2011 Recap

The beginning of 2011 seems much longer than one year ago. It's hard to remember all that happened - so I had to do as I always do, go back through my old journals.

Reading my old entries is both inspiringly beautiful and tragically heart breaking. But I wouldn't trade a second of  heartache, because it helps me learn and grow. I grew up a lot over the past year. I don't think I can break it down into best/worst days, but I have a couple really emotional days.

My first 2011 Journal entry talks of writer's block, love, missing people, lots of thinking and some talk of growing up. 

February brings probably one of my biggest relationship moments. When Malcolm told me his secret. This consumes a lot of the next few months. It is momentous, yet exists as only a few moments in the grand scheme of time, and this boggles my mind. 

In March I took one of my close friends to the emergency room for depression and anxiety. I had to be strong for her, but on the inside I was freaking out. Everything is fine and this year she is doing fantastically :) 

March also brought about the day of Murphy's law. Everything that could go wrong... did. The day I lost my phone and got in a fight with my roommates and who knows what else. But my roomates and I need to get past that to have the happy relationship we have now.

April of course signifies my success at my first year of university! The freedom was delicious, though it was hard to say good bye to all of my new friends.

Most of my summer was completely consumed once again by camp. I grew very close to some camp friends who I will forever treasure. 

Standing out from the happy,stressful, colourful blur that is camp are 2 occasions. Harry Freakin' Potter and my birthday. Both were crazy awesome amazing times spent with people who fit the same description :) 

September I started school, facing the new adventure of a house! And cooking my own food! and groceries and bills and baking with my roommates and the crazy cat and my new fish, and finally, FINALLY being in the same city as Malcolm. 

October passed fairly peacefully - I was settling in nicely, got to see my family for thanksgiving.

Then November was insane but pretty good.

I made my trip down to see Dina and Valerie and my camp friends :) and of course the Starkids! :) 

It was in November that I first met the Nerdfighters of my city. And in november when I discovered the joys of Doctor Who. 

The one less good point in my month was the death of my great-grandmother, but the circle of life goes on and it gave me opportunities to see family and friends.

December of course is almost entirely consumed by work and exams followed of course by Christmas :) 

And a New Year to be rung in with people I love, including the 3 best friends that could ever be asked for. 

Merry Christmas :)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my beautiful ladies :)

TWO FREAