ARRGGG

I was reading the YouTube comments (I know my first mistake) on a video about how a particular British YouTuber dislikes when men wolf whistle or make her uncomfortable because they're sexually harassing her.

There was someone who had replied to a comment saying that they should be in prison and that their comment made them ill. I being curious wanted to know what it is that this guy said that so royally pissed this person off, so I clicked the view comment button (my second mistake).

I'm just going to copy the comment here, and I don't really know what else to say to it besides this person is terrible and if these are their actual opinions (and not just a troll trying to piss people off) they are horrible.

"I think women enjoy playing,"The Victim." They spend hours applying make-up,doing their hair and choosing their outfit and when they receive unwanted attention from men they cry foul and blame the entire male species for the acts of a few miscreants.Men are sexual predators in the truest sense of the word,we exist to procreate or destroy.Art,war and industry are just outlets for our lust,to deny the devil inside is to court fate.This is why there are rapes,murders and mayhem.We need to breed."

ARRGGG!

Life in Moderation

Today I was on www.dearblankpleaseblank.com when I came across this post:

Dear principals of my school,

You ban soda machines from the school, but fail to realize that there are fast food restaurants within walking distance from the school?

Sincerely, A student who believes the people should choose for themselves

I had just been thinking about how when I was in high school they had taken away all the junk food from all vending machines and the cafeteria to try and stop obesity.

While I'm all for healthy living, I couldn't help but think, making sugary and fattening foods unavailable isn't really going to teach young people how to make proper decisions when it comes to their diet and that even chocolate or a can of coke is fine so long as it is in moderation.

What I found even stranger was the fact that before they had removed things like pop from the vending machines all together they just provided diet drinks instead. Perhaps research no longer indicates this, but at the time I (and many other people) were under the impression that artificial sweeteners used in diet drinks, such as aspartame, were potentially very harmful.

There's no real point to this post besides the fact that I find it funny that I was thinking essentially the same thing that this post was talking about.

Have a lovely Saturday!

Canada Day

I woke up somewhat early this morning to put on my red and white clothing and then head to the Manitoba Legislature to take part in the 3rd annual Living Flag.
I joined the sea of over 3,500 other people and stood in formation singing our national anthem and thinking how much I love Canada and Canada day.
Winnipeg has held the title for largest Living Flag of the year for the country for the past 2 years, and we're actually on a stamp because of it! (How cool is it to know that a very very tiny picture of you is on a stamp? Not many people can say that).

After the living flag I had a bunch of friends over for a BBQ and we ran around with water guns and ate yummy food and acted goofy. We went to the park and threw the football around watched fireworks and just enjoyed the beautiful day in our beautiful country.

I love Canada Day. It actually has to be my 3rd favourite holiday (after Christmas and Halloween). I'm proud to be Canadian and I love fireworks and BBQs and just everything that goes along with the holiday.

I was thinking about how this was such a wonderful Canada Day, but I don't think it's my favourite. When I was little I was in Edmonton visiting family friends and my sisters and friends and I stood at the corner of their street with little signs that said "honk if you love Canada". It was simple. Nothing extraordinary or anything but it is such a fond memory. Nothing but my friends and the love of our country.

I hope all my Canadian readers had a good Canada day too, and if you're from somewhere else in the world, I hope you enjoy your national celebration day too. (All countries have those, right?)

Tattoos on my mind

So I am considering getting a tattoo (again). It has something that I have thought about wanting on and off for years now, but I never really found a design that struck a chord with me. I liked the idea of birds or something related to nature, and I often thought about different quotes. Specifically:

"Success isn't Final. Failure isn't Fatal. It's the Courage to Continue that Counts" -Winston Churchill

 That quote has become a sort of a mantra to me, and has helped me get through some more difficult obstacles I found myself facing. In retrospect, many of these challenges I was able to overcome or the failure to succeed was never as detrimental as I had envisioned, and what really mattered was that I got past it. The Courage to Continue that Counts.

But regardless, I never felt that a quote was quite right. Even a quote that perfectly fits into my life and I will always carry it with me, it isn't something that I feel I need to have etched into my skin for eternity.
I needed something more like a symbol.

And then I found what seems to be the perfect design.
An image of a fluffy dandelion being blown and slowly the seeds transform into birds.

