NaNoWriMo! (or as some call it, Impending Doom)

In all fairness, I shouldn't call it "doom", I just have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. I pretend they're far further off than they are... they stress the hell out of me... but in the end, I need them. As if there's a lasso pulling my foot and my productivity towards completion.

Which is why I need National Novel Writing Month. I really do love to write, it has always been my dream to publish books. If not for deadlines I get complacent with the idea that I really can finish any time, I don't need to look at that project, or those notes now. So, thanks to Nano, I will write a novel this November. (I Will, I will...)

If any of you crazy awesome people are doing this as well, let me know! I'd love to hear your ideas, and once November starts, your progress.




Woo!

Living is Hard.

I believe I mentioned at some point in the past that I wanted to update my blog once a week. What happened? Not that.

Unfortunately, but fortunately at the same time, life happened -- and life keeps happening. While I'm very grateful to be busy making life happen one step at a time, and celebrating others on their life happenings as well, I've decided that I need to manage my time better to fit in the things I really want to do!

I'd love to start selling jewelry again, National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner, and of course, my blog is always here, getting lonely without me!

The new-and-improved organized me* will be back, I promise!

Now, for your viewing pleasure, a rabbit fleeing a dangerous swamp-monster. The rabbit thinks living is hard too.

*Note, the "new-and-improved organized" model Sarah has been under construction for many years. No word yet on the possible release date.

Everything is Better with Shrimp

As I sit here enjoying my hastily thrown-together meal, I can't help but think that every meal I eat is better served with the delicious fishy morsels known as shrimp.

                                                           

Let me explain. I adore shrimp. How or why such an ugly sea-bug could become so full of uniquely awesome flavour is beyond me, but I honestly don't much care. Shrimp are awesome, and I love them. (Well, eating them.)

Unfortunately here in Newfoundland, the little pink caridea are expensive, and after starting school --again--, moving out to town with a desperate need to buy furniture and a great job that doesn't pay so "great", I thought I wouln't see shrimp for a long, long time. In Japan, where I had been living until very recently, shrimp were bountiful. I bought a bag every week. I snuck them into most of my dinners.

Recently, after being moved out for about a month, I decided that I had eaten one too many bowls of cereal for dinner, too many pre-ready pasta packets, and the food in my life had simply become bleak. I was eating to survive, and not to enjoy, and while there are a good many who must do this day to day, I not had not yet needed to reach that point. Far from it. But things had obviously changed  since I got back. I wasn't making the money I had gotten used to in Japan, my living conditions were again, different.

That's when I came into a package of shrimp. My boyfriend thought (as did I) that my eating habits were lacking nutrition, so he was generous enough to take me grocery shopping. I picked out a hefty bag of shrimp from Wal-Mart. He let me buy the shrimp :) . And then the shrimp sat in my freezer.

Has the word "shrimp" lost all meaning yet? shrimpshrimpshrimpshrimp

Anyway! I eyed the shrimp in the freezer for at least a week, thinking that I'd save it for a big meal someday, and continued eating my packets and cereal, bumming meals and groceries where I could. Until I finally (thankfully) snapped out of it -- the shrimp didn't need to be saved. I needed to be saved from my eating habits, from my poor, poor-student pity party I was throwing. I am a grown woman, with a good life in a great country. My living conditions are different, but they're as awesome as I could hope for! I'm not making all the money I was, but I did save a chunk of  it for just this point in my life. And, I had a bag of shrimp in my freezer.

That's how I came to the conclusion that everything is better with shrimp.

                                                       

New Blog. Hooray!

These past three years have been amazing to say the least, but at the end of my days I'd come home feeling happy about my job, but without an ounce of energy or motivation to write.

 However, after discovering upon returning home that I haven't been seriously going after my goals, I've finally decided to be A Writer (A title. I'm drawing up the business cards presently). I will accept all responsibilities therein. So I figured I'd give this blog thing another shot.

 This is my fancy, new, (and as writer-y looking as I could make it) blog for super-short stories: Submachine Stories I'm going to try to post there at least once a week. Ah, but what will I do with this lovely blog here? For now I'll keep it for life updates, writing things that aren't stories, and maybe even reflections on the stuff thatI've written. We shall see.

 So if you are so inclined, check it out. As always, thanks for reading!

Busy!

