20 Questions

It's a meme! My brother-in-law did this one, and I hadn't blogged in AGES so yeah, I did this, with Russell and Emily (my friend Emily, not my sister Emily) who are sitting in my living room with me. We're playing catch with a scarf stuffed into a glove. And they humoured me. So here ya go.


1. She is sitting in front of the TV. What is on the screen?

Emily: "I'm gonna go with Phantom of the Opera"
Russell: "That president show that I can't remember...what's it called, oh yeah, The West Wing?"
(Both good answers - but Russell's right, I've been watching Season One of The West Wing lately.)

2. You’re out to eat; what kind of dressing does she get on her salad?

Emily: "Depends on what kind of salad she's getting."
Russell: "I have no idea."
(Yeah, I often get the house salad with whatever dressing it comes with. For green salad, I'll usually get ranch.)

3. What’s one food she doesn’t like?

Emily: "Calamari"
Russell: "Squid." (I went "ugh" when he said this - so true!)

4. You go out to eat and have a drink. What does she order?

Emily: "Martini" (cosmo or girly-type mixed one, she qualified -yup!)
Russell: "White wine" (yup.)

5. Where did she go to high school?

Emily: "The Christian school." (yup!)
Russell: "I didn't know you then!"

6. What size shoe does she wear?

Emily: "A wonderful and stylish sized shoe?"
Russell: "10...men's or women's...both?" (10 men's, 12 women's.)

7. If she was to collect anything, what would it be?

Emily: "Either friends or horses."
Russell: "Collect horses...that sounds expensive. Umm...gloves? Movies? Febreeze? Teddybears?" (He's looking around my shelves haha!)

8. What is her favourite type of sandwich?

Emiy: "Panini from Safeway." (turkey and havarti...mmm) When I said it was from Earl's, she got it right - the chicken and baked brie ciabatta.
Russell: "..."

9. What would this person eat every day if she could?
Emily: Risotto
Russell: Ice cream
(Comfort food anyone? heh.)

10. What is her favourite cereal?

Emily: Cheerios! (She said this very cheerfully.)
Russell: Lucky Charms.
(Both true - Cheerios is my regular cereal and Lucky Charms are a rare guilty pleasure)

11. What would she never wear?

Emily: "A muumuu."
Russell: "A tuxedo"
(Haha yeah.)

12. What is her favorite sports team?

Emily: "The Canucks"
Russell: "OBviously!"
(The only one I like)

13. Who did she vote for?

Emily: "NDP"
Russell: "Green party"

(In the federal election, I actually voted liberal)

14. Who is her best friend?

Emily: "Julio Iglesias." (She might have been attacked by a fit of the giggles) "I'd like to think I'm a pretty good friend?" (Tis true. Tis her!)
Russell: "Your mom" (He said this in the joke voice, but yeah, Mum is also definitely one of my best friends!)


15. What is something you do that she wishes you wouldn’t do?

Emily: "Like, shirking on comments" (as in demurring compliments - drives me nuts! haha!)
Russell: "You probably wish I didn't say nothing so much." (Sometimes words have to be pried out of him with a crowbar!)

Added: I asked, what do *I* do that you wish I wouldn't?

Russell: LISTEN TO COUNTRY!!"
Emily: "I wish you weren't sad and that you had sunny things to talk about."

16. What is her heritage?

Emily: "Scottish, English..."
Russell: "Are you English, by chance?"
(Both correct, and said with accents haha!)


17. You bake her a cake for her birthday; what kind of cake?

Emily: "Probably a black forest cheesecake" (whoa. awesome!)
Russell: "*I* bake *you* a cake? That's a scary thought. Probably a pre-made mix, and I'd get my mom to help. Chocolate?"


18. Did she play sports in high school?

Russell: "You played volleyball, I think."
Emily: "I'm gonna agree with Russell."

(In later elementary school, yes. By the time I hit high school I'd already been convinced that I wasn't the right "type" for any of that.)

