"They don't deserve capes."

 As soon as I published the last post, the internet died for the rest of the week. Because of my grandfather's Alzheimers, my family pretty much had the same conversations everyday for the entire week. The monotony was making me die on the inside. I was left to comfort myself with 1984, something which is rarely used for comforting one, but it seemed to work. I also ate my weight in sunflower seeds because camping's constant proximately to the outdoors allows this to be done without the use of a spittoon.

I got my IB French mark back as soon as I got cell phone reception after the ferry on Friday. "The IB," being the sadistic trolls they are, give you three random numbers (only one that has previously meant anything) on the piece of paper that I was given at the end of the year. There were two blanks to get into the website and I used trial and error until one combination finally worked (it was the two numbers that meant nothing previously). Then it gave me an error because the server was so overloaded from anxious IB students wanting to know their fate. When I did finally get it (a 3/7, which is funny because I got a 81% in the course), I freaked out briefly, cursing belcurves, went into an all caps rage at Maegan over text, then realized that an IB French certificate actually has no use in my life and I calmed down. I've come to terms with it now and realize that I'm kind of an idiot for taking IB French in the first place.

On Saturday there was a barbaque with a bunch of my classmates. We ate normal barbeque stuff, Indian food, watched "Shutter" despite my screams of objection and my well known aversion to horror movies, played a bastardized version of basketball where tickling the opposing team was allowed, and sat on the deck until fairly late and had intelligent conversation. On the way home, Katie and I stopped for ice cream at McDonald's, who's ice cream machine was broken. I was sad, especially because Katie and James both work and McDonald's and were going to use their 50% discount for me. I want half price ice cream.

I like having friends who can drive because we can crank up the radio, have mini dance parties and nobody tells us to turn it down. No lie, that's actually the best part. When I get my license, I'm going to drive around town blasting dubstep and gangster rap, simply for the irony of a white girl driving a Jetta or an old Honda Odessy, blasting dubstep and gangster rap. Irony is such a good motivation. Being able to go places easily and getting out of my house when I can't stand it anymore will also be nice. (That said, my driving skills are kind of sad. I'm just kind of oblivious sometimes. Of all things that I could be reasonably untalented at, why something that most mildly intelligent life forms can accomplish?)

This part of town, this suburb on the edge of nowhere, not only proves to be the furthest proximately to anything interesting, but also the hardest to get away from. It's filled with hockey moms, old people, and ignorant teenagers who watch TV all day. Like 90% are grumpy, hate their lives, and have resigned to mediocrity.

I will end this post of unrelated snippets with a quote from my brother: "In a zombie apocalypse, I'm going to find a giant mutated sparrow and fly out of North America." What's even better is that he wrote a story about it in seventh grade and won a creative writing prize for it #swagger.
Love,
-J-

Wikipedia's List of Conspiracy Theories

An unnecessary vacation.

 Hello, lovelies. I'm on vacation (from what, I don't quite know) and I've come to the conclusion that family vacations are far overrated. Vacationing with people that don't bug me after several days of time in close quarters would be nice. This is going to sound pretty terrible, but my grandparents' lack of activity, my brother's incessant cluelessness/complaining, and my parents' insistence in only going on about a million beach walks is all annoying me. That won't stop from trying to enjoy the wonderful beaches that Iles-de-la-Madeleine has to offer.

I hate to be the whiny, unthankful, suburban, white kid here, but I'm only tolerating this vacation because I legitimately have nothing better to do with my time. The planning of this vacation was directed towards the middle aged/elderly audiences involved here. My brother, without a computer and an armchair to firmly attach himself to for 90% of waking hours has evolved into a blob of clueless, whiny being that I ignore most of the time. I feel like I'm acquiring a similar outlook on things as Holden Caulfield, so help me.

So far I've taken 418 pictures, rediscovered the joys of power naps (while listening to Sufjan Stevens and drooling an unusual amount), pretended that my hair is not disastrous but that windblown is the new sexy, listened to my grandfather repeat and forget pretty much everything, worn dresses and skirts to feel them blow in the wind, temporarily abandoned my vegetarian sprint for convenience (as well as my grandmother abundant opinions: "But God told us we could eat meat."), listened to my mom and grandmother gossip, acquired a small bruise from a camp chair, read a large amount out of lack of better things to do (finally finished Mostly Harmless, the last book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series), recorded interesting words I find in my reading (i.e. paroxysm), played ukulele by a campfire, listened to waves, encountered two separate dead whales on two separate beaches, realized that my family thinks I'm hilarious, discovered the extent of my introverted nature, and tried to embrace the fact that I'm not doing much until I get back on Saturday.

