Physical Effects of Cottaging

Bad
-sunburn
-headaches from squinting in the sun
-bug bites
-cuts, scrapes and bruises
-dry calloused feet from being barefoot

Good
-happiness, joy, relaxation
-soft hair from lake water
-exercise from swimming, climbing and hiking
-less acne from the sun
-clearer lungs from the fresh air
-long, refreshing sleep

Ami's Cottage

Ami, Nick, John, and I rented a car this weekend and went to Ami's cottage. The car was amazing, although we had rented a Focus, we ended up getting a free upgrade to a Grand Prix. We hung out at her cottage and with her parents for the first night and most of Saturday. There was tons of swimming and playing around their new dock. Apsley is the small town nearby where we went for diner breakfast, grocery shopping, and of course the LCBO. We all went for a long distance swim in the afternoon. On the way back we ended up swimming with a loon, it was 10-12 feet away from us. We picked up Ami's good friend and her new fiance, Kat and Shawn, and headed for Little Jack's. It is a 20 minute boat ride away and then another 25 minute hike into the bush. This is well worth it as it is a long series of waterfalls that flow into a bunch of large pools. *See Photo* It is so fun to swim in and around the rushing water. We camped out and despite forgetting a number of important camping items we survived nicely. I had a great night sleep as my tent was set up on a bed of moss. We woke to bright blue sky. After heading back to the cottage I spent the day on the dock, sunbathing, reading and swimming. I'm a little burnt and my muscles are a little sore, but that is perfect, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Found It

Item Lost: New Blue Pashmini given to me by Anna
Time Lost: Exactly two weeks ago
Last Place I Remember: The Sunroom
Place Found: The Basement on top of some hockey equipment

Clowning Around

I went to see my first show at Arts Court. People always talk about this venue and friends have gone to see a huge range of things there, but I had never been. It is amazing. It contains a little theatre where I went to see Bubkus, a one-man clown drama. It is a long story of how I ended up in this little theatre watching this amazing show but basically I had no idea what I was going to see. Having always been fairly ambivilant to clowns I wasn't anticipating much. I was definitaly blown away by Jesse Buck's performance. Moving, touching, and absolutly halerious. Manly though, it is impossible to describ in a way that really does the experience any justice. If you are able to catch it in Ottawa at Arts Court before the show ends on July 29th I suggest you do. He is also touring around and can be seen in Toronto. Check out his website and trust me that it is something you would enjoy.

Splitting Shins

I hung out the past two nights with Kristen. She is back in Ottawa for her usual one week a month to work on the university paper. She is killing me. She never has any bus tickets and wants to walk everywhere. It takes my all to drag her onto a bus. She thinks it is nothing to walk downtown, which is a good 4km away. My ankles are sore, I have a shooting pain up the foot and shin of one leg, and I'm exhausted. Biking everywhere makes me impatient at the amount of time it takes to walk somewhere. I also don't like the negative effect it has on my body, since I'm rarely wearing the right shoes. I know it is exercise and it is good to spend time outdoors but walking sucks!!

A New Era For Binx

It is a new era for my little kitty, Binx. Well not actually a new era, since she is 14 and nothing much is new for her now. I have decided she will return to being an outside-inside cat. I was worried about this because of the many vicious cats in the area, a rumoured cat sodomist, and the busy streets near-by. Never the less, it is time for her to spend more time outdoors and less time inside. She needs adventure.

My Own Home

I love....
..having a computer in my room so I can stay on it late at night
..leaving my clothes on the floor
..watching TV with the volume up really loud
..unloading the dishwasher of mix-match cups and plates
..sitting on the porch alone when no one knows and no one cares
..waiting weeks before cleaning my room
..drinking at 5 or even noon
..walking in at anytime day or night and leaving again whenever I what
..my independence in my own home

Missing Summer

I'm sitting here at The Charleton office again, helping a little bit with the newspaper. I throw my two cents in and do a bit of copy editing. It makes me want to apply for a position here. I won't, since I think it will be easier all around if I just hang out and help out a lot. I'm sure once school starts I will be super busy as will the office here making it less fun and peaceful. I look out over the rooftops of my university to a cloudy blue sky stretching out away from me. I feel like I'm missing out on summer again. I want to feel the warm wind stirring my hair and the sweet smell of lightly sweaty skin. I need to be tanned and my hair to be lightened, strung with shinning copper strands. Running barefoot through wet grass or soft sand. I want the summers of my childhood. I want the long, easy, peaceful days and nights without work, school, or responsibility.