I've always felt very connected to nature, so if I were to get a tattoo, I'd want something to represent that, but most importantly I want something that will continue to hold significance for my entire life. A symbol afterall can be eternal.

When I was little and everyone was enrolled in mini-soccer because I was older than everyone else in my grade I was put with the older kids and I felt very isolated. Which as unusual given the fact that I was one of the most sociable kids you would ever meet. (I was the kid who would never shut up and teachers would have to make me go sit aside from everyone else to keep my quiet) But never the less, I felt alone at mini-soccer, so I spent a lot of the games in my own little world and would often pick dandelions instead, completely oblivious to the world and the soccer game around me.

I'm also a person who is a bit obsessed with wishes, and I believe very strongly in wishes. You can see me scrunching up my face, deeply concentrating almost every time the clock says 11:11, I always throw pennies in willing wells, I think long and hard about birthday wishes, train wishes, and pretty much every other type of wish. Including when you blow the seeds off of a fluffy dandelion.

Now, I'm not the type of person who thinks that just simply making a wish will make it happen. But I see wishes as a weird combination of a dream, a goal and a prayer. I feel that by wishing for something it makes it more powerful, and helps you to realize what you really want more than anything at the given moment. By realizing this, you can then work towards actually achieving it.
So to speak, your wishes take wings and can soar because of your actions. Which brings in the idea of the birds.

I could go on and on about the further connection I feel with this idea, but I'll spare you.

I've decided that in two years time, once I have graduated from my Arts degree, if I still feel as passionate about my tattoo idea, then I'll start to go through the motions to actually get it. I want to make sure it is something that I will like for the rest of my life.
While I am a little afraid of the pain associated with a tattoo (it's no secret that I'm terrified of needles), that isn't what would stop me from getting a tattoo, but rather the regret of getting a tattoo that I grow to hate.

I love getting comments on my posts, hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink.

Accident Prone

So I'm extremely accident prone, and my klutzy moments seem to increase when I am working.
I often walk into door handles and give myself bruises and because I work in a bookstore papercuts are an occupational hazard.

However, today I managed to slice myself with an exacto knife.
This isn't the first time I had cut myself with an exacto knife while at work (and probably won't be the last), and this was a fairly minor cut compared to some damage I had done in the past.
But this was the first time I had cut myself in front of one of my co-workers.

Ana promptly started to freak out and told me a needed a band-aid immediately, even though the cut was tiny and barely looked like a papercut.
Regardless she got me a band-aid and instructed me that I was not allowed to put the band-aid on because it always feels better when someone does it for you.
It made me giggle at how concerned she was for me.

Happy June

I do believe that a bit of an update on my brilliant life is in order, don't you reckon?

I have finished my second year of University and managed to get satisfactory marks, so I'm not about to go off the deep end about my failed future (thank goodness).

I have been working at my beloved bookstore faithfully so more shifts are expected to pile up as the new month rolls around.

I have also been taking a Statistics course this summer to fulfill my math requirement to gain entrance into the faculty of Education. It's scary to think that that is only 2 years away (yikes!). It is an 8:30 am course, I hate math and while my instructor is very nice she can be a bit dull at least at that unspeakable hour. (In case you didn't notice, I'm not much of a morning person).

Now you may be wondering how things are going with my beloved puppy, Shelby, as I did leave it a little cliff hanging.
She has recovered from the surgery quite fine, but unfortunately, the surgery was not a success, and she was given 2 months to live. This was in April, and it is now June, so I worry that I am running out of time with her.
Although there is evidence that all is not well, as she is having all sorts of bladder issues, her personality is still the same and for that I'm grateful. She is still my stubborn puppy and I'm cherishing every moment I have with her.
I know that time is slowly closing in on her and that likely in the not so far away future she will have to be put down, and this terrifies me to no end.
I have been debating with myself ever since I found out she was sick about whether I want to be there for this.
I want every moment possible with her, but more importantly, I don't want her to ever be scared or worried, and I feel that if I'm there with her when she's in the scary vet room and it's about to happen, I'm be able to comfort her. I know she loves me very much, and I want the last thing she sees before she passes to be something that makes her happy, not something like a vet that terrifies her.
All that being said, I'm not sure if I'm strong enough to be there for her. I know it'll be heartbreaking to watch her leave, and I've been told I'll be traumatized by the experience.
So yeah, I'm dealing with that conflict.

