And popsicles in summer.

I had a very lazy Tuesday. I woke up early, had a grilled cheese sandwich for brunch (that's what I subsist on in the summer), and then spent the afternoon reading an entire book.

The book was "Without A Map" by Meredith Hall and it was good. It's the memoir of a woman who got pregnant when she was sixteen years old in 1965. She was sent away by her family, shunned by her community, and forced to give up her baby. Her book discussed how this affected her life. Anyway her mother is diagnosed with MS, and reading about her mother's illness made a bit of an emotional afternoon for me.

This evening, I got to see Neko Case play at Massey Hall and it was a great show. The opener, whose name I didn't catch but thanks to the internet I discovered it was Jason Lytle who used be in Grandaddy, whom I vaguely remember from the 90s. Anyway, he and his band were pretty enjoyable.

Neko was amazing! Even though I just saw her a couple months ago, it was completely work seeing her again. I loved every song, of course, but the ones that stood out for me were "Lady Pilot" and "Magpie to the Morning" because I am pretty sure she didn't play those last time. I also loved Neko's red shoes. And she noted that she was hoping she'd miss out on Toronto's garbage strike, but she thought it was pretty clean for a garbage strike. "Even your garbage strikes are nice!" she said.

I also splurged on a really cool Neko poster. When I get it framed and on my wall I'll post a picture.

Anyway, I'll end with a couple random points:

- Miss Ash posted about pet peeves and I just remembered one of mine: when companies make their shampoo and conditioner bottles very similar. I am pretty much incapacitated most mornings, and if they are difficult to tell apart it results in me wasting conditioner and getting grumpy and swearing in the shower.

- But swearing is good for you! Woot!

- Also, I'm getting a lot of hits on my blog from people who are searching "bachelorette ed green shorts". LOL

Enjoy your Wednesdays everyone!

Bachelorette Post #8

However, a brief snippet of Christy's life first. Saturday's wedding went very well. I think I totally rocked the mike as MC (ha-ha). People seemed to find me funny, and the Madrika who conducted the ceremony (it was a Jewish wedding) seemed to really find me funny because she raved about me twice. I also managed to convince people to run around like they were contestants on the Price Is Right, and really enjoyed seeing two wonderful friends get married. It was also great to have the opportunity to catch up with some of my favourite people in the world.

Anyway, as the Flight of the Conchords song goes, it's business time. That is, let's get to this episode of The Bachelorette. Oh, and the previews keep showing that someone has problems with the type of business that that FoC song actually refers to.

Off to Hawaii Jillian and the three remaining dudes go. She has some alone time to write “J + ?” in the sand. This is my problem too, but I don’t have a show to help me find the answer.

First up is Kiptyn. And they’re off on some exciting activities, while the rest of us shmucks are stuck going for coffee, dinner, drinks, movies, etc. for our dates. Too bad we all can’t score a reality show.

Oh and they come up with all sorts of wise relationship metaphors as they do a crazy rope course.

From watching the Bachelorette with me, Mathew has become highly sensitive to Jillian’s squeals and likens them to nails on a chalkboard.

She and Kiptyn have a dinner where they talk about leaps of faith and blah, blah. Then, they decide to use the same room card. And, there are no bedroom problems that we know of.

Second up is Reid. We miss the beginning of their helicopter ride because we are making frozen yogurt sundaes. Yum. Anyway, more talk about marriage, and expressing feelings, and such. Quite frankly, I was more interested in my sundae. (Not to diss the show, but it was a tasty sundae.)

However, apparently Jillian feels the way about Reid as I did about the sundae: head over heels. Now she’s talking about him moving to Vancouver because it’s easier for her. Honey, trust me it’s not easy for anyone to immigrate to another country. It’s not liking changing provinces, dear.

Mathew says that Reid must feel hot in that pressure cooker, considering all of the questions.

Here comes the fantasy suite card. I wonder if the host, Chris Harrison, actually handwrites those things himself, ha-ha. They decide to take it. She’s being quite the strumpet this episode she is.

And then we see them in the bathtub together. I think there’s such a thing as showing the audience too much. And what are their mothers going to say?

Next up is Ed. Lots of making out. She’s worried that she hasn’t met his family. Turns out his family called him Richie growing up. Some swimming. And now: surprise! He flew out his parents for her to meet. Mathew thinks this is against show rules, I point out that I don’t think the show *has* rules.

Mathew finds that this episode longer than usual. Then he makes fun of Ed’s green shorts, which I point out were his swim trunks.

They go to meet Ed’s parents. And after a lot of talking, awww, shucks, another pair of parents adore her.

And now it’s fantasy suite time! And a lot of talk. And now more making out. And talk about how much they like each other and how they are falling for each other.

Okay, now I have to watching them massaging oil into each other. TOO MUCH!

And now… the moment we’ve been waiting for… they have some problems. Maybe it’s the fact there are cameras and people everywhere???

Now it’s time for Jillian to talk about all of her feelings with the host. Dude’s got the easiest job ever.

She’s watching individualized videos from each of them. This is such a game show.

Now it’s rose ceremony time. Who is going? Mathew and I both say not Ed, despite bedroom problems. Mathew calls Reid to go because he seems farthest away from proposal, but I call Kiptyn because I think there is less chemistry between Jillian and Kiptyn than Jillian and Reid.

First off, Jillian wants to talk to Ed alone about the whole… well, bedroom thing.

Hmm, she gave the rose to Kiptyn. I’m wrong. And Ed gets second rose. Poor Reid has to go home. Awww. Now she tells him that she’s just not sure he’s in the same place as her. Now he’s all worried he didn’t open up soon enough. Now they have to say goodbye. He’s driven off in a limo, she sits on a bench and cries.

So next week they are changing Hawaiian islands, and we also get an exciting reunion show where all of our favourite characters such as Foot Fetish Tanner, Angry David, and Weasely Wes return.

Then in two weeks, it’s done. Oh, and I *will* be here for it. Phew!!

I took the train back; back to where I came from.

Yesterday I took the train home to good ol' St. Ratford. I love taking the train home in the early evening in summer because it means daylight. Taking a train in the darkness is a little bit boring because trains don't follow roads, so it can be a very dark journey and you don't see much. Which means that you can be productive and do some knitting, reading, napping, marking, or whatever strikes your fancy. However, it leaves very little opportunity for gazing out the window and daydreaming, which is what I'm all about.

Last night's train was great for the gazing and daydreaming. I saw all kinds of nifty things including scads of bright orange tiger lilies by the tracks, rivers, people fishing in the rivers, random backyards, dilapidated barns, a deer hopping through a meadow, cute little towns, baseball games in progress, old churches, and a hot air balloon.

Anyway, I'm in town for the wedding of my friend Sandra. My friend Sandra is one of the members of my group of pals from high school. We call ourselves "The Group of Nine" because well, there are nine of us, and we needed some thing to call our little motley crew and couldn't come up with something better. Anyway, we've been out of high school for eleven years now, yet we've still kept in really close touch. The internet has helped: we have our own little facebook group is the grown-up virtual version of our cafeteria table. It was the cafeteria where friendships were forged, strengthened, and many of our inside jokes began.

The nine of us actually haven't been together in the same room since the year 2000 though. We always have an annual Christmas gathering, and there have been some other weddings, but calamity (or schedule conflicts) tends to befall one of the members, and we end up with a family portrait with eight or less. We do however draw their face on a piece of paper and hold it up in their memory.

The last time we were together was when we *all* met Sandra's-then-boyfriend-now-husband Jason. So I think it's befitting that it takes them getting married for the nine of us to make it together again.

But wait, didn't I just call Jason Sandra's husband and they are getting married tomorrow? It's true - they actually got married in October. Jason is from the US, and Sandra wants to live with him after their (July 11th) wedding, so they had to get married early so that could happen because of the crazy red-tape that faces a Canadian marrying an American. So remember this when/if you watch that silly movie The Proposal, or are watching the Canadian Bachelorette choose her American suitor. Oh Jillian dear, you might not get to the altar as soon as you'd like I'm afraid.

Anyway, I get to be the emcee of the shabang tomorrow, so I'm at a coffee shop working on my schtick. It's good that I've started writing this post, because I feel that I've gotten my verbal juices flowing.

And, if my witty observations don't wow them, the cute new shoes and dress I got to wear will! It's always good to have fashion to fall back on.

(Belated) Bachelorette Post #7

Last night I made social plans on Bachelorette night. Luckily, I had a super-fun time, so it was completely worth missing the show. Of course, I taped it as I promised, but I’m only getting around to watching it now ‘cuz I spent my day watching the Michael Jackson memorial and talking on the phone.