I realize I haven't updated the 'ole blog in a while. Trust me, it's not from lack of stories or pictures, but rather that I've become stupid busy. That's right, "stupid busy", It's right, I should know, I'm an English teacher.

However, I will post something sooner or later! See you for now.

Btw it's Summer Now.

I remember my first weeks in Japan. Our bedroom was the cozy recluse from the cold, boasting blankets and, foremost, a heater. I remember having to put on my coat to go downstairs at night just to use the washroom, and I remember my first experiences with Canadian stereotyping:

Me: "Boy it's cold today!"
Non-Canadian: "Woah, but aren't you from CANADA?" (i.e. the coldest place on earth where the people are immune to such things as "the cold")

And then we had spring, when there were comfortable temperatures and much rain. But not anymore.

Quite suddenly, it's summer now, and I'm wondering how I ever felt cold here. The heat is a blanket of stifling air and humidity, and once again our heater -- now an air conditioner -- is allowing only one room of our apartment to be comfortable.

This worries me.

I dealt with the cold, though it was frustrating at times, but heat is a strange new creature for me. To perpetuate stereotypes, I, as a person who has really never left Newfoundland, is not used to consistent 30 degree weather. This might end me. I remember the rare day in Newfoundland when the temperature would approach 30, and I would not leave the house for fear of heat stoke and sunburn. I can't imagine how Adam survived his first summer here without the air conditioner!

In any case, there are worse things. I may decide that I love the heat, who knows? I'm not complaining, I'm just... worried. I'll keep you posted :)

Why They Rioted. I have a... Theory.

-- And just a theory at that. But I think it's interesting enough to make public. I'll let it be known that I have no sources for the following, as I'm not making any concrete claims. It's just a theory. By no means do I boast knowledge or experience in the ways of social interaction (apart from that Social Anthro minor I did, but hey), but I can make educated opinions, and I know how to argue them, so here goes.

I propose that the recent Vancouver rioting over the loss of Vancouver's grasp of the Stanley Cup is an outburst of social frustration stemming from our... interesting... recent political -- well -- mess. For the past several years, Canada has been in a state of passive political turmoil in which each forced election brought us closer and closer to apathy and a sense of futility with regards to this so-called democracy. Now of course, I really can't speak for the nation, but taking a look at the nosedive the voting turnouts took has to show some sense of a collective (and, excuse me, Mom) "Fuck this!". Combined with political party members themselves fluctuating their opinions based predominately on the changing power dynamic (or so I've heard) it's easy to see why the country is apathetic, pissed off, and frustrated as hell.

Ah, but what is the one thing we can all agree on? What's the one thing Canada (in general, of course) has consistently come together and bonded over? -- Hockey! (And Tim Hortons' coffee, but we won't be bothered with that here!). And so, I bring you to present day when our political situation is no longer change-able for the next four years, people are generally annoyed with how things went and how things are, and, OH HEY! Vancouver might take the cup this year!

So, you might see where I'm going with this. After a string of political situations where no one is sure who to trust or depend on, no one wants to get up in arms over something they think is a struggle with futility -- after all this, something comes along that they-- we-- granted, I know it's not all of us-- think we can control. Everyone loves hockey! Canada loves it when Canada beats the U.S., and having done it many times before, why shouldn't we be able to do it this time, and shove a metaphorical hockey stick up the ass of an obvious symbol of conservative pressure (Oh, snap!)

To put it bluntly, I think Canadians rioted over a hockey game because they felt like it was finally their chance to do something about this bullshit. Now of course, I don't mean that if one was to ask one of the rioters why he/she set a car on fire, that they would give you a speech about how this was their chance to stick it to the government. Of course not. This particular riot was not politically charged (on the surface) and I'm sure once the mob mentality got going, no one knew why exactly they were doing anything apart from the fact that they were just pissed the hell off. I just think that tensions and anger grew until a large group of people had gotten damn sick of losing. Because, really, whether or not you're conservative-minded doesn't matter anymore. The recent awkward political struggle has made most of Canada frustrated (has it not?) and what better way to further that frustration than to take away our potential moments of happy National bonding?

By no means do I think the rioters were in the right here. I think rioting over a hockey game is petty and immature, and the guilty parties should be justly punished. But under the skin I had to ask myself... Is it just the hockey game? And I would hope you would ask yourself the same question.