Basically, I have scattered thoughts, and I find that in order to share those thoughts via a blog like this one, I need to spend time collecting those thoughts and putting them in sentence form. Like I’m doing now. So I’ve discovered tumblr, which doesn’t need that gathering part, it’s more like thoughtvomit. So tumblr is better.
P.S. here’s my new blog. www.alexandrahrahrah.tumblr.com
“you were saving the date, but you woke up too late, pull the covers down over your head.
you haven’t left your front door for a week, maybe more. tell me hey, what’s the news from your bed?”
I got a break of sorts today, in the form of a $650 Carleton Bursary. A sincere thank you to goes out to the family of Matthew Karlinsky who created the bursary in his memorial. If you’d like to help me send thanks, please go here. My student # is 100802906. I also made a few much needed phone calls, I prayed, and I reminded myself that everything’s gonna be alright. And that’s all I had to do.
<3
Alex.
So, pretty much anyone that knows me knows that I’d like to be French.No, not to just speak the language. I have this strange, strong desire to just be French.
Stereotypical, beret-wearing, cheese-and-bread eating, wrought-iron-railing-having French.
In conversation the other day I mentioned how much easier it would be if I could just have some kind of operation. Like the way small-boobed people might choose to have. It would make being French a whole lot easier. Clearly this is impossible, but I’m getting there.
Being almost fluent now, or at least a practicing almost-fluent person (aka I take a French course in school) I am a bit more almost-fluent than I used to be. I just need to master the art of not looking quizzical every time someone says something other than “Bonjour, comment ca va?” and going “umm….” every time I need to say an absent-from-my-vocabulary word like “Residence” (turns out it’s just résidence, of course) or at least every time I need to say an in-my-vocabulary-but-just-not-right-at-the-moment word like “floor.” Zut alors.
Anyways, I watched Ingmar Bergman’s Persona today and am quite ashamed to say I didn’t get it. And that’s going to prove to be a difficult fact when I try to write a paper on it next week. Argh. BUT bonus, the film made we want to learn Swedish, a tiny bit. It’s like a pretty form of German that sounds a bit like French. Possibilities abound, I tell you.
Back to the being French topic. I’ve been listening to Ariane Moffat because we did a cultural journal (something for my classe de Francais) on her and her song “Montreal” is amazing, je pense. I’ve also been listening to the Bishop Allen song “Rain” and find it the best song ever for waking up in the morning – it has now replaced “You Make My Dreams” by Hall and Oates as such. Click the link and listen to it.
One more thing that anyone who wants to be French but is clearly English would probably like, or actually just anyone in the whole world really, is the story of The Sixth Borough by Jonathan Safran Foer (who wrote Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close – both absolutely amazing books) and should also click the link to read it in its entirety. It is beautiful.
What I’ve sort of taken from that story is that we each have a special sixth borough type of place, with our love sitting in an un-openable container, but we know that it’s there. I think my sixth borough was once Ottawa, but the hooks have dug into the ground around my bed and one of these nights, while I’m dreaming, I’ll get to float like children and find out where it’s moved to.
I guess I came to this revelation today, and it might be a bit abrupt but not really, I guess. For the past few weeks and maybe months I’ve have these nomadic longings, urges to host a big yard sale and get rid of all the way-too-many physical objects that I’m attached to. I want to throw all of the most important possessions into a backpack and see where that backpack wants to fly first. I’ve made my commitments for now, school and work and AOII and life in general, but come the end of April I really am going to roam, and I couldn’t be more excited.
P.S. one more way I have brought French activity into my life lately – rediscovering my love for cheese bagels, simply cheese melted on a bagel, but c’est le meilleur casse-croute EVER.
fin.
Yikes. I’m going to have to be careful. I’m becoming introverted… Lately I’ve found myself avoiding eye contact in the cafeteria so that I don’t see anyone I have to sit with, which is ridiculous. But I’ve really been doing it, and then when I make it to that small table with not much other room just in case I sit and I eat my meal in “peace.” But really, what am I doing? I’ve never been that person who wants to sit alone, until now I guess. But I find myself wanting to sit alone in class as well, and go to the library by myself, and walk places by myself, etc.
But that’s all going away today. Because today I met Marianna.
I don’t know exactly if that’s how you spell her name, but she is exactly who I used to be not a few short months ago. I was eating in the dining hall “minding my own business” and almost finished my meal when Marianna walked right on by and I noticed her blue and purple and grey striped tights that I have an orange and pink and grey version of, and she kept walking, but we made quick eye contact.
A few minutes later, I suppose after she was finished getting food, I looked up when I heard the word, “Hi.” and saw Marianna had plopped herself right into the chair across from me. I said hi back to her and waited for an explanation. I didn’t have to wait long, she said ever-so-simply, “I saw you were sitting alone and I was going to sit alone so I figured we might as well sit alone together.” An instant smile spread across my face and I said, “That makes perfect sense.”
We introduced ourselves and spent the next 15 minutes talking about EVERYTHING, from the caf mac n cheese to what film studies is like to what linguistics is like to the bus system to midterms to the ‘wear purple’ day to residence life to municipal elections etc etc etc. It felt like I was talking to someone I had known forever, but also this exciting person I had just met. It turns out she’s from Ottawa but had bought an off-campus meal plan, and just wanted to meet someone new today.
So my goal this week/month/lifetime is just to be little bit more like what I used to be. Because I used to meet a lot of new and exciting people like Marianna. Many times in first year I would be standing in line in the dining hall or sitting in class and simply turn around and say, “Hi, I haven’t met you yet. I’m Alex.” and I made some good friends that way.
Thanks Marianna.
I have one exam left, and it’s one of those situations where you could skip the exam and still pass the course, so I’m basically done first year. And it might be breaking my heart.
I turn 18 in 29 hours and 10 minutes. I’m going to be another year older, something that my entire life I’ve loved. I’ve wanted to ‘grow up’ since the minute anyone told me I couldn’t do something, that I wasn’t old enough, that I would understand when I was older. But in the grand scheme of things I’m feeling a bit helpless. There are so many things I still can’t do, that I don’t understand. This ‘growing up’ business isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, and it’s not fair.
I can’t remember the last time I cried about anything but being homesick. But now I’m actually getting so worked up about a number. Age is just a number. But it’s not. Age is what happens when you’re not ready, what won’t happen when you most want it to. Age is a not just a number, a noun. Age is a verb. It’s a constant action you can’t stop.
I just don’t want this. It’s scary and exciting and complicated. And what if I want to watch all 7 seasons of Boy Meets World but I don’t have time? And what if I can never remember the words to that lullaby? And what if I wasn’t ready for that point in life where you stop getting excited about getting older?
What if I get my heart broken? What if I can’t find a job? What if I never have enough to move to Paris? What if I don’t want to do anything for the rest of my life? I’m not ready to be this far ahead.
I’m rambling.
This week has shown quite the change to my lifestyle. Not a morning has gone by in the last six where I wasn’t awake before 9 am, and most times I’d wake up before the alarm. This also means I’m crashing like every night around 11 PM like an 80 year old. Student lifestyle? Not your typical one, I guess.
But what occurred to me this morning was that I kind of miss my late night urges to write, or clean everything in sight, or how I would just sit there and think for hours. Random things, and I used to get nothing done during the day because I would think about how bored I was at night and save it to do it then, so I wouldn’t be bored.
But this morning I realized I haven’t stopped doing these things, the insatiable need to clean or write stuff down. Since 7, when I woke up, all I’ve wanted to do was blog. They’re just changing to morning things instead. It’s so strange to me but I like lying in bed, like I did this morning, for an hour thinking – it doesn’t matter what time it is really.
And the bonus is that by thinking in the morning after I wake up I kind of gathered little bits of what I dreamt last night, instead of at night trying to think of what I was going to dream about. It’s a nice way to gather your thoughts for the day.
Well, the cafeteria opens in ten minutes and I’m soooooo hungry. Our first attempt at food was a fail, it wasn’t open yet. Apparently the university doesn’t approve of our early morning lifestyle. Oh well.
Happy Saturday!
oh and p.s. I’m joining the Quidditch team at Carleton. First practice next saturday – SO EXCITED!
A new year starts tomorrow, and so here is my obligatory ending of a decade post. I have to say the only regret I have entering the 2010′s is that they won’t be able to make those super cool new year’s glasses anymore with the two zeros for eye holes. And I mean it, I’m legitimately upset about that fact. They could make them for this year, with the 1 down the nose and the zeros off center, but it’s just not the same.
So being in university and being seventeen, I’m supposed to be, and it wouldn’t be false to say that I am, filled with hopes and aspirations for the future, both near and distant. And being excited for the future has to do with making goals, and making goals has to do with new years resolutions. Since all these things tie together, I guess I oughta make some. Here goes.
Resolutions for 2010:
The turning of a decade is pretty amazing, in two year’s I’ll have spent two of them on this Earth, which is a pretty long time. I only hope to have many more, and to continuously have exciting hopes and aspirations for them.
I hope 2010 finds you with friends or family and healthy and safe. Mine will be spent with the village playing video games and watching the ball drop, like almost every year I’ve ever known. Sometimes its nice to have something constant.