On the happier not make me cry as I'm posting side of things, I have been re-reading the Harry Potter series while going through Pottermore, and I forgot how much I loved these books. I knew I loved the Harry Potter franchise, but since it had been a long time since I'd read the books I was beginning to feel that perhaps it was the fan-created pieces that I enjoyed more than the actual books themselves.
It's nice to re-experience the magic again.

As always, much love, and hopefully I'll post again soon.

Shelby

Some of you may remember back to when my beloved dog had eaten something that wasn't digestible, and she had to have emergency surgery to remove it.

Well, here we are, less that a year later, and Shelby is being operated on once more.

I have two dogs, they are brother and sister, named Joey and Shelby. Like all breeds, dogs are predisposed to certain medical issues, and for Shelties it happens to be complications with the gall bladder.

About 2 1/2 years ago we discovered that Joey has what they call gall stones (think kidney stones, except in your gall bladder). To try and resolve this issue he was put on several different types of medications that while they have made him better have made him lose a lot of weight and not be as active as he once was (but the seizure-like episodes have stopped).

Recently we discovered that Shelby has a similar issue and that it is also affecting her bladder. To try and figure out what exactly was going on, she had to have an ultrasound (like what they use to see the fetus in a pregnant woman). The ultrasound showed that Shelby had some strange (and potentially cancerous) growth on her bladder.

As I type this, she is currently undergoing surgery to have this growth removed, and hope that she will recover and that this will resolve most, if not all, of the issue.

I'm surprising composed as I am writing this, which is strange because I spent a good deal of the morning before Shelby left for her operation with me clinging to her and crying into her fur.

I love that dog so much. She is my baby girl. She is my favourite and I am her's.

Shelby and I are kindred spirits. We're both loud, stubborn, tough and bossy, but a sweetheart at the core.

She is strong, and hopefully she (and I) will get through this.

I am so terrified that I will get a call saying that I no longer have a little girl anymore. That those tear filled hugs from this morning may be the last ones I'll ever be able to give her.

To conclude (before I start to cry), I will leave you all with a quote by John Grogan (author of Marley and Me)

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.
It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.”

Life Scout - Inventory

Arg! So I'm late, again. Sorry, again.

This past Sunday was the first time I had every done inventory at any job.
Now you're all thinking Ashley, inventory is BORING.

But that's where you're wrong!

Where I work, we turn inventory into a party. Actually.
We get food, and supper and hanging out with people and in addition to getting paid, for every hour we work we get a $15 gift card to the store. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!

So after a few hours of scanning stuff with our little scanny things, we took a break to eat some delicious food from the restaurant and then continue.
I also think that the people I hang out with at work actually like to hang out with me and aren't like, oh she happens to be the person that I'm working with for this shift, so I guess I'll talk to her since I have nothing better to do.
YAY FOR NEW FRIENDS!

So anyway, this bizarre and slightly cucumber like badge is my inventory badge.
I hope I'll have many more inventories at my job, because who DOESN'T love $60 gift cards just for being awesome?
HECK YEAH, MY JOB RULES!

Life Scout - YouTube Truth or Dare

(Yes I know it isn't Saturday night again. Sorry)

So this week it wasn't exactly a new experience that I necessarily WANTED to do, or would have thought about doing, but instead I let my subscribers come up with dares for me to complete for my video.

If you haven't watched the video yet and like to see me suffer, I do recommend it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhv35A3dmZo

So I brushed my tongue with shampoo, experimented with being a dominatrix, put on a shirt and tie while talking about a haircut, slathered peanut butter all over my face and climbed a tree.
Oh the things I do for the internet.

So I earned the Truth or Dare YouTube badge. Because doing stupid stuff for the internet has become my hobby.

Life Scout - Ordering Books

I starting working in the children's section at a local bookstore over the summer, and adore my job. One of the cool things about how the store is organized is that each of the sections (fantasy, mystery, etc.) are divided up and become the responsibility of particular people.
This means that you are ordering in the books, restocking, and are more in charge or keeping the shelves organized than other people would be.

Because I have been working there now for over six months (crazy!) I was given two sections to be responsible for. Teen Series and Teen Mystery.

The Teen Mystery section is a rather small section that never gets a lot of action (poor Teen Mystery) but my first section I was given is actually one of the larger sections and it's amazing that it's mine! The Teen Series is usually filled with a lot of fluff (Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and the like, but there are some fun series in there such as Heist Society and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)
The primary responsibility of the being a section head is to just restock books that have sold out of your section, however one of the more fun parts of it is to bring in a new series.

I've had Teen Series for over a month now, and it has become my baby and I'm quite attached to it, however all I had been doing was organizing, reorganizing and restocking. Until this week.
This week I brought in a series that the store hadn't had before!

I know this doesn't sound all that exciting, but it is for me, because I'm taking on more responsibilities at work and feeling more and more comfortable there all the time and this was one of the final tasks I'd yet to do.

I really do love my job, and even when I complain about it from time to time, it is mostly because I am just stressed out and not because I am unhappy about where I am working.

So, I have earned the Book Buying Badge.
(Yes I know "buying" isn't what I meant, but c'mon, it's an alteration!)

Also, in case you didn't watch my vlog (and you really should -shameless self-promotion badge unlocked!) I'm looking for truth or dare ideas, so put those in the comments!

Facial Expressions

Today in my Eighteenth Century Literature class we were discussing restoration theatre and acting
Included in this discussion we discussed the facial expressions of the actors, which featured pictures from a acting guide of the time.
No one in the class could take the rest of the lecture seriously and we proceeded to laugh our butts off until my prof struggled to turn off the projector.
Perhaps not the most mature decision on our part, but come on! How can you NOT pee yourself laughing?

On a completely unrelated note, my bus driver tried to kill me today.
I was getting off the bus as it came to my stop outside where I work. I politely told the bus driver "thank you" and started to head out the door.
I was in mid-step when the bus driver decided it would be a good idea to start to pull forward with the door still open and me half off the bus.
You know that feeling when you accidentally think there is one more step and when your foot doesn't connect with the floor when you predicted you would you get that scary falling feeling and panic? Yeah. Imagine that, except a bajillion times scarier and potentially really dangerous.
So I guess I'll use my new found eighteenth century facial expressions to display my feelings of the bus driver...
Stupid bus driver.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...

HERCULES!
Or at least that's how I spent my Sunday evening.

I hate award shows, and I have very little respect for the Oscars after what they did to Harry Potter last year (come on, they should have gotten at least NOMINATED for special effects!).

So I decided to have a classic Disney evening and watch GOOD movies instead of being bored for 4 hours or whatever as some other person I'd never heard of gives a speech for some category no one cares about and makes bad jokes that no one laughs at.
Seriously, why do people watch these things anyway?

Random fact though, Walt Disney won 22 Oscars in his life time, plus 4 honourary ones.

Also to the stupid ETALK lady who is a stupid face. The Life of Pi director won, so SUCK ON THAT! You know nothing of literature, so stop pretending you know anything and go back to your magazines, you obviously need the glossy pictures for it to not be "boring".

Life Scout - Haidee's House

So yesterday was the first time I had ever been to my friend Haidee's house.
Now you may be thinking, gee Ashley, it's reading week, is really the most interesting new thing you did this week going to someone's house?
To which I say screw you, because Haidee's house is awesome!

I don't think I would ever want a pet bird, because I like to be able to cuddle with my pets, like you can with a dog or a cat. But that being said, I think birds are wicked awesome and I just love to watch them move around. (Especially seagulls, those guys are the shit)
So Haidee has three birds! They were very noisy and very funny and I loved to look at them.

Plus going to Haidee's party was the first party I'd been to since New Years Eve. (Actually I think it was the first group hang out I'd been to since New Years...)
So it was nice to have a life for a night.

It also reminded me why I love my friends and how much fun we have together.

So I have earned the Visit Haidee's Bird Land Badge.

Life Scout -The Airport

(I meant to post this on Saturday, so imagine I actually did that)

There were many "firsts" for me this week, including visiting a prof during office hours, going to Robson Hall for another class and a few other class related things. But as I'm trying to move away from putting all my focus on school work, I've picked something else.

This week was the first time I had ever gone to the new airport.
It is also the first time I have ever picked Peter up from the airport since he started at York University.

So I'm giving myself the Going To the Airport Badge... (I need to come up with better names for these...)

See you next week (on actual Saturday in theory) when I hopefully have earned another badge!

Also, I encourage you to try doing the Life Scout Badge challenge too.

Stress

For once this isn't a blog post of me complaining about my overwhelming level of stress!
No, it's actually me telling you that while I am still stressed, I've got the stress level under control.
I only have one more essay left to write, and it's my easiest essay (yay!)
And in less than a week I will be able to relax (sort of) for a week!

Boy do I ever need to fix my sleeping patterns (I got about 3 hours last night... oopsie!)

Life Scouts Badges

Lately my life has become routine.
Practically all I do is eat, sleep, go to school and work and do homework.
The only "fun" thing I do is watch and make youtube videos, and I didn't even have time to make a vlog this week because of stupid essays.

My life has become exactly what I never wanted it to become. Normal.
But I'm not going down without a fight.

I know it isn't January 1st, but it's never too late to start a resolution, and I have found the solution.

http://lifescouts.com/archive

Life Scouts is this really cool idea of accomplishing new exciting things and getting badges for it (just like what I did when I was in Girl Guides)
The idea is you reblog the image on tumblr and write the story of how you accomplished earning the badge.

Well I'm going to do this, except different and my way.

I'm going to try to shoot for a new "badge" every week, but instead of one of the badges that appear on this site (necessarily) I'm just going to try and do something new each week in general.
I know some weeks will have something bigger than others. Some may just be like, so umm, I tried this weird food for the first time.

I will then proceed to design my own little badge and post about it here.

So stay tuned :) And much love as usual.

Drowning in Essays

It's almost reading week (YAY!)
We're half-way through semester (YAY!)
I don't have midterms like most of my friends (YAY!)
I do however have 4 essays, a project and 2 tests before the break (UGH!)

While I have finished half of the essays, I have the hardest one still. Not only is my 18th century literature class one that I find the most difficult to understand, the time period that I hate the most, but also my Prof is by far the hardest marker I have ever experienced.
With the last essay I had to write for that class, I struggled and tried so hard to write the paper (having to rewrite and change the topic roughly half a dozen times) and after FINALLY getting a product that I was content with, my Prof tore it apart *sigh*
I understand I'm not in high school anymore and that Profs are hard markers, but it is kind of ridiculous.

My friend Nick went to talk to my prof before handing in his essay and she read it over and gave him pointers.
He followed all the pointers and thought he had now greatly improved his paper.
Nope. When she was marking it she then proceeded to say she hated the ideas and points that she had told him he should add.

Oh well. No use complaining about it.
Nothing to it, but to do it. UGH!

Sick Days

I'm sick and it sucks. I didn't make it to Uni today because I felt like complete and utter garbage when I woke up up this morning.
I got out of bed, went to wash my face and then went Nope, and went to back to bed, where I proceeded to sleep for most of the morning.

My mom proceeded to wake me up hours later confused as to why I was still home.

I've been watching far too many YouTube videos and working on homework today (yay for "productivity").

I've also been in a weird semi-conscious state of being dizzy and uncertain of what is going on around me.
Stephanie started to listen to some song and I believed that it was saying "Gob Gob Gob Gobby Gob Gob Gob".

I was so confused.

I think I may go and take another nap. Either that or re-watch the other half of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. *yawns*

Live Strong -right?

So it's been in the news for awhile now, but everyone has their knickers in a knot about Lance Armstrong finally confessing to using performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France.
He has since been stripped of his title, banned from the sport, lost any and all endorsement and lastly is potentially going to have to pay a lot of money for all the trouble this has caused.

Personally, I think it is completely ridiculous how people are reacting to this situation and I feel bad for the guy.

So he lied. Lying innately is wrong, but if you think about it, is what he did really any worse than what any other person in the spotlight does?

Recently Beyonce was accused of lip syncing at the Presidential Inauguration, and people are defending her saying that it would have been a very difficult performance because it was outdoors, cold and windy.
Fair enough.

Look at any magazine, billboard, or advertisement. With very few exceptions, none of what you see is what the models actually look like, they have been photo-shopped, and made over to appear the way you see them.
We know that, this is old news, we've moved on.

Turn on the radio. Almost all music now a days has been auto-tuned, or electronic.
People obviously like this type of music or else it wouldn't be popular.

And finally, Al Gore.
Now it's no secret that I'm not overly fond of Al Gore, but that is besides the point.
A few years ago Al Gore came out with this little movie, you may have heard of it, it's called an Inconvenient Truth. In this movie he discusses the issue of global warming and how we need to fix it. He showed a lot of evidence to back up his claims and used a lot of statistics.
This included a lot of falsified or misleading graphs.
Did we scream and yell at him for lying to us? No. We gave him a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now you're probably thinking, but Ashley, Global Warming is a big issue. So what if he used misleading statistics to get his point across? He was doing it for a good cause!

Well yeah. He was.
But have you forgotten that Lance Armstrong has (had) his charity. Remember those LIVESTRONG bracelets everyone wore where the money went to cancer research.
He likely wouldn't have been able to start a charity like that if he wasn't famous, and he wouldn't have become famous if it wasn't for winning the Tour de France as many times as he did.

You could also point out that Al Gore is a politician, it's his job to not be 100% honest.
Armstrong was a cyclist. If you were to give all this medals to the next runner up who hasn't been caught using performance enhancing drugs too, you'd have to give it to the guy who came in TWENTY-FORTH place.

So, to paraphrase Chris Crocker "Leave Lance Armstrong alone!"
The issue is with cycling and society, and you can't put all the blame on Lance.

Writing on the Wall

Yesterday I saw a bunch of graffiti in the bathroom in the University.
It was different that typical bathroom scrawlings however, because instead of saying things like
"Mike was here" or "JK and WC 4eva" it was a conversation.

The first note written was a girl (I'm assuming everyone was a girl since it was the girl's bathroom...) who felt like a failure when she got anything less than an A and the pressure to be perfect was getting to her.

Someone for whatever reason seemed to be unimpressed with her woe and started to talk about how they had it worse, saying that they were pressured to do well in school, work three jobs and dealing with a family member who has cancer and that this overachiever had nothing to complain about.

Some people started to talk about how they too felt pressured to be perfect and that the stress of getting into faculties or grad schools was overwhelming and that people and universities have unrealistic expectations of students.

Other people started to talk about how they too had it worse that wanting to get straight As, talking about they do were working several jobs and family members, or in some cases they themselves were sick.

But the thing that caught my attention was the people getting mad at the people who were insulting the overachievers and saying their problems are insignificant compared to their problems.
This got me thinking.

It doesn't matter what causes the pain. You may think your pain is worse or more important than someone else's. But what it comes down to, is that you are suffering and whatever causes it is irrelevant because it is felt the same way. Suffering is a universal truth.

Baby It's Cold Outside

So in Winnipeg it is currently sitting at -29 degrees, which is cold enough as is, but it's even COLDER with the wind chill, -41! That means that frostbite on exposed skin may occur in less than 10 minutes!

I suppose that's the reason why my dad's car wouldn't start today, because he forgot to shut the garage last night and of course didn't plug in... Not so smart on his part.

I bundled up and waited for my bus this morning which was only 10 minutes late (as opposed to the 40 minutes late it was on Friday... yay!)

If I didn't have class and work today, it would be a perfect day to stay curled up under the covers and not leaving the house.

Winter Blues

As we are now half-way through January, I feel that I am now tired of winter, snow and especially the cold.
I love the winter in December, and I'm even okay with snow in November. After all, it's pre-Christmas. The winter wonderland only adds to my exuberant joy and cheer (which occasionally annoys people, but sorry, I'm not sorry).

However, once New Years has rolled around, and the Christmas decorations are taken down (or at least should be... I really need to get on that, oopsie!) I'm done with the snow and start to crave sunshine and warmth. Heck, I'd even be okay with some spring-time rain.

Snow I am done,
We've all had our fun.
But cold I am sick,
And the icy streets so slick.
No more shoveling,
The frozen fingers suffering.
I am so through,
Of my lips turning blue.
The bundling up tight,
The dark before night.
Winter you were nice,
But not without the Christmas lights.