19. What could she spend hours doing?

Emily: "Riding horses, taking pictures, eating good food and singing." (I think I'd be really full haha!)
Russell: "You could spend hours of Facebook, because I've seen you!" (Hey, that means you're on too! :P )
(I was really surprised that neither of them said reading, but these are all good!)

20. What is one unique talent she has?

Emily: "You have the biggest and most loving heart. It's cheesy but it's true." (Not really a talent, but I'll take it heh.)
Russell: "Songwriting." True enough :)

Losing It

Need a refresher of vision. Need a brain trade-in. Remember why I'm doing this...remember that I *can* do this. End-of-semester meltdown...pretty common.
Three papers, one week. (Well, five days, at this point.)
Not enough brain left for coherent sentences, apparently. At least need to get a decent outline done tonight before sleeping or reading anything fun.
Blah! I thought getting out of town last weekend would help with this, but oddly enough I still have all the problems I left behind. Not that I even have that many problems right now - just assignments :P
Ahh, I can do it. Just gotta keep my nose to the grindstone and all that crap heh. Back to it!

The Beast

I had to fire up my old computer today to work on some Windows-based programs for school that I couldn't do on my pretty little MacBook. I had put all the info in using Open Office (yay freeware!) but wanted to use Power Point for all the transitions and such to make sure they'd all go smoothly on the computer at school.
It really amused me to fire this thing up (I'm using it to write this blog post) because, I kid you not, the boot up sounds just like an airplane taking off. And as long as we're using transportation metaphors, let me also say it's really more of a boat anchor than anything else ;0) I shouldn't complain of course, I think it's still faster than Grampy's old machine!
And that's the thing...the important part. I really am grateful. God willing, if I keep on track I will graduate next May. It's been damn hard, and there's struggles still to come, I know, but there's that light at the end of the tunnel and I'm beginning to hope it isn't an oncoming freight train.

What Dreams May Come

I'm having trouble sleeping tonight. I think I'm avoiding it on some level, because I keep having the same nightmare. At least, I think it's the same one. I wake up remembering only that someone is mad at me. I know who it is; I dream that this person's mad at me all the time. I've even dreamt that they physically attacked me - and the virulent hatred expressed therein woke me up feeling stained and distressed.
I wish I knew why I keep having dreams along these lines. I hate them! It's so disturbing. This person isn't really even part of my life anymore, and the dreams don't seem to be tied to the rare occasions when I see them.
I read about all sorts of possible interpretations of dreams in my textbooks. God only knows what Freud would say. (I hate most of his theories, but maybe that's just transference, or projection, or whatever the heck it would be. I should know. It may well be on my next midterm.) I've done everything I can to resolve any conflict that might have been in that relationship. I guess I don't feel like there's any closure? But I don't know how to obtain that. I don't know what else to think, to pray. I don't know what to do that I haven't done. Maybe this bit of catharsis will help. Maybe I can get a whole four hours of sleep before it's time to get up again. Maybe I'll sleep so badly, I won't hit REM and won't have to worry about bad dreams ;-)

It's aliiiive...

Oh, hi guys. I haven't had anything to write about that wasn't depressing as all get out, so things have been a little quiet around here. So, I'm stealing a couple questions away from a BlogFriend named Beth and am going to answer those so you have something to read ;)

1. Remember the movie Brewster's Millions? That happens to you, except on a smaller scale. You receive a million dollars that you must spend in 30 days. However, you cannot have any assets to show for the money at the end of the month (and you can't buy something and then destroy it), you cannot waste the money, you cannot give it away, and you cannot tell anyone what you are doing. How do you ditch the dough in a month or less?
Travel, travel, and travel some more! Beignets and jazz in New Orleans and and jaunt to Paris, to London, Africa, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Japan, back to France for some beach time in the south...I'd probably run out of money pretty quickly actually!

2. You are locked in a toy store overnight, with no way out until it reopens in the morning. What do you play with all night?
Remote control helicopters and giant floor pianos, music boxes and karaoke machines...oh are there go-karts? Cuz I'm all over that ;-)

3. If you could have a dinner party with any three famous people, living or dead, you would be wasting your supernatural powers on hosting dinner parties. What would you do instead?
Solve world hunger (and thirst) and AIDS and cancer...duh :P If it's still keeping the people...Jesus, Obama, aaand...umm... da Vinci.

