What I learned at my graduation

October 25, 2013 - 2:16am - by admin

Which actually happened last Friday as I'm sure most of you know but I didn't want to write about it until I'd had some time to sit back and reflect on what happened and what it actually means to me, if anything at all.

Here goes:

It's not about you, the graduand, at all.

Which seems like an obvious statement but when you spend a bunch of time preparing for what is supposed to be one of the most important moments of your adult life, your transition from being a lowly student to being a lowly intern or administrative assistant or whatever, you kind of expect it to focus a little more on you which it really doesn't. Or mine didn't, at least.



The UW sent out this "what to expect when you graduate" form a few weeks before which, in addition to providing me with my place in line and gown rental info also said that Convocation lasts around 2 1/2 hours which I assumed meant that there would be a speech or two and then a bunch of us graduating because that's why we were there.

This was an incorrect assumption on my part.

Instead I sat with my graduating class in an auditorium while a bunch of people awarded degrees and titles to each other and gave flowery speeches about how great they, the person giving them the award, and the university in general was.

It also happened to be the 100th Convocation which meant that they felt the need to give awards to dead people as well as people who could be there to accept them.

The whole ceremony was so long that it had an intermission for people to get up and stretch their legs and during which my poor Nan and Granddad had to leave because they actually had other stuff to go and do and hadn't expected to be there that long. Luckily for the time that they were there I was seated close enough to them that we could make faces and eyerolls at one another to indicate how bored we were, so that was nice.

All in all the whole ceremony was nearly three hours, two and a half of which the University of Winnipeg staff and alumni spent patting itself on the back instead of recognizing the students they were supposedly there to honour. The actual process of everyone going up, walking across the stage to shake the necessary hands and get their diplomas, and sitting back down took about twenty minutes.

I was too hot, stiff, bored, tired and absolutely starving by the end of it.

But that weird feeling of pride, that swelling in my chest when I moved that silly tassel from the right side to the left of my mortarboard was something I'm so, so glad that I experienced.

Even if it still doesn't feel quite real just yet.

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I bet you want to know why I'm watching 'Chocolat'

October 17, 2013 - 2:44am - by admin

The answer is that it's partially because it's on Netflix.

But mostly the answer is because back when I was fresh out of high school I knew a girl named Rae-Annon and it was her favourite movie if I recall correctly. If it wasn't, and I'm wrong, it was damn near her favourite because she talked about it a lot.

Even though she and I went to elementary school together, or maybe it was middle school I'm not sure anymore I knew who she was because she was the weird goth chick that my yuppie friends and I would look at from down the hall with big saucer-like eyes and wonder what could possess someone to dress that way.

(We, however, were dressed in as little as the school would let us get away with wearing without having to wear a garbage bag for a shirt and we were barely on our periods so who were the fucked-up ones, really?)

Anyway after high school we reconnected by chance because we both worked at the same McDonalds in Winnipeg Square where I wiled away a year of the year and a half between when I graduated and when I moved to Ontario.

She was way more self-assured and I didn't realize it at the time but I really looked up to her even though she had slightly hippie-er tendencies than me like not always shaving her armpits and talking about shakras and stuff.

She went to the East Coast for a month and brought me back a small bag of sea glass which I still have and treasure even though we haven't talked in years.

We used to hang out in her parent's basement which was basically her little pad and watch movies like East of Eden and Breakfast at Tiffany's and drink wine from a box and talk about the boys in our lives. She showed me how to paint watercolours and bought me a martini glass set for my 18th birthday and we had stupid made-up words like 'citag' that we used with each other because young girls are dumb that way.



She knew me back when I was still a pretty fucked-up mess and sometimes I feel bad about that.

We've completely lost touch over the years after a nasty falling out that was, largely and unsurprisingly, my fault. But when I think about those years I try not to think about the end, but rather the rest of it which was sweet and amazing and good.

So when I saw Chocolat on Netflix the other day I put in my queue and even though it's not a very good movie (which I didn't expect it to be) it's nice to remember her and my friendship that feels like a lifetime ago.

So hi Rae-Annon, if you're reading this.

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Everyone on /r/gaming is doing this

October 8, 2013 - 5:48pm - by admin

so here's the story of my first "wow" moment in gaming.

Which isn't really true because it's my mum's
but it's the first one that I remember
so here it goes:

when I was a youth we had a SNES and because we didn't have a ton of money
we rented The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
from the video store down the street
(for like, a year, but whatever)

and my mum was super into it.

Like, really into it.

So one day after school we're hanging out
Mum's playing away while dinner cooks
doing some stuff in the Lost Woods
and she says

"Wow this is so realistic! I don't think anything could get more realistic!"

So I don't know how thrilled she was several years later when I showed her this:



Sorry Mum.

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We're helping Adrian move tomorrow afternoon

October 5, 2013 - 3:11am - by admin

which Tyrone says he isn't excited about but I think he's lying because it's brilliant when someone gets to move into their own place and you get to share that with them.

Carrying be damned.

I moved out for the first time when I was 19 because I was sick of living in the suburbs and was fighting with my mom a lot. I don't remember what we fought about but it was awful and we were both awful and some friends were moving out together and I just kinda went

'Can I get in on this action?'

and they said yes and like two weeks later I was living in a house which was too big for the three of us and way too expensive for me but I didn't care. I walked to and from my minumum-wage job at the video game store in the mall and existed on a single small bag of salt n vinegar chips and an orange juice on the days that I worked and a few perogies on the days that I wasn't. Sometimes I had sour cream if I was lucky.