Just you wait, in 10 more years I’ll have developed the 2020 glasses. You ALL better buy a pair.
Happy New Years!
Being my mother’s child, the need to write struck at 4:45 AM, lying in bed trying to sleep. Genetics, pfft.
A gigantic part of being a university student, at least, one that lives away from home, is exactly that – home.
I’ve already written about it, twice.
But today I’ll write about why we go away from home. And why it’s not exactly unbearable to come back.
A lot of us left because we felt trapped and treated like children, or our hometown was a mite too small, or our parents were of the helicopter variety, or all of these reasons combined.
A lot of us realized that we were wrong when we thought that that particular life was the worst in the entire world, and it would kill us sooner or later if we didn’t run off to university and start a new one. In reality that life just wasn’t for us, but most of us now see what the blinders of high school and a desire to be ‘grown up’ blocked from our perspectives. I’ve had late night conversations or chats over dinner about those things, the bits we couldn’t appreciate until now.
At home, you have the knowledge that no drunk 18 year old is going to kick down the door at the end of the hallway yelling “SPARTA!”, and that the neighbours won’t rip the Christmas decorations off your door (unless you have really sucky neighbours…). At both homes you now realize the fact that you just feel better after the room’s been vacuumed and maybe that’s why mom made you do the living room weekly, and the fact that most of the time when you were reminded that after November you generally need to put on a coat wasn’t just an old person being ridiculous, it’s the truth.
All along, they were just trying to tell me the truth.
I’m glad some of those blinders are gone. Some are probably still there – I refuse to believe the authorities in my life are actually crazy, so there must still be reasons I can’t always reason with them. Numerous times I’ve turned to M and said, “One day, when my mother comes to her senses, we can tell her these stories about our foolish youth, and her heart will keep beating.”
So for now, I’m home and safe and warm in my old bedding in my old room, and surrounded by people I love and that love me back. Who doesn’t love the holidays?
I’m about to embark upon my fourth movie today, this is exactly what I love doing with my time. Sure, I should probably shower and put on clean clothes but by now it’s the end of the day anyway and that’s what mornings are for.
Last night I tried to watch Pan’s Labyrinth but fell asleep, so I’m gonna go finish that.
My list of movies for this week includes:
Sleepless in Seattle
Soylent Green
The Fox and the Hound
Anastasia
28 Days Later
But I figured I’d hit this blog up first with a new post.
My first set of university exams (this being a blog about university life) went surprisingly well – however, there were only two of them and they were both essay writing, which I can be half decent at if the content is something easily B-S-able (like Political Science…it’s like the definition of B-S-able).
Then I saw Law Abiding Citizen, which was a really good movie actually, very tense. On Saturday I went to the Holiday Skate put on by the university with a friend who used to be an ice dancer and got to do some dance moves and even a lift on skates! An added bonus: free beaver tails (a deliciously deep-fried cinnamon coated pastry)!
Also on Saturday I got to catch the Torch Relay at Parliament Hill and it was AMAZING. I never knew how much I loved living here until I could feel the Canadian spirit pumping in my blood, right down to my frozen toes.
And it makes me really happy that we’re bonding with the ‘other half’ of the floor – something it’s been hard to do down here only three rooms from the end. The fact that there were too many of us at dinner in the dining hall today to fit at one table alone makes my heart smile.
I hope the Holiday season is reaching you all safe and warm! <3
So the other day I got an assignment from the school paper – go to this chique little downtown gallery and take pictures of pictures, and some pictures of people looking at pictures, and you might want to dress up.
Can you say, “RIGHT UP MY ALLEY!” ?
So I recruited M, who later ended up having to work, and K across the hall, and told them we were getting sophisticated and swanky on a Friday evening, and later on T from down the hall decided to join us – sporting a sweeeet leather tie.
We took the bus and I’m glad I stuck with flats because of the four block walk from the downtown stop, and with pinned up bangs and a high waisted skirt and Beatrice, my lovable but rather high-class camera I felt pretty stellar and mature – what other seventeen year olds spend their Fridays covering stories about nude photos in spiffy downtown (and might I add French) art galleries?
Another plus of doing a photo-story, I got to meet with the artist who was very nice and very excited to be in the web-edition of the newspaper coming out next week. He also gave me some inside info about how the shots were taken to make them look like they did – with a dark room, a lot of black velvet, and three old-school 70′s spotlights. Pretty impressive. I also discovered that his favourite piece was MY favourite too. He was a very gracious host and I’d recommend his art to anyone.
Here’s just a bit of the beauty I saw last night:
