Wednesday 30 April 2008

update

Since it has now been five days, I was able to get back into my email, and I changed the password around and everything seems to be ok. For now. Yikes. I will definitely be more careful with my email from now on, and I'll limit my use for a while so I can see if everything will be ok. It just feels icky -- someone has been in my space. Yuck.

Tuesday 29 April 2008

And under these boughs unbound

I have been a gmail user for some time now. I like it far more than hotmail or what have you, and it has been working well for me. Labels! Wonderful! I love labels! A handy search option! easy forwarding! Organising email into conversation! More labels! My love for gmail has only grown as time goes on.

That is, until last week, when I tried to log in to my gmail account. I put in what I knew to be the password, but I received an (un)helpful message telling me that I had entered an incorrect password. Hmmph. Well, typos happen to the best of people, so I tried again. No go. Again, slower. No luck. At this point, a big ol' "WTF" is flashing across my brain. After repeating this process several times, I clicked on the "I have forgotten my password" link.

I answered a series of easy questions (postal code? library card number?) and was given the option to change my email password. "Alright," I thought, "perfect." So I entered in what was supposed to be my password and logged into my account. (Now, this may not have been the best idea, in retrospect. But it seemed like the logical plan of action to me at the time).

Perfect! I checked my mail, replied to some emails, all the usual. After I've finished, I log out to see if I can log back in, just because I have this bad feeling about it. When I enter the password... I get the same message about entering the wrong password.

FUCK.

I went back into "forgotten password" and tried to change it again. No, says gmail, gotta wait 5 days. In the meantime, they have helpfully sent information about changing my password to my "secondary email". I can't remember ever having entered a secondary email, so I spend an hour trying to uncover any emails I used to have, which requires further question answering, and account re-activation, but still no luck. I decide to finally hit the scary button. "I think my account may have been compromised."

Gmail helpfully sends me to a page with more questions about my account than I can answer. Some are easy, but some are really hard -- like "What day did you start using gmail?". An exact date. Uh. Right. I definitely know that.

I enter as much as I can (April?) and send it to gmail. I give them my blog email to contact me with. Minutes later, I receive an email informing me they can't give me access to my account because my questionnaire was not complete enough.

So right now, I stand having lots all of my emails, all my improv conversations, old love letters, job information... everything. Gone. And I have no idea what to do.

Monday 28 April 2008

Feeling like a sell-out

Senioritis has fully set in. The air gets warm and that grassy area by the canal starts to look a lot more inviting than your third period bio class. Acceptance letters go out, and there's no reason to work that hard anymore. And then, in my case, everyone comes home from university and it becomes prime friend hang-out time, in the free space between finishing school and getting a summer job. Which is... now.

So school has been a little low on my priority list, which is why the King Lear test I wrote today went really really badly. It's one of those tests I will always remember for being bad, right up there with the chem exam I left mostly blank last year. I ended up guessing a lot, hoping a lot, and picking the sell-out-y long answer question response. I felt like I was selling my soul. Lit is one of the classes where you want to come up with something really good, just to be impressive. I made up for it by joking about selling out with Mr Hodgson while writing his test.

There are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon than hanging out in the English office. And there are worse things in life than bombing a test on King Lear. All this adds up to me in a surprisingly good mood, considering what happened over the course of the day. Hmm... there may be other contributing factors. I will listen to my warm and fuzzy music and doze off while considering this.

Saturday 26 April 2008

Give your love to me, I'm gonna keep it carefully

My Concordia interview was such a non-event. I mean, I stressed about it, I got all worked up about my portfolio and picking the right thing to show them, and then it was really fine. Thank you, improv. I don't think I answered a single question straight; I answered the question I wanted to answer. They still seemed pretty interested. Offers of acceptance go out in about a month, so I won't hear for a while. I'm guessing I'm not artsy enough for them, but really, I think King's is more me anyway. Not that I'm choosing or anything. I can't. Not yet. It's too big a decision for me not to make it at the last minute. Har. Har.

I met up with a friend after my interview, and we saw this amazing movie, the kind that they just don't make anymore. It's called Stardust and it reminds me of the Princess Bride, which, as everyone knows, is one of the best movies EVER. Plus Clare Danes is in Stardust and I heart her a lot. Everyone, go and watch it. Make it a double feature with the Princess Bride.

