. I've decided that vegan baking is better than normal baking because the batter can be eaten without fear of raw eggs.

This strange phenomenon happens here on Mondays. Due to the FYP program only being four days a week and no classes on Tuesday, Mondays become a party night. I went to a brief, awful party last night where there were about thirty people in a double room and most people were absolutely hammered by 9:30pm. However, I and all the other journalism students on campus have four hours of journalism on Tuesdays so I must come to terms with being one of the small fraction of the campus to revive themselves every Tuesday morning and go about business as usual except more lectures and pressure than usual. I feel like parties inherently don't work on Mondays so I've come to terms with it.
Hearts,
Julianne

King's and Frosh week: The balance between classy and trashy.

I don't know how this place doesn't have a reputation for being a party school but it's probably because it's only the first three days of frosh week and a few big parties a year that are super insane from what I've heard. Now that we have launched into the 47 book reading list, things have quieted down significantly, such as the residences being filled with people reading in silence instead of intoxicated people yelling about philosophy. However, it's now the weekend so there will probably be more shenanigans.

My building and floor are nice but living with Hannah is a bit wearing so far. We are opposite in the ways that I love academics and she loves socializing. It works out in a friendship but living together we're going to find some clashes every now and then especially because of her occasional diva fits and she sometimes feels I'm annoyed at her when I'm really just introverted. I don't mind having people in the room even if I am sitting in the corner doing mostly my own thing. I also can't read when she's in the room because she is constantly unsettled and I need a chill reading environment. We'll reach an understanding eventually for living in the same room. I love her to death but living in this proximity to her will be a learning curve for both of us. It'll all balance out eventually and I'm not worried about it.

I enjoy that Allan lives in town. He lives in a dorm style room on the top floor of the building that's the highest point east of Montreal and the owner of the building let the top floors turn to anarchy, essentially. He loves it and it's also a nice place to get away from the sometimes suffocatingly small campus of King's. Allan is the bro I need to be chill and also fix anything technology related that I need to set up. He's a nice constant to have in my life.

I've found some really cool people so far. I've also found myself in a multiday argument over the pronunciation of the word 'bagel' with one guy because he's convinced 'bagel' is not said with a hard 'a.' Considering that my school is about 75% people from Toronto, there are many people to back him up. I feel like one of us needs to emerge victorious but I'm unsure of how to settle this.
Hearts,
Julianne

I can't fight this sentimental feeling anymore.

I'm all packed.

Which is weird to say because it's been two weeks of work, including most of the last three days, to get me to this point. I didn't realize how much junk I owned until I filled the back of a van with stuff and my room still doesn't quite feel as empty as it should.

I feel closure that I didn't think I'd feel. I've done the things on my summer bucket list and I'm ready for 'the big city' of Halifax and 47 books between now and April. Bring it.

I'm ready for new adventures and new challenges. I'm ready to be around copious amounts knowledge. I'm ready to lived in an ivy covered stone building with Hannah in a room that will probably be a cozy shrine to Monet, Beyonce and hot beverages. I'm ready for reading three hours a day. I'm ready to meet the likely colourful characters of King's grad class of 2017.

I'm having a cliched 'first day of the rest of my life' feeling. But that's probably because all my stuff is in boxes, I've spent the past few days saying goodbye to nearly all but half a dozen people in my life for a minimum of a few months and I need to hang on to something other than sadness. I'm hanging on to the fact that I'm moving towards what I want to do, what is going to lead my life in the direction I want and feel it should go. I'm confident that I'm going the right places and I appreciate when I can feel certain towards anything anymore.

I've always felt that I would take Journalism in university. I'm not sure if it's the field I'll end up in but wherever it leads I'm sure I'll make the most of it. The school and the program itself will take me on crazy adventures, not to mention whatever comes after it. For the first time in a long time, my excitement has overtaken my fear about the future. It's a nice change; I hope it sticks around.
Hearts,
Julianne

Believe it or not,

Despite all the bitching and complaining in the past year, I'm going to miss Starbucks.

I won't miss that green apron, sweeping and mopping, consecutive closes, mind numbingly slow days, or dealing with a few people who are consistantly shitty human beings*.