Strange New Vegtable

Last night I learned about a kind of vegetable I had never heard of before. The Taro. It is a root vegetable (similar to a potato or carrot) that manly grows in Southern Asia. I went out for dinner to a Vietnamese restaurant with Kristin last night and it was a flavour option for bubble tea. Usually used as a savory food it was really strange to have it in a sweet drink. Used as a starch side dish like rice, pasta, or potatoes I'm going to look for it in a grocery store to and prepare it at home to see what it is like. It may be a strange new vegetable for me but it is actually believed to be one of the first cultivated plants.

Old Christine Sweeton

This sweet Office Worker

Went to the 'fridgerator

To make up a healthy lunch

When she got there

The 'fridge was bare

Leaving her nothing to munch!!

-C.S.

I have no food in my house!! Luckily, there are many cafeterias in the little Booth Street complex that I work at. One even in my building two floors down!! The coolest thing ever is that there is a website that lets you know the menu at them for a week. Menu is the same at all four of them, but there is one more feature offered at the big one across the street. It hasn't been updated for this week yet and I keep checking the page in anticipation of the food I can get.

Cutting Off

It has been about 24 hours since my official cut away from the guy I like. I have been crushing on him for sometime now and I need to move on. I know that I can only stop thinking about him if I sever all ties with him, because I can't seem to just will my feelings away. I did my usual mature thing, I told him I was attracted to him. He wasn't interested. This was a good month or so ago, so something would have happened by now if it was going to. Now I just have to avoid him, which shouldn't be very hard since we really don't hang out. (I doubt he will even notice.) I just deleted him from Facebook and MSN. It is over, before it even started, and I'm very sad.

MIA

-My digital camera
which has some hot pics of Em, Ami, Tiff and myself still on it
-My beautiful new blue pashmina
which Anna just gave me for my birthday
I think it may be time to do a huge overhaul clean on my room!

More Look Alikes

As stated before, Erin looks like Kirsten Dunst (see Lunch With The FSWEPer's post). This fact was confirmed last night while watching a movie with Steph and a trailer for Spiderman 3 came up. She is very Kirsten Dunst a la Mary Jane. What I also noticed was that the guy FSWEPer, M. Jamieson, looks alot like Jude Law! In order to post the photo of Erin I had to Facebook creep her and steal the photo. I don't really want to do this to M. Jamieson, though I do have him on Facebook. I had been creeping him regularly in hopes of seeing wedding photo's but his elegant wife vetoed the wedding photo's on Facebook (I agree it is a little tacky) so I gave up looking for them to be posted. (Got to see them on Flicker though, beautiful wedding.) Anyway, my point is, I'm posting a pic of Jude Law, not M. Jamieson, but take my word on it, they look alike.

Unrequited Love

"And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space!" -From the film 'The Holiday' written by Nancy Meyers

Steph's Art

I added a new link to Steph's Deviant Art Page a few days ago.

(See Right)

She has tons of stuff on it and is adding regularly!

Included, among others, is the above photo of myself.

"Lashes" - By Stephanie Beach

She's Mad At Me

My blog ratted me out to my best friend!! Actually I wasn't hiding anything from her, but it was through Always Standing that Ter found out I had gone to see the new Harry Potter movie (on opening night I might add.) We have more then a little bit of a tradition of always seeing them together, even though we have lived 6 hours away from each other for the last four years. I thought that when the last movie came out we had agreed to see it in our own cities with other people, but it turns out that was not the case and our tradition was not broken until this year and by me. This is just one more of the dumb things I have done to her. The others tend to involve her birthday, which I have repeatedly forgotten (September 14th, 1984.) I swear I'm a better friend then I may appear at times.

The Math of Sex And The City

With the movie coming up, one of my favorite shows is getting press and debate again. This is part of a New York Magazine article written by E. Nussbaum:
Sex And The City's strengths were those of good episodic TV: It made a virtue of consistency and formula. For one thing, there was that four-plot rhythm, with each script weaving together two “serious” relationship plots with two smutty farces. And then there were the characters, who could be so off-putting at first. Stylized abstractions with rich(ish) inner lives, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte were at once real people and placeholders in a Socratic dialogue, one centered on the show’s main question: What is the worth of a single woman’s life? The show could be nearly mathematical in its precision: four characters, two women each slotted neatly along three ideological axes. There were the romantics (Carrie and Charlotte) versus the cynics (Miranda and Samantha). There were the libertines, who saw sex as something fun and adventurous (Carrie and Samantha), versus the prudes, who saw it as grim or chaotic (Miranda and Charlotte). And there were the second-wave egalitarian feminists (Carrie and Miranda) versus the third-wave “power feminists,” who believed men and women were at war and women needed to use their feminine powers as a wedge (Charlotte the Rules Girl and Samantha the Power Slut).

