Seven Things.

I stole this meme from wigsf. Seemed like a good thing to do when I don't have much else to write about. It's quite simply seven things that you probably don't know about me.

1) My first time ever on a plane was when I was twenty-three years old. Destination: remote Northwestern Ontario via Winnipeg. I packed up everything I thought I'd need for a school year and took off to a strange land. It made me stronger and I'm glad that I did it. Could I do it again? Not in a heartbeat.

2) I never ever wear eyeliner. I think it makes me look weird. Eyeshadow's my game. Especially when it sparkles.

3) I've read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" countless times, but never any of the other Chronicles of Narnia books. Ditto with "Anne of Green Gables" and the rest of that series. I'm glad I wasn't that way with Harry Potter.

4) My absolute favourite pair of socks are checkered black and white with skulls and cross bones. They were a gift from my pal AlieMalie who used to blog, but no longer does. It makes me sad that she doesn't blog anymore because she's going to Europe for Christmas and she's an awesome travel blogger. I'll miss reading about her travels.

5) One of my favourite Christmas memories ever is from 2001. Hawksley Workman was playing a free surprise Christmas show at the Rivoli, and it was announced the day before. One of my closest friends from high school (with whom I'm not in much contact anymore, sadly) took the bus from London in some nasty weather. The bus got in late, and we ran from the bus station to the Rivoli, in freezing rain, to stand in line.

We waited in line for what seemed like a very long time. There were Hawksley's elves handing out clementines and paper Christmas tree ornaments signed by Hawksley. Finally, we were at the front of the line, and then we were told the show was full and they weren't going to let any more people in.

Disappointment doesn't even describe how we felt. We were cold and wet, and all we had were paper ornaments and orange peels to show for it. The Rivoli has a front area, and the concert area is a special room in the back. I suggested that we hang out in the front area, and maybe we could at least hear the show.

We huddled near the back door and tried to peek in the window to see the show. The manager saw us in all of our pathetic glory, and said "Wow. You guys are die hard. It's Christmas! Get in there!" So after all that, we got our Hawksley Workman Christmas show, and only missed seeing part of one song.

(I thought of this story because Hawksley's Christmas song "A House or Maybe a Boat" was playing as I was writing this.)

6) In grade 4 or 5, I made a Canada goose out of paper mache. My teacher picked it to be displayed at the International Plowing Match which was being held somewhere in Perth County. I was honoured, but my parents never took me to see my goose in all its glory.

7) My artistic skills have not only netted me honour, but cash. I had an extremely lazy and inept grade 8 teacher whose idea of an art curriculum was making us draw posters for contests. I took great offence to the fact that we were forced to create posters about farm safety for one such contest. I did not live on a farm, nor had I visited many. Farm safety was not an issue that I knew much about so how could I illustrate it?

For once in my scholastic career, I put very little effort into an assignment. My slogan was "a safe farm is a happy farm." The poster drew itself: happy sun, happy horse, happy farm family, happy cow, happy cat, happy chickens, happy dog, happy plants, happy bird flying through the sky, and I'm pretty sure I made the tractor happy as well.

A month later my inept lump of a teacher comes into class beaming. "Guess what class? Someone here has won the farm safety poster contest!"

Some jackass in my class said something along the lines of "Remember Christy's poster? It sucked! Imagine if she won? Hyuck-yuck-yuck."

Then my name was announced. My hypothesis: I got the pity prize for the child whose poster clearly wasn't at grade level, but dammit, they tried. (Which I didn't.)

To add to the good memories that I'm reliving through this meme, my dad and I had to go to the farm safety convention to pick up my $25. We had to sit through a hour long speech by some dude who got maimed by some piece of farm equipment. Both my dad and I squirmed throughout the entire thing. It was one of the worst hours of my life.

After this, everyone wanted to be my partner for any other poster contest we were forced to enter. In addition, every time I was at the mall debating on buying say, a new pair of purple jeans (it was the 90s), my dear friend Mel would say "you won $25 for your farm safety poster! You can afford it!" I've spent that $25 many, many times in my life. She'll still bring it up if we're on a shopping trip these days.

I also picked up $10 in the electrical safety contest. I don't remember that poster at all.

Anyway, those are my seven things you probably didn't know about me.

Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that.

Randomness from this weekend:

1) I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 with my friend Teresa. Teresa and I used to really geek out over Harry Potter almost ten years ago, so it's appropriate that we went to see it together. I have one word for this movie: epic. I can't wait for part 2, but it will be crazy that the octiligy (I just made that up) of Harry Potter movies will be over.

2) I had a short time, but a nice time, chilling in Stratford this weekend. My dad provided with me with much amusement. Here are some snippets:

a) He already had a Christmas present purchased for his favourite buddy: Rilo. He got her a big bag of her favourite cat treats, and a purple catnip-filled mouse. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd already bought her that same mouse before. I was instructed that I must bring the presents home so she'd have them before Christmas.

b) I got my dad a massive biography about Napoleon for Fathers' Day this year. I think he's now on his third reading of this book. I tease him that it's becoming his bible. First thing he does in the morning is read a bit about Napoleon. Anyway, it's going to be hard to find a book to give him for Christmas that could hold a candle to it.

c) I asked my dad if he'd gone to McDonald's to get a free coffee. His response: "I'm not enough of a geezer yet to drive across town to get a free coffee!"

3) I am not feeling the Christmas spirit this year... at least not yet. I've done a lot of my shopping, listened to a bit of Christmas music, and even found at least one super fun new song. However, I'm not even feeling like putting up my little tree. I don't like this at all. Maybe I need to up my intake of Starbucks' Christmas drinks (which I haven't even felt like having) to cure this. Or maybe chug a litre of egg nog or something. Ugh, I don't like feeling Grinchy.

4) I've been listening to a lot of Broken Social Scene lately. I think it fits after the Feist binge I just finished, and makes sense since it's just a little over a week until I get to see them. I'm so into the song "It's All Gonna Break". The singing into my hairbrush kind of into. My favourite hairbrush line is "treat me like a sign, sounds like oh well. I know times like these are the hell."

5) I enrolled in the Spanish course I mentioned in my last post! I'm excited! It starts January 19th. I told my friend Fea about it, and she might take it as well, which would would be fun.

6) There are three more weeks of school until the holidays. It will be a crazy three weeks with the amount I have on my plate. I'll get through it: I always do, somehow.

Hope you all have great weeks!

It's a heart parade, just be courageous.

My apartment is a mess. I'm supposed to be dealing with this, but I'm not. Oh well, looks like yet again I'll be bringing a bag full of laundry to my parents' house just like when I was in university. And, since it's past ten, it looks like I'll be returning to a mess on Sunday when I'm back from St. Ratford.

Instead of cleaning, I've been thinking about how I need to do something new. My brain misses learning, and could use a challenge. Well, it's always challenged at work, and there is a new science curriculum that's been keeping me on my toes the last two years, but my brain needs to do something other than figure out how to make teenagers learn. It needs to learn itself.

I've toyed around with the idea of taking some Master's courses. I'd love to have a Master's degree, but sadly, the only type of Master's program that I could get into is a *choke* Master of Education. I have loathed each and every education course I've ever taken; I learned very little from these courses, everything I've learned about teaching has been from actually teaching. I feel like I've earned a Master of Education already in my seven and one third years in the classroom. I don't need to take frustrating courses to get that piece of paper to prove it. (This sounds conceited, but if there's one thing I believe about myself, it's that I am a good teacher.)

However, I would really like to learn something new, and tonight, my brain (with help of the internet) worked out some stuff. I'm planning on meeting up with Becca T in Barcelona for March Break. Then I remembered that Jabba mentioned taking Spanish courses in preparation for her trip to Cuba. Hmmmm, wouldn't it be nice to show up in Barcelona knowing a bit of Spanish?

I did some research on introductory courses in Spanish, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to register for one at U of T's continuing education program that starts in January. It'd be 2.5 hours one night a week, and the last class would be right before I take off for March Break. Also, I love the idea of returning to U of T to take a course. I loved my university days, and it would be nice to back on campus one night a week. I'm going to think about it over the weekend and hopefully complete my registration next week. I'm excited!