It’s a sub-average chilly day today, so perfect for staying in, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, and watching TV. I decided that I might as well tune into the MJ memorial because I was very curious to see it. My verdict: it was very tasteful, respectful, had some great performances and well… necessary. MJ was a star in a different time: his music was able to reach everybody, which I don’t think happens at all anymore in our segmented-internet-twittering society. I grew up on MJ. I am pretty sure that there is no contemporary artist that bridges so many gaps across age, race, nationality, etc. He was a great artist, a controversial figure, but still he managed to touch everyone with the cautionary tale that his life seemed to be. Yeah, there has been too much media coverage, as there is with any celebrity-related story or political scandal these days, but the memorial was completely appropriate for an entertainer of MJ’s stature, which we won’t see again and the fact that so many people have been entranced by this story proves to me that a good-bye was needed. When his little daughter spoke at the end, I cried. Most of all, I am sorry for his children’s and his family’s loss. At the end of the day, he was loved, and anyone who was loved deserves to be remembered.

ANYWAY, onto the Bachelorette on tape!

The show opens with a review of Jillian’s feelings for the final four (all of whom she’s crazy about), and with the ultimate question: “Will Jillian finally get rid of Wes?”

They are in Spain now. This show has a nasty carbon-footprint, eh? Each rejected bachelor should have to plant trees.

First up: Kiptyn. He says a proposal is far-off at this point. Jillian says she’s here to get engaged. Huh. Maybe some staged flamenco dancing will fix this philosophical rift.

Moped ride, kids talk, eating escargot, talk, talk, talk. Will they spend the night together? She rejects the idea because she’s not ready yet. But they do go “cuddle”.

Second: Reid. They go for a picnic. Oooooooooh, Jillian says “If Reid and I moved to Spain, I’d be so svelte and skinny because we couldn’t order food.” Like she’s not now? C’mon!

Talk, talk, talk. Reid has problems opening up. Yawn.

Dinner. More talk. Will they spend the night together? Declined again. Good girl, though. Four guys is too many.

Note: It’s so nice to fast-forward through “coming up next…” and commercials.

Third: Mr. Leave-Girl-for-Job-then-Return Ed. He couldn’t stop thinking about her when he returned back apparently. Now, they’ll talk alllllllll about it during a carriage-ride. Then they talk more and make out a lot. In a fountain even.

They walk into an old, beautiful building. Ed says “this place is 5000 years old.” Jillian: “Really?” Ed: “No.” Jillian: “I’m so gullible.” YEESH.

Now kid talk. He’s ready to have kids in 2-3 years. That’s what she likes to hear. Will she spend the night together? She declines, especially because she’s afraid he’ll leave again. But he says he’d like more time with him… she bites her nails. They go to the fantasy suite to “hang out”. HMMMMM. They’re going to sleep in their clothes and snuggle.

Fourth: Weasely Wes. He feels at home in Spain ‘cuz apparently one of his songs was #1 in Mexico. Eye-roll. Just leave him in Spain, I say. Maybe they'll like him.

Bike ride time. Then talk talk talk. Wes says all kinds of sweet nothings, but sits far apart from her and she feels no romance. Some more awkward moments, then Jillian calls it an afternoon.

Dinner time. Time for her to bring up the girlfriend thing. No girlfriend. What about the career? If he was here to sell records, he’d be gone. Why isn’t he showing her affection? More lame shifty answers. Oh, he’s sooooo not getting a fantasy sweet.

She brings up Laurel. He slips up and calls her his “girlfriend… I mean, ex-girlfriend.” Then the note about the fantasy suite is delivered with perfect timing. LOL He says “I think we should.” She puts him in a cab, but they’re still going to have a rose ceremony.

Kiptyn: “If it’s me boys, keep it real.” Wes “if it’s me, know I’ll be back home having lots of sex.” Poor Rilo wakes up when I scream. EWWWW. There goes any snack I plan on having. What an ASS. The rest should gang up on him and beat him to a pulp. Defend your woman boys!!!

Here she is. Call him out. Tell him off! C’mon Jillian! Don’t be nice to him!

First rose: Ed. Second rose: Reid. Wes whispers congratulations to Kiptyn. Third rose for him, of course. Now what’s going to go down?? Ahhh. I hope she tells the mofo off. She asks to walk him out. She holds his hand! I’d kick him. Or, better yet, I’d order a milkshake, have it delivered, and dump it on his head.

As if he gets a limo and that other nice dude was left on the tracks? And the scum points out he’s the first guy to make it to the final four with a girlfriend?? Then he disses the other dudes. I fucking hate him. I wonder if Jillian’s going to see his footage?

Awww, I like the other three. I call Ed for the win though.

Next week: They’re going to Hawaii. The carbon footprint gets worse. And they say the finale's in three weeks? Oh no! I'm going to be away. Sigh. I guess I'll find out the answer super late.

Up late reading & programming note

One thing I love about summer vacation is that I can stay up really late (3:38 am) finishing a book that I know that I won't be able to sleep soundly until I've finished.

This is the book:



Here's a great snippet from the Publisher that describes the book very succinctly: "January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name."

If you need a lovely summer read, read it. It's a book entirely written in letters but done oh-so-well. It took me about 40 pages to get into, but once I was into it, I couldn't put it down.

It's a great post-WWII story. Don't you find there are so many great novels/memoirs written about that period? There are little bits of this book that show the kindness of humanity, even when humanity has sunk to its absolute lowest point.

It makes me want to visit the English Channel Island of Guernsey. Of course, I looked at maps of the island, the wikipedia entry, and the tourism site as I was reading the book. How people found out about random topics they didn't know existed before the existence of the internet, I'll never know. Well, they have to wait until the library was open the next day, I suppose. Man, I love immediacy.

Oh, and this book has the best last sentence of any book that I can recall. I won't write it here, 'cuz it will ruin the ending if you decide to read it.

Which you should.

It's also one of those books that was so highly enjoyable that I think about how I can ever read another book after enjoying this one so thoroughly. Argh, I shouldn't have read it so quickly, but I had to. I have a tonne of books to be read, but I think I'm going to read Julia Child's memoir next.

Oh, and programming note: my usual Bachelorette post will be delayed this week 'cuz I have social plans, so I'll set my VCR (I'm so ghetto), watch, then post as soon as I can.

You shine a light.

Friday of my first week off is fast approaching, and today I thought "thank goodness it's not March Break, 'cuz my holiday would be almost over". I usually find that the first week of summer vacation is rather unproductive in that I have to decompress from the school year and that pace of life. I had lofty plans like going to some a.m. yoga classes, but, well, sleeping in was too attractive an option.

So what have I been up to?

a) Shopping - I have two weddings to go to this summer, so I found a new dress and shoes for those. Luckily, they are weddings with entirely groups, so I can get away with wearing the same dress twice. Anyway, dress shopping can be stressful, but I managed to find an awesome dress at the second store I went to. Thank goodness.

b) Reading - I haven't read too much yet, but I did finish one book which is like the first book I've finished in a month. My brain seriously goes to jelly in June. Anyway, one of these days I'm going to make a pile of all of my unread books and make it a goal to get through them by the end of the summer.

c) Socializing - I love having time to hang out with people. I've spent this week chilling with fellow teachers, since we're all in the same position of having free afternoons. Today I had brunch with a couple of friends from work, then spent the afternoon chilling in a coffee shop with one. I love lazy days.

d) Constantines! - Yesterday, I caught the Cons playing a free show at the Harbourfront for Canada Day. They are a great live band, and near the end of the show, the fireworks at Ontario Place started to go off. So everyone turned away from the stage and watched the fireworks, but fireworks to the Cons' song "Shine a Light" are pretty awesome. Anyway, it was a great time, and only rained a little.

Here's a Cons video that I love:


Oh, and here's a picture of the CN Tower all lit up for Canada Day:


So yah, week one has been good. I really gotta do some heavy duty summer cleaning now that I'm sufficiently (or maybe overly?) relaxed and make a to-do list of things like getting my haircut, making a dentist appointment, getting some stuff ready for my trip, etc.

Also, just so you all know, there's a city workers' strike here in the city and it's pretty gross. There is no garbage pickup, so the city's decided to have people bring their trash to a few parks. Ewwww. Luckily I don't live near these parks but I feel sorry for the people who do. And why do these garbage strikes always happen in the summer?

Well, I don't like ending on that stinky note, but I have nothing more to say. Ciao!

True patriot love, a-la-la-la-la.

Listening to this song on heavy rotation is my Canada Day tradition. Sir Plaskett (I believe he should be knighted for his immense talent) is so cute in this one!



Happy Canada Day kids!

ps I'll blog about my life one of these days soon. Basically it involves relaxing, visiting, shopping, looking forward to trips, and iced coffee.

Bachelorette Post #6

Welcome to another weekly installment of my comments whilst watching The Bachelorette. This week it’s just me and Rilo, as Becca T is at her cottage, and Mathew is off somewhere. Makes it easier to focus on the show without constantly having to tell people to go get their own ice cream, LOL. I’m a horrible hostess once you’ve made it to the upper echelons of my friend list.

Anyway, Jillian is off to meet the families of the remaining five dudes. Must be fun knowing that in the end of this, she’s going to piss off 80% of the people from these visits.


First visit – Reid in Philly: She greets with a squeal. Dude greets her with a coffee ready. Bonus points for that. Hmmm, Philly looks nice. I’d go there some day if there was a concert there or something.

Nice family house. I wonder what would happen if someone’s family digs were totally dumpy. I guess they wouldn’t be allowed on the show.

Second Visit – Mike in ?: Turns out he’s a twin. She greets dude with a squeal. A little family chit chat. Now, the twins are going to do a switcharoo. That’s going to appease her concerns about his age, that’s for sure. Oh she notices right away. I’m surprised.

More talk about marriage and kids and family and the sister shows up from Australia.

Meeting all of these families would be nerve-wracking, eh?

Third Visit – Kiptyn in San Diego – When she talks about Kiptyn, I think he’s her fave. I pick him to win, even though I still like Mike the best.

I don’t like her outfit. The light blue dress just looks like a nurse’s uniform or something, and I don’t think the jacket really goes with the dress.

Aw, shucks, yet another family likes her.

And the visit ends with a little moment in the hot tub.

Fourth Visit – Jesse in Carmel Valley, CA: I find Jesse unattractive, but he *does* have a winery. So…

Hmmm, this seems to be the rockiest go so far. Jesse apparently hasn’t “opened up” enough yet. Rawbean, I’m unsure if you will be winning that wine of yours.

Oooh, I don’t think his brother describing him as an “emotional ice cube” is going to help anything.

Oh wow, look at the family rocking out. And aw, shucks, yet another family thinks things are going in the right direction. And end with kissing scene.

Fifth visit – Weasly Wes in Austin Texas: (Note: I love Austin. Wes does not deserve to be there.)

Ahh, another greeting squeal from Jillian.

And Wes introduces him to his second family: his band. Then they perform Wes’s watered-down whiny country shlock music. Puke.

And Jake flies in wearing his Pilot’s uniform to tell Jillian about Wes’s fuckwittery! Yes!

Oooh, Jake shows up to tell Jillian that Wes has a girlfriend. Named Laurel. Whooooa. And Jake says that Wes will say that Laurel is just a girl from the past. Lying liar! Argh!

And now she’s going to bust him. Well, not really. It seems like she’s falling for the “she’s my ex-gf and we’re still friends” bullshit. Oh, now it’s going to be Wes vs. Jake; mano e mano. LOL I think that Wes is trying to pull out the grade 2 “she’s a girl AND she’s my friend” definition of girlfriend. They keep arguing. Jillian says she needs time to think things through. Wes sits there smugly. Jake goes and cries.

So after all this she decides to go meet his family to see if she can trust him. Mathew (who just showed up) thinks that his family (step-mom and three sisters) is in on it. And then she decides that it’s a new beginning for them and that she trusts him. Argh. Why are women so stupid about men sometimes?

OMG and when you think things can’t get more emotional, then ED shows up!!! (Ed left the show a couple of weeks ago because of his job.)

And it’s rose ceremony time. Two are going home. I say Jesse and Wes.

The rest of the dudes are shocked when Ed comes back.

Rose time: it’s Reid, then Kiptyn, then Ed (!), then… Wes !?!?! WTF Jillian? You take questionable bad-boy over fun goofy Mike who’s all about the marriage and the children which is what you claim to be. Argh!

But I called Jesse. Sorry Rawbean. You don’t win your office pool. :(

Awwww, and Mike is gracious in defeat. Oh, he’s young, and would have married her in a heartbeat and cute and goofy. Awwww, this is so sad. And she keeps Wes. Grrrrrrr…

Oh Mike, you say you were probably in love with her, but you were probably just in love with the *idea* of her. (Mathew’s all like: Christy you should email him.)

And now it’s scenes from the next time. They are off to Spain! And it looks like Wes slips up on his own lies. Oooh, I can’t wait!

Hey unravellin' traveller, where you travellin' to?

Yesterday I realized that in the past three weeks I've been to a bachelorette party, two birthday parties, a baby shower, a baptism, and a retirement party. Tomorrow night I have graduation, and then Friday is the end-of-school party. Luckily, I have a couple of weeks before my first wedding of the summer. I don't think I've ever had so many parties concentrated in a short span of time.

Today I made an appearance at work to clean my desk (it's so organized now!), and clean up some stuff in the lab. I really can't see any reason to make an appearance at school tomorrow since I have grad in the evening. So I am so done!

You may be asking yourself, so what *is* Christielli going to do with her summer? Well, it's a good time to ask that question, since the summer plans that I made back in May, and neglected to blog about, seem like they are real now because:
a) I just received the credit card bill with all my travel bookings on it; and
b) I just got my summer paycheque that will cover said bookings, plus my rent and a few other things. Good thing I have some savings to cover things like, oh, eating.

So, for most of July I will be kicking around Toronto. A couple of my July weekends will be spent traveling to a couple of weddings.

The first wedding is in London Ontario, and it's for a good friend from high school. I'm actually going to be the MC at the wedding, so I'll have to work on my speech during my first week off.

The second wedding is in Timmins. Timmins is like eight hours north of Toronto, and I've never been there (although my mom grew up there). This wedding is for a friend from work, and I'm going to road trip it up with another friend, and there may be some camping involved. I'll let you know about it, 'cuz I'm the least outdoorsy person ever, so I'd go camping just for the fact it would make an insanely funny blog post.

In between weddings, I need to make a list of stuff I want to do in Toronto during the month of July. One of the most important things I want to do is spend lots of time with Becca T, 'cuz she's going to work in Nice, France for 10 months, so I'll really miss her while she's gone.

Anyway, at the end of July is when the overseas-travel fun begins.

I'm going to fly to Paris, France and stay there for a week. I'm going with a friend from high school, and our plans revolve around drinking wine, going to museums, checking out Versailles, and being overall fabuleuses.

Then, my poor friend has to go home, but I'll fly off to Aberdeen to meet up with the
ever awesome and fabulous Claire! Claire and I met when she visited Toronto a couple years ago, and I've so excited to see her again! Basically, I'm going to hijack her life for a week and a half. We'll spend some time in Scotland, and then make our way to London.

So, exciting! I love love love summer.

Bachelorette Post #5

Well folks, it’s that time of the week again. Diet Dr. Pepper: check. Peanut M&M’s: check. Becca T: check. Rilo: check.

Becca T and I did the train through the Rockies thing two summers ago, but in the opposite direction. It was good times, however, we had to share our train with many other people, and unfortch, it wasn’t a bunch of hot bachelors. The unfairness of it all.

Ironically Becca T is being distracted from the show by this week’s issue of People Magazine that features “Summer’s Hottest Bachelors”. She likes Robert Pattinson the best and I told her she could cut out the picture of him and stick it in her cubicle. LOL

I’m sorry. Robby is not overly attractive. Becca T points out that they kind of match each other though (both dark brown hair, both have large noses). So, if people go for people who like themselves, they are a good match.

But, looking alike isn’t enough. Robby isn’t grown-up enough for Jillian, so the train has been stopped and Robby has been apparently dumped into the wilderness. Quote of the night: “I’m bummed because I just got kicked off a train right now.” I hope he has good survival skills. I think there are bears out there.

Wow. Mike is crying because Robby was left in the Canadian wilderness. Whoa.

Oh no! That weasely Wes has sneaked into her bedchamber! Ahhhh, he’s so blatent about how he’s just on to sell records. Who would buy the record of a lying weasel??? Oooh, he’s so villainous!

Wow. Beautiful scenery. This show is such a tourism ad for Western Canada.

Hmmm, I think I might find Reid a bit attractive. Both with and without the glasses.

Hide and seek is kind of cute, but Jake made it super corny when he said “I slipped in a little cuddle.”

LOL Reid’s overanalyzing reminds me of a certain friend of mine who will remain nameless.

Becca T is falling out of love with Jake because his hair is too flat.

Becca T: “Is that Kiptyn? He’s talking too much.”

Ohhhhhhhh, no! Tanner is flashing his tighty whiteys! So unnecessary!!! Gah! Jillian: “I didn’t need to see the package yet, although it was huge…” Someone comments: “it was like seeing a horse with underwear on.”

Now Tanner’s caressing her feet. “Now that I’ve felt how soft her feet are, I want her to meet my family,” he says.
Jesse is boring. Too much talk.

Okay, I’ll admit it. Breakdancer Mike is goofy and cute.

Drama between Tanner and weasely Wes. I hate Wes.

These guys all talk too much don’t you think?

And, after a one-on-one date with Reid, the train arrives in Banff Springs.

Anyway, the rose ceremony wasn’t very revolutionary. Wes was kept which is so crazy. Tanner was let go, which is no surprise. They had very little one-on-one time. Also, Jake was let go ‘cuz he’s too nice.