Intense Weekend

I don't know how to write about this weekend. I have not even fully recovered from the experience. Little Brother Mike was in town. He is on tour with his band and two others, along with a driver and their promoter. They had a gig downtown on Friday night, and then a couple of days off before they headed further out east. The guys (17 of them between the ages of 16-23) stayed at my place for the weekend. Since I have no idea how to describe the events of the past three days I'm going to let the quotes speak for themselves. Note "Band Member" is used when I wish to preserve anonymity, have forgotten the guys name, or have forgotten which one said it.
--"We are going to be late, we just got Bear Maced. Everyone is just a little enraged right now." -Mike to Me on the phone
--"Your sister's cute Mike" -Carl
---"Rob? Ben? Jason? There are 17 of you, I'm just not going to learn them all. Nick? Steve? Fred?" -Me to Josh when trying to remember his name
------"Fred is good. I can be Fred." -Josh
--(Silence) -Charlie while staring at sleeping Band Members
--"Last time we were here we saw only one roommate. That Librarian one. Now they are like everywhere." -Wally
--"Is there any factories in town?" -Nick
------"Not really. It is kinda a government town." -Me
------"Oh, like The Beer Store." -Nick
------"No, not governmental retail. Like Health Canada, Natural Resources, like the government government." -Me
------"Oh well, no factories, I can't live here." -Nick
--"Oh, Wally." -Emily
--"Bear Mace, where do you even get that?" -Me
------"Hunting shops." -A Band Member
--"I just got my first hate mail." -Carl
--"Is black lipstick Metal or more Goth?" -Ami
--"I am so so so sorry." -Ami, Tiffany, and Me to the bartender
--"Chris, Chris, stop. Your going to get me drunk." -Jerrica
--"Woah. You don't do that." -Nick to Me after I hit Glenn
--"No. Don't tell anyone where the pop is hidden. It will be our little secret." -A Band Member to Me
--"I think that is going to bruise" -Me to Glenn after he punched Me
------"Woah. You don't do that." -Nick to Glenn
--"YOU. GET IN THE FUCKING HOUSE!!" -Me to Many Band Members while trying to control what looked like an impending fight
--"I'm just trying to help get everyone inside." -Many Band Members to Me
------"OK THEN. GET IN THE FUCKING HOUSE!!" -Me
--"Guys, chill. He is my dealer." -Me
--"I hate being dragged and then put places" -Tiffany
--"I want to kick that guys ass" -Nick to Me
------"No! Huh? Wait? What? No! Lie to me, tell me your your trying to help and get everyone inside. Lie to me." -Me
--"Chris stay here, I'm sober." -Mike to Me about who would talk to The Cop
--"HOLY SHIT!" -Me to The Cop after seeing two more cop cars pull into the street
--"Alright then, we are going to hug this out. Get up here. Other arm. That's it." -Mark to Me
--"Next time wake me up earlier." -Mike to Me
--"The Librarian is hot." -Wally and Carl about Emily
--"Ok, my vote is in. Mark is definitely the nicest one." -Anna
--"Wow. I have not done that in a long time. My neck is killing me." -Ami about her head banging injury
--"YOU. RIDE A BICYCLE! YOU. GO PEEL OFF THE WALLPAPER! YOU. WALK IN CIRCLES IN A NORTH EAST DIRECTION! If I keep yelling in an authoritative tone, things will some how fix themselves, even if what I'm saying makes no sense." -Mike doing an impression of Me
--"Oh, I so knew that is what it was all about." -Ami to Me
--"Any one who cooks with chickpeas is amazing." -Josh about Emily
--"It is when you shit along the top of the toilet so when the next person flushes it, it just flushes shit, not clear water. You know, I have always wanted to do a Top Shelf at Top Shelf." -A Band Member to Me
--"So do you really really like Like like like him?" -Emily to Me about A Band Member
--"You didn't really enjoy your time in high school if you weren't having lots of anal sex" -Wally to Me
--"Your brown? Well I guess you look a little Mexican." -Me to Andreas after finding out he is Pakistani
--"UHH, I'm just going to pee off the roof" -Nick after waiting for the bathroom
------"No you cannot pee off the roof" -Me
------"Look she is saying you cannot, as in you don't have the ability. Now you have to do it to prove her wrong." -Mike
--"This town is so healthy, look at everyone biking. With helmets!" -A Band Member
--"Which one was it? Did they have long hair? Where they wearing black? Did they have facial hair? Did they have any tattoos?" -Me to Anna trying to figure out which guy she was talking about
--"I'm going for the triple threat. Three showers in three days." - John to Mike
--"Oh, so like the only one wearing a white shirt?" -Anna about Josh
--"Wayne's World is the best movie in the world." -Andreas
--"Did you guys sleep here? Was it loud? Did you get a shower in the morning" -Me to Wes
------"Yea it was fine. I don't shower on the weekends." -Wes
------"What? I don't even know how to respond to that." -Me
--"Are you kidding? I love Faulkner. I love stream-of-consciousness." -Josh
--"It's totally hit and miss with those guys." -Anna
--"I don't get it. I'm perfectly nice to chicks and get nowhere. Wally walks up to them and says 'Get on your knees bitch' and they all love him." -Carl
--"Mike. You know we could have had this talk anytime this weekend. Now is probably not a great time." -Me to Mike after everyone is packed and ready to go in the vans and he decides to have a nice heart to heart with his big sister
--"Alright Chris, goal for next weekend: No emergency vehicles at 900 Colonel By." -Emily to Me