Finally, the idea of taking Spanish made me yet again research one other course that I've been thinking about taking for years: creative writing. I have found the course that I want to take (again at U of T), but my excuse is always that taking it during the summer would prevent me from traveling, and I don't think I could handle it during the school year. It's not so much the actual class that would be a burden, but when would I find time/brain power to write? But you know, maybe if I just bit the bullet and registered, then I would *have* to find the time/brain power to write, and it would do me a world of good.

I think that I'll start with the Spanish, see how that goes, and then consider a spring course in creative writing. Or maybe I'll do the next level of Spanish? I think 2011 will be a year of learning (the formal kind) for me.

With that, I'd better do a little bit of tidying. Hope you all have nice weekends!

So far, keeping it together's been enough.

I have a post idea for when I'm out of post ideas, and I thought I'd have to use it this week because it feels like I have the dullest week on record happening, however, I realized that I do in fact have a lot to write about, so that post idea will go back into the proverbial vault.

First of all, I have to answer some questions from my last post.

Jabba and Rawbean asked me what I meant by going out for sushi with my "reasonable" colleagues. Last week in the staff room one of my friends told me in a super hushed voice that there were pre-interview sushi plans being made, and that my attendance was required. Then, he added "invite others too, but you know, just as long as they are reasonable." It made me laugh, and I started referring it to "sushi with the reasonable" and I included it as such in my blog. I just left it in as an inside joke to myself because it makes me laugh.

Now onto the pho, and wow, there are a lot of pho fans out there. Except for Rawbean, who's never had it and asked if it was salty. I don't think it's overly salty, but it is a soup so it is somewhat salty, I suppose. However, I'm not a huge fan of salty, and I like pho, so hopefully that answers her question.

However, tragically, the pho did not happen. My friend and I had plans to have pre-documentary pho, but on my way there he texted me that it was closed, so we'd have to have dinner at the pub downstairs instead! Gah! It was hard for me to come to grips with the pho-less menu at the pub, but I did have a conciliatory beer, so that was a win. However, I was also on cold medication, and experienced some momentary loopiness as a result of the mixture of the medication and the alcohol. The loopiness was fixed by tea, but the tea couldn't fix the lack of pho.

The Feist documentary was really great though! It was projected in the atrium of the ROM's crystal, so it was a neat venue. I liked the documentary a lot; especially since it contained footage of Feist's tour from "The Reminder" and that brought back fond memories from when I saw her play the ACC. My favourite part of the doc was a clip where some idiot interviewer asked Feist "if you were to describe your album in just one word, what would it be?" Her reply was "audible". Well-played.

So that brings us up to speed on questions from the last post. This week's been a bit yucky so far. I guess it's a case of the November blahs. However, my "reasonable" colleague from above has started a new fun (and geeky) diversion: mailbox Scrabble. He's got a travel version of Scrabble that we are passing around four mailboxes in the staff room. Yes, I know you could accomplish the same thing via an online game of Scrabble, but I think this is more fun since it's more eccentric.

It's also fun that the week is almost half over. It's looking like I'll make a St. Ratford jaunt this weekend. It's nice to recharge my batteries in a small town.

p.s. I've been listening to Stars' song "Look Up" in heavy rotation.

p.p.s I also finished reading "American Wife" last night. I'd recommend it if you need a fairly easy and interesting read. I liked it overall.

Sweet heart, bitter heart, now I can tell you apart.

Here's some randomness from the last few days.

1) Thursday was an absolutely exhausting day/night. It consisted of a full day of teaching, going out for all-you-can-eat sushi with my "reasonable" colleagues, three hours of talking to parents (I had 32 interviews in total), and then drinks at the Drake Hotel. During all of this I felt myself coming down with something... My throat was starting to itch and I was tired. However, I always have such fun when I go out for drinks with my work friends, that it would take more than an itchy throat and fatigue to keep me away from our traditions.

2) Friday was a nice relaxing day because it was PD away from school. We were actually in a building at U of T, right across the street from where I used to live. I love being back in that area. I have such good university memories.

The speaker was amazing, just like his book. I got him to sign my copy, and wasn't sure what to say, but decided to go with a "thank you for telling your story." Another thing that really impresses me about this man is his passion for the education of women/girls. I am very thankful for getting to hear him speak and for being exposed to his book.

3) After Friday's PD day, I could feel myself crashing and succumbing to whatever pesky illness worked its way into my system. I got home, made dinner, watched a little TV and slept a bit. Mathew called me, and I think my response was "too sick... must sleep... you enjoy Friday."

4) I had a lazy Saturday. I did manage to go for a long walk to get myself out of the house and o enjoy the nice weather. Yesterday it felt like winter is coming, but fall is still holding its grip quite strongly. Anyway, I passed by the library as I walked, and popped in a grabbed a couple of random books. I figured I needed some fiction since I just read three non-fiction books in a row.

One of the books I picked up is "American Wife" by Curtis Sittenfeld. I had seen it bookstores before, and I skimmed the overleaf and decided it was worth reading. As I was checking it out, the librarian commented that she'd really enjoyed it, and that it had made her like the Bushes a bit more. I had not realized that it was a fictionalized version of Laura Bush's life, and upon learning that, I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it. However, upon starting it, and reading about 250 pages of it last night, I have to say I don't dislike Laura Bush, however, how she could have married such a jackass is beyond me. The George Bush character is so crude you wonder how an intelligent woman could stay married to him. Anyway, I haven't gotten to the presidency yet. He just bought a baseball team. However, it's a pretty good novel. I'd recommend it.

5) I'm excited for my plans tonight. I'm going out for pho, followed by a screening of the Feist documentary "Look At What The Light Did Now" at the Royal Ontario Museum. It's all about the collaborative process of making of her album "The Reminder" which is one of my favourite albums ever, so I'm pretty excited. She's also going to be there doing a Q&A hosted by my boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos.

Thank goodness I'm feeling a bit better right in time for my fun Sunday night.

Wow.

I just finished this book.* (Potentially wonky link: here's another.) It's seriously one of the most inspirational things I've ever read in my life.

I read it because the author is actually coming to talk to our staff during a PD day on Friday, and we were encouraged, but not required, to pick up the book to read it before Friday's PD. I just got it yesterday, and I finished it tonight. I'm still reeling from the emotional impact that it had on me.

I can honestly say that I never understood the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Becca T took an entire course in university on the subject; and her conclusion was that she still doesn't get it. This book hasn't really explained the whys of the conflict to me; other than it is rooted in extremism on both sides. However, the author, who lost the lives of three daughters and one niece as a result of the conflict, feels that the solution lies in forgiveness, understanding, dialogue, and peaceful coexistence.

I couldn't imagine living under the conditions described in this book. The fact that the author was able to used education as a means of ascending from abject poverty is an inspiration in itself. The scene of the death of the author's family is one of the most horrific things I've ever read. And the fact that the author has not become hateful as a result of this tragedy and has moved on to seek peace is mind-blowing.

There are so many lessons to be learned from this book. I love how the author's love of humanity transcends religion, race and culture. One theme that that author keeps repeating throughout the book is that "out of something bad comes good." That message is something for me to remember at the worst of times; I pray I'll never face bad times like those in this book, but it's definitely another touchstone to keep me grounded during my own bad times.

I encourage everyone to read this book. I'm really looking forward to hearing the author speak on Friday. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to a PD day. I'm so thankful that I was able to be exposed to this book as a result of my job. Not only to I get to deal with the hilarious antics of teenagers on a daily basis, I get to experience personal growth. Win.

Anyway, with that said, I can't really make the transition into the usual fluff of this blog, so I'll say it again: read this book.

*I'm not mentioning the title/author of the book directly just in case someone from my staff does a blog search for it. But click the link and you'll find out your reading assignment kids. Or go look at my sidebar for book #26 that I read during 2010.

They say that good things come.

Thanks for everyone's comments on my previous emo post. You guys are the best.

I decided to have a "me" weekend. I actually turned down some social plans just to hang out at home with Ms. Rilo. (I guess I'm never really alone.) I rented some movies, read a lot, went for some long walks (didn't make it to the cemetery though, jason... good call... I gotta do that soon), worked on some knitting, and got some good quality sleep in there. As a result, I'm feeling good about my weekend with myself. I'm a good date.

Apart from that weekend update, I'd like to make this a post of good things as of late.

1) Joel Plaskett

As you all know, I was able to see Joel in Guelph last weekend and it was awesome. As a result, I've been listening to a lot of Joel. "Through & Through & Through" is my anthem right now, and I love the video, so I thought I'd share it with you.

