My Year in Lists: Favourite Albums of 2010

I hope you all had wonderful Christmases! I had a very relaxing one, and tonight it's the thirteenth annual Group of 9 Christmas gathering which I am very much looking forward to.

Now that the busyness of Christmas is more or less over, I think most people are relaxed and just riding out the year that was. Now is the time of year when we can all reflect on the year that was and start crafting our resolutions for the new year.

I always enjoy making my list of my top ten favourite albums of the year. Note my use of the word favourite. I don’t claim these to be the best albums of 2010, but just the ones that I connected with the most while I listened to them or experienced them live. These are the ten albums that make up a great deal of the soundtrack of my life for 2010, and as usual, I love playing the role of an amateur music critic and posting them on my blog.

10) This is Good - Hannah Georgas

I discovered Hannah Georgas on a CBC Radio 3 Podcast about a year ago, and loved her EP The Beat Stuff. I looked forward to her full-length and it delivers. Most of the songs are fun sing-alongs but “Your Ghost” is hauntingly mournful. Hannah Georgas has a beautiful voice, and is able to create memorable melodies on this album, and yes, it is good.

Top Tracks: Your Ghost and This is Good

9) Lonely Avenue - Ben Folds & Nick Hornby

I’ve read some scathing reviews of this album, and I have to say I completely disagree with them. I think this album, with music by my one of my long-time favourite musicians, and lyrics by novelist Nick Hornby, is full of great songs. All of the songs are stories within themselves and evoke such vivd pictures with their lyrics. I find that Ben Folds has always been able to do this in his songs, but it’s cool that he’s collaborated with another wordsmith on this album. Heck, they’ve make me feel sympathy for Bristol Palin’s baby daddy in the song Levi Johnston’s Blues. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, there are a couple tracks that don’t work (Saskia Hamilton and Practical Amanda), but overall this is a strong album.

Top Tracks: Picture Window and From Above

8) Heartland - Owen Pallett

I never got into Owen Pallett when he was going by the moniker Final Fantasy, probably just based on the fact I didn’t like the name of his last record, He Poos Clouds (yes, I’m superficial). However, as soon as I heard the song Lewis Takes Action from this album, I was intrigued to hear more. The musicianship on Heartland is amazing and really smart; I seriously can feel the neurons in my brain making more connections between each other, and therefore making me smarter, as I listen to album. After seeing Owen Pallett live this spring, I appreciate his talent so much, and I’m just amazed at what he can do with his violin and a computer.

Top Tracks: Lewis Takes Action and Oh Heartland, Up Yours!

7) Sidewalks - Matt & Kim

This NYC duo’s previous album Grand made my top ten list last year, and I daresay they’ve upped their game this year. When I first listened to Sidewalks I thought “Wow! This is just like Grand, but better!” Sidewalks clocks in at under 35 minutes, but it’s 35 minutes filled with crunchy synth and drums that makes you feel like you are walking down the streets of NYC humming along with its catchy melodies. This album makes me want to go back to NYC right now. Well maybe not right now, since all of the flights are canceled 'cuz of the snowstorm...

Top Tracks: Block After Block and Northeast

6) Oh Little Fire - Sarah Harmer

Sarah’s previous album I’m a Mountain came out a long time ago, and I did enjoy its blue-grassy country-twinged songs, but I was psyched that Oh Little Fire goes back to the folk-rock of her other two albums. Sarah Harmer has one of the loveliest voices out there, and she writes incredible songs. One of the most exciting moments of this album is the duet between Sarah and Neko Case on Silverado. The songs on this album range from happy (The Marble in Your Eye) to sad (New Loneliness) and completely span the range of emotions that I experienced during 2010, so this album provides a great soundtrack for an up-and-down year in my life.

Top Tracks: The City and Washington

5) The Five Ghosts - Stars

I know that this album is much beloved by many of my blog friends, and I love it too, although I feel that Set Yourself On Fire is still the best Stars album ever. However, comparing Stars albums is like comparing different varieties of chocolate ice cream: they’re all awesome, aren’t they? I love the gothy theme of this album; I’ll take an album about ghosts and death any day. The first six songs of this album suit my tastes the most; I tend to repeat them over and over again. As usual, Stars delivers wonderful dark and romantic electronic melodies. Seeing them play tracks from this album at Massey Hall this October made this album more special to me.

Top Tracks: I Died So I Could Haunt You and He Dreams He’s Awake

4) The Falcon Lake Incident - Jim Bryson & the Weakerthans

When I heard that the Weakerthans, my favourite band of all time, were the backing band for Jim Bryson’s new album, I wasn’t sure what to expect so I didn’t get the album right away. Then iTunes released Metal Girls as the song of the week and I loved it, which motivated me to get the entire album. It’s great on its first listen, but it gets better as you listen to it more and more and you realize how fun the melodies are, and how great the musicianship is on each and every track. Hearing the Weakerthans play someone else’s songs is a new thing, but there’s something familiar about it, and I like it. This is a little album that will grow on you quickly, and it’s definitely one of my favourite things of 2010. I can’t wait to see the show at Lee’s Palace in 2011.

Top Tracks: Up All Night and Decidedly

3) The Suburbs - The Arcade Fire

The word epic is thrown around a lot these days (I’ll admit that I’m guilty of that), but this album is truly epic. I’m not even a big Arcade Fire fan (please don’t throw rocks at me) and I still love this album. This is one of those albums where each and every song works together very well, and I could seriously listen to it for hours on end. I didn’t grow up in the suburbs; however, my little small town sometimes had a suburban feel to it, and I can relate to the themes on this album. With The Suburbs, The Arcade Fire has completely won me over, and now I need to see them live oh-so-badly. I hope that they play Toronto again in 2011.

Top Tracks: The Suburbs and Ready to Start

2) Forgiveness Rock Record - Broken Social Scene

As I used to be meh about the Arcade Fire, I used to be pretty meh about Broken Social Scene. I guess I’m really late when it comes to falling in the love with the cool indie music collectives that Canada has to offer, and 2010 is the year when I finally got completely won over. I used to like BSS, but now I completely love them. Maybe I’m just that hard to get, ha-ha. Anyway, as anyone who had been ready this blog lately knows, I’ve been obsessively listening to BSS for a few months, and Forgiveness Rock Record played a big part in this obsession. When I first listed to FRR, I thought maybe it won me over because it was more accessible than other BSS stuff, but now that I’m more learned in BSS (again, that’s all I’ve been listening to lately), I’m not so sure. Honestly, I think it’s just been that there’s always been this awesome band in my city, and this was the year I was meant to really get into them with this record and with the film “This Movie is Broken”. And seriously, I really think I needed BSS this year, and it all worked out perfectly.

Top Tracks: Meet Me in the Basement and Sweetest Kill

1) Romance is Boring - Los Campesinos!

This album defined 2010 for me. In fact, it seems like most my year consisted of being excited for the new LC! album, being excited that I was going to see them in April, being sad that the volcano effed with my plans, hoping they’d reschedule, then waiting for their eventual awesome show in October. And now, I just live in the happy afterglow. I would say that Romance is Boring is darker and more cacophonous than previous LC! work, yet it’s just as catchy and brilliant with guy/girl vocals, horns, strings, and awesome melodies that make me want to dance. RIB opens with the crescendo of In Media Res where Gareth sings “let’s talk about you for a moment” and even though none of these songs talk about me, or you, or whoever is listening, this album rather seems like you’re hanging out with a fun group of friends, partying, swapping secrets and even having yet another documented emotional breakdown. And we all need our friends, and our favourite music around us when we are breaking down, and I’m thankful to have this album around for both good times and bad.

Top Tracks: The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future and A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; Or, Letters from Me to Charlotte

And there's my favourite album list for yet another year. It was quite tricky to cull this list: there were albums that kept moving on and off this list, but I’m pretty sure I’ll always enjoy these ten albums. What were your favourite albums of 2010?

Merry Christmas.

Hey all fellow bloggers, random readers, and well-wishers!

I hope that you all have a very merry Christmas and that each and every one of you are graced with at least one of those magical Christmas moments that happen during Christmas TV specials.

Merry Christmas! I'll be back soon with all of my year-end lists and such, provided that no holiday mishap befalls me. I already took an epic fall on a patch of ice yesterday in London. I was air-borne. It was seriously awesome; I actually had time to think while I was flying through the air. I didn't get hurt; just covered in snow and slightly embarrassed. Anyway, that was probably my Christmas accident for 2010, and I should be good now.