Been out wandering the neighbourhood

Here is the playlist of my life right now, which I have called "Summer 1". It is awesome.

Independance Day -- Elliot Smith
Tomorrow Tomorrow -- Elliot Smith
Bottle Up and Explode! -- Elliot Smith
St Ide's Heaven -- Elliot Smith
Symphonic -- Emm Gryner
Stereochrome -- Emm Gryner
This Is the Dream of Win and Regine -- Final Fantasy
Naked As We Came -- Iron & Wine
Succexy -- Metric
Holland 1945 -- Neutral Milk Hotel
Two-Headed Boy -- Neutral Milk Hotel
Aeroplane Over the Sea -- Neutral Milk Hotel
Letter from an Occupant -- New Pornographers
Body Says No -- New Pornographers
The Magic Position -- Patrick Wolf
Bluebells -- Patrick Wolf
Put the Book Back on the Shelf -- Belle & Sebastian
String Bean Jean -- Belle & Sebastian

Thursday 24 April 2008

Future Haligonian?

In Halifax, even the adds are cool.

There are fabulous consignment stores, like this one, where I bought my prom dress for 2$.

Best. Breakfast. Ever. Coastal Cafe.

My tutorial classroom next year?

King's is so fancy. And pretty.

Foux du fa fa

I have always been very prone to bouts of nostalgia. Every so often I get lost in memory, go back through bits of the brief journals I'd keep now and then, and often, cry. I'm a big sap. Doesn't matter if it's a happy thing or a sad thing, thinking about the past just gets me in a weepy way. For some reason, I tend to think that things won't get better, that the best is right now. Of course, that's when I'm right in it... then I move on to the next plane of awesome, and repeat the process.

Today, two planes converged. The improv team was invited to my old elementary school to perform with one other team and do workshops with some of the students. I have a love/hate relationship with that school. I went to the same school for TEN YEARS. That is a very long time. I went through my first days away from my mom, making first friendships (then losing them), first crushes, teachers I loved, teachers I hated, teachers who inspired me... it all came from there. By the time I was finishing up there, the principal sucked and we were all beyond ready to move on. But as much as I was happy to move on to a new place, I still have a lot of love for that place. I get excited when I get to go back there.

So I was pretty happy to do the workshops. Not only did I get to have fun with my team again, but we got to pass it on! What's not to love? What I didn't know was that this afternoon, there would be another performance for the students -- a musical Stomp-esque group made up, in part, of people I haven't seen since grade eight graduation. People who, for the most part, I never wanted to see again. They were cool, I wasn't, that's how it goes. I have come to understand how unimportant "coolness" is and I've long since moved on... except when I see people I went to grade eight with, I immediately think about what I'm wearing, who I'm with, will they think I'm way cooler than I was, will they judge me, will they laugh at me after I leave... insecurities are fun! I was not excited to see them, but improv has taught me that the people who you think are the coolest and most popular are just as insecure and freaked as everyone else. I tried to remember this all afternoon.

In the end it didn't really matter. It was ok seeing everyone, they were nice, I was nice, the boys were suddenly really built and less attractive than I remembered them. C'est la vie, I guess. What was great was performing again. We were rusty, but it was still wonderful. I love my team.

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Think I'd better follow you around

This past weekend, I took a trip to Halifax, to visit the University of King's College. I had never been to the maritimes before, so this was a pretty exciting trip. Also that I'd be looking at the place where I'd potentially live for the next four years, which is a pretty exciting thing as well.

The first thing we noticed was the jay-walking. There is lots of jay-walking in every city, but in Halifax, the cars will stop for you if they see you waiting by the side of the road for a break in traffic, thus creating your break. This goes in the "pro" column for Halifax.

As if King's doesn't have enough pros on its own. That school blows my mind. It's a small university, like I wanted, with a rich history, loads of traditions, a beautiful campus, amazing program, great student community... everything I want. Everything. They even do exchanges, and they have a killer improv team.

On my first night, I went to hang out with some friends of mine who go to King's. We had an animated movie night and watched Titan AE (Joss Whedon of Buffy and Firefly fame helped write it. Who knew?). I met a swedish bloke who reminds me quite a bit of the roommate from Notting Hill. Yes, the crazy welsh one. King's has all sorts of fun characters.