I also like the video because it makes me think of the East Coast road trip that I took a couple of summers ago, where I got to see cute little villages. I want to go back!

2) Matte Stephens

I just discovered this artist through Jocelyn's blog earlier this evening, and I love his stuff. I was browsing through his etsy shop constantly saying "oh no!" because I loved every piece of work. I think I'll buy myself a print, maybe as a birthday gift, but not now. I do like all of the prints with cats and birds, however, I have to make sure my apartment doesn't get too cat-ladyish in its decor. I might get the print of San Francisco below, because I really like that city.

Also, this one makes me laugh because it's called "we found a fish for you, could we please have our umbrella back".

I like the giant snail in the museum too.

3) Memoirs

When I need something easy to read, I often get some random memoir, usually of a person with some sort of addiction problem. Maybe it's because I've run out of episodes of A&E's Intervention to watch, who knows? I read Caroline Knapp's "Drinking: A Love Story" and now I'm reading Portia de Rossi's "Unbearable Lightness" about her struggle with anorexia while she was on Ally McBeal. I wouldn't especially say "go read these!" but they keep me interested without me having to think too much, so that's why I think I gravitate to them as distractions.

4) The Grunt's Performance Week

Kudos to a long-time blog buddy for sharing his music!

5) Starbucks' Chocolate Vivanno Smoothies with a shot of espresso

Lately, I've been skipping breakfast to have one of these. Yum. I might do it tomorrow if I leave early enough.

6) No homework over the weekend

I did not do a single piece of marking or planning or anything work-related this weekend. I loved it after a pretty intense week last week. It's the calm before the next storm.

7) Matt & Kim's Sidewalks

My fave NYC duo came out with a new album earlier this month, and I just downloaded it and I'm on my first listen, but it sounds promising. It'll be good to add some non-cheesy music to my gym playlists.

8) Things to look forward to...

Post parent-teacher interview drinks with friends, the new Harry Potter movie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert (if I get tickets), my first proper Broken Social Scene show, Christmas parties, and Jason Collett at the Dakota Tavern.

Hope you all have nice Mondays!

Throw away my misery, it never meant that much to me, it never sent a get-well card.

Argh, I was just in the middle of a long post, one that was admittedly a bit rambling, and somehow blogger never auto-saved it and it's gone. I think this one is going to be shorter because I'm exhausted.

Report cards are due tomorrow, so I stayed at school pretty late finishing off a pile of marking and getting my comments in. Yuck. And I have to be up early enough so I can go double check them in the morning. I can't actually complain about doing report cards: we have comment codes that we use. All I have to do is pick three comments per kid and enter in the corresponding codes. However, one must be careful that they don't mess up the number. My friend Fea loves to tell the story about how she once mistakenly entered a music code that was something along the lines of "student is developing good fingering techniques".

I have to admit I've been feeling quite emo these days. It's not without reason; but I'm getting rather sick and tired of feeling down. I think sometimes my frustration at feeling down makes me feel worse.

To top it off, I just don't feel like myself these days. There are times where I feel the essence of myself coming back; like when I'm out with friends, or I'm at a concert, or even sometimes when I'm teaching. However, these moments are fleeting.

I've also not been sleeping well, which is crazy - I'm the best at sleep. My subconscious likes to torture me with weird dreams, and I've been waking up at 4 am and not really falling back asleep. I was sharing this with my friend Fea when we went out for dinner on Tuesday night, and she suggested that I make a list of things that I like to do when I can't sleep.

On my subway ride home from work tonight I realized that I hadn't listened to the Weakerthans in forever, so I put all their stuff on random and my favourite song of all time, "Reconstruction Site" came on, and it made me feel really good. The line from this post's title comes from that song and it's true: I should throw away my misery; it never meant that much to me, it never sent a get-well card.

I'm a lucky person because I am usually really good at finding joy in small things. I don't need some big event to feel happy; usually there are things going on in the here and now that do the job. Of course, I have been thinking about how much I'd like to be by the ocean, because the sea is a good place to think of the future, but for now, I'm here, and I can easily find a lot of stuff here to make me happy.

Like re-listening to old favourites. And looking through pictures of past trips and realizing how much fun I had/have with my friends, and reading, and working on knitting some Christmas gifts, and keeping an eye out for shows, and going for sushi with friends, and getting in some bike rides while it's still above zero, and fun dinners with lots of wine, and maybe even figuring out some new ways to re-discover myself. Any suggestions?

So anyway, that's just a beginning to the list, but I'm going to work on it, and the next time I feel emo, I'll just consult the list, and I'm sure I'll find something on the list to cure the emo.

Oh! And before I go, I must post a picture of the bag since many of you requested. It was hard to get a really good picture that shows the colour of the bag because of the flash. I suppose I could have waited until daylight, but here it is!

Yes, it is the same style (Maggie) as the cream-coloured leather bag that I bought for my birthday. However, I really like it... it's the perfect size, so I decided to get the same size. As the guy in the store said "you'll have your spring/summer Maggie and your fall/winter Maggie!"

Anyway, tomorrow is Friday, and I hope you all have great weekends!

Wasn't it easier in your lunch-box days?

Today was one of those days that could generate about eighteen posts worth of material.

For instance, I left work early this morning and saw someone on the subway who was a blip in my life about ten months ago, but still has a tiny place in my current storyline.

It was weird getting on the subway, and realizing that the person sitting right in front of where I was standing was this minor character, but luckily, this character was immersed in a book and didn't look up. I thought "eeep, I hope he doesn't notice/recognize me" and I subtly moved to another place on the train, but I could still see his reflection in the mirror and thought "that's an unfortunate facial hair choice."

Again, I guess it just made me realize there are a lot of twists and turns in the plot of life. This person played a very small part in my life, but I know that this part lead me to do something that precipitated other events in my life, and to what I'm feeling today. Anyway, it's just weird having to avoid these bit players in your life, just because you leave for a work a bit earlier than usual. Oh, and if I'd ran down the stairs to the train a little faster, I would have caught the previous train, and this person would have remained far from my memory.

On a similar note to that story, how often I run into people in Toronto surprises me. I'm a small-town girl, and the fact that I constantly run into people I know in Canada's largest city never ceases to amaze me. Today after work I went to do some shopping on Bloor St., and I saw a friend from work across the street from me but too far away from me to yell hello, and then I look right in front of me to see one of my favourite students. I say "Hiya *insert kid's name here*, look across the street, it's Mr. O too! That's so strange!" Then kid and I had a little conversation about where we were going shopping and off we went.

We'll have to compare notes tomorrow because I did have a good shopping trip. I got a bunch of my Christmas shopping done in one store, plus something a little shiny for myself. :)

(Sidenote: Do you think you can carry a navy blue bag with a brown coat? This was the debate I had in the store, and after consulting with different clerks, the consensus was buy the bag and try it on at home with your coat. I'm unsure about the combo though, but I think I'll just buy a back winter coat to go with the bag. I really like the bag, and I got a discount, so perhaps I'll hunt down a black winter coat to go with the bag.)

Another one of my potential blog posts today is about body image, and how something that happened today made me realize how much teenagers really do suffer as a result of body image issues. Seriously, it made my heart break. Sigh.

I also managed to pull off a semi-major environmental event at my school today. I think that since now I've pulled off much bigger stuff, something like this was easy-peasey for me, but still, more than most are able to pull off.

But now, I gotta get ready to go out for dinner at a super nice Italian restaurant with a couple of my besties from work. I'm looking forward to having a really good meal, getting a second and third opinion on my new bag, and drinking a glass (or three) of red wine. This chilly fall weather is perfect for red wine, and I always do what the weather tells me.

Fashionable people doing questionable things.

There was really only one thing I was looking forward to this weekend: seeing Joel Plaskett at the River Run Centre in Guelph!

It was fun braving rush hour traffic on the 401 to make it in plenty of time to wander around a bookstore, have dinner, and then hit the venue with a little bit (but not too much) time to spare.

David Myles opened up for Joel, and he was quite enjoyable. I picked up one of his CDs (which was produced by Joel) at the merch table. I haven't listened to it yet, but I know it will be good.

Joel played on his own for most of the show, but his dad joined him on stage for a bunch of songs. It was such a great show because Joel is completely capable of owning the stage just with only an acoustic guitar. His songs are brilliant and catchy. He played two new songs, which makes me so incredibly excited for his new album, whenever he gets around to recording it.

My pal the2scoops, who was awesome enough to come to the show with me and do the driving, took a video of Joel singing "Fashionable People". You can kind of hear me singing badly at the beginning of the video; then I noticed he was filming and tried not to sing very loudly, which is a hard thing to do at a Joel Plaskett show.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend has been all right. I have done quite a bit of marking with my pal Fea at a coffee shop, and a good deal of reading too. I finished reading Room by Emma Donoghue. All I can say is wow. It's a great book, but the subject material is hard to deal with. Now I'm reading "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave on my Kindle. I got it last weekend; but put it down when Room came from the library. It's really good too; but again has some subject material that's difficult to read. I guess it's good to read books about people with real problems (such as people imprisoned in 11 by 11 rooms, and Nigerian refugees) because seriously, it makes you feel silly about whatever is getting you down.

Actually, that idea just made me remember a line from a Matthew Good Band song, "Omissions of the Omen" that used to help me gain perspective about stuff in my life.

"And somewhere around the world
Someone would love to have my first world problems."

Also, chatting with my friend Fea a lot this weekend as we were distracting ourselves from marking was helpful too. I really suck at living in the present; I often focus too much on the past; and on the future. I really need to just live in the here and now and appreciate what I have, because I do have a lot.

And I do have a busy week coming up at school. Blerg. Oh well, I'll get through it!

You're the gold soul of rock 'n roll....

Baby, babe, I get so low. But never 'round you, never 'round you, no, never 'round you.

The title of this post, and the line above, both come from my song of the moment "Gold Soul of Rock 'n Roll" by Emm Gryner and Joel Plaskett. My indie rock pal Paul told me about this song, which comes from an album of duets by Emm Gryner, when we had pre-Dan Mangan sushi last week. I downloaded it right away, and I love it. Check it out if you need a pick-me-up. Another great track from that album is "Top Speed" featuring Sara Quin (of Tegan & Sara).

It's entirely appropriate that I'm currently enjoying the above song because I am heading off to Guelph tomorrow night to see Joel Plaskett himself! I haven't see him since last spring at Massey Hall. And, I'm heading off to Guelph with a friend who I met as a result of that show, so that's pretty cool. I am so looking forward to hitting the road after work tomorrow to see one of my favourite artists play in a smaller city. (He's only doing a mini-tour of a few smaller places in Ontario right now. No Toronto show, but that's okay.)

I'm also enjoying the book that I just got from the library after having it on hold for two months: "Room" by Emma Donoghue. It's been nominated for some literary awards (such as the Mann Booker prize) and there seems to be some buzz around it. As I was checking it out, the librarian commented that she just finished it, and it's definitely a unique book. I'll let you know what I think.

And with that, I'm going to neglect the quizzes that I have half-written (I'll pay for that in the morning), and go curl up in bed with my book. This morning wasn't the smoothest, after my late night in last night, so I'd better catch up on sleep so that I'm ready to rock and roll tomorrow!

p.s. Miss Ash - beer lasts in my fridge for two years because me and most of my friends are complete winos, so beer gets neglected. ;)

Forwards are so 1997.

Jolene (Group of 9) is in town for "business". I like to add the quotation marks because it makes look questionable... which it isn't... she's actually in town for legitimate meetings.

Anyway, last night she met up with me at school where I was sacrificing some gummy bears to potassium chlorate as I always do for our grade 8 open house. We were both tired so not much catching up was had.

However, tonight we went for sushi, gelato, and then I drank red wine, while she braved the two year old beer that was in my fridge. We played a board game called "Sequence". Does any one know it?

I like this board game because it reminds me of the year when I was working up in an aboriginal community in Northwestern Ontario. There was a lady who invited me over to her house to play Sequence and drink tea, and well, I dunno it's a good memory.

Anyway, yah, Sequence is tricky to play whilst red wine and old beer are in the picture and I think we each won a couple of games. We sometimes didn't notice that we had sequences happening on the board which kills the competitiveness of the game, but ups the fun.

And, we said some funny stuff. Like about forwards being from 1997 'cuz one of our mutual friends still sends bajillions of them. Seriously. But it makes me feel seventeen or whatever so yah. And Jolene said something that rivalled her classic "he played you like a broken guitar" comment from circa 1996. Ironically that quote was in reference to our forward-sending friend. The new quote will not amuse our friend Teresa, which makes it even funnier.

Well, yah, that's my post. Thought I'd keep something out there for my blogarinos. Regular coherent posting to return soon.

p.s. Who uses the word whilst? Me, that's who.

Robots need love too.

Hey ya kids! Right now I'm blogging from my favourite coffee shop with wifi in Stratford. My favourite coffee shop in town has no wifi, so that's why I'm not there, and I'm drinking a slightly less yummy chai latte, but the internet is my ultimate mistress, so that's why I'm here and not there.

Anyway, happy Halloween! I'm actually gonna be handing out candy with my dad tonight, which is something I haven't done in years and years so that should be mildly amusing... I guess.

Friday at school was amusing. I dressed up as a surgeon and didn't really teach much. It's hard to do so in a costume, eh? You lose your gravitas. I gave my last period class a quiz, but then double candy, so I made up for the one period in which I was a Halloween grinch.

Thursday was Dan Mangan at Trinity-St. Paul's. I've been to a couple of concerts at this church before; it's a great venue because you can see well no matter where you sit and everything sounds great. Anyway, I expected to like seeing Dan live, but I didn't expect that he would exceed my expectations quite so much. His band was great, and at some points there were many musicians on stage: I'm talking horns, strings, keyboards, everything. He opened with "Sold", played my favourite "Road Regrets" and "Tina's Glorious Comeback" (the lyrics of which describe my life right now... and no, that's not because I'm planning to re-enter pop music a la Tina Turner). However, my favourite moment was the sing-a-long during "Robots" at the end of the set. Dan was standing on pews getting everyone in the church to sing, and it was amazing. There's something about an entire crowd singalong that makes you feel just so connected to the artist and everyone in the building. I love those moments.

Here's the video of the song Robots. The video is a bit on the cheesy side, but the song is so fun. Fast forward to 2:45 for the optimal sing-along part. It will make you feel better about whatever is troubling you.

A big thanks to my friend @mattinwpg to giving me Dan's discography (along with a creepy Santa card) for Christmas last year!

I finally saw "Evita" at the Stratford Festival last night thanks to their kind social media co-ordinator. It was a great performance. I'm so glad that I didn't miss out on it after my timing mistake. I love the story of Evita: I actually used to read books about her when I was younger, and had forgotten the story. It's an interesting look at an icon. The production itself was amazing. Shows in my hometown never let me down.

Anyway, I'd better pack my computer up. I have to be home for supper soon. Isn't it so fun how when you stay with your parents you end up regressing to being a kid. I went out for the afternoon to visit my friend Teresa, then nerd out at a coffee shop, and now it's supper so I must go.

Don't eat too much candy tonight!

Try to make sense of the things that you think.

I think I figured out how our new mayor must have won. His win is a mystery because very few people admit to voting for him; but he got almost 50% of the votes.

I'm convinced that he forged the electoral list to have dead pets vote for him. Just like when Sideshow Bob beat Mayor Quimby in the Springfield mayoral election. That's the only explanation I can think of. I'm just thankful he didn't do this in Stratford where my dear Butterscotch (my first cat) is buried, 'cuz then it would be personal.

***

Thanks to everyone for all of your nice comments on my last post. Yah, a down-Christielli is a strange thing, and I'll be okay. I just need a little bit of time and some (but not too much) emo music to heal some wounds and I'll be fine. Your regular happy blog-programming will resume soon!

Last night's show was AMAZING. Check out the CBC Song Quest 2 album on iTunes if you are interested! It's a collection of thirteen road songs written by one artist from each province or territory. Ontario's song is done by Jully Black and it's about Roncevalles Ave here in Toronto. I also love the songs by Hopeful Monster (Nova Scotia), Hannah Georgas (British Columbia), Kerry Latimer (Manitoba), and Two Hours Traffic (PEI). I downloaded it immediately after the show and I've been enjoying it all day.

I'm completing a concert hat-trick this week, folks. Saturday was Stars, yesterday was the CBC show, and tomorrow is Dan Mangan. Well done, me.