Hope you all have a great day!

This snowman is shaping up to be an eight but not out of ten.

I love how time sort of has slowed down over holidays. Okay, well I *am* already at the Wednesday of week one (please week two never come), but it seems like so much has happened over these holidays already.

On Monday, my friend, her husband and I were essentially let loose in a warehouse full of shoes where we could take two free pairs each. It felt like some sort of bizarre game show. Does anyone remember that show "Supermarket Sweep" (I think) where people ran around a grocery store trying to spend the most amount of money? This was the shoe version.

After that, we met up with other friends for a delicious Thai lunch at a restaurant at Spadina and Bloor that I'd never been to before. I ate mango salad, spring rolls, cashew beef, and pad thai for only $7. Amazing.

Yesterday morning I was up and at them for a dentist appointment. At least the people at my dentist's office are super nice, so it makes me dread going to the dentist a little bit less. It was just for a cleaning though, and now my teeth feel nice and clean.

I walked home from my appointment and got my last gift. I'll probably still pick up some impulse items, but the list is done.

Last night was Jason Collett's Basement Revue at the Dakota and it was super fun. There were lots of great musicians and even some poetry reading. Lots of various members of BSS, Metric, and Stars wandering around. I was super excited to hear Ron Hawkins (of Lowest of the Low) play a few songs. That man has such a great voice. Ron Sexsmith also played, which was great. The end of the show was fun: some members of BSS came on stage and made up a couple of songs, and then the night ended with Torq from Stars and Jimmy from Metric singing a sad song.

Today I have to pack and meet up with Mathew for twice-postponed-sushi. Then I'll catch the train to Stratford. I'm really looking forward to a week of relaxing in my little hometown. I'm especially looking forward to catching up with friends. Tomorrow night (weather-permitting) I'm driving to London to have dinner with my friend Heather. Then, next week will be the thirteenth-annual Group of 9 Christmas, and we might have all nine attend this year. The only wild card, as always, is my friend Mel, and I think I'll send her a message right now reminding her of the event.

I'd end this post with "Merry Christmas" but I'm sure I'll have time to post from sleep ol' St. Ratford before then, so you'll just have to hold on for your well-wishes.

But darling I'd still catch a grenade for ya.

I've made it to vacation! I always love the Sunday night before a week off. It feels so good knowing that I don't have to go to work tomorrow. (Sorry for those who do.... you'll have time off soon, right?)

The last two days of work were hectic as I expected: most of it due to the annual talent show preparations. The talent show turned out great, as usual. All of the winners were very deserving, and all of the acts were pretty entertaining. Every year the talent show exposes me to some new pop song of which I was unaware. Last year it was "Bad Romance" and this year it was Bruno Mars' "Grenade" which is pretty darned catchy. I always get a little bit emotional during the talent show: I'm so proud of all of the performers for being brave enough to take the stage. And, the audience is always very encouraging of every act, no matter how different or slightly bad they may be. The best was when we had an amazing classical pianist play this year. I was standing near some rather thuggish kids in the audience who cheered "Mad talent! Mad talent!"

After all that, we had a staff lunch (meh), I went home and had a short nap, and then my pal Fea and I took student council out for a Christmas dinner to celebrate a successful first four months. It was lots of fun. Those kids are just really great people, and it's nice treating them for dinner. Which we all deserved since we worked so hard on organizing the show.

Yesterday was another busy day with lots of food since I had two birthday parties. All I ate at the second one was a piece of super delicious red velvet cake though. Also, I got to catch up with a good friend who I hadn't seen since the summer; and both of us kind of fell off the map for similar reasons. We're going to have a good catch-up session complete with some beer when we're back in town.

Today I woke up early and got myself a Zipcar so I could drive Rilo to my parents' place as a Christmas surprise. I first had to stop by the pet store to get her a new carrier. She was able to claw a hole through her old one on her last car trip. This time I got a sturdy plastic one; I'm pretty sure she's met her match. Anyway, she was a little bit better this time: she was quiet for maybe half an hour of the two-hour trip.

My parents had no idea that I was planning this trip and were surprised when I showed up. In fact, my dad had just done some Christmas shopping, and I wasn't allowed to enter the living room until they had time to hide all of it. Anyway, they were happy with the surprise, and Rilo was happy to investigate my parents' giant Christmas tree. I also bought her a laser pointer cat toy at the pet store. She loves it and I had a fun afternoon making her chase it around. It's the first cat toy I've found that she gets super excited for.

I did a bit of shopping in downtown Stratford this afternoon. I got my second last Christmas present and an excellent chai latte at my fave Stratford coffee place. Then I went to Swiss Chalet to get Festive specials as a treat for my parents. Man, they're spoiled! Dinner and a cat taxied to their doorstep!

The drive back was very smooth, and now I'm home. I'm pretty tired so I think I'll be in bed very early. The next couple of days involve appointments, social plans, cleaning, packing, and a concert (yay!). I'll head to Stratford on Wednesday night for almost a week. I'll get a couple days of rest then, but there are a lot of fun plans to keep me busy as well.

Less than one week 'til Christmas. Yay! Hope you are all merry, and slightly less tired than I am right now.

I know that only I can save me.

The next few days of my life are going to be crazy busy, even though the holidays are starting oh-so-soon. Let's look at my itinerary.

Tomorrow - Last day of teaching. Quizzes for all. That's how I roll. Then, it's a late night at school with the talent show dress rehearsal which, as I learned last year, is always a disaster. However, a disastrous rehearsal means a great show.

Friday - Shortened classes. Talent Show. Staff Luncheon. Student Council Christmas dinner.

Saturday - Morning: manicure, pedicure, facial.

Afternoon: birthday party for a 2-year old.

Evening: birthday party for a 28-year old.

Sunday - Depending on the weather, I might get a car and drive Miss Rilo to St. Ratford as a Christmas surprise for my parents. They keep saying "oh, I wish Rilo could come here for the holidays." I actually have a friend driving me back to the city, so taxi-ing Rilo one way for the holidays wouldn't be too bad. Again, it's all dependent on the weather which is looking iffy already. If the weather sucks, I might have a day of rest, and Mathew can cat-sit his god-cat while I'm in St. Ratford.

Monday - In the morning, I have a foot doctor appointment. Gotta milk my benefits before the end of the calendar year. I'm hoping for a nice free pair of boots out of it. In the afternoon, I have lunch planned with a bunch of friends.

Tuesday - Dentist appointment in the morning, probably packing my stuff in the afternoon, and then the Basement Revue at the Dakota Tavern with Jason Collett in the evening. Guess which part of this day I'm looking forward to the most??

Wednesday - I will take the train to St. Ratford for a few days of rest. Who am I kidding? I won't get much rest. Already my days are looking quite booked up. Oh well, at least my family is small and our Christmases are relatively quiet.

I have given up on the idea of getting my marking mostly finished before the holidays. I'm going to have to schedule a few marking sessions into my holiday schedule. I have no motivation to pick up a pen right now. Also, in the midst of those busy days above, I'll have to get my place into a presentable condition. I hate coming home to a mess after a trip. At least my Christmas shopping is almost done. I just have two more presents left to buy. Plus birthday presents for those parties on Saturday. Thank goodness I live near a Shopper's Drug Mart. It's the best place for last minute gifts.

Anyway, I could wash dishes, I could do laundry, but instead I'm going to curl up in bed with the book I'm reading. It's called "The Little Stranger" and it's written by Sarah Waters. I tried to read a different book by her a couple years ago, and I couldn't get into it. However, I came across this one at my neighbourhood library, and it looked good, so I picked up. It's delightfully gothy; the setting is a run-down English country mansion post-WWII. It seems haunted. I love it so far.

Hope you are all staying sane amidst the holiday craziness.

p.s. Someone from school sent me this cartoon because they thought I'd like it. I seriously guffawed when I saw it. Nerd.

The Christmas Song Post.

This last week of work before holidays is always nuts. The kids don't want to learn, I don't particularly want to teach, but the reality is that when they come back, we have only three weeks before exams, and I have a lot of curriculum to cram in before there. So, it's a challenging, challenging time. However, I have to say that today I taught a kickass lesson on the most exciting of topics: curved mirrors. Getting 29 teenagers happily drawing ray diagrams during the last week before holidays is a gift in itself.

I have so much stuff to get done this week: endless marking, Christmas prep, my apartment is a disaster, and did I mention I'm involved in planning the year-end talent show? It's a crazy time folks.

So what did I do this evening when I got home from work? Had a nice bubble bath with a glass of wine and read a book. Then fell asleep while reading the book.** The more stuff I have to do, the more my brain and body go into relaxation mood. But today's only Monday, right? Getting through a Monday in itself is hard enough work... I'll work harder the rest of the days, I promise.

Now that I've set the mood, here's what this post is really about: my favourite Christmas songs!

In my Slow Club post, I mentioned they had a great Christmas EP, which got everyone talking about their favourite Christmas songs in the comments, so I figured that I'd make a list of my own before Christmas. Here it is!

1) To re-iterate, the 6-song Slow Club Christmas EP, "Christmas Thanks for Nothing" is awesome. And on iTunes.

2) Last year, The Line of Best Fit put out a free compilation of Canada indie rock Christmas tunes called Ho Ho Ho Canada. My favourites from this compilations are "I Wanna Kiss You This Christmas" by Megan Barnes and David Carswell, "Snowfall" by The Acorn, and "Cinnamon Winter" by Cinderpop. The've put out a new compilation this year, and I've yet to go through it, but I will.

3) My beloved Los Campesinos! put out a Christmas song this year called "Kindle A Flame in Her Heart". It's great. You can download it here.

4) Everyone loves "Fairytale of New York" of course. The original is the best, but there is a version by Pilate that I got on some Christmas compilation CD years ago that I dig. And of course, I love Stars' version of the song too. I also remember seeing them play it at a pre-Christmas show at Lee's Palace years ago, so it's got nostalgia value.

5) Another Christmas duet that I love is "Baby, It's Cold Outside." I have three versions of it, but my favourite is the one by Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel from the Elf soundtrack.

6) There's a Ben Folds song called "Lonely Christmas Eve" that was from the soundtrack of the Jim Carrey Grinch movie. I bought the CD for that song years and years ago, and it was worth every penny for that one song because it is really great, and obscure now. Ben channels the frustration of the Grinch with all the noise, noise, noise in one song.

7) Of course, I always listen to Boris Karloff's "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

8) Naturally, I also always listen to "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guarldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

9) One of my favourite parts of Christmas is listening to Hawksley Workman's Christmas album "Almost a Full Moon". It's been part of my Christmas traditions for ten years now. All the songs are great, but my favourite is "A House or Maybe a Boat".

10) However, the most epic Christmas album I own is the Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set. It's got such awesome songs like:

• Did I Make You Cry on Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!)
• Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!
• Get Behind Me, Santa!
• Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!
• That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

It's also got traditional Christmas songs as well, but the originals are my favourites. But as I said, it's an epic box set of Christmas music.

So that's my list of some favourite Christmas music. And I'm just scratching the surface. My current Christmas playlist has about 70 songs on it, and none of them are that mall drivel that makes you want to pull out your hair. Although I tend to blame that phenomenon not on the music, but the other idiot shoppers you run into.

**Aside: while I fell asleep reading, I had a dream that Becca T and I were shopping in a cool independent bookstore and we ran into my boyfriend, George Stroumboulopoulos. He was browsing through books in the same bin that I was looking through. I kept my cool just so you know.

Superconnected.

Thursday's Broken Social Scene concert can be summed up in one word: epic.

Pretty much the whole BSS family made the show. The only person that I could see that was missing was Emily Haines from Metric, although I suspect she made Friday's show.

The opening band was Superchunk. I'd never heard of them, but I thoroughly enjoyed their 45-minute set. Their music reminded me of the type of fuzzy indie rock that I listened to in the early 2000s. I could picture their stuff coming out of my discman's headphones as I walked around campus.

After Superchunk, they closed the big red stage curtains, which sort of upped the drama. What exactly was going on behind those curtains? How much equipment would they need to accommodate the full line up?

The show started abruptly. The in-between music was still playing as the red curtains opened, and wow, there they were... the current regular members of Broken Social Scene. They launched into World Sick which is a great show opener, as it is a great album opener on their latest album, Forgiveness Rock Record.