At least the beaches are beautiful.
Love,
-J-

Goodbyes.

My friends have started leaving me.  

In their defense, I am also leaving but that’s only for a week. 

I said bye to Allan today for six weeks as he goes to a work exchange in another province. He showed up at my house this morning because he was in the area, right after I woke up. He was quite buzzed on energy drinks and lack of sleep, resulting in a giddy Allan speaking at breakneck speeds. We legitimately talked for around twenty minutes about British television and then he had to leave to catch his bus to Quebec. I was sadder than I thought I would be, though maybe it was because I was extremely under caffeinated, especially in comparison to his energy drink high. I’ll miss him. 

Tatyana is also leaving to spend a month in Ontario. I’m sure that she’ll keep in touch (considering that in today alone she’s sent me thirty texts). I hope she keeps in touch with Alan (different guy than previous Allan, but who unfortunately shares the same last name as well as first) because I’m convinced that she is the only thing that is between him and a deep, doomed pit of unending depression that he never shuts up about. Tatyana is a dear, but I know I'll see her a bunch when she gets back. She's a cheerful face in every situation.

Moriah is embarking later this weekend on a choir tour thing she’s gone on for the past few years with a nearby Bible college. She’s only gone for two weeks. I went to the concert last year and it was essentially the Christian Glee. One of their songs was about lifting high the name of Jesus, and part way through the song, a banner printed with ‘JESUS’ was raised over the choir. As if that wasn’t enough, in another song the middle aged male choir director (sporting fabulous hair, obviously) at one point turned around and had a heartfelt solo. She’ll be back a few days after I get back so I don’t feel too sad about her absence. I also get to see this year's concert which hopefully doesn't disappoint the standards of ridiculous set by last year.

After all this today, mixed with other events of late, something sparked my greater, deeper fear of saying goodbye to people, especially for long periods of time. I feel like I’ve just said too many goodbyes for someone who is but seventeen. Saying goodbye to me feels like an invitation for change (in you and them); an admission of needing to separating paths, for better or worse. Saying goodbye feels like losing control of a relationship.

I think it’s one of the scars I carry from leaving my school in Kenya, when I had to leave everyone I knew well to face a scary world full of unknown things, and later visiting my friends from RVA here when they came back on furlough. Things were definitely different, but we accepted it and had fun, even with knowing that things would never quite be the same. But then one of them had to go and die in a car crash, leaving me with the feeling that my previous goodbye in person had been inadequate and the lingering fear that my goodbyes will be permanent or mark the last moment when things were good between me and a person. Goodbyes feel more final than they should. This is something that I can’t quite shake off, and the end of next year will probably bring a lot of grief for me with graduation. 

I don’t know if any of that made sense. I just have a lot of unnecessary paranoia of losing people that's been especially bad lately because of events in my life.

Love,

-J-

*showtune lyric of choice in all caps*

I've spent the last few days in this sort of cycle of waking up, reading, making something decent for lunch (like the above pesto, omnonon), tumblr/blog/facebook, painting my room while rocking out to my 'Soundtrack' playlist (something I rarely allow myself to indulge in, consisting of songs from ALL the musicals), and leaving the house to do something or other.

I could get used to this. I finally have time to do things that I want to do. The only thing that could be better is if I had a job dammit. Seriously, I've applied at McDonald's for goodness sake; in theory, somewhere should call me back eventually.

I'm doing a pretty good job of socializing. Some of my recent social endeavors have included a Men in Black marathon and organizing a large Apples-to-Apples game of epic proportions. However, it seems as of around July 1st a large number of people are leaving for whatever summer shenanigans they're up to. I'm also vacationing for a week, but then I get back to a city nearly devoid of friends.

Now I shall go eat something resembling tacos and will put another layer of yellow on my walls while belting out tunes from Rent/The Sound of Music/Les Mis/West Side Story/Across the Universe/Phantom of the Opera/Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat/etc. Tonight I'm going to see Brave and I'm really pumped, especially because (1) it's pouring rain and (2) it's cheap night. Therefore, I won't feel guilty for neglecting the nice outdoors and will pay under $10 *fist pump*.

Also, I have developed a slight addiction: #excessiveironicoveruseofhashtags. It's especially bad because I use them in verbal conversation, sometimes on facebook, and none where they're actually socially acceptable. Is there #hashtagsanonymous available for this or something?
Love,
-J-