But… all of the scenes from the rest of the season are super exciting! OMG, dudes coming back! Problems in the bedroom! Lots of crying! Sign me up!

Soooooooo… now that we are down to five (at least for now), who are you cheering for? There’s Reid, Mike, Wes, Kiptyn, and Jesse. I think I’m cheering for Mike. Becca’s too sad that Jake’s gone to cheer for any of them. Mathew can’t even keep them straight enough to have a favourite. (He showed up late again.)

So, until next week Bachelorette fans!

Oh, joy, I can see you.

I like:

a) Diet Dr. Pepper. My local convenience store is making a killing off of me. I am addicted to the stuff and have started craving it at odd times. What a wonderful chemical soup it is.

b) Warm sunshine! Hello, where have you been? I was so unprepared for you today that I got a sunburn while meandering about town. Sunblock, Christy, Sunblock. Anyway, I wandered around U of T campus today 'cuz I went to my friend's daughter's baptism at a church on campus. I felt very nostalgic as I wandered around, since I have very fond memories of my university days.

This is Robarts Library which looks like a turkey. Whose idea it was to make it look like that, I'll never know. Anyway, I spent a bit of time at that library back in the day, but U of T has a gajillion libraries and I spent more time in the Med Sci, Earth Science, and Zoology libraries that this one.

This is University College. I like it 'cuz it's all gothy.

This is Convocation Hall. I took first-year anthro, bio, and psych, and second-year bio in this monstrosity. I also graduated from it twice.


c) My friend Mathew. He had a bday party on Saturday, so I thought I'd give him a shoutout. He's turning all of 27 on Wednesday, and is concerned about brain decline because of this study. Welcome to the club, buddy. Here's a picture of him playing with his camera. Will he kick my ass for posting this? Let's see...

d) Peanut M&Ms. The best part is if you get a peanut M&M that doesn't have a peanut in it, it's like an extra large super chocolately M&M. Mistakes can be great!

e) The album Still Night, Still Light by Au Revoir Simone. Thanks for the tip, rawbean! I've been listening to it all weekend and it's great. I got a iTunes gift card as a gift, so I had to break it in.

f)Boys who wear plaid shirts and worn-out Chucks and make me CDs. I have lots of new musical candy to get me through the summer. Plus some comedy too.

g) Scrabble for my Nintendo DS. I hadn't played my DS in a long time, but decided to get this game. I've become one of those people who play video games on the subway now. But, I'm going to have mad Scrabble skillz after I master the training games.

h) The fact that the coming (and last!) week of work more or less requires me making appearances here and there. I've exited the land of stress and report cards and marking and I like it!

i) My new Birkenstocks. They'll give me an interesting foot tan by the end of the summer, but fuck it, they're cute and comfy.

j) The cartoon below. It warms my edumactor's heart!

k) Bachelorette night is tomorrow! Happy Monday kids! Note: item h) on this list allows me to stay up late writing silly blog posts. Win! (As Claire would say.)

We throw parties, you throw knives.

Randomness from a busy week:

1) Tonight I went to a "Pre-Baby Party" for my work pal Fea who's having a baby in a few weeks. I was listed as a co-planner, but really all I did was act as a sounding board for the head planner. The other planner made a super-duper cake. The theme of the party was "Modern Tea Party". I was in charge of favours for guests (funky tealight holders with Zen tea attached) and donated my iPod for dance-rock modern-tea-party music (Los Campensinos!, Metric, Matt & Kim, Phoenix and a few other things). We had it on the patio of a cool hippie cafe in the Annex, and thank goodness the rain held out. It was really fun, and I'm so full of delicious food and cake.

2) After the tea party, I dropped by Shopper's to run an errand. I was browsing the magazines, and there were two little boys dressed in uniforms looking at video game magazines (any Nintendo Power fans from back in the day?) Anyway, one of them pointed at a magazine and said "excuse me, can you tell me how much this is?" I looked at the magazine and said "It's $12.99. Wow! That's a lot!" The kid kind of looked at me funny and said "I have that much under my bed."

Moral of the story: video game magazines are expensive, but kids these days have a lot of money these days so it doesn't matter.

3) So I'm in a happy work place right now. Marking: all done. Failure phone calls: done. Extra chances: given. Report cards: done. To-do list for Monday: written. Taking Friday off: you betcha.

4) So, I guess I just admitted to ya'll that I have a long weekend. What's in store? Tomorrow I'm going to try and clean my apartment a bit (it's a disaster and I don't feel like dealing with it right now), and I'm hoping for good weather so I can spend some time outside. On Saturday, I have my friend Mathew's birthday party. Sunday, I think I'll go to my work spouse's baby's baptism.

Oh, and I want to drink some fizzy drinks too. It's all the same if the fizzy drinks are nice.

Bachelorette Post #4

Well, we’ve already reached Bachelorette post #4! At the end of this show, it will mean that I’ve spent 8 hours of my life watching this show. Time well spent? Let’s not think about it.

Anyway, this post is brought to you by only me and Becca T.

Oh look, the opening is a like a montage of her squealing.

She’s wearing another hoodie. A girl after my heart. However, I bet I have more.

Mike: “It feels good in the hood.” I love lame-ass lines. I might adopt that one.

“Spark-of-awesomeness.” There’s another. Good job Mike.

Becca T, the queen of scarves, finds Jillian’s scarf a bit too sparkly.

Becca T had problems opening a couple bottles of sparkling wine at her party. Apparently she needed a saber.

Is that a leopard-print tie on Mike? It is! Ick!

Another hoodie. Turquoise this time.

She’s driving a snowmobile. She’s a girl after my pal Christa’s heart.

“8 guys snowmobiling in Whistler. This is every Canadian girl’s dream,” says Jillian. “Not mine!” exclaim me and Becca T. “My dream is to hang out with 8 guys on a beach in Hawaii,” says Becca.

Ahhhh, foot-fetish Tanner. My favourite shit-disturber. The snow must not be his fave ‘cuz snow boots aren’t the most revealing.

She’s totally into weasely-Wes a lot. Yuck.

Becca T and I still can’t keep track of them, especially when they’re wearing hats. Oh, mystery man in the hat turns out to be Kiptyn. She likes him as much as she likes the weasel.

Hoodie #3. Gray.

I think even I would enjoy a date on a glacier.

Becca T just called Jesse the “voice fetish guy” ‘cuz he said that Jillian’s voice was arousing.

Becca T really likes Jillian’s green shirt.

Mathew made it for the end of the show!

Jillian should stop crying about Ed. (He’s decided to leave ‘cuz of his job.) She’s got nine other guys.

Oh shut up, your heart’s not broken, honey. You’ve got a bunch of others. You clearly liked some of the others more anyway.

Becca T thinks that foot fetish guy always looks frightened.

She’s keeping foot fetish! We are all shocked. She doesn’t seem attracted to him. Again, I think he’s a plant from the producers there for entertainment and snitching.

Oh, she’s kept the Weasel. Mark’s all like “how dare you!” with his eyes.

Oh poor Mark. He just mentioned he’s been cheated on four times. That’s a lot.

And now it’s the best part: scenes from the next Bachelorette. Next week: the Rockies. And, in the future: overnight dates where someone can’t get it up! Oh no! Poor guy to have that happen on TV. And look, more scenes of Jillian crying.

Back to Christy’s life in the next post!

We all go out and we all come home.

Holla kids from the all-too-rare drunk post!

So tonight was my BFF (I will freely use that term) Becca T's wine and cheese.

I went to her house first to help set up for the party. When we were done, we had nothing left to do, so we sat around and sang to my iPod. As we were belting out Joel Plaskett's "True Patriot Love", I commented to BT "you know you're comfortable with a person when you'll just sit there and sing."

Anyway, the party was super super fun. I did my best to ensure that drunk-Christielli was in attendance.

I was cool enough that I actually introduced two people to each other who knew each other quite well. "Hey ________, meet___________." Then I looked at them and said "Hey didn't you guys travel to Costa Rica together?" Yup, they had. They also went on a trip to Florida together too and informed me of this. However, then they complimented me on how welcoming am I since I was nice enough to at least introduce themselves to each other. Then, I promptly bumped into one of them, causing her to spill red wine on herself. But, it's true! White wine does get red wine out so all was well!!!

Another awesome part of the party was giving Becca T her gift. When Mathew, Becca T and I went shopping in the States, there was an extravagant purse that Becca really liked. Mathew and I surreptitiously sneaked off to buy it, and she didn't know. Then, I emailled a couple other people to go in on it, and voila! Expensive purse for Becca T. She was sooooooooooo excited to get it. She had no clue. She carried it around for most of the party. Muahahahaha. I love giving someone something much loved and completely unexpected.

I love just chilling with my university friends too. I find I only see these people at parties, but I love them. I loved when my friend Ali told the story about how her husband (my pal Jon) had gone with her to the Bay to buy a vacuum, and then asked them "I have a Sears card, what can you do for me?" thinking that he was at Sears. I find this insanely amusing.