Side note: I'm actually pretty proud of myself for getting in to King's. I was accepted to the Journalism program, which lets in only 40 people every year. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it, but stranger things have happened, so here I am. And it's a great program -- you get hired right away.

Well. My Concordia interview is on Friday, but King's is clearly winning right now. It's just hard, because it's so far away... I would see my family and old friends much less. I would see Ottawa much less. I have never lived anywhere else but Ottawa, in the house I'm in right now. Change is scary a little bit. I hope I'm up for it.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

Belle & Sebastian season

When the air starts getting warm and the snow recedes from lawns, I pull out the Belle & Sebastian. It is perfect for sunny, springtime days. For some reason, I especially like Get me Away from Here, I'm Dying on warm days. This is probably deeply psychologically telling.

When it comes to technology, I am pretty mainstream. When my computers pops up a question to me, half the time I have not idea what it's talking about. I have Windows Vista because it came with my computer. My mp3 player is an iPod, because everyone had iPods, so they had to be decent right? I named it Igraine, like, Morgaine le Fay's mother. Shows you where my priorities lie.

I have always used Internet Explorer for all of my web work. It comes with the computer, and so I figured it's the one to use. That is, until earlier this week when my friend who is what I would call a computer geek (but of course in a very loving way), suggested to me that I try Mozilla Firefox, some newfangled fancy other way of surfing the internet.

Well.

Not only did I download Mozilla, which runs much faster, but I downloaded a nifty mod (jargon!) that makes it super pretty! I now look forward to checking email like never before. Apparently I am very behind the times, which means I'm right on schedule.

Sunday 6 April 2008

I'm crazy, but I get the job done

I wrote a blog post last night at 3am whilst inebriated, but fortunately it was eaten by blogger. Count yourselves lucky. I know I do.

Yesterday we had an improv practice during the afternoon since (omg) nationals start on Tuesday, and we perform on Thursday night. Yikes! I'm having nightmares about it. More on that later.

After an afternoon of sorting ourselves out, we went to the musical in the evening. Our school put on Damn Yankees as the bi-annual (is that right? I'm trying to say it happens every two years) musical. I was a little worried ahead of time, having heard it really sucked, but it ended up being really fun. However, has anyone seen this musical? There is a scene that's about getting women drunk and naked and having your way with them. And the strong female character, the only one in charge of herself, is a villain who is ridiculed because she is unmarried. It helped that the stars were my friends, so we got to laugh a lot, but still... I would have been more offended if girls dressed as male baseball players hadn't been singing about getting women naked.

A party formed up at Davis's after the show. It was the usual teenage dance/drinks/loudness party time. A little too loud, I think. Davis was way stressed. There were a lot of teenage boys who are just really loud people, especially when drunk, and I don't blame her at all for wanting them to cool it. I'm impressed she put up with us so long.

The whole thing wrapped up when I got a ride home from a friend's dad at 3, came into my house loudlly, made a bagel with cream cheese since I'd eaten very little all day, and then tried to blog.

I don't know what caused the dream, but I had a bad one last night. I can't remember it very well now, but I was with the improv team, except I couldn't find everyone and we weren't ready for our performance and I was so stressed and I was in a car with some strangers, trying to get to the NAC. It was bad. I woke up feeling stressed and unrested.

So, maybe my drunk blogging would have been more fun to read. However. There are some things a girl should just keep off the internet.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Why are you lookin so grave?

Sometimes I have days where I just can't handle people. I don't know if it's my hormones or stress, but sometimes no matter how hard I try, I just miss every time. Today was one of those days.

When I woke up, I felt it. I rolled off the couch late, first off. I'm staying on the couch while my aunt is visiting, and her flight was canceled during the lovely fog of the other day, so I have stayed on the couch. This means I wake up cranky, and my organs get mushed together in funny ways. Then I couldn't figure out how/what to eat. So then I was late.

It just went on from there. I feel bad for my friends at spare who had to deal with me. No matter what anyone said it rubbed me the wrong way, and I would (unfortunately) return the favour. Ugh.

U of T offers of admission were received today. Many of my friends got letters and were super excited. I've only heard from Carleton, and I'm getting a little stressed. I know I shouldn't be, since I applied mostly out of province (except for Queen's and Carleton) and out of province takes longer to reply. All I've heard is that Concordia wants me to prove I'm a Canadian citizen. I sent off the proof today, so I hope I hear soon. I just want to get excited with everyone else.