Creative chaos will be mine, whahaha.

 I made a bit of a spontaneous purchase today with my dwindling income tax return money. This book was the only reasonable thing on the teen table at the bookstore and I said,"Screw it, I didn't spend much money in Boston, so why not?"* This journal is a really intriguing idea to me.

However, after reading through the tasks, I feel like I will be cringing every time I do one. It just feels so ridiculous to, for example, take the book in the shower with me.

But when I think about it, why do I feel so opposed? I mean, why shouldn't I take the book in the shower with me? It's meant to be ruined, so what's stopping me?

I came to the conclusion that my conventions of what are acceptable and unacceptable things to do are screwing with me. I mean, I can't even write in books with a pencil, usually. I didn't realize how much I restrict myself (creatively and in general) until that crossed my mind. Hopefully this journal can help me overcome some of these, or at least think about why I do and think what I do and think. Between this and listening to Sufjan Stevens a lot in the last week, I really want to go out there and create creative chaos. I think I will limit myself to 1-3 pages a day and I want to do them in order to force a little more creativity on the ones I don't really feel like doing.

Also, reading up on Pride and Prejudice in the last week has greatly heightened my awareness of social conventions, as well as my use of long winded sentences in regular conversation.**

I had a cup of coffee in the car, so I used some of the remaining drips to accomplish this page. It felt so wrong, but now it looks pretty bare and I feel the need to put more coffee on it. I think I'm getting a small taste for (creative) destruction already.

Now to fill in my yearbook application. I think that I should retain a bit of my conventional creative nature for that purpose.

*It's pretty bad when I qualify things as 'spontaneous purchases' that fall in the range of $15. In response to this fact, I'm devoting a day of this four day weekend to job hunting. Intense job hunting, as in I'm printing off 20 resumes and dropping them off everywhere that doesn't have to do with deep frying and/or from where I hear stories of workers being sexually harassed on a regular basis.

**Also, my appreciation for Elizabeth Bennet and how much I relate to her. I want to be as sassy as Elizabeth Bennet when I grow up. By that statement, I'm probably setting myself up to become a lonely cat lady and/or a frightening single English teacher that has set a picture of Mr. Darcy as the wallpaper of their laptop for all the students to see every time it's plugged it into a projector, like my English teacher from last year. She also has a shirt that says 'I ♥ Mr. Darcy.' Fangirling characters in classic literature FTW. This year my English teacher has been more accepting of her spinster fate, as her favorite character from literature is Great Expectations' Miss Havisham.***

*** Also, is it bad that my instincts tell me to write about English teachers in the literary past tense? It's just one of those realizations about what has happened to my brain. Like last night when I took a break from homework at 11pm to troll my classmates on facebook who were considerably further away from finishing their assignments due the next day. What was my brain like before the fateful time I entered IB?

Love,
-J-

My weekends hold strange series of events.

 Saturday:

• I sat by a woman having a conversation with herself as I worked on my annotated bibliography in the library for three hours. My favourite line was "You stole my Oreo, you bitch," followed by a profuse apology and proclamation of love. 
• I may or may not have gotten hit on over facebook by a guy I met this week to prepare for an upcoming youth weekend thing. I actually couldn't tell through his atrocious spelling and grammar. Basically, the worst way to hit on me of all time, with bad grammar. *shudder*
• I attempted to decipher the cryptic art that appeared all over Market square. There's pictures of the city with small text underneath it that appears to be from a Twitter or Facebook post.
• Reeves shaved his beard, leaving only his mustache. He looks like a 70's porn star. The sunglasses didn't help.
• I listened to Ben pretending to be Samuel L. Jackson while reading "Go the F**k to sleep" in Coles.
• Reeves told me that he found a connection between Bob Dylan's music and Dumbledore being written as a gay character. *mind blows up with confusion*
• Six of us had to lay on the sidewalk on King Street because we were playing the dart game and somebody went on a rampage. 
• I went to see a local high school's production of Phantom of the Opera. It was in the fancy theater and it was actually amazing. All the leads were excellent, just everything was beautiful. It was so good that Ben legitimately wept during the curtain call. His manliness just leaked out of his eyes, nbd. 
• A group of us brainstormed for what we could do for a student directed show next year. Basically, we came up with "(any controversial/offensive subject): The Panto."  