After that, I'll be heading to Stratford this weekend for Evita attempt #2. My dad made a point of telling me that today he was at the doctor's office and there was a Stratford Festival programme sitting in the waiting room. He double-checked the time of the performance and it is indeed 8 pm. Thanks Dad! You always have my back, especially when it means you can make a little bit of fun of me.

I hope that the rest of you are having great weeks! The greatest thing I think is that since tomorrow is Thursday, they are almost over!

Thousands of ghosts in the daylight.

There's so much going on in my life right now. Some of it's personal, some of it's political, some of it's educational, and thankfully, a lot of it is musical. I'll run down a lot of it randomly.

First of all, Stars was a great show. Young Galaxy opened, and I enjoyed watching them. Stars opened with "He Dreams He's Awake" which set off the show perfectly. The show had flowers, a wicked bubble machine, and so many great songs to sing along and dance too. The best were the songs from "Set Yourself On Fire" which is hands down my favourite Stars album, but I loved the new stuff too. In fact, seeing the new stuff live has given "The Five Ghosts" a new lease on life on my iPod.

Probably my favourite song of the night was "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" which was the song that got me into that band in the first place; and it was extremely cathartic hearing and singing along (as off-key as I wanna be) to it this particular Saturday evening. And then, during the encore, the bass player threw a bunch of roses into the crowd... and one fell perfectly into my hands. A rose was exactly what I needed after a flowerless spell in my life.

Sunday was a pretty good day too. I went to a birthday party for my friend Ali, and a lot of friends were there who I hadn't seen in a long time. I had a great time catching up, ate a lot of food, and had some wine and champagne.

Today was back to the grindstone. I was rather unprepared for the day, and I made it through, despite all of the computers being down and me nearly having to cancel a test. I feel lucky that my job mostly makes me happy. As soon as I got to school, one of my fave kids was there to get extra help before a test, and I dunno, it was just a good start to the day seeing a friendly face.

After a busy day at school I went to the mall to figure out my Halloween costume. My work spouse and I were trying to have matching costumes, but we never pulled it together. I found a rather cheap doctor costume and bought it (final sale... just like camping toilet paper) but then a friend phoned me with the possibility of a mad scientist costume. So, I guess if I'm not a doctor this year, at least next year's costume will be figured out.

And exciting news this evening: a friend texted me with an invite to see the CBC 2010 Song Quest show tomorrow night. I love impromptu concerts! I'm excited to see Two Hours Traffic, Hannah Georgas, and Jully Black. She blew me away when I heard her sing in "Da Kink in My Hair" years ago.

After the mall, I had to hurry home to vote. Which I thought was an important thing to do since there was a particular candidate I didn't want to win. It didn't work out for me. Eeep, I can't believe Toronto just did what it did. Hello? Progressive city folk, where did you go?

Anyway, it just goes to prove my theory that Toronto (at least as long as I've lived in it) alternates between crazy mayor and good mayor, so now it's crazy mayor time again. Oh good.

At least my choice for my ward's councillor won. I'm still trying to find out about the school trustee. I was actually quite interested in those races...

So yah, despite some gloomy things going on, there are many rays of sunshine these days.

Today will be better, I swear.

Sometimes a truly crappy Friday night will show you a thing or two: 1) that you have really really awesome friends who are willing to talk to you for three hours at the drop of a hat and/or until their cell phone dies; and 2) no matter what, there will always be a good concert (or three) to cheer you up.

How appropriate it is that I get to see Stars tonight at Massey Hall with one of my best buddies ever. I really hope that they play "Today will be better, I swear" because it is a great feel-better anthem. Of course, whatever they play will make me super happy. I am so incredibly excited to see them play Massey Hall too. It's one of my favourite venues in the city, and it's sit-down, which I appreciate now that I've hit my thirties. ;)

I'll leave you with this awesome video. I've been listening to a lot of Stars today. (Sorry that it doesn't fit properly... that's as small as it goes.)

So I stayed ho-oh-ome.

I'm very happy right now. I've been very productive lately.

I am officially caught up on all marking. (However, I'll be flooded with lab reports, tests, and projects by the end of the week.)

I got some laundry done and even put it away.

I downloaded the new Jim Bryson + The Weakerthans album: "The Falcon Lake Incident". It's very nice. Mellow, autumny, folksy, good instrumentation. One of the songs is the iTunes free song of the week (in Canada) so check it out if you are so inclined. I didn't even realize that the album was released today until I saw the free single at the iTunes store. Fave song right now = "Up All Night".

Incidentally, they are playing for free at the Horseshoe Tavern tonight. In my younger years, Becca T and I would have shirked our responsibilities, and getting to bed at a decent time, and would have gone to that show. However, I have to admit I've aged. I can't do a 10 pm show on a weekday, even if it's free. And my partner-in-crime is in France. I miss my younger years, I do. I would have stayed up all night, like the song says.

Instead, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is another day with a million things to get done. However, Steve and I are going for sushi, so it's good to have a mid-week reprieve from housework, marking, and responsibility.

p.s. As I write this, Rilo is on my shoulders pricking her claws into me. Ouch! Sometimes I wish my kitty was a little less social.

Going, going, gone.

It's completely unbelievable how quickly weekends go by. I feel like it was just two seconds ago that I was happy that it was Friday evening, and now it's Sunday evening. And, it's a five-day work week coming up which is always more daunting following a four-day week.

However, this weekend was completely enjoyable. On Friday, I got the whole Evita ticket situation sorted out. I'm going to attempt to see the play on October 30th. It's really at 8 pm this time. I'm looking forward to it. And, I'm looking forward to an extra trip to Stratford as well. I'm so appreciative that someone read my blog and got me new tickets. I always knew my hometown rocked!

I went to the gym after school with my work spouse, and then came home and vegged for a little bit. Then, I went what I thought was Mathew's housewarming party, but it was really only a low-key get together which Mathew reminded me was clearly specified in the email. Yet again, I got mixed up. Anyway, low-key it definitely was, and I got home early but I was fine with that.

On Saturday, I slept in a bit, finished reading "The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake on my Kindle (it was only meh). Then I started reading a library copy of "The Bishop's Man" by Linden MacIntyre. It won the Giller Prize this year and it pretty good so far.

After a slothful morning/early afternoon of realizing and reading, I ran some errands, did a bit of cleaning, and then met up with Steve for dinner at a great Middle Eastern restaurant in my neighbourhood. Afterwards we went for gelato and rented a movie. So that was a really fun evening filled with a bunch of my favourite things.

This morning, I chatted with my mom on the phone for a bit, and then rode my bike to the gym. This afternoon consisted of more reading and grocery shopping.

I also managed to finish knitting this pair of mittens this weekend while watching movies and Modern Family. I had never kept any of my knitting for myself, but I decided this pair would be mine. I'm glad that I finished them since mitten weather will be rolling around soon!! The wool I used was really neat and I like how my mittens turned out non-matching.

Anyway, I think I'm going to spend my evening doing some more reading. This next week at work will be crazy, and I purposely didn't bring home any work because I figured I deserved a good weekend of relaxation before next week. I'm going to have to wake up super early to get to work on time tomorrow since I'm unprepared for the day, so a quiet evening with a book should get me prepped for that.

Hope you all have great weeks!

ps Any new music suggestions out there? I'm in a bit of a rut right now!

Smell the burning leaves in autumn driveways.

Oh man, how I love short weeks. Can you believe it's almost Friday?? I love it. Here's a post of randomness...

1) It looks like something pretty cool is going to happen as a result of my last post. Remember how I wrote about how I missed out on a performance of Evita at the Stratford Festival because I'm too silly to keep times straight? Well, someone who works in the Festival's media department found my post and commented on it, and is going to try to get me makeup tickets for a different performance! Isn't that so awesome? Anyway, I'll keep you updated... hopefully I can find a weekend performance that works with my schedule. It'll mean an impromptu Stratford visit, but I am down with that.

2) My work spouse and I have taken our relationship to the next level: we are gym buddies. We went today after school and I had a great workout. I have to face it, the "I'll come home and have dinner and *then* go to the gym" strategy does not work. Especially now that it's getting cold out. I'm not a fan of having to pack up my stuff the night before and lugging it to school. But I need to suck it up because exercise makes me feel so better and more energized.

3) After the gym, I had a few errands to run so I went to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte. They're not as good as they used to be; a couple of my twitter friends both said they taste quite chemically now. I think I'm going to branch out into chai lattes, and try a green tea latte because I realize I've never had one of those.