Lunch With The FSWEPers

As usual, I ate lunch with the FSWEPers. Even though I'm not considered a student in any way, they are all closer to my age. It was just the girls today as the guy is off in Scotland getting married. This doesn't really change what we end up talking about, as we move from girly chatter, to world events, to human nature observation, to our lives, and more. Everyone has different stories and perspectives. I'm used to lots of people with different backgrounds from different locations all gathering together, that is what University is all about, but it feels some how different and fresh this time. I love hearing the opinions of Erin, The Prairie Girl, and Bosnia Beauty, they are all so brilliant. The Prairie Girl now lives in Montreal and totally understands what it is like to go to hot, rich and fancy bars/lounges like Social and Eighteen here in Ottawa. Places she describes you just "go to just chat and look fabulous." We will have to get a martini night going after work someday. The picture is of Erin, who I think looks like Kirsten Dunst. Which is totally a compliment by my standards but she seemed to think wasn't. Come on, who doesn't love Kirsten Dunst? Erin is actually probably a prettier, friendlier, funnier, nicer version her anyway.

A Transitional Movie

I went to see the new Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix) last night with Anna and The Boy Roommate. It was my favorite book so far, and also my favorite movie so far. This is probably because there is finally a kiss and much more flirting between Ron and Hermione. Sounds so bad that I like it because the action, fantasy movie was a teeny tiny bit more chick-flicky. Actually that isn't true at all, it was really dark and quite scary. I was jumping out of my seat for the first half hour, they definitely aren't kids books and movies anymore. Most of my friends didn't like this book because nothing really happens. It is extremely transitional, and just moves the general plot on instead of having its own real story or mystery. I think this book held alot more character development and drama then the others. The story behind this book is Harry being worried that his mentor, Dumbledore, is now ignoring him. It also has great inner conflict issues and the usual focus on friendship. Great book, Great movie.

Cool Course

I really want to take this! ENGL 3002 Contemporary Literary Theory (ENGL 3002 at Carleton). "Introduction to contemporary approaches to literary texts, such as formalist, structuralist, deconstructive, psychoanalytic, Marxist, historicist, and feminist. Topics may include: the nature and role of literature, of author and reader, of canons, ideology, gender, sexuality, and race." It sounds so interesting, I love my major. It is during the day so I can only take it if I switch to part-time or leave my job.

Words

There is so much power in language. What is said or written can mean so much. I like to think that without warning or prompting I can craft a sentence to have a large emotional effect on a friend. Positively, of course. I try to make them smile, laugh, feel better about themselves, or cheer them up if they seem down. What is hard to grasp is friends and lovers who can not return the support. There are signs, phrases, body language that suggests someone is looking for strong words, words of love, support, strength, sympathy, encouragement. When those we reach out to fail to provide the soothing words we crave, it hurts. This is confusing because it is so simple to do. I'm pretty oblivious to signs but I like to think that most of the time I can give a friend what it is they are looking to me to say. Why can no one say to me what it is I want to hear? Also, am I even ready to hear it? Whatever it is.