During this whole party, I found myself really missing my friend Alison. I met Alison in my second year of university. She had grown up with Becca T. The three of us actually lived together one year. Anyway, she's been in Japan for two years now with her husband and she will email me sporadically. Becca says they might be moving back and I hope so 'cuz I so miss her. I think I've changed a lot since the two of us were friends, but I know that she'd dig the person that I am now. I miss her. I'm going to email her tomorrow when I'm sober and tell her as much.

Yay for lasting friendships and drunk post out.

ps As I was posting this, a friend of mine sent me the following video and it's fucking awesome.

Watch, you're moving in an elliptical pattern.

Holla from the busiest week I've had in a long long time. Let's rundown shall we?

Monday - Weekly Bachelorette-viewing session with Mathew and Becca T (see previous post). For some reason, Mathew and Becca T have Rilo photo-taking competitions whenever they're at my place. Here's a shot from this week courtesy of Mathew.



Tuesday - On Monday, I found out from my work spouse that we had Tuesday tickets for Riverdance. She couldn't make it because her baby hasn't taken to a bottle yet, so I went to her place for a visit and to pick up the tickets. It was fun laughing about silly work stuff.

Becca T joined me for Riverdance and it was pretty good.

Wednesday was the annual celebration of Becca T's birth. I met up with her after school to see a taping of The Hour with everyone's boyfriend, George Strombolopolous. It was fun and he chatted with us! We went up after the taping to get a picture taken, and he noticed a binder in my bag and asked me what was up with that, and I explained I was a teacher who came from work, and he asked me if the kids call me "Teach" or "Miss", and then wished me a happy summer. Sigh.

Here's a shot courtesy of Becca T:


After the Hour, we met up with some peeps for a fun sushi dinner. Here's a picture of some edamame that I destroyed. How I love edamame.


Today - Did some laundry (yay clean clothes!), and I'm going to run out for gelato with some peeps in seven minutes. Yum, gelato.

Tomorrow - drinks with new Sloan friend.

Saturday - Big wine and cheese bash at Becca T's.

Sunday - I have to figure out some favours for a baby shower I'm helping to organize for my pal Fea from school.

Randomness:

1) I love love love the new Phoenix album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix". So fun. Got a copy for Becca T.

2) I just saw that they have Scrabble for Nintendo DS. I'm so going to buy that.

3) I first saw this bizarrely funny clip in university. A bunch of friends and I used to randomly act it out. Then a couple of days ago, a friend from work who knows I have a bizarre sense of humour sent it to me. It brought back so many happy memories.


Happy weekends!

Bachelorette Post #3

Welcome to Bachelorette post #3!

I’ve got Rolo ice cream, popcorn, and my Bachelorette buddies Becca T and Mathew here.

All right there have been some distractions, but now we’re ready to get going on the post. Jillian is on a date with Kiptyn. They are in Vancouver! They are in Stanley Park! They’re going to Granville Island! Becca T and I are reminiscing about when we were there two summers ago. (Rawbean, are you reminiscing about your day-to-day existence?)

Jillian just said something about it’s “every woman’s dream to be in the kitchen, all flustered, hoping the meal will turn out…” WRONG. It is my dream to be as far away from the kitchen as possible. It’s not Becca’s dream either to be in a kitchen. It’s Mathew’s dream though. (He likes to cook.)

Becca T: “We’re not paying enough attention to the show. We need to concentrate more. We have to focus. I want some ice cream.”

Jillian does her little dance behind the closed door after Kiptyn leaves. Mathew: “Do you guys do that?” Becca T: “Always.”

Yay curling. Let’s use every Canadian stereotype. Next stop: Tim Horton’s.

Becca T’s fave is Jake. She is incensed that Jillian thinks he’s too perfect.

Oooh, David is such a creepy, yucky, dude. Glad he didn’t get the kiss. Bet he’s offed tonight.

I really dislike Mike’s hair. It’s so, um, swarthy.

Oh look, it’s Grouse Mountain!

Oh, Mark’s face is *priceless* as Mike is giving the toast on this super awkward date with three people.

Jillian decides to give the rose to Mark. Mathew: “Is that big hair or little hair?”

Tanner P. is hilarious ‘cuz he’s making fun of Wes.

It annoys me that the “country-singing turd’s” name is Wes ‘cuz I have a buddy named Wes and he’s totally awesome. I’d name this yucky Wes something else if I could.

Ooh, my favourite* (Tanner P w the foot fetish) is dishing the dirt about dudes with girlfriends at home. Awesome.

*Note: he’s not my favourite (I don’t really care for any of them), but he amuses me consistently.

Hmmm, Jillian says she wants to know who has a girlfriend ‘cuz she doesn’t like to be lead on and have her time wasted. Say it sister.

Maybe my foot fetish friend is devious and made it up!

Lots of drama unfolds. Does someone have a girlfriend? Is Tanner lying? Jillian goes to have a moment with the pictures to figure it out. Mathew says “how is looking at pictures going to help her?” I reply “Hmmm, maybe she’ll notice someone’s wearing a wedding ring in their picture.”

She kept Tanner! Hmmm, I am so curious!!! Does Juan have the girlfriend? Does she know that ‘cuz Tanner was talking to him during the rose ceremony? Ewww, Juan has a smarmy smile. He insists he doesn’t have a girlfriend though.

We are all so glad that David is gone.

This was a pretty good episode with all of the drama, and it looks like next week in Whistler is going to be even more dramatic!

Until next week, Bachelorette-a-rinos!

Chocolate is a band-aid, no matter what they say.

So I'm sitting here in the coffee shop in St. Ratford that has wifi, drinking a big ol' chocolate milkshake, and a country song with the above line comes on. Does this mean I'm bleeding?

And my family and my friends and all the little kids who love me make strong.

It's been post-a-rama around here these days, but today was completely post-worthy.

Today is the first time ever in my teaching career that kids made me cry.

Before you think that the hooligans finally got to me, you know of course it was good crying.

We had a year end eco-celebration with my posse and their well-wishers today. We received the environmental award that we had been working on over the year, so of course, we needed to have a party.

Last night, I wanted to get each member of the posse a little gift, so I bought Indigo out of their supply of environmentally-friendly bookmarks complete with inspirational quotes and a little plantable leaves that will sprout into flowers.

However, the posse outdid me. They got me a plant, and they made me the most AMAZING scrapbook ever. It made me cry! They wrote me a poem, included tonnes of pictures of everything we did all year, and even all wrote me individual messages. You should see this book. It is the mother of all scrapbooks. The messages were so heartfelt and really made me tear up. It's seriously the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me!

My favourite page is the pictures of them assembling the book itself. Priceless. Also they had a bit of fun mocking me about how they fooled me into thinking that they were taking group pictures yesterday for the yearbook, and how they even put together some of the book together in my class. Oh, and they got me to contribute a bunch of stuff too, under the guise that it was for the yearbook.

I showed a couple of my colleagues the book (as I cried a little), and then showed it to Becca T when we went out for post-work frappucinos. Becca T said "this warms my heart, and it's not even written for me."

On of the funniest parts of this is that I must have looked happy as I was walking down the street from my school. There was a creepy construction dude who's working on the library near our school, and he was all like "ooh, you're smiling, I like that." It was so creepy and I laughed because I think it's hilarious that the fact I was happy 'cuz of something my students did for me resulted in me getting catcalls from said creep.

Anyway, so in summary, the kids are all right, and I swear these kids of mine are going to run the world (you should see this scrapbook), and now I have to go write individualized thank you cards to all of them because they are so sweet.

Also, I'm going to spend some of my weekend scrapbooking as part of a tradition that me and *my* high school friends have. Hmmmm, maybe I should outsource. I know who I could get.

Souvenirs.

Here's a post about three objects that I like. I called it "Souvenirs" because I'm listening to the song of the same name by Christine Fellows. It's my second-most-listened-to-song ever.

1) New bird randomly given to me by my pal Fea, for whom I recently bought the gnome. I think I'm going to name him Norman, and he sits on my bookshelf (pardon the dust).


I like birds a lot. I never knew that I liked birds a lot until Becca T would point out that lots of stuff that I like had birds on it, and I embraced my love of birds whole-heartedly. Now whenever friends see something cool that's bird-related, they either a) buy it for me; or b) email me about it. This weekend upcoming, I have a date with my friend Sandee to check out bird stuff at a little store in St. Ratford called "Anything Grows".

2) My work keys with neat-o owl key covers that Becca T gave me for Christmas. The owl faces are kind of rubbing off a couple of them. Good thing I have two extras. Many people at work comment about them, and a lot of the kids really like them and ask to hold them which makes me laugh because you'd expect that more from elementary school kids as opposed to high school kids.