I lost a ton of weight and slept and drank way too much but it didn't matter.

Though a few months in I wound up moving to Ontario which was an even bigger shock.

Except there I was miserable and ate n drank all the time and put on all the weight I'd lost and then some.

Eventually I moved home.

I moved back in with my parents and my mum and I got along but once you've had that taste of independence it's hard to let it go, I think, so within a year I moved out on my own again and have been ever since.

I had my tiny character suite in an old building in Osborne Village and now I have my big-ass character suite in an old building in West Broadway which I love to pieces, which is also why I encouraged Adrian to move in here, too.

And by 'encouraged' I mean 'harassed him and the caretaker nonstop about it until it happened' which it has and everyone wins.

Adrian gets a super-cool bachelor pad right near campus.

My caretaker knows he has a decent tenant that he doesn't have to worry about.

And I get a new neighbour one floor down who loves beer, good food and has a super-cute accent.

Did I mention he's also single?

My life is about to become a sitcom.

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Everything is perfect

September 28, 2013 - 3:58pm - by admin

Stayed in last night and watched The Tree of Life.

Which is
brilliant
gorgeous
makes you feel terribly
small
compared to the overwhelming space scenes
(I almost cried during a scene featuring the Horse Head Nebula to the tune of lacrimosa)
and smothered, claustrophobic
watching the characters live out their lives.

Terrence Mallick is genius
and Brad Pitt absolutely
destroys.
Though the movie lost it's shit a bit in the last ten minutes -sorry to say.
However

watch it anyway.



Then go watch Upstream Color
(if you haven't already)
because Shane Carruth is brilliant
and his film is like a Mallick movie
but makes slightly more sense.

We were up late, after coffee and a nice long walk
playing vide games and being nerds together
which isn't abnormal
but still nice.

This morning I woke up to rain.

The quiet sound of it outside
& the smell of it, too.
So we made baked eggs and kept few lights on

and here we are.

Happy weekend.

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RIP Mr. Yamauchi

September 19, 2013 - 9:47pm - by admin

One of my fondest childhood memories

is of hanging with my dad in the living room

just him and me, father and daughter

in the middle of a cold winter afternoon

eating chicken strips and drinking hot chocolate

while he played Super Mario World.

Without you that memory

one of my favourite times with my dad as a little girl

wouldn't have been possible

and I wouldn't be the nerdy gamer I am today.

Thank you.

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Wasn't myself on Friday

September 15, 2013 - 4:40pm - by admin

but sometimes it's fun to pretend to be someone else

even if it's only for an evening at yr friend's amazing live-music house party.

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Spent the day at home

August 30, 2013 - 10:19pm - by admin

which meant hanging on the couch trolling around on the computer and watching episodes of Lost on Netflix.

That show wasn't as good as I'd remembered.

Back when it was on tv I used to get together with this guy I was kinda seeing on Thursday nights and watch it together.

I loved that shit.

But then the finale happened and I was all 'wtf'.

It didn't make sense. Total bs.

It's funny how the ending can spoil an entire experience

and how that can apply to other situations as well.

Luckily there's a lot of tv out there.

---

Almost got hit by a car on my run

August 16, 2013 - 3:12am - by admin

I was running along the sidewalk on my way to meet Kat
and there's a pedestrian crosswalk at Balmoral and Young
one of the ones with the white painted lines so you know who has the right of way
that thing
and I looked to my left and saw no traffic
on the the right in the incoming lane there were two cars and one of them was turning left
onto Young
and I paused for a second and he waved at me, one of those "go ahead" motions
so I stepped out into the street and as that happened a car came swerving around the corner
some flashy silver thing
I think it was a BMW based on the hood ornament but I can't recall
and he slammed on his brakes and stopped a foot or so from my left leg.

I looked at the guy in the car and he looked back and me
with this mutual disgust and hatred
me, for his reckless driving in a residential area in a school zone
he, for, I don't know, having to stop quickly?
for having the evidence of his own recklessness pointed out to him in such an
obvious
physical
way?

who knows.

After a pause I kept running because what could I do, really?
kick the hood of his car
yell
scream
YOU ALMOST SHATTERED MY LEGS YOU IDIOT
go on at length about how he would have definitely put me in the hospital
broken at least several of my bones
and how I would have sued him and taken him for all that he was worth?
No.
There's no point.

As I jogged away it struck me how lucky I was that he hit his brakes
or that I had waited that one second to check with the other car
and how often

lately I've been telling myself that I'm lucky because my life is good
but those are all things I've done.

I chose my friends
my partner
my job
as well as the plethora of other decisions which have put me where I am
after years of hard work and stress
fighting and arguments and trying to smarten the fuck up in the process.

Which isn't luck at all, really.

That's just life.

Now, not getting hit by that guy in the car today
that was luck.
Or the universe working in its bizarre and unpredictable way
if you want to get fancy about it.
Because I don't think luck is something you earn, or create for yourself
it just happens to you
(or it doesn't).

Like tonight.

That was lucky.

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I wrote a big mushy post full of feels just now

August 15, 2013 - 3:35am - by admin

but I deleted it all because it was silly.

I don't need to write a big blog post about how

amazing
hilarious
stupid
offensive
and imperfectly
perfect
all my friends are

I assume that the photos and stories I share here and on other social media platforms convey that well enough.

But they deserve one anyway.

Even if it's only a short n sweet one to say

my friends are the best friends.






FEELS EVERYWHERE.

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