4) Last night I had a dresser drawer open for a while, and then I shut it and came out to the living room to pay some bills and stuff. I started to hear weird noises, so I went to investigate. I called for Rilo, figuring she was the source of the noise. I was puzzled that she didn't come out, until I remembered the open drawer, and my cat's penchant for getting into drawers. I opened it, and she hopped out. I felt bad and apologized, and she was cool, but pretty talkative afterwards. It ironic that I had the rescue of the Chilean miners on in the background while my cat was trapped in a drawer. Silly thing. I hope she's cured of the bad habit of hopping into drawers. And that I'm cured of leaving them open.

Oh, and look I even have a picture of Ms. Rilo in a drawer from a previous incident. At least that time I noticed her before I shut it.

4) Weekend plans - my pal Mathew is having a housewarming party on Friday, and I'll chill with Steve on Saturday. I'm thinking of making another lasagna even though it's tonnes of work, but I do have the cheese kicking around for it.

5) I don't know what to be for Halloween. My work spouse and I want to have matching/complementary costumes. Any ideas for nifty, cheap, easy-to-assemble costumes for a couple of science nerds?

6) This week has been exhausting even though it's short. I can't wait to curl up in bed with the latest book I'm reading on my Kindle. So far I've finished two books on my Kindle, and they were both good. This one (The Postmistress by Sarah Blake) is just all right, but still decent nought to be worth finishing. I love how I can download the first chapter of books for free on my Kindle; I did that with the other two books, and it proved that they were worth reading. I didn't do it with The Postmistress and look where we are now.

So that's it for today's randomness. Happy Friday blogarinos!

Don't cry for me Argentina.

My long weekend has been pretty good, but unfortunately not perfect.

The lack of perfection started on Sunday afternoon when I started the second mitten in a pair, and then realized after I'd knitted 11 rounds of the cuff, that I was using the wrong-sized needles and had to pull out my work.

Then, I got all dressed up on Sunday night to go with my aunt to see Evita at the Stratford Festival. We got to the theatre and were amazed by the ample parking... then we noticed the theatre was dark. I pulled my ticket confirmation out of my purse and noticed that the show was at 2 pm, not 8 pm as I'd thought. D'oh! Bye-bye tickets. Glad that you were discounted at 20%. I think I'd gotten confused because we had originally debated between the Saturday and Sunday shows, and at no point in time did I ever notice that the Sunday show was in fact a matinee. Sigh. Guess I'll have to wait 'til next season to catch a show at the Festival.

The ticket snafu at least allowed me some extra time to remedy that earlier knitting mistake though...

This morning, I got to the train station with my coffee and thought I'd have about ten minutes to wait for my train. Nope, try 75. Apparently there wasn't enough friction on the track between the previous stop and Stratford, and this resulted in the train being extra late. I managed to get a lot of reading done with that extra time.

Other than that stuff, my weekend was good. The time in Stratford was super chill. I spent a lot of time with my 'rents watching baseball and Modern Family DVDs, eating as per the expectations of this long weekend, and I skunked my dad in a game of cribbage (so he refused to play again). I went for a walk downtown, and had an amazing chai latte at Balzac's. Seriously, that place makes the best chai lattes.

Oh, and Friday night was a tonne of fun and I managed to not mess up the time of that entertainment event. As you know, Friday night was the much anticipated Los Campesinos! volcano redemption show. Seriously, though, we could have missed that one too. We were totally dawdling over dinner 'cuz it was a bar show, and typically at bar shows the band's not on 'til late, so you don't want to get there too early 'cuz you'll be bored and tired. Luckily, I decided to check Twitter to see if the band had anything witty to say about Toronto, and they'd posted that they'd be on at 9 pm! So we had to quit the dawdling ASAP and fly out of the restaurant.

My little buddy from Winnipeg (to quote rawbean) and I had been waiting for this show for ten months. It was worth the wait. The new venue was much smaller and hence more awesome than where April's show was supposed to be. The band put on a super high energy sweaty show, as I expected. It was so fun to hear so many of my fave songs live. For me, the highlight of the night was "You! Me! Dancing!" but they were all great. It was such a fun show. Yay! They had some neat merch too: I picked up a maroon "Romance is Boring" coffee mug. Anyway, I look forward to them returning to Toronto soon!

So despite the flaws, it was still a pretty good weekend. Right now I should be going to the gym to work off some of the food I ate, or marking, however I want to finish the book I spent most of my waiting time + train ride reading. I have my priorities.

So I always write your letters in multi-colours.

Pretty much the biggest and most exciting news in my life is this: 2 more sleeps until Los Campesinos! Finally, my redemption concert after the one that was cancelled after that volcano in the spring. According to the twitter, the band has arrived in North America, so all systems are go. My friend from Winnipeg is returning for the show, so I'm anticipating a super fun Friday evening.

And super bonus - it will be the Friday night before the long weekend. After a great night of rock and roll, I'll be on the morning train to St. Ratford. I'm hoping to catch up with some friends on Saturday night. On Sunday, my dad's in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and then I'm going to catch "Evita" at the Stratford (not just) Shakespearean Festival. Then on Monday, back on the morning train to Toronto where I'll hang out with Rilo and Steve.

So clearly I have a super fun weekend coming up, and I know that it will fly by, but I'll have to enjoy every second of it.

Anyway, I need to be up early so I'm going to hit the hay. I'll leave you with a fun LC! video. I can't wait for that show bloggarinos!

I Wish.

I wish that instead of working this week, I could take off and stay at some little cottage up north where the leaves are changing. I could wear warm sweaters, scarves and mittens, and drink red wine by campfires and stare at the stars. I could spend my days reading, writing, apple picking, walking through fallen leaves, knitting and going into town to wander around antique stores.

Odds and Ends

Wow, I'm feeling ultra-bloggy these days, so here's the third post in three days.

To answer questions from my previous post, no, my Kindle doesn't have a touch screen like an iPad. There are conveniently-located buttons on both sides of the screen to turn pages. It's funny how we've become to expect everything to be a touch screen: when I first got my Kindle, I kept touching its screen since I'm used to my iPhone, and pretty much everyone I show the thing to tries the same thing. A few years ago we weren't like that, were we? I'm sure that they'll come out with a touch-screen Kindle sooner or later, and my shiny new toy will become a technological relic.

And to answer more questions from last post, we released the bugs, or benthic macroinvertebrates if you want to use more scientific terminology, back into the river. Oh, and all of the girls and boys were totally into everything, and no one was the least bit squeamish. I was impressed.

Oh, and yes, the book I was talking about was about Henrietta Lacks, the woman who has cells taken from a cancerous tumour, and then they were grown in culture and used in countless areas of research. Interestingly enough, my envi-sci class was engaged in a discussion about genetically-engineered foods today, which evolved into a discussion about medical ethics, and I ended up telling them about this book, and they were enthralled by the story.

So that answers questions from my last post, now onto some new stuff.

A colleague told me a funny story today. Apparently while I was off on my field study yesterday, they removed a tree from in front of my school. His class could see this happening from the window, and one student remarks "Oh sure, they wait until Miss Christielli is gone for the day, then they cut down a tree."

I'm feeling so much better from my cold. I have a tonne of energy this evening. I ran some errands, came home, watched Jeopardy and kicked ass on the category about scientists. Then I remembered that I had a coupon for a free Starbucks drink that was good for the month of September, so I went on a nice walk there. When I came home, I marked a pile of stuff despite Rilo doing her best to sit on it.

Anyway, now I'm going to curl up with my new book, which is great so far. Hope you all have nice Fridays and nice weekends!

Field Trips, kindles, and libraries

Hey kids. I've almost kicked this cold. However, a day in the sun collecting and identifying bugs with teenagers has left me exhausted. I just passed out for about 2 hrs in front of my TV. I started watching Jeopardy, and dammit, now I don't know who won. Hee-hee. Luckily, my parents never miss an episode, so I could call them... if I cared.

So yah, my field trip was amazing. It was a great opportunity that I scored with an environmental education organization where all of the supplies and some expertise were provided for my class for free! We were able to access a portion of a local river by public transit, and the kids went in (wearing hip waders) and collected bugs from the bottom of the stream. It was a really nice sunny day; there were lots of people fishing in the river because it is salmon spawning season. I've never been to this particular park in Toronto before; it's nice to know you can kind of get outdoors within the city.