4. What's the best thing since sliced bread? Now, sliced bread ain't all that impressive, so what's the best mediocre, hum-drum improvement or advancement that has made modern life just ever so slightly more convenient for humanity, along the lines of saving yourself five seconds every time you want a piece of bread.
I like my microwave :P


5. What's your best quality? The response to this question must be a simple declarative statement. You may elaborate on that statement, provided that your elaboration does not include the words "but," "however," or "although," or any other hedging, equivocating, back-sliding, gerrymandering (which is not at all appropriate in this context, but I think it should be, don't you?) or any other type of backing down from the simple declarative statement with which you began your response.
I am seriously, fiercely loyal, and I like that about me :)

Peter and Wendy

I think I might really love this book. When trying to get some homework done at Granny and Grampy's earlier this month, I searched out one of their copies and then Grampy and I had a bit of fun finding out just how much an early 1911 edition would be worth. (Answer: Wow.)
I read it to Granny in the hospital, and we both enjoyed that, I think. (Though I felt a bit self-conscious reading the passages about the "redskins" with one of Granny's fellow patients being a native man!)
Anyway, just now going through it for school again and trying to write an essay on the male and female roles throughout (Answer: men are big babies and women their mothers.) I was reading over movie quotes from Finding Neverland (which I loved before I'd read the book) and found this line:

Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he's *just* a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, "He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man", or "That's not a diamond, it's just a rock." Just.

It made me smile. And even more so, what I found in the front of my marked-up version of the tale that I'm using for references and the like:

In 1929 J.M. Barrie donated all rights in peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. In 1987, fifty years after Barrie's death, copyright expired under UK law. However, the following year a unique Act of Parliament restored royalty income from all versions of Peter Pan to the Hospital, which means that the very sick children there will continue to benefit from J. M. Barrie's generous gift for as long as the hospital exists.

If only for that, I would love this book - for what it inspires in our hearts and imaginations. After all, all it takes is hope and trust, and a little bit of pixie dust!

Copycat for Content

Music Game

Step 1: Put your music player on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (remember to write down the name of the song for yourself before you move to the next one!)
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly (No lyric hunting! That is cheating!)


1. So there goes my life, passing by with every exit sign...
2. Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation... Phantom of the Opera - Music of the Night (Robyn, I am so glad I don't have to disown you lol!)
3. The other day, I got in a fight...
4. Hello, I've waited here for you
5. If you want a lover, I'll do anything you ask me to...
6. As he came into the window, it was the sound of a crescendo...
7. What good is the scheming, the planning and dreaming...
8. There are times when I look above and beyond... Janet Jackson - Together Again (Nice job, Robyn!)
9. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas... (Durrr) The classic - Bing Crosby - White Christmas
10. I don't buy the lines in magazines that tell me what I've gotta be...
11. This one's for all you girls about thirteen... Martina McBride - This One's for the Girls
12. Must have thought I was so strong...
13. Why do we do the things we do, how can we sing...
14. Opened my eyes this morning with a smile on my face... Rascal Flatts - Breakaway
15. Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth...
16. One step closer to the sea wall...
17. When the train rolls by, I'm gonna be ready this time... Dixie Chicks - Ready to Run
18. Panis angelicus fit panis hominum...
19. Everybody took everything that they could and they made a little town...
20. Sometimes it's a pair of old faded denim I know... Sugarland - Wishing (Good job, Terry! I love this song...and the whole album basically!)
21. There's a ship out on the ocean, at the mercy of the sea... Garth Brooks - When You Come Back to Me Again
22. Every sun and moon and star, all declaring who You are...
23. If shame had a face, I think it would kind of look like mine... Good job Constance!
24. Billy Ray was a preacher's son... Son of a Preacher Man - I'll give credit to Tesa and Constance, but the version I have is actually Etta James!
25. Every day is a journal page, every man holds a quill and ink...


Have at 'er! :)