3) My new copy of Jane Eyre. Today I was shopping in Indigo, and they had these "heirloom-bound" versions of classics on sale. Now, I don't really read as much classic literature as I should, but I've always loved Jane Eyre, and the book was so pretty (and did I mention it was on sale?), and I don't actually have a copy to call my own, so I bought it. Nevermind the fact that my parents have at least three copies of Jane Eyre in the book room at home. Yes, we have a book room. I guess most people would call it a library, but the shelves are all ghetto 'cuz my dad built them, so the term library is too fancy for the book room.



ps I should be doing something useful. Hence this completely useless post. :)

Bachelorette Post #2

All right, it's time for Bachelorette post #2. This week my pals Mathew and Becca T dropped by to watch with me. Fun times. Here are our random observations.

The host has an easy job. Seems like he works twice a week: at the beginning of the episode and at the end. Sign me up for his job.

Oh! How I hate her squeals! (She squealed when she saw Ed at the beginning of their one-on-one date.)

I think she’s wearing a lululemon hoodie. She is.

Mathew thinks Ed says “like” too much.

What? The CityTV dude just called The Bachelorette “family-friendly programming”?

Ed is twiddling his thumbs. Becca T doesn’t like him very much because he is boring. Mathew pointed out that they are showing the interesting part of their time together, imagine all of the boring stuff they had to cut out.

There should be a maximum of ONE person named Tanner on any show.

Becca T thinks Ed got a pity rose ‘cuz he asked.

This Western movie date thing is the most contrived thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But I love the fuzzy leopard chaps though. And they're on foot fetish guy.

Good thing Jillian is on reality TV and not scripted TV, ‘cuz she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag.

Ooooh, could Wes be the lying liar? The other dudes seem to think so.

Mathew notes that she must like possessive guys after she says it’s cute that Wes was jealous.

All three of us LOLed during the gay cowboy scene.

LOL OMG Foot Fetish Tanner is rubbing her feet on his face! In a hot-tub filled with a bunch of other dudes no less.

Who is this dude with her now? Argh! I still can’t keep them straight. Becca T tells me it’s Robby. This is why it’s best to watch this show with others.

Mathew thinks Sasha looks genuine. Becca T says he’s not bad.

Now I have to go fetch these kids popcorn after I just fed them ice cream. Becca T says “the ice cream wasn’t very filling, there wasn’t enough Rolo in it.” Now she’s mocking the size of my bowls. They are not big enough for her liking.

Moronic line of the evening courtesy of Sasha: “I know in my heart I’m looking for this mythical unicorn.”

OMG, so she decided that she can’t be his unicorn, and doesn’t give him the rose, and the send him home on a city bus!! The rest of the guys cheer. Mathew says: “What jerks.” We all agree that sending him home on a bus is pretty crappy.

We all think that Wes is here for a record deal and not for love. News to Wes: you and your guitar and your song suck. LOL at Mathew: “Do you think he ripped that song off the internet?”

I wonder if she gets to keep her wardrobe at the end of this. Becca T hopes so.

Oh! Another classic line courtesy of foot fetish guy: “I want to make a connection with her feet.” I swear, he’s gotta be a paid actor on the show for comic relief.

Becca and I agree that David’s angry eyes are very scary.

Becca T on David: “He’s crazy. I wouldn’t want to date him.”

Oooh, it’s rose ceremony time! She picked Becca T’s guy (Jake) first. Becca T is pleased. She can keep watching. Ahhh, foot fetish stays. Probably ‘cuz he’s an actor and she’s forced to keep him. Oh, and she keeps Mr. In-it-for-a-record-contract. OH MY GOODNESS, she keeps Crazy David! Becca T thinks that she’s forced to keep him ‘cuz of the drama.

We know nothing about the guys she didn’t keep. Oh, they got rid of one of the Tanners. There were too many of them.

And they’re off to Vancouver next week! Becca T says she’ll be back, as long as I have two containers of Rolo ice cream. Mathew says maybe if he’s not tired from work.

Zigga-zig-ah.

Best moment of yesterday's roadtrip:

We're in the car listening to Mathew's selection of music.

Becca T: "I like this song. Who's it by?"

Mathew : "It's by Mat Kearney. I like him a lot, especially 'cuz he spells his name like I do."

Long pause. Then in a very earnest, serious and dead-pan tone, Becca T says: "Your name is not Kearney."

Cue to Christy laughing very hard in the backseat and telling Becca T that that comment was officially her fave part of the roadtrip.

Yesterday's roadtrip was very fun. I was looking forward to it mostly as a fun opportunity to hang out with two of my fave friends for the day. It was a beautiful day, so things looked pretty than they are. I bought some new clothes, and a bunch of junk food not available in Canada.

We had a long line at the border to wait through on our way home. However, we made the wait fun by everyone plugging in their iPods to play their iPod's secret shames. So we listened to Hanson, Vanessa Carleton, Aqua, Madonna, LFO, The Moffats, Mariah Carey, Spice Girls, Hilary Duff, Ashlee Simpson and more. I'm not telling whose shames were whose though. ;)

Sunday is a day of work for me. Chores and work and errands.

Stay tuned for tomorrow night's Bachelorette post! Mathew, who I'm going to start calling Kearney, might be joining in on the fun too! Hope you all had fun weekends!

Book Gripe

I should be in bed, but I just finished book #18 of the year, and it's a book that made me go "argh!" out loud very many times and hence I feel like ranting.

The book is "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult, and it's got a very interesting plot. It's about a family with a daughter who has a very rare and severe form of leukemia. The parents decided to have another child to be a donor match for girl with cancer. The younger daughter was actually conceived through IVF, and doctors were able to pick the embryo that was a genetic match for the elder sister.

All through her life, the younger sister has been going through medical treatments to donate cells, blood, and bone marrow for her sister. She loves her sister, but when she is asked to donate a kidney when she is thirteen years old, she decides to hire a lawyer to become medically emancipated from her parents. This means she won't have to donate her kidney if she doesn't want to.

Anyway, even though the writing wasn't amazing, and there were a couple of annoying subplots tacked on (ie a romance between the girl's lawyer and court-appointed guardian), it was quite thought-provoking. Basically, it got me to thinking, how many measures should be taken to keep a person alive? The sister with cancer went through a lot of pain, and it seemed like the family might have taken too many measures to keep her alive. It seemed like the kidney transplant might prolong her life for a year, but then she'd most likely relapse. Is an extra year alive, with most likely more pain and suffering worth it? The mother had all this hope that she'd maybe finally be cured, but it just seemed like it was a lot of pain and suffering for such a long shot.

So the plot was very though-provoking, and there are really no answers to the issues that the book brings up. However, the ending of the book made me throw it across the room. Argh. I won't ruin it here, in case anyone wants to read the book, but really, puh-lease. Bad, bad, bad ending.

I was actually talking about this book to two students today - hooligan-ish boys no less. They had asked me if I like to read so I started telling them about my current book. They thought the book sounded very interesting, and I really can't wait to tell them how it ended. They will be as incensed as I am, I'm sure.

Has anyone read this book? I'm curious to hear other's opinions.

Oh, and there is a movie version coming out in June. Apparently they forgo the tacked-on romantic subplot! So maybe movie versions aren't always worse than the book.

ps This is my 600th blog post. That's probably novel length in itself. Oh, and whenever I do end this blog, I promise the ending won't suck as much as the ending of that book. Grr. It's kept me up past my bedtime!

There's a reason why I love this town.

I'm still in Joel-Plaskett-happy-mode, and listening to him a lot. Here's a random post for you kids.

1) This weekend, Becca T and I tried to go see the Don Jail as part of Toronto Doors Open. It was full so we couldn't get in. You read it right: I can't even get into jail these days, yeesh. Anyway, it was a beautiful day, so we turned lemons into lemonade by buying some freezies and eating them in the park while enjoying this view of the city skyline from the Don Valley. Note: I can't take a straight photo to save my life.


2) Last week I can home to a cat-in-a-box which made me laugh really hard. I know small things, small minds, but I'm a happy person so who cares?

3) I was like the coolest teacher ever yesterday. My grade 11 "Science and Society" class were discussing how the evolution of technology has changed our lives, and I told them about a hilarious comedian's rant that I once saw on Youtube, and then I was able to show it to them, and they found it hilarious. Here it is below, in case you haven't seen it before yourself.


4) New albums: I bought the new Hayden album yesterday, and I've listened to it four times already and it's pretty good. I still have to listen to it in detail, but it stands up to being good music to have on in the background. I'm not so sure about the new Tori Amos album which I bought last week. It's kind of out there, as all of her stuff is. I dunno, maybe it'll grow on me.

5)Weekend plans = drinks on Friday night, shopping roadtrip to Buffalo with Becca T and Mathew on Saturday, and writing exams (blerg) on Sunday.

6) I just had a good phone conversation with a new friend about Sloan and teaching. New friend also likes Jay best, so this bodes well for the friendship, I guess.