I'll miss talking to the regulars who are friendly and interesting**, working with some pretty cool people, experimenting with new drinks, being skilled at something that doesn't mentally drain me, giving my friends free drinks (under the radar), getting a pound of free coffee a week and about $10 of pocket change a week from tips plus a paycheck.

Though it took a while and I didn't think it would happen, I genuinely enjoyed working in the service industry. Most people were awesome, and all said, Starbucks isn't a bad company to work for once you adjust to how intense some of the people you work with get about it. I'm more comfortable with taking to people now, a good change from 15 year old Julianne who went through most of 9th grade without talking to anyone. It's surprising that I can come out of this saying that I genuinely like people more than I did before. Also, nearly a year of good job experience and a good set of skills for future jobs. I'm getting a liberal arts degree so coffee shop experience is important *snark about future job prospects.*

7/10, would do again if necessary.

*I dislike you very strongly, Venti Kenya, you entitled little asshat. 

** There's Frank who appreciates my sass, and Mike who tries to convince all of us to get our motorcycle license because he teaches the course. And there's this one guy who followed the Obama campaign in 2008 and after unintentionally overhearing a few of his conversations it feels like he walked out of an Aaron Sorkin TV drama. That said, we bonded over The Newsroom.
Hearts,
Julianne

So few days ahhhh.

I should start by noting that it's very important to me that Grimes and 2 Chainz accidentally wore matching pants to the VMAs. Iconic fashion moment right there.

Also, I worked my last coffee slinging shift yesterday and I feel a little weird about it. My closet is full of too many options and colors because I'm no longer obligated to be a monochromatic coffee slave. I'm honestly pretty overwhelmed. I'm far too used to choosing one of three shirts and four pairs of pants in addition to my ratty before or after work clothes. I've haven't had to put together a legitimate outfit in the morning for what feels like months. I wonder when it's going to hit me that I'm not getting a regular pay cheque anymore. My family is thrifty so I'll get by fine, it's in my genetics.

I also have nowhere I must be until Friday when I move. The two friends I spend the most time with, Moriah and Maegan, have already moved away so I have time cleared to see other people before I go. However, I've either turned to tumblr or sewing things whenever I actually try to do things lately. I feel like I should probably see people for closure if anything but I really don't want to leave my house lately. Probably because I'm overwhelmed with the knowledge that there will be an avalanche of new people and places thrown into my life before the week is out.

I start driving up on Friday and I'm moving into my dorm on Saturday. That's so few days.  
Hearts,
Julianne

Music that defined my summer.

In light of my summer coming to a close, I decided to make a playlist. I saw some of these at Osheaga and others are songs that stuck around for the summer. It seems like the right thing to do after a summer of essential teenage experiences including working at a coffee shop, going on a road trip that was planned during a high school journalism class, attending a music festival, late night pizza runs, regularly sitting on the boardwalk for hours at a time, coming home at 2am and generally stumbling into adulthood in the company of my friends before heading off to university.

1. Intro - Alt-J
2. Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
3. Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
4. Time to Pretend - MGMT
5. Flowers In Your Hair - The Lumineers
6. Tessellate - Alt-J
7. It - Rich Aucoin
8. Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard
9. It's Time - Imagine Dragons
10. Youth - Daughter
11. Oblivion - Grimes
12. Diane Young - Vampire Weekend
13. Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe - Kendrick Lemar
14. Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Rey  
15. Nancy From Now On - Father John Misty
16. Last Known Surroundings - Explosions in the Sky (It's long but worth sticking around for the entire song)

Hearts,
Julianne

The tiny latte that stole my heart.

I'm not used to starting my day before noon and today I got off work at 1:30 before it felt like the day had even begun.

I worked at another store, one that I've always enjoyed more than my own because everyone that works there have always been welcoming and laid back, a nice break from the sometimes uptight clique vibe of my store. I like that there's things to do other than clean everything over and over again and I can easily distract myself from the recent perpetual feeling of panicked unpreparedness for the next few weeks. Part way through the shift, one guy I was working with gave me a tiny latte that he made with some leftover milk. It made me very happy to drink an adorable two ounce latte given to me by an adorable boy. I'm going to miss the barista life especially because I've gotten genuinely pretty good at it and comfortable with the people I work with. It occurred to me the other day that if I really desired to not go to university in the fall it would be so easy to fall into baristaing nearly full time. Management loves me and I like coffee slinging enough as of late that I could pull it off. But alas, after seeing Missy's and Reeves's steep decline into mediocrity in the year after high school, I'm happy I'm moving away and going to school so I don't end up in the sad state of 'endless summertime' in which they exist. I have too much ambition and I'm not nearly burnt out enough for me to voluntarily agree to that. Gap years are usually suppose to help you find direction but I think my ambition would drain with surprising speed.