Based on our analysis of the bugs we collected, it turns out the river is unimpaired! How nice! The neat thing about this study is that the procedure and analysis that we used is the same as those that government and environmental organizations use to determine stream/river quality, so that was cool.

After a long day in the field, I headed home (well, to Starbucks) and finished reading my first book on my Kindle. I have to say that I really like the Kindle. It's not like staring at a screen at all. Whenever I've showed it to people, they are surprised how much the screen looks like a real book. As a friend said "it's like they somehow stuck a page of a real book in there". It's very cool. And you can change the font size and things like that too. Also, it's so light and small that it makes my bag noticeably lighter. It's very portable. I kind of miss turning pages, and the physical realization of how much I read (although there's a percentage on the bottom of the screen), but I think as I read more on the Kindle, the less I'll miss that. Anyhow, I think that it's a great toy to have if you read a lot, carry books around a lot, and/or travel a lot.

The book I finished, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", was rather interesting, but I found the first half more fascinating then the second. It was definitely an interesting piece of non-fiction, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes biology.

I got a call from the library today, because the brand new Richard B. Wright book had come in, and I'm the first person to get it! Yay! I don't think I've been the first person to read a new library book since I was a kid, and the Stratford librarians used to save the new dinosaur books for me to read first (my nerdiness was well known at the library... I was so Lisa Simpson). Anyway, my new book is called "Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard", and I'm really looking forward to it. Wright is the author of one of my favourite books (Clara Callan), so I have high hopes!

Anyway, I should start it, then sleep. I did not do any marking tonight, so I must get to school early enough so I can finish a grade 9 set of quizzes before they declare mutiny.

The inevitable fall cold.

Usually when there is a change of season, I get a cold. So right now I'm enjoying the fall edition of the change-of-season sniffles. It's rendered me tired and sniffly.

Anyway, stuff's good. I don't feel like I have much to blog about these days. School's busy as usual. I have a field trip tomorrow. I'm taking my environmental science class to a river to do a stream study. It will be a fun day, but means that I'll be outside all day, so hopefully the weather co-operates. Cross your fingers for sunshine and no rain.

I got the new Ben Folds & Nick Hornby album. Ben wrote the music and does the singing, and Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, About a Boy and others, wrote the lyrics. I'm getting into it. Right now I'm listening to the song "Picture Window" which is making me feeling a little bit emo. It's pretty though.

What else? I got a new jacket today. My old black spring/fall jacket is looking faded these days and has holes in the pockets and when I saw a cute black corduroy jacket while wandering through the mall today after school, I knew it'd be a good buy. I'm going to wear it tomorrow, even though I'll be watching kids in hipwaders collecting bugs.

Which reminds me, I can't forget my camera.

I should wash dishes. I should make my lunch. I just want to curl up in bed and read. Right now I'm 65% into "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" on my Kindle. I'm enjoying it. I'd like to finish it tonight.

I should call my mother.

I think my brain has been addled by this cold I have. I don't feel as on top of things as I'd like to these days.

Maybe an early bed-time will help me. Good night.

Exhaustion and Candy

Boy am I tuckered out! I'm still getting into the groove of school, I think. Two of my classes are ginormous (29 kids each) this semester and I'm feeling it. I know that many teachers have bigger class sizes than this, but I've been spoiled the last couple years with smaller classes, so I'm feeling the difference. The piles of marking seem that much larger, and I find in my fourth period class that I just can't get around to everyone every day. In that course the curriculum is extra heavy too, so it's a challenge. However, the kids are really good, I can't complain, there are just a lot of them!

Anyway, my apartment is a mess, and my eating/gym-going routines aren't what I'd like them to be, but I will work on these.

I've been keeping up with reading everyone's blogs, but I haven't commented in couple days. Many I'll go on a comment spree tomorrow night.

However, lots of excitement in the way of candy!

My Kindle and its pretty green case arrived today! Perfect timing, as I had 15 pages left of "One Day". Oh, and by the way, really great NON-CORNY romance. Loved it.

My first e-book will "The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake. It took me half an hour to find/select which book I wanted to start with. Also, I find it hard to read a new book after you finish a good book. Often, I wish the good book had just kept going.

Oh, and since I'm hoping the arrival of the Kindle will mean that I go on a reading spree, book recommendations from you to me are strongly encouraged. Anything great I should read?

More candy: I've discovered the show Modern Family on DVD. HILARIOUS. Love it. I can't decided who my favourite character is: Gloria and Cameron are both hilarious. And Manny too. Seriously, if you haven't seen the show, check it out. I missed the season premiere tonight, but I'll catch up.

In an annual tradition, I watched the Polaris Prize being streamed online while making some snarky and some sincere remarks on MSN with a blog buddy who no longer blogs. There were four albums nominated that I loved, yet of course, none of them were the winner. (Karkwa won. They were all right.) The performances that I caught were great! However, the standout of the night were Tegan and Sara doing stripped down a couple of their songs with the always amazing Owen Pallett joining on violin. I seriously got teary eyed during the performance below. I can sometimes get emotional at the drop of a hat. Anyway, watch this. Awesome.

All right, I'm off to read my Kindle. I'll let you know what it's like! Oh, and I'm so glad I got a Kindle instead of the Kobo which Chapters is selling. It's gorgeous, whereas the Kobo seems a little chintzy to me.

The dog days are over.

It truly feels like fall these days. I love fall, and one thing I notice is that a lot of my blog buddies are the same way, so a lot of blogs have morphed into fall love letters of sorts.

I've been having some really nice fall, aka autumn, moments lately. Word choice note: I like the word autumn more than the word fall, however I think I've always called this season fall, so that's what comes out when I think/talk/write about it. Here is a list of great stuff that's been going on in my world during the past week.

1) I went for a really nice bike ride today. It really was just a trip to my friend Fea's and back because we then departed for TIFF together, but it was good riding weather for sure.

2) The movie I saw at TIFF (Sarah's Key) was really good. There was a lot of crying going on in the theatre. It's a movie from France, mostly in French but with a lot of English, so I'm not sure when it's coming out here, but when it does, I highly recommend it. And the book as I said last post.

3) I've been listening to Florence + the Machine's album "Lungs" a lot lately. I bought in the summer but never listened to until last week. It's great.

4) I'm reading a really good book called "One Day" by David Nicholls. It's about a couple and what their life is like every July 15th over a span of twenty years. I'm liking it a lot.

5) My Kindle has shipped. So maybe the next book I read will be on the Kindle!

6) Last week, three of my besties from work and I went for coffee at a really pretty French bakery in my neighbourhood. I can't believe I hadn't been there before. I had a spicy cocoa macaroon. It was delish. The place made me miss France.

7) On Saturday, I got a Zipcar and drove to Vaughn for a workshop at a conservation area there. I'm doing a stream study with my environmental science class, so this was teacher training for that. It was a good day; I think the kids will love the study. We went down to the river for a bit to collect bugs, and I got a lovely mosquito bite on my neck.

Since I had the car, I went to Ikea to get some picture frames and storage boxes, and also went to the big mall there. I bought nothing. Well done Christielli.

8) I feel like this post has completely sucked. I was going to write all kinds of deep things but got distracted by convos on MSN, Facebook, and text messages, so I promise to do better next time.

Random Bits of Fun!

1) I neglected to mention in my last post that I got tickets to a TIFF movie. TIFF is the Toronto International Film Festival for those of you who don't live here and aren't subjected to 24/7 coverage of celebrity sightings on the news. It's the film adaptation of a great book I read this summer: Sarah's Key!

I hope that the movie doesn't disappoint as sometimes film adaptations of books tend to do. However, the story is amazing so I have faith that it will carry through to film.

I do highly recommend the book to anyone and everyone. In fact, I'm usually not someone who speaks to strangers in public, but when I was in a bookstore line in Boston this summer and the lady in front of me had the book in her hands, I had to tell her that it was great. It's always nice to hear that the book that you're buying is good, right?

2) Speaking of books, the cover for my Kindle has been shipped and is on its way. So I guess I can look at it and get excited about the Kindle until the actual gadget arrives. I agree with a lot of your comments about e-readers on my previous post: I too might miss the turning of the pages and curling up with a book, however, since the Kindle was designed with book-lovers in mind, it's not supposed to feel like you are staring at a screen (it's only b & w), and it's supposed to just "disappear" as you get immersed in your e-book.

Anyway, when it arrives, you lucky blog-readers will get to live vicariously through me and find out what it's like. That's why I'm splurging on it, you know. Gotta do stuff for your blog audience. ;)

3) Today I got pre-sale tickets to see Broken Social Scene in December. I'm very excited. I've never seen them properly, only at a record store. I also got to make Steve's day with news of the tickets. Win-win!

4) My classes are still really good. We're all gelling together nicely.

5) I think I'm going out for Brazilian food with some pals from work... but then again, I thought that about last Wednesday too and it didn't happen. We shall see if it's a go this week.

Happy Wednesday!

It just is.

I just got back from a pretty good workout at the gym. New school year: new good habits, I always say. I hadn't been in awhile, and it was great to find that they've installed a bunch of new bike posts in front of the gym. There used to only be two, and they'd always be taken, and I'd have to go around the corner or across the street to lock up my bike. Anyway, it's a nice little touch.

So yah, here's some randomness from the recent past, the present, and the future.

1) I survived the first week of school. My classes seem good. Right now the planning is a bit overwhelming but I'll get back into that groove soon (I hope).

2) I've been listening to a lot of Rilo Kiley lately. Poor Rilo has to put up with my wandering around her apartment singing loudly and massacring her namesake. Poor kitty. (She's giving me a dirty look right now as I sing "I Never".)

3) I ordered a Kindle! One night this week I was browsing the internet because I was in the mood to buy something. Anyway, my travels brought me to the Kindle site and I thought "hmmm".

I was/am still on the fence about e-readers. I love books as physical objects but I have a bad habit of buying too many of them and my bookshelf is full. I'm trying to use the library more, but I also like immediacy. With a Kindle, I can get the latest books for $10 in 60 seconds! Damn this culture of immediate gratification and its bad influence on me! I also like the idea of not having to lug books around when I travel. A con of an e-reader is that I can't lend books to people from it, so I guess people who use me as a lending library (hi Dad!) are going to be out of luck.

My friend Flora got a Kindle for her birthday and raved about it when I last saw her. Anyway, I was discussing the idea with my mom, and she was really for it, so that went in on the "pro" side of the argument. The deciding factor for me is that I hope the novelty of it will get me reading more. I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to this year, so maybe the latest gadget will encourage me to spend more time reading, and less time on more mindless things (hi internet!).

I put my order in today. It's not going to be here anytime soon. They are currently out of stock because they are so popular, but they estimate mine will be ready on September 24th. It's also gotta ship from the US, so that'll add another week or so. I'm going to push it out of my mind and then it will be a nice surprise.

However, who wants to bet my pretty apple green case will arrive well in advance?

4) My plan for the autumn is to rock my purple chucks as much as possible.

5) I am in love with Starbucks' Toffee Mocha Frappucino. So much so, I haven't even had one of my beloved Pumpkin Spice Lattes yet. I'm holding off on the latte until it gets a little bit cooler.

6) I'm really excited to watch this show. It looks like it might have potential, and may warm my heart. I don't get A&E, but I hope that I'll either be able to find it on the internet, or someone nice (hi Steve!) will let me watch it at their house.

7) I was going to be ambitious and make homemade mac and cheese but that would mean going to the grocery store, and I'm supposed to meet up with my long-lost friend Mathew for coffee tonight so I don't think there will be time. Ahhh, well, toast and peanut butter it will be! Happy Monday everyone!

Edit: I just realized that I could have grilled cheese + soup for dinner instead! Yum! Perfect fall comfort dinner!

Labour Day Weekend/First Day Back

Wow. It seems like it's been an eternity since my last post. Here's a summary of what's been going on in the world of Christielli since then.

1) After three hectic days at school where I managed to get enough accomplished, I was able to take Friday off. So I spent the day making my first lasagna ever. It was really yummy. Day well spent. However, it was so time consuming, I doubt I'll do it again until there's another break from school.

2) On Saturday morning, I took the train to St. Ratford. I had a pleasant trip there. I got to spend some good quality time with the 'rents, and catch up with some friends. I got to meet my friend Teresa's new baby (he was born just over a week ago), sample her mother-in-law's amazing shrimp curry, and have a great dinner with my pal Heather.

3) I returned to Toronto on Monday. It was a yucky rainy day, which meant it was not really conducive for anything but spending some quality couch time with Miss Rilo Kitty. I find Labour Day always a little hard to deal with because it's the end of summer. I do look forward to going back to school, however it's always a hard transition and I get a little mopey. Luckily, Steve was nice enough to take me for ice cream to ease the pain, then we rented a movie but ended up watching Hoarders instead. That show is hard to watch, but once you get into an episode it's hard to turn away. Anyway, my Monday night moping was minimal.

4) Today was the big day! I put on my new purple cardigan/lilac frilly tank top duo, my favourite black skirt, and matching lilac flats and headed off to the races. The first day back is a joke. It consists of 20 minute classes which are basically a meet and greet. Then there's a bit of prep time built in, and the same ol' staff meeting where you go through the same ol' staff handbook you get every year.

Anyway, it's nice to be back and see old friends and catch up. My classes this semester look great. I've got my environmental science course which is my favourite to teach, so that's nice to come back to. My grade 9s probably won't make a peep until the end of October, and my grade 10s seem a little chatty but good-natured. It will be an awesome semester.

5) Tomorrow is the first full day of classes where I'll have to do a lot of talking and probably won't be able to speak by the end of the day.

6) I'm all ready for tomorrow which means that hopefully I can finish the awesome book I've been reading forever and start on the new one I picked up from the library tonight. Fall's a good time for me to reawaken my inner bookworm, I hope.

Happy September everyone!

15 Albums (Special Blog Edition)

I have been hit twice by this little meme in the facebook-o-sphere, and I thought it was a fun thing to do whilst doing laundry. Anyway, instead of another post about work, which is really what's consuming me these days, I've decided to bring this meme to the blogosphere. And, since my blog buddies are very special to me, you guys get the special annotated version!

Here we go.

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Remember: List records in no particular order.

1) The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner - Ben Folds Five

This album came after my first year of university during a hard summer when my Nana was dying of cancer. The song "Magic" defined that point in my life, and the rest of the album's great. It's funny that it's not too sad for me to listen to either.

2) Under the Pink - Tori Amos

I didn't like this album at first. However, after it being the only CD that was kicking around the art gallery where I worked one summer, and hence the only thing I had to listen to during the last hour of my shift when no one was there, I really got into and became a huge Tori fan.

3) Reconstruction Site - The Weakerthans

I saw this album develop over the course of many Weakerthans shows. I knew the songs so well before the album was released. It's so special to me.

4) Twice Removed - Sloan

Deeper Than Beauty. Pen Pals. Coax Me. Snowsuit Sound. I Hate My Generation. I Can Feel It. A lot of my fave old school Sloan songs in one place. Love.

5) (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves - Hawksley Workman

I was at the CD release party at the Rivoli where Hawksley performed this album with a string quartet. It's always been my favourite Hawksley album as a result.

6) Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case

This is the album that really got me into Neko Case. That teenage feeling? That's how I feel about this album!

7) Pinkerton - Weezer

I am so happy that I'm among the lucky who was a teenager when this album came out and got to mope around to it in its prime. And El Scorcho is one of my fave songs ever.

8) Hold On Now, Youngster - Los Campesinos!

This album got me into LC! and I'm still waiting anxiously to see them live. October 8th can't come too soon.

9) The Reminder - Feist

Just so you know, this album plays very well when you are in France. And anywhere else, really.

10) Set Yourself of Fire - Stars

Even though Stars keeps putting out amazing stuff, and their preceding albums are great too, this is my favourite.

11) Parachutes - Coldplay

Coldplay, although I'm okay with them, isn't one of my favourite bands, so it's surprising that this album made my list. However, I love the lovely simplicity of this disc, and I listened to it on repeat when I first started reading Harry Potter, so this album reminds me Harry Potter more than anything.

12) You Were Here - Sarah Harmer

This is a desert island album for me. I always come back to it.

13) Three - Joel Plaskett

Triple album of awesomeness.

14) C'mon Feel the Illinoise - Sufjan Stevens

I love the long song titles, the complex arrangements, and Sufjan's voice on this album.

15) Everything in Transit - Jack's Mannequin

This is the album that I go to when I need something pop/punk/emo with mad piano.

If you'd like to tag yourself with this meme, do it! :)