7) Thanks to everyone for the comments on my Bachelorette post! I'm going to make it a weekly thing, I think. Next week, Becca T and I are going to watch together, while eating gluten-free pizza. So, you'll get to read random comments by me, Becca T, and even Rilo if she puts her two cents in again.

8) Things I'm going to be posting about in the future: a) Christielli's summer vacay travel plans; b) Things Christielli wants to do this summer; c) Upcoming changes in Christielli's life for next school year that she's apprehensive about. So stay tuned for posts that aren't random with actual topics! :D

I admit it. I like this season of the Bachelorette.

So last Monday, while procrastinating cleaning my apartment, I actually watched the entire premiere of The Bachelorette. The current bachelorette is Canadian, which is cool, but I have to admit that last week kind of got me hooked. And, I've found out that rawbean is also hooked, so I've decided to blog about the show, 'cuz well, blogging about useless TV is fun. Oh, and I think this season is going to be super dramatic, 'cuz it looks like from last week's previews that one guy turns out to be a lying liar with a secret girlfriend, so there's gotta be a be a special place in hell for that dude, or any dude like that.

This show is hard to watch because all of these dudes look the same. It's pretty confusing. They should wear name-tags.

Why isn't Tanner P. going on about his foot fetish again? That was the funniest part of last week's show, dammit!

This whole search for the rose is lame.

I like her red boots.

Whoa, Jake just totally went in for it! I dunno, maybe he should have waited for her to finish her sentence before planted a big wet kiss on her. Especially 'cuz she was answering a kind of "deep" question that he asked. Hear her answer, then kiss her.

Martina McBride's career must have been affected by the recession if she has to go on this show.

The Harlem Globetrotters' careers must have been affected by the recession if they have to go on this show. But hahahaha, the bachelors are so the Washington Generals.

Jillian needs to stop emitting that high-pitched squeak. It's annoying both me and Rilo. However, I do like her basketball shoes.

LOL My new dating strategy will be to have the Harlem Globetrotters pick a dude for me. It's totally true love if it's okayed by a Globetrotter.

This Wes dude is a little bit creepy. I think I don't like him, even though he is a musician.

LOL Tanner P. has let his foot fetish freak flag fly! Yes!!!

Shut up David about the "Man Code"!!! This David guy bugs me; he's judgmental toward everyone.

Oooh... The Bachelorette has turned into Survivor, and the dudes get to vote out a dude. Will she agree with them?

Nope! She's keeping the dude they dislike!

And quelle surprise, she's letting the ones go who I barely remember. Ooooh, one dude is kind of choked up. Awww. Oh, and she let go of the British guy. Last week they actually captioned him for dumb viewers. Yeesh.

And, as always, the best part of any reality show is the scenes from next week. Ooh the drama!

***

So for any non-Bachelorette watchers, my next post will be far more interesting and useful. :D

It was extraordinary.

I just checked something off my "things to do before I die" list, that I didn't even realize *was* on my list, until I did it. (Not that I actually have the list written down, but you know, there are just things that you know that you want to do.)

And that, my friends, is seeing a concert from the front row of Massey Hall.

Massey Hall is probably Toronto's most esteemed venue for a concert. I think I've seen three other shows there, but all from the balcony.

Somehow the internet ticket gods bestowed upon me these row A tickets, and I was excited, but I didn't realize how amazing it would feel until I was actually there.

And, it was especially amazing being front row for an artist that is as talented as Joel Plaskett.

He played two sets. The first was a rootsy set with his dad and two other musicians (who all play on his newest record) accompanying him. It was a really great set, and included a lot of fun older stuff, as well as new stuff. Also, Becca T was immensely happy when he randomly gave a shout-out to gluten-free pizza during a song. My personal favourite was the acoustic version of "Nothing More to Say" from Ashtray Rock.

There was a short intermission, and then the Emergency band came out for a more rock-based second set. It was extremely high-energy, and pretty much everyone was out of their seats and dancing for the second set. By the end of the show, BT and I were standing against the stage, both wowed that we got to touch such a legendary stage.

It was definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to, and if talent was correlated to fame, Joel Plaskett would be selling records like Nickelback. But, who gets to play Massey Hall? Take that Nickelback!

After the show, BT and I debriefed the concert with a pitcher of cider, as is our tradition. We got a bit drunk and giggly, and then I walked it off as I walked home on a perfect May night.

Extraordinary.

It's a hard knock life.

The weather outside feels like *summer*, but the exhaustion in my bones lets me know it's not.

Today was an incredibly long, tiring, but awesome day. It was a typical day at school, but afterwards I had to go up to the middle of nowhere to vote in the annual elections for the local unit of my union. A colleague who I really respect was running, so I made the trip out, which I wouldn't have otherwise. Not much of a unionista am I.

After that, I went back down to the mall near my school and met up with Becca T for a little bit of shopping and dinner. I then brought her to school, where I showed off my cool science teacher skills and sacrificed a gummy bear for her, as well as lit my hand (and then hers) on fire.

The reason why we were hanging out at my school so late was that it's annual school musical time already. Becca T always likes to attend the performance with me. The drama teacher at my school (who is also a very close friend of mine) always puts on an *amazing* show, and tonight's was fantastic (guess what it is from the title of this post). A lot of my current and former students were involved, and they did such a good job. I have to admit I got a little verklempt.

On my walk back home, I thought about how much I really love my job. I am so lucky that I get paid to do something I love, and I'm blessed to be in a job where I can devote myself to other people. The last two books I've read have been about a meth addict (first written from the father's point of view, and second from his point of view). One of this dude's sponsors believes that a way to overcome a lot of one's demons is to help other people. I completely agree. I find that when I'm at work, and I'm completely immersed in helping my students, I am not absorbed in myself, and I'm at my happiest.

Anyway, I really believe that we'd be a happier society if we moved away from individualism and to collectivism. I know that I can fall into times where I am completely self-absorbed, and I'm so glad that I have a job that takes me away from that tendency.

And with that, I am also glad that tomorrow is Friday and I'll have two restful days away from said job. On Saturday, I finally get to go see Joel Plaskett play at Massey Hall and I have front row seats. Woot!

Happy weekend!

ps My hair smells like molten gummy bear.

There is a magic world parallel.

Things I need to do:

1) Do dishes, tidy my apartment, vaccuum, put away the laundry I did *last week*.

2) Go grocery shopping.

3) Go to the gym.

4) Mark, mark, mark.

5) Unpack some of my stuff from this weekend in St. Ratford.

What I'm going to do instead:

1) Have a relaxing bath while reading a new book and listening to the new Tori Amos album.

2) Drink some hot chocolate.

3) Go to bed early.

Diagnosis of a foreign frame of heart.

I stayed home sick today. Good decision. I don't think I could have gotten through the day on my own two feet.

The book launch was kind of fun. I had some wine, the bartender was cute, and they gave us free textbooks. I say we should buy our new textbooks (if we get money to do so) from this company since they clearly tried harder to earn our love.

After the launch, I headed downtown to meet up with a friend from high school and her husband. They are legally married, even though their big wedding deal isn't until July. He's American, and she's going to immigrate to the US to live with him, and it's an unbelievable process. In order for her to move to the US, they have to be legally married for 8 months or something like that, so that's why they got married before their big wedding. The reason why they were in Toronto is because she has to get a physical done for the immigration process, and there are only something like two doctors in all of Canada who are qualified to do this. Anyway, it's a crazy process, and they both told me to never marry an American.

Dinner was really fun, and we got to reminiscing about some of the silly things we did back when we were in high school. First of all, didn't you find that high school seemed like an immeasurably long period of time? Time went so slowly back then. Now it just zips by and it's been eleven years, but the same silly stories really crack me up and make me laugh really hard. You know the type of laughing where your stomach hurts and you can barely keep yourself upright? I was laughing like that during dinner, and it was great, because I don't think I've laughed like that in awhile.

Our silly stories involved things like prank-calling boys who'd done us wrong (before everyone had caller ID and you could pull that off), cameras that actually used film, and VCRs. We felt dated as we told these stories, which made us laugh harder.

On my way home from dinner, I started to feel like crap, and when I got home I passed out on my bed. Unfortunately for me, I had to set the alarm clock because I didn't have lesson plans ready for the next day. Trust me, calling in sick is a lot of work for us competent teachers. I can't stay home without having meaningful work left for my students.

Yesterday morning, my throat was scratchy and I had a headache, but I made it through the morning okay. However, in the afternoon I felt like I was going to pass out, and then I had to cover a grade 9 *drama* class for half a period. Last thing you need to do when you're feeling poorly is deal with that. After 20 minutes of me being a complete bitch, they were under control and I could relax. Then, a colleague came to ask me something and commented "you don't look well." That's when I knew my next task was to make plans for staying home today.

So yah, I slept most of last night, and slept in 'til noon today and I'm feeling better. Maybe my lunch of soup, frozen yogurt, and Fresca helped.