The rest of my day was spent rewatching the first season of The Newsroom and trying to stay awake with an eventual short bout of packing.
Hearts,
Julianne

How to social activity featuring free food.

It was just one of those days that jumped from breakfast with Moriah and Tatyana, shopping, lunch, killing time at my store and casually meeting our district manager while I was trudging through Plato's Republic, day trip to Saint Martin's with Rachel where we walked on cliffs and found ourselves almost stranded on them because of the tide, ate a greasy super at a small restaurant with damn fine fries, hung out in Steve's shed/haven of indie, went to a dock to go swimming and didn't actually get in the water, went to Starbucks and got free drinks and weirdly enough free pizza, went to the uptown boardwalk just in time to see a small mosh pit of drunk middle aged white women dancing to 80s music, wandered to a private terrace for fancy apartments and sat there, sat on the boardwalk, had Reeves and his band of ruffians Kevin and Joe show up from nowhere and hang out on the boardwalk with Rachel, Steve and I, throwing fake money on the boardwalk, the group of us going to Reeves' house at 12:30 and listening to a crazy selection of music above his garage which was essentially hotboxed with cigarette smoke, throwing fake money everywhere, getting home a bit after 2am and so ready for a 9am shift tomorrow, all eight and a half hours of it.
Hearts,
Julianne

Hello darkness, my old friend.

I thought I was coping with university preparation but then I got plowed down with stress and anxiety. I'm coming face to face with the huge commitment I need for school and my 47 book long reading list for the year plus a ton of writing, and all the while I'm going to be four hours away from my family, especially because my grandparents are moving into town while I'm away.

I'm really bad at dealing with extended stress. For example, I suddenly noticed I haven't eaten much for the last two weeks because I haven't been able to stomach much. Also, my system being the eccentric annoyance that it is, I get lactose intolerant when I'm stressed. Since I got back from Osheaga, I haven't been able to drink milk without feeling disgusting afterwards. In addition to dietary stuff, I've been regularly walking a predetermined loop through suburbia which is more or less a nervous habit I developed a few years back.

Basically, my preparation has included procrastinating, panicking, and then impulsively doing thing. Today I had a strong urge to go a thrifting journey just for flannel plaid shirts because I felt it would be beneficial to me as a liberal arts student. I'm not actually doing anything real to prepare, just working my way down a list of superficial things that help me feel like I'm not slacking entirely.
Hearts,
Julianne

Another day, another dollar.

The last few days have found me saying "I don't care, I'm gone in two weeks" excessively but not unnecessarily.

This has become especially relevant at work. I can get away with a plethora of little things because of my truly apparent apathy. This includes but is not limited to:

• stealthily giving friends free drinks (my personal rule is for friends it's free unless it's a fappuccino or I'm working with a shift who scares me)
• giving strangers free drinks on a whim to be nice
• spilling drinks on strangers. Oops.
• not charging for extras (i.e. soy, syrup, etc) because I like certain people
• charging for every single extra when I don't like certain people
• telling my co-workers to go on frequent smoke breaks because I don't care at all
• when making two consecutive of the same cold tall drink, I've been making a venti and pouring it into two tall cups. I've also been charging accordingly because I don't give a damn about sales. I don't want people to pay $9 for the exact same quantity of liquid they could get for $5.50.
• persuading my coworkers with my charm and the "I'm leaving in two weeks I know you'll miss me" card so they open fall drink components so I can get some fall drinks a month before they roll them out and I, then no longer their employee, will have to pay for them. I plan to drink all the illegitimate preseasonal salted caramel mochas courtesy of my manipulative skills.
• getting my free drinks that when punched into the register come to ridiculously high prices, which today included a $5.42 short, followed later by an impressive $7.06 grande. It's fun shocking my co-workers with my ability to casually customize my drink to that level of intensity. 
• Making under the table survey deals with my co-worker's boyfriend, that if he gave us all fives on the survey, I would give him a complimentary grande beverage instead of a tall. This is entirely a selfish move because work is really chill when our survey marks are up.
• Riffling through merchandise while on the clock during slow times to see if there's anything I want to buy while I still have discount. Unfortunately, both the Cole Porter and the Motown CDs were sold and I'm sad. 
• Considering taking a small plastic french press scoop that no one uses it and I lost mine at home. 
• I answered Reeves from across the store that we don't recycle because we don't believe in the environment. Kim thought I was talking to a stranger and was a little mortified at how cavalier I was but it didn't amount to anything.

And yet I'm still not doing anything I can get seriously reprimanded for. At least I'm not taking bottles of bathroom cleaner like one guy at another store did. It really messed up their inventory but I hear he has an exceptionally clean bathroom. That said, the fact that well over half of the Starbucks employees in the city know about this guy's exceptionally clean bathroom and the fact that his girlfriend of ten years left him for a woman, it reminds me of the weird barista subculture in my city. I think I'll miss their gossip, complaining about people, sharing protips, and not being expected to pay for drinks.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 10

This isn't working this year. I'm too overwhelmed with life and I don't feel the need to capture it in writing.

I'll keep posting but rather at a voluntary instead of daily pace.

Love you guys.
Juliae

BEDA 9: Eugh.

All my emotions for the past two days have been anger, nostalgia and the emotional equivalent of a droning noise.

I got called into work at a busy store and wasn't mentally prepared. I drank a lot of coffee and won Jamie's respect finally. Unlike my store, I eventually had a lovely shift working with people who aren't uptight and anxious women with OCD, who react to my bad puns, and with actual customers coming through.

I took a bunch of pictures today but I just put on nail polish and would wreck it getting my SD card out of my camera.

Oh no it's only the 9th day and I'm already getting lazy. Oh well. It's a day of being tired and lost.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 8: Loose ends

Reality continues to punch me in the face.

The last few days have found me in a state where I want to slap no less than half a dozen people upside the head repeatedly. The end of high school was nothing compared to this. Tonight I said the first real goodbye of this summer and it hit me that we're reaching the actual end. Loose ends are ambushing everyone; it's surprising what sort of garbage one can rack up in the first eighteen years of one's life. I'm so angry at so many people and I want to get rid of as much of it as I can before the finality of August 31st. I hate knowing that more things are going to come up and at least some of it will remain.

In less than a month, my friends will be scattered. I won't have Maegan, Moriah and so many other people a few minutes away. I won't have the default hang out spots, the familiar faces, the comforts of knowing what's what. I can only hope I don't have a ton of baggage left from home. I want a clean slate so I can launch into the fall with a good mindset.

But right now I'm so incredibly angry that I want to senselessly destroy things.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 4: August 4th

We woke up hungover on cheap wine and freedom. I vowed to avoid substances for the somewhat near future out of self respect and honestly being entirely turned off them. Small reminders of what had happened the previous night were hanging around, such as a floor coated with crunched up ramen noodles and the lipstick coated rim on the box of Pure Breakfast, reminding us that we had chased the worst wine in the world (decidedly worse than Strawberry Hill) with juice straight from the container.

I guess the trip had gone too smoothly until this point because everything was a trudge from this point on. Maegan and I trudged out to Saint Catherine Street to go shopping while Hannah slept and thanks to a pickpocket, Maegan is now missing her phone and we missed Icona Pop because of our hopeless backtracking. Nausea and defeat were present simultaneously. It was in this state that we ate MacDonald's and in the elevator found that a guy who is a known drug dealer from back home was staying in the room next door to me.

We made it to the festival grounds at 5pm and saw some of the Holy Ghost!, the loudest and most serious synth pop band of all time. We tried to see The Lumineers but we arrived a few minutes after it started so finding a decent spot was a hopeless cause. We left and devoted ourselves to finding prime spots for Father John Misty. It worked and we found ourselves in the 2nd row from the front. Father John Misty was hilarious; he gave me a new appreciation for booty. He works his dance moves and his tight pants like no other white man I've ever seen. His in between song banter was fantastic, as were his frequent trips to his decanter of tequila sitting on an amp. A lady of at least 30 in front of me decided to drink in sync with him from a flask she produced from her purse. She offered some to me and both still being in a 'yolo' mindset and being too passive to say no, I took a swig and immediately regretted it. My system is disgusted with it for the time being.