The second song of the set was the first BSS song I ever loved: 7/4 Shoreline. And that's when two of my favourite women, Leslie Feist and Amy Millan, took the stage. I was in heaven.

Following that was a bunch of songs from FRR like Texico Bitches, Forced to Love, All to All, and Art House Director. The lineup on stage kept varying. Sometimes the horn section would be there, sometimes not. Sometimes there'd be two drummers, sometimes one. Sometimes you'd count and realize there were ten people singing. My concert pal, just new to the BSS universe from a mixed CD that I made her, said "Wow! Every song is completely different!" And that, right there, summarizes the brilliance of BSS. That, and the fact that they are all about friends, and family, and the city of Toronto.

There was a turning point in the show where it went from awesome to epic. BSS played the instrumental Feel Good Lost from their first album of the same name. Then, they seamlessly flowed into Superconnected from their eponymous album. That was the point where I realized this was one of the best shows I'd ever seen (and I've seen a lot of shows). During that song, I held onto each and every word that Kevin Drew sang.

Amy and Lisa stepped into Emily's shoes for Anthems for a Seventeen-Year Old Girl, which Kevin introduced as "the BSS song most associated with Toronto." (Oh, and you'll notice that I'm just going on first name basis now with everyone in the band.) That is probably my favourite BSS song hands down, and I was so happy to sing along to every word. After that, we were treated to a stripped down version of Lover's Spit.

At one point, Feist took centre stage with her guitar and sang I Feel it All. It was great. Another highlight was The Sweetest Kill. That's a BSS song that I didn't much care for, until I heard it live. That happens to me so often: I'm completely meh about a song, but then I love it once I've heard it live. I should coin a name for a phenomenon.

The absolute climax of the show was the finale: the instrumental Meet Me in the Basement. There were a tonne of people on stage, and I couldn't keep myself from humming along with the melody. Near the end, the band would stop playing, and Kevin would thank the audience, and then they'd launch back into the song. At the very end, Kevin said (and I paraphrase) "Toronto, what are you going to do to change what's happening the city? Whatever you do, I hope it sounds like this" and then the band finished the song with a flourish. I loved it.

The encore was great as well. BSS played for a full 2.5 hours, I believe, and it was breath-taking. I can't wait to see them again. I've never gone to the traditional summer show on the Island, but you know I'll be there this year.

I was effing exhausted the next day. I'm not accustomed to going to a long, loud, stand-up rock show on a school night. My last few school night shows have been at theatres and churches and the like. One kid looked at me during first period and said "Miss, you look tired. You look like you wanted to stay home today." He was right. I was tired, but extremely happy.

Anyway, last night was my work Christmas party and I was still visibly tired. I even went home before the after-party, which shocked and confused many. I'm going to have to work hard to redeem myself in the new year.

Well, that's my BSS review. But kids, it's not over yet. I still get to see Jason Collett (who was also on stage during the show) next week. I've been promised special guests. I bet some of them will be from the BSS family. Yay!

He won't be what you want him to be. (Oh no!)

I'm getting really excited to see Broken Social Scene tomorrow night. I've been listening to them *a lot* lately. I can honestly say that I've always liked random songs of theirs, and I got into their new album earlier this year when I saw them play at Criminal Records, but it's been just lately that I've been listing a lot to "You Forgot in People" and "Broken Social Scene" and digging out some great tracks from "Bee Hives" and really, really appreciating BSS more than I ever did.

Part of my excitement for the show centres around a BSS tweet from yesterday that said "expecting the entire BSS family at Toronto shows this week". That's what I was hoping for when I bought these tickets a few months ago! I'm crossing my fingers that Feist, Emily Haines, and Amy Millan will all be there. Even just one of the three would make me incredibly happy.

I have to admit, though, that this show will be a little bittersweet for me. It's bitter because things are much different now than they were back in September when I bought these tickets. I pre-ordered them a) so I could see BSS properly; and b) so I could make someone's day. However, that someone decided to remove themselves from my life, and I have to say that it still saddens/disappoints/angers/baffles me. All I can say is "really!?!" a la Seth & Amy from Weekend Update and leave it at that.

