Today's message brought you by self loathing.

I am currently a large ball of self hatred, stress, anticipation, bewilderment, guilt and mental instability.

In other words, 16 days until musical, 22 days until my IB French oral exam. And here I am, sitting on my ass, not even sure where to start preparing for the exam. Musical practices take up a shitload of my time.

I think I'll feel better if I read a few chapters of Love in a Time of Cholera for English and get up early and accomplish something. 

I hate that my self esteem is based on how much school work I can get done. Why has it come to this.

Now if you actually read through that entire down lifting post, here is a gif of hedgehogs in a sink to make you feel happy again:

 Love,
-J-

Have a cupcake. I'm being social.

 I forgot I had so many friends until this week. Or rather, I realized the amount of a hermit I have become, found social interaction without too much difficulty and felt less sad about my social life. These social interactions since Tuesday have included:

• Hanging out with Noah in Value Village and encouraging him to buy hideous clothing, simply so I can see someone pull off crazy ugly clothing. I was contacted by text message today saying that his family doesn't approve because they are the ones who often have to be seen in public with him. I REGRET NOTHING. 
• Also venturing to the sketchy store called "Mister Music" next door which excels in selling hippie clothing and marijuana apparel. Noah acquired rainbow suspenders, because he is that cool, and I acquired assorted pastel colored hemp. 
• Meeting with Moriah and Allan at Starbucks, ending up at Tim Hortons because Starbucks closed, and walking around the grocery store at 10pm because Allan wanted to show us what 'ghetto juice' was (Scotsburn juice, which comes in 2L containers for $1 or single serving bags.)
• Having a short "The Office" marathon in my basement with Margie, Kaelen and all the above people mentioned, eating spaghetti and going to youth group.
• Watching Barbie Nutcracker and (the old) Footloose with Sam and pondering what Kevin Bacon was in a past life.

See? My life is so happening.
Love,
-J-

Thoughts on KONY 2012: the truth resists simplicity.

You probably live under a rock if you don't know about KONY 2012. As a blogger, I feel obligated to acknowledge it. Here is the gist of it from my moderately skeptical mind and I apologize if I offend people ahead of time (you've been warned):

An organization called Invisible Children that deals with child soldiers made this short documentary about the head honcho of evil, Joseph Kony, the lead guy who kidnaps thousands of children, and makes them soldiers simply to keep himself alive. This documentary oversimplifies the situation drastically. I can't help but feel skeptical of some of the information they give. Some of it just doesn't quite seem legit.

I'm familiar with this organization, as they came to my school at the beginning of the year, and they are great at raising awareness about the situation with their traveling teams in vans and documentaries. But (just mull this over in your brain) a little bit of googling determined that only 32% of their money actually goes overseas, definitely not a statistic they advertise.

I know about Kony. I know about the evil things he does, simply to save his own ass. I know that he should be stopped. But I don't understand how, after decades of this, 26 freaking years, the entire internet explodes with KONY 2012. It's easy to jump on a bandwagon to hate something evil, then give themselves a pat on the back. DAMN YOU SOCIETY. A viral video is a fantastic way to raise awareness, I'll give them that. But they need people who know what the hell they're doing (insert link to article here) to arrest him, not the entirety of the first world to know who this guy is and have no sweet clue what to do with this knowledge other than write "KONY 2012" as an irrelevant comment on a youtube video. Well, I suppose raising money might be nice too, if, you know, you give it to someone other than Invisible Children. 

America, are you so shallow that stopping the thousands of voiceless people being killed and maimed is only important if your people want it? Because that's what that documentary kind of told me. I kind of don't believe it.

Maybe it's because I'm Canadian. Je ne comprende pas, mes amies.

No offense America.

Sometimes I throw arguments out there so somebody might be able to prove me otherwise.That the world is simplistic. I took World Issues, I lived in Africa: I know otherwise. Now that I've raged about a controversial subject, feel like a dick and have possibly have shattered your illusions, I can say that the truth resists simplicity.
Love,
-J-

Edit: I came across this article  shared on Facebook and it sums up much of what I feel about this situation.

March break

March Break has proved to be pretty good so far. I got go to the mall with Katie, who always seems to be working, slept at Andrea's house, who I only see once every few months and now I'm hanging out with Noah, who came down for a few days. I'm beginning to stop being a hermit.

The only bad thing so far is this random stomach pain that keeps happening at random. I have no idea what is causing this. Maybe my stomach is imploding on itself, because that's what it feels like.
Love,
-J-