We were so incredibly tired and hungry by 8 that we decided to miss Mumford and Sons. I'll be forever be a little disappointed in myself for missing that, mostly as a claim to fame, but we had attained the special kind of exhaustion to voluntarily not go to Mumford and Sons. We got Mexican food and I nearly fell asleep in it. I set my alarm for 4:30am and mentally prepared for a day of riding the bus back.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 7: The Gradual Descend

I've gone to this youth weekend called TEC every May for the past few years and I've seen some weird similarities between it and my Osheaga experience. Which is funny considering that TEC consists of 50 people at a summer camp with Jesus and Osheaga consists of 40 000 people on an island with music and an array of substances.

Yet, the amount of parallels I've found are weird. At both, I've found myself fully surrounded by passionate people who are fully present and want to get every last drop of experience that they can. Rarely can you find places where people aren't trying to find distractions. Also, both places allow friendships to be formed extremely fast because there is an insane lack of judgement. Everyone has a starting point for conversation and you probably have things in common or at least a few interesting things to talk about. And most of all, both are an escape from the real world. TEC isn't reality, Osheaga isn't reality. Everyone is living in the moment with full acceptance that the experience is temporary and there's certain freedoms that come with that. Though those freedoms are different, they have the same effect where you can feel out who you are without the usual barriers. At the end, you find yourself thinking about this "real life" thing you have to go back to.

One difference, however, is that they don't give you a "Life after Osheaga" talk on your last day. You have to go back to reality and stumble through the gradual descend from euphoria on your own.

The best part about the trip by far was seeing Maegan legitimately happy for the first time in about a year. The worst part is wondering how long it'll last.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 3: August 3rd

I've always found the middle day of anything to be an awkward day. I don't really like in between phases and the second day of a three day music festival proved to be a little eugh at times. Some smart ass planner probably intentionally placed Jimmy Eat World in the middle of the the middle day so they could play their ever catchy hit of 2001, 'The Middle.' I wish I was joking.

However, we did see some fun bands. Flogging Molly was amusing and the lead guy's banter between songs was hilarious. He dedicated a song to a guy in the front row because "he has the best fucking mohawk I've ever seen." The camera on the crowd found the mohawk guy pretty fast and he was crowd surfing before long. The lead guy cracked open a can of Guinness on stage at 4pm with the explanation of "Say hello to breakfast!" The large percentage of openly drinking performers during the weekend leads me to believe that festivals are the best to play at because everyone just wants everyone else to have a good time which extends to everyone being allowed to do most thing without judgement of any kind, including the performers.

We also saw Imagine Dragons, who put on a pretty intense show. Like Vampire Weekend, the crowd was fun and passionate but not off their rockers (*coughMacklemorecough*). There was a huge drum on the front of the stage and the lead guy pounded it occasionally and then threw the drumstick into the crowd. I saw a girl sitting on a guy's shoulders get smacked with one and fall over in my peripheral vision.

The way the main stages are directly next to each other, we caught a few songs from Jimmy Eat World, despite our greatest efforts to avoid hearing 'The Middle', and Macklemore afterwards. I enjoyed it way too much that Macklemore is a real person and not just a myth as I assumed up until this point and I heard 'Thrift Shop' live and thought it was the most hilarious thing this year that I've casually stumbled past.

After that we went to one of the nice grassy stages and consumed poutine and awful beer while listening to Explosions in the Sky, an instrumental band that made everyone feel high and mellow, that is if they weren't already... there was sort of a haze above the crowd. There were some intense lights happening during the show and sheet lightning started happening; it was perfect. There was a group of guys next to us who were having the time of their life. One began a group hug and I'm pretty sure everyone spilled beer on everyone else but he kissed our heads before walking away and it was still a good experience. Another guy just sort of wrapped his arms around people and started an entire line up of swaying people, likely to support himself in his state of intoxication at the time.

We went back to our dorm and the statement "We need to get rid of our leftover alcohol in the next two nights" was uttered, which it never should be, and I'm drawing a veil of mystery over everything else that happened after that. There's nothing too bad, I'd just rather it stay in Montreal for now. I have funny stories from that night that I'll tell my friends when I'm middle aged and nostalgic for being young. I got a lot of potentially bad things out of my system.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 6: The Reality of the Element of Surprise.