However, the show must go on, right? I'm never ever one to step away from a rock show because it could make me wistful or a tad emo. I asked a couple of my usual concert buddies to the show, but since it's December, a lot of ppl are Christmas-partying away, so I got to do one of my favourite things: ask a completely random friend to a show. I used to co-teach a crazy course with someone who became a good friend, but sadly, she had to move to another school. I know from Facebook that she loves concerts, so I asked her randomly, so we'll be having an awesome co-parent reunion while seeing an amazing band... with special guests! That will be the sweet part of tomorrow.

As I was saying, I've been listening to a lot of BSS and Feist recently. They totally make me feel so much better about things. For instance, a lot of the horn parts in BSS songs (like Ibi Dreams of Pavement) make me feel really powerful like I could do almost anything. And Feist's sad songs, like Intuition, make me feel okay about being sad, you know?

Since I've been on this musical binge, I decided to pre-order the Feist documentary that I just saw at the ROM from Gallery AC because I really liked it, it comes with a CD of live stuff and alternate versions, and I got a Tshirt with it. So, I'm now wearing my new fave around-the-house outfit: my red Feist Sea Lion Woman shirt over a black and gray-striped long-sleeved shirt and yoga pants. It makes me happy. And I love the CD. Yay for online shopping!

Look for a BSS show review in an upcoming post. However, that might take awhile to write since my work Christmas party is Friday, and we've been known to get up to no good after these things. Recovery time could be needed... I hope.

Hope you all have fun weekends too! I'll leave you with some BSS since I was taught in a previous post how to make a Youtube video fit into a post properly.

***

Random Work Funnies.

There are eight more teaching days until Christmas break. This is the time of year when the kids are getting a little bit restless. They don't want to learn anything. However, when we get back from break, there are only three weeks left of the semester, so I still have quite a bit of curriculum to teach them. It makes for a challenging time of year.

However, luckily for me, there's still enough funny stuff happening to keep me sane. Here are some random funny things from the past couple days.

1) One of my friends, from the phys ed department, was trying to organize a coffee date amongst some friends. Anyway, during Sunday coffee-shop-marking, F mentioned this invite, and I thought that I must have missed it my email because I wasn't aware of the plans. I checked when I got home, and figured that maybe I wasn't in with the cool crowd anymore (unlikely) or I'd been accidentally left off the list (more likely).

Anyway, I got to work on Monday, and saw in my inbox what looked to be a forwarded email from myself. Weird, I thought, I don't remember sending myself something...

I opened up the email and saw "this must be for you" written above a forwarded message from my phys ed friend. I was totally confused. I did not remember writing myself a note on top of a forwarded email. Maybe this was it: I'd finally lost my sanity.

Then, I opened a "reply-to-all" from my pal F. I was cc'ed. "Hey - you sent this email to Christopher *insert my last name* instead of Christy. I hope he comes to coffee! Maybe he's the male version of Christy!"

I checked the mysterious forward in my mailbox. It was from Christopher, not myself. How nice of him to figure out the mystery behind the strange coffee invite in his inbox.

So, I guess I haven't lost my sanity (yet) and it turns out there's some dude with the male version of my name working for my school board. Small world.

2) A centipede (or some insect... I'm no entomologist) disrupted my first period class on Monday. Nothing destroys a well-planned lesson like an insect; I've been lucky to discover this many times in my teaching career. There were cries of "It's getting closer to me! Help!" "Kill it, miss!" "Don't kill it miss!" "Step on it!" and "Even the smallest organism is very important to the ecosystem, Miss!" (Okay, maybe that last one is my imagination... I was teaching an ecology lesson, and if someone had shouted that, they would brought tears of joy to my eyes.)

Anyway, I wanted to smoosh it, but I do have a reputation of being "Miss Eco" so I had to kindly remove it from the classroom. I grabbed a piece of paper, let it crawl onto the piece of paper, and safely let it go into the hall. Centipede saved, and lesson resumed.

3) The powers that be decided a cold December morning would be a great time for a fire drill. Luckily, teachers get to know about this ahead of time, and we all carried our coats to class. Of course, not one kid noticed me carrying my giant winter coat into the classroom.

However, as soon as the fire alarm went off, that's when everyone noticed my coat. "Miss! You knew about this! That's not fair, I'm wearing a T-shirt!" Yes, it's true that it wasn't fair. I consoled them with "if I was in charge, we would have done this in October" but strangely, that didn't make them feel any better.