Sunday:

• Realized just how seriously some hipsters take themselves when it came to my attention that there are little kids with the names Meadow (girl), Oasis (boy) and Cedar (girl) at the Vineyard. I feel like I need to do stand-up in the future just so I can make jokes about those names.  It shouldn't be funny, considering these kids need to live the rest of their lives with these names, but I can't help how hilarious this is, because everyone else manages to take it seriously. Maybe I'm just a bad person.  
• Playing air hockey during the break at church. 
• My mom said she liked my outfit. I also liked my outfit, so that's the first time we've both liked the same outfit for a while. #smallvictories #thriftstoresFTW
• More annotated bibliography, aka, cramming literary criticism into my head about Pride and Prejudice for several hours and making progress at a painfully slow rate until I get to the point where I just don't care anymore and finish with half-assed crap that makes my mark skyrocket down.  
• Driving a standard for the first time in three months, thankfully without much suffering. My goal is to get my license before the end of May. I've been slacking.
• This link made me laugh like an idiot for a long time and, since somebody posted it on my facebook, my grandmother is probably horrified as she facebook creeps. (PS It's not actually what the name of the website suggests. Just an ironic overload of pretension for the sake of hilarity.)
• Trolling my classmates on facebook who are just starting their annotated bibliography now, even though I have one entry left to do. #IBkidsFTW

Coming up this week:

• Three day week! 
• Co-op interview (Co-op is a course option in 12th grade where you can take the morning or afternoon of one semester to be placed in a workplace that interests you.) With any hope, I'll be accepted and next year I'll end up in a placement that has to do with film or journalism. 
• Music festival with choir. I have confidence that we'll be good. 

Love,
-J-

Burnt out buildings and young nostalgia.

 I watched a burnt out building get knocked down by a backhoe yesterday.

It used to be a theater, abandoned except for the bottom floor, resigned to a slightly sketchy convenience store. As I watched from the small crowd gathered behind the tape, I felt a sort of melancholy. Not because I personally felt attached to the building, but out of sympathy for those who are. The walls crumbled and the bricks fell on to the street, the walls a brittle shell of something that had once been great. Every brick was put in place carefully but were taken apart by the rather impersonal prod of a backhoe. The memories torn apart in blackened, broken pieces, piled to be put in a dump and disregarded. Reminded me a bit of "Ozymandias."

But the one thing that really struck me was the size of the crowd gathered to watch and take pictures of the theater's demolition. Just think, the destruction of a place that was once a center of art and culture becomes fascinating because of the primitive human interest in destruction.

I'm unsure of what this tells me about humanity.
Love,
-J-

Resigning to a life of painful mediocrity or Narnia.

I am so overwhelmed right now.

I have so much to do that I can't even function.

I know there are people with real problems, but in my selfish world, having several major things to do while my marks are all slipping is limiting my mental capacity to function or see good in anything.

I got a 13/20 on an English presentation today. I read the teacher's notes and don't entirely see what I did so wrong to barely scrape a pass. Every single English presentation I've done this year gets marked significantly lower than the previous one and I can't tell whether it's because I get worse or the teacher gets harsher. In my mind, if I fail at English, I fail myself in general. It's the one thing I can't handle going downhill.

I think that after a long time of being told I'm above average I might resign to a life of being intellectually mediocre. Perhaps a little bit of added bitterness and many cats.

I just need someone to look me in the eyes, tell me that things will be alright, that I am capable of everything I need to do and that life will not always be this overbearing. That someday I will actually stop stressing and have time to enjoy simple things, like reading books for leisure and taking pictures for fun. Or maybe somebody could hand me a portal to Narnia so I can frolic with fawns and unicorns and emerge years later when actually ten minutes has passed. Either is cool, bros.

At least one doesn't need absolutely stellar marks to get into Canadian universities. Especially to get into arts programs. That's one thing I don't have to fret about too much.

If the past has taught me anything, I need to get a big assignment out of the way, sleep the exhaustion off, and continue with everything else. Then things will be good for a while. Maybe I won't become a irredeemable burnout before the end of high school before I head out to get loads of debt before I inevitably drop out of university a pursue an incredibly mentally numbing career in retail or something equally lacking in mental stimulation. If you have that portal, Narnia would be a much more pleasant fate than the latter.

Disclaimer: This message has been brought to you by cracking, pessimistic Julianne who will grow up to love no one but her numerous cats. Optimistic Julianne has temporarily left the building, taking her sanity with her.
Love,
-J-