Reality slapped me across the face when I got off the bus yesterday. I realized something about myself that I've always known but have very few actual instances I can bring up to support it.

I don't respond well to change. Especially after an insane five day trip, a fifteen hour bus ride and during an intense burnout.

This reality hit me like a brick when I looked out the bus window as it pulled up to my stop and Kaelen and Tatyana were waiting for me. The thing is that Tatyana moved to Ontario in April and decided to come back for a month, only telling two of my friends. She wanted to surprise me.

My first reaction was indeed surprise and by surprise I mean denial and freaking out. It was followed by getting home and laying debilitated on my bed for two hours and trying not to cry or hyperventilate. Now I'm angry. I wish she'd given me advanced notice that she's jumping back into my life for a month. I'd already accepted that she'd moved on and I was happy about it because I knew it had taken a long time for her to finally move on. I take a long time to adjust to things and surprising me with some bullshit like this is a guaranteed way to screw up my entire head. I need a lot of time for mental preparation or I actually can't cope with things. There is absolutely nothing about me that suggests that I can deal with surprises. For goodness sake, I felt uncomfortable and complained for a month after they changed the tea packaging at work. This is far more drastic than tea packaging.

She can't just show up like this and expect me to welcome her back right away. I know she's going to want things to revert back to how they were a year ago and I can't give her that. I don't know what I can give her. I can't even give her much time; I have a job, other friends, and serious university packing to do. I'm legitimately angry that she showed up unexpectedly.

Nobody ever surprise me like this or I will probably maim you.
Hearts,
Julianne

BEDA 2: August 2nd

We spent more time in the art museum. We started a project we're calling "Getting too close to the art (featuring booty)" and it consists entirely of us reaching just a few inches from the art, just enough to make security a little nervous but not enough to say anything. They've turned out well, considering the thoughtful lighting of the art. With the nature of art, there was some booty art in the museum, so we made sure to take pictures with it. That includes this rather cheeky one:

Similarly, in this one, we are going to touch the butt:

This was also first day of an honest to goodness Osheaga musical festival experience. Apparently there's forty thousand people on this park island thing which lends itself to chaos. The two main stages are directly next to each other so the crowds are insane around there. We discovered that the three of us get crowd anxiety which is unfortunate considering the nature of festivals but good because we were understanding to each other when we needed to breathe. We discovered the other stages that allow room for grass and the crowds are such that I didn't need to hold on to Maegan and Hannah to not lose them.

The acts for the day were firstly Daughter, which I found a bit underwhelming. There was a weird vibe happening, where I think it would have worked better on a smaller stage. It was one of the first acts of the festival so the crowd wasn't adjusted yet. I witnessed two people pass out directly beside me in the space of twenty minutes which served me as a pleasant reminder to stay hydrated. 

I watched a bit of Ben Howard who was very nonchalantly attractive, and that's all I remember from the few minutes I caught. Also caught the rather chill Alt-J which I'd never heard of before but who had a pleasant electronic thing going on while the lead guy opened his eyes maybe once. After taking a break and then catching the tail end of Ellie Golding, Vampire Weekend happened. We managed to work our way closeish to the stage. They launched into the set with Diane Young and played all the songs I wanted to hear them play, we brought bubbles, and the crowd was getting into it, especially the crowd of hippies behind us. Ezra Koenig inspired the fangirl in me by being crazy handsome in person. Also, fun fact: there was a person directly in front of the crowd camera with a lawn flamingo on a giant pole.

The last concert of the night for us was Rich Aucoin who we knew very little about but everyone who had heard of him had reccomded him strongly so we figured it was worth He was on a smaller stage but he is a proforming artist genius; he does all the right things to keep the audience engaged. I don't even know how to describe it, really. Someone described it as inspirational techno and its pretty accurate. He jumped off the stage and danced in the crowd a fair amount and we all danced under a giant parachute at the end. It was some good wholesome fun. I highly recommend him.

On the ride back on the incredibly crowded metro, a guy led our car in a chours of Biz Markie. I caught it with the power of crappy iphone camera.

Hearts,
Julianne