FIFA U20

The FIFA U20 soccer tournament is being held in Ottawa this year. They play at Lansdown which is near Le Manoir. When a game is on you can hear the cheering from the house it sounds so exciting. Anna has tickets to see a playoff game this coming weekend. The other week I was admiring some of the Team Canada players when I remembered that the U in U20 meant Under. Making them my brothers age or younger.......awkward.

Nothing

What comes from all the unnecessary pressure that is put on me?
What do I get out of it all in the end?

Terrible Bike Ride

There is nothing like showing up for a Government Office Job covered in blood and bike chain grease. As usual the chain came off my bike. I'm getting The 18 Year Old Co-Worker to fix it at Subway tomorrow, I'm sick of cutting up my fingers every morning putting the chain back on. The gears are also messed up so hopefully he can adjust all that. To make the bike ride worse, the streets I take in the morning are a disaster. Pot holes! Uneven Asphalt! Sand! Man Holes! Huge Cracks! I don't understand why because I bike though a wealthy area, but they have the worst roads I have seen in Ottawa. Thank goodness for my helmet because one of these days I'm going to wipe out.

Urban Fiction Connection

At lunch today, one of the FSWEPers, Erin, stated that Hamilton, Ontario always reminded her of Mordor from Lord Of The Rings. The more I thought about it the more I realised how true that connections is. Oh Steel Town, how evil you are!

Generation Y

For those of us born between 1980-2000:
97% own a computer (Yes)
94% own a cell phone (No)
56% own an mp3 player (No)
76% use Instant Messaging (Yes)
15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week (Yes)
34% use websites as their primary source of news (Yes)
28% own a blog and 44% read blogs (Yes,Yes)
49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing (No)
75% of students have a Facebook account (Yes)

Us Generation Y workers have a reputation for experiencing boredom and frustration with slow-paced environments, traditional hierarchies and even slightly outdated technologies. The biggest difference between us and generations who came before, is that we have spent our entire lives surrounded by technology. We grew up in the lap of luxury, in one of the best economic times in the last 100 years, and everyone started living really luxuriously: two-plus cars, travel, cottages, dinners out, etc. We are also pretty opinionated about the jobs we want and the money we intend to make, and this causes us to miss the step where we understand that we need to work our way up from the bottom. Who wants to do that? Members of our Generation Y work force will switch jobs over the course of our careers more than any generation before, holding as many as 20 jobs before we retire. We demand more flexibility, unseen in previous generations. We will get the job done on time, but resent being reminded to. We don't feel that we should have to conform to office processes. But, us in Generation Y work well on deadlines. Though we feel that as long as we have completed our work, our process isn't what matters. Because of this focus on output and not method, we want different things out of our schedules. As long as we are getting our work done on time, we don't see why we shouldn't have the maximum flexibility: flex time, flex hours and working from home. I agree, why shouldn't we have maximum flexibility?

Reeling Them In

Normally a blatant call for comments (see previous post Fishing) would not lead to anyone saying anything. This time though there appears to be a great outreach of support. Completely motivates me to write. Fishing for anything in that manner is very low, especially ploys for compliments. Phrases like "I'm so fat" and "No body likes me" rarely get the desired responses of "No your not, your beautiful" and "I like you, everyone likes you." At 23, these pointless self-degraded statements are now met with "Don't be stupid" and "None of that negativity." I'm glad I can fish for blog comments if I can no longer childishly fish for compliments.

Great Marks!!

ENGL2108 Women and Literature (A-)
ENGL2109 Gender, Sexuality & Literature (A-)
ENGL2300 British Literature I (A-)
MCOM1101 Intro to Mass Communication (A-)

Straight A-'s for this semester! I would totally get my entrance scholarship back if it didn't expire after 4 years and I hadn't gotten a B+ in last semesters History Of English class. Oh well, I'm still really happy with this, I worked hard for them!!

Time Crunch

My time ticket for registration at Carleton is July 10th at 1:30. The contract at my office job just got extended until the end of September, leaving me in a bit of a sticky situation with school. I'm going to register for 4 classes; Brit Lit II, Can Lit, Shakespeare, and Mass Comm II. I will decide in August how many of them I'm going to take. The Mass Comm class is only offered during the day, so if I continued to work 5-days a week I won't be able to take that. Also if I continue to work full-time I can't take such a large course load. I don't want to mess up this semester that much for only a months work, so I will only let it adjust my education if the job gets extended longer. It is an unfortunately unclear situation right now, but I figure by registering for everything now I have my bases covered for the time being.

Fishing

It feels like no one comments anymore!