Now I'm going to change out of my pjs, get some caffeine, pick up a package of books and DVDs at the post office, and replenish my Kleenex supply.

And, I have one day left until the long weekend. Woot! I'll be making the trip to St. Ratford, and I look forward to a chill weekend there.

Happy long weekend everyone! (Or at least to those who have one... and if not, you could always use a sick day and make it long!)

Gadzooks, gadzooks, gadzooks. What have you got to lose?

I am blogging from work. This is the first time ever that I've done so. I'm on my prep period, but I'm all prepped for tomorrow, and I should be catching up on my marking, but I have to run off in 19 minutes to a textbook launch, so really what I can accomplish in 19 minutes?

(I'm pretty sure I've had kids use that reasoning to not work at the end of class. My answer to that question is always "lots".)

Also, I have my office all to myself today, so I don't have to worry about anyone looking over my shoulder.

They are serving wine and beer at the texbook lauch tonight. I didn't even know this when I signed up. I'm just going because I heard a rumour that they will be giving out free books. They are changing the curriculum for next year, and I doubt we'll have textbooks at the beginning, so I want to get my hands on whatever resources I can.

After the launch, I'm heading off downtown to meet up with my friend from high school and her husband for dinner. I've also warned them that I may show up tipsy from the texbook launch, ha-ha.

Oh, gadzooks is now totally my favourite word because of the song "Heavens to Purgatory" by The Most Serene Republic.

Oh and thanks to everyone for your really kind responses to my last post. My friends will attest that I don't talk about my mom's illness very much, so that was actually a big deal for me to write. But I'm glad I did.

All right, onward to the launch and hopefully lots of free goodies!

Proud, just like my mother planned it.

Happy Mother's Day! I didn't see my mom today, but I did send her flowers. Yay for the internet for making that easy. Anyway, next weekend is my mom's birthday, as well as the long weekend, so it makes more sense to travel home then.

I don't really talk about my mom as much as I do my dad, I think. Even though a lot of my friends have never met my parents, a lot of them know a lot about my dad because he's easy to tell stories about 'cuz he's a wild and crazy dude who prank calls me, reads obsessively, gardens obsessively, and acts a lot like Homer Simpson. (I could totally see him parking across three disabled spots.)

So as I was saying, because my dad's on the eccentric side, I tend to talk more about him than I do my mom. But since it is Mother's Day I'll blog about my mom.

So some background on my mom. My mom was born in Poland during World War II. During the war, her parents eventually became forced labourers on a farm in Germany. My grandparents hated talking about the war, so the family stories from these times are not overly detailed, and my grandparents are dead, so we only have what they shared. My mom told me a story about how my grandmother had three children when they were fleeing from the Germans. It was hard to run with three children in tow, and someone told my grandma to set down the baby (my mom) and come back for her later. If she survived, that is. My grandma did, but couldn't bear to leave a crying baby, and returned for her. That story amazes me, because if it happened differently, well, I wouldn't be here.

After the war, my grandparents settled in Northern Ontario, and my mother was the hardworking, bookish middle-child of the family. She became a teacher back in the day where you didn't need a university degree to get a teaching degree, but she got her BA in English at the same time she was teaching. The thought of taking university courses while teaching just made me say "holy hell" out loud. That would be so hard.

My mom taught elementary school. She started with the younger grades but somehow ended up teaching grade 8 for most of her career. I'm pretty sure it's a universally-accepted fact that grade 8 is the hardest grade to teach. I guess that's another testament to my mother's strength.

My mother's teaching career ended when I was born. The intention was that she would stay at home with me until I was ready for school, then she would return to teaching. That never happened because my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis the year before I was born. By the time I went to school, she knew that she wouldn't be able to return to work.

My mother's MS gets progressively worse each year. She could sometimes walk with me to school (five minutes down the street) when I was in Kindergarten, but that was pretty much the only year she could do that. She could still drive when I was in high school, but she gave that up. In 2006, the year my dad had surgery, she had a pretty bad MS attack as a result of the stress of my dad being sick. She was in the hospital for quite some time, and the doctors told her that she'd might not be able to go back home, but she would not have any of that talk. She worked very hard in physiotherapy, and is now probably in better shape than she was before the attack, and made it back home despite the initial grim prognosis.

So yeah, basically my mom is an amazing person with so much strength and optimism in the face of adversity. I know that I don't tell her this enough. I think I use my mom too much as a sounding board when I'm displeased with the way things are happening in my life, and really, I clearly have nothing to complain about. Probably, the worst thing in my life has been my mom's disease, but it couldn't compare to actually having it. I am always sad about opportunities that I'll never have with my mother. I know that if she was well, we'd probably leave my dad at home, and go on trips during the summer, she'd come visit me in the city and we'd go shopping, and she'd point out that my apartment is a mess and that I really should hem my curtains and fix my dining room chairs.

However, I'll never have that, but I have been blessed with an amazingly strong mother who loves me more than anything, and is crazy-proud of me, which is far important that any of that stuff above.

Oh, here's a random picture of me and the kid who was clearly my boyfriend at the time (since he's carrying my dolls) that I have scanned on my computer. My mom took it. Pictures of her are few and far between because she was always the one taking the pictures. I think that's like everyone's mom, right? Moms of the present day will be more well-preserved because of digital cameras and self-timers.

Look up, what do you see?

I have nothing to blog about.

I'd better go do something super exciting this weekend to remedy this, but right now I don't have anything super exciting on tap. Yet. Yet is the operative word.

Or maybe I'll just hang out and watch DVDs and read books. Whatevs.

School's good though. School's always pretty good. Why can't everything else be like school? However, I think that making school good takes a lot of energy and brainpower, and by the month of May, I have little left for other things. These batteries could probably use some recharging, and soon. Next weekend is the long weekend, and I think I'll go to St. Ratford, so that should give me a little bit of a boost.

The song "E-bow the Letter" by REM just came on. It's one of my fave songs by them. Beautiful, but sad.

Did anyone watch the Office tonight? I think every workplace needs a Cafe Disco.

Maybe sparrow, you should wait.

My weekend was dull, and unproductive in the reorganizing my apartment/spring cleaning front. However, there was some productivity in the reading and marking fronts.

On the reading front, I've gotta get my ass in gear with my goal of reading 52 books this year. As you can see from my sidebar, I've finished 13 books and I'm about halfway there on my 14th. The 17th week of the year just finished, so I'm not too far off the pace. Of course, I've got summer vacay, when I will catch up and work my way ahead.

The last book I finished (The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters), was good, but it put a wrench in my reading goals. I wanted to finish it, and when I want to finish a book, I cannot start another one, or the previous will not get finished. I'm not one of those people who can effectively read two books at once. Anyway, I should have started my current book (The Time Traveller's Wife), a long time ago, but I had to finish this book first. It was a good book overall, but slow-going at times. Or maybe it was my brain that was slow-going.

The Time Traveller's Wife is the current selection for my staff book club. I've had months to read it, but I don't like to read the book 'til a couple weeks before the meeting or I'll forget everything and look stupid in front of all of those English teachers. The meeting keeps getting pushed back, and I *think* it's on Wednesday. But the end of tonight, I'll be halfway done the book, but there is no way I'll finish it before the meeting. That's okay though; I think I know enough to contribute to the conversation, and I like it enough that I'll finish it even if I find out the ending.

Pretty much the highlight of my weekend (and this is sad), was spending yesterday afternoon marking with a pal from school at a coffee shop in our neighbourhood. I find that even though I work in the same bloody building as some of my best friends, we go weeks without really seeing each other, since high schools tend to be rather compartmentalized and everyone is so effing busy all of the time. It was fun to catch up with my friend, and share some stories about the crazy people we work with and life itself. And somehow, in between all of the chatter, I got completely caught up on my marking. That's right. I don't have a single piece of work to mark right now. Of course, that will change by tomorrow, when two of my classes have assignments due, but I'll enjoy the moment.

As we were marking, my friend said "Do you mind if I run out for a second and buy a gnome?"

"Holy I'm going deaf... I thought you said you need to buy a gnome."

"No, you're not deaf, there's a gnome in that little gift store across the street that I want. He used to have a friend but someone bought the friend. I want that gnome before he's gone too."

I cracked up and told her to go for it. I marked on my own for a little bit. My friend came back sad and gnomeless. "The store is closed on Sundays."

My friend is super busy these days (she's directing the school musical), so I offered to go pick up the gnome today after school, since I live in the neighbourhood. Yes, I got to go into the store and ask them "how much is that gnome-y in the window?"

Here's a picture of the fellow who will spend the night with me 'til I bring him to school tomorrow. I like him. I kind of want to gnome-nap him and keep him for myself.



ps Gnome is totally one of my fave words ever. I'm so glad I was able to use it multiple times in a post. I'm even going to tag this post, and make it a goal to post more about gnomes in the future.