4) We're studying light in my fourth period class. Part of a lesson was about different forms of luminescence: incandescence, phosphorescence, fluorescence, etc. One of the random ways that light can be made is triboluminescence. This occurs when chemical bonds are broken in material when you scratch it, pull it apart, rub it, etc. You can observe this easily by rubbing together a couple of sugar cubes in the dark, or, in a more delicious fashion: by biting down on a Wint-O-Green lifesaver in the dark.

So at the end of today's class everyone got a lifesaver. Even better, I have a fairly large, dark, storage closet in my classroom, so everyone got shut in the closet in groups of eight to watch each other eat candy in the dark. It was strange lesson; but very fun, and left the classroom smelling minty fresh.

Anyway, even though work is still fun, thank goodness there will be a break soon.

You're somewhere in the city and I hope you're good.

Oh look it's snowing. Rilo's sitting on a chair watching the snow, or perhaps looking to see what the cat in the window across from us is up to on this snowy Sunday. Or maybe she's just plotting how she can vanquish her vile foe: the curtains. I assume they're enemies because she spends hours attacking them.

Anyway, I'm just in the midst of getting ready to pack up my mountain of marking and meet up with Fea at a coffee shop. Misery loves company, right? That's our coffee shop marking motto. She's running a bit late which is okay with me: I plan to get there a bit early and read until she arrives.

I had a super fun Saturday. My work spouse and I went to see the musical "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" and it was pretty fantastic. You know things are going to be good when before the show starts you are asked to put your cell phones in your purses or man-bags, and to remove any large wigs from your head as a courtesy to those behind you. Anyway, if you are in the Toronto area, go have some campy fun and see it while it's still here.

After the musical we hit up the mall to do some boot-shopping, but neither of us had much luck. However, we worked up a good appetite for dinner, and went to my favourite middle eastern restaurant in my neighbourhood. Yum for red wine, kefta (beef, lamb and veggie skewers with rice), and labni (a cream cheese/yogurt dip served with pita). We had some great conversation, and I returned home happily stuffed and sleepy.

I put up my little Christmas tree last night too. I'm trying my best to get into the Christmas spirit, but I still feel like I'm going through motions. I think I get thrown off by little things that make me wistful. Like when I see a god-awful camo purse at Nine West, or when I see on Facebook that my crazy friend has gotten yet another, um, interesting tattoo by that tattoo artist. It's just not very fun keeping these things to myself, so I'll just shout them into the blogosphere instead. Thanks blogosphere.

I think Rilo's gotten tired of the watching the snow. She was eyeing the snowflakes quite intently, and I think I could see her kitty brain trying to work out how she could catch one. However, that rhetorical question has tired her out, so she's now curled up on a chair for an afternoon nap, which makes me realize that I should venture out for my marking session.

Hope that you all have restful Sundays, and painless Mondays.

Edit: I just came home from a good four hours at the coffee shop. It was fairly productive. I'm 75% through marking 58 unit tests, so that's good. We also had to make talent show cuts too, so that discussion took away from the marking time.

In addition, when I looked here, my blog was all wonky looking with titles and stuff out of place. What the what? I changed templates to see if that helped, and it didn't, and I can't remember how to get my old one back. After taking away the Slow Club videos from last post, and getting rid of my last.fm badge, it looks nice and neat again. So that's why things look different around here, in case you were wondering.

Waiting never quite felt like waiting when waiting was with you.

When I'm feeling a bit emo, this band always makes me feel better.

They also have a super awesome Christmas EP called "Christmas Thanks for Nothing", which I totally recommend getting if you are going to get one new piece of Christmas music this year. Not only does it have the title track, it's got a song called "It's Christmas and You're Boring Me", the very nice "Christmas TV" and a great version of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)".

A friend and I once discussed Slow Club and how we both like the band name. I assumed it referred to a club for slow people, and his interpretation was it referred to someone clubbing something slowly.

Either way, they're a fun band. Seriously, get the Christmas EP. It's on iTunes and it's that time of year.

And tomorrow's Friday. I get to stay after school supervising talent show auditions. It's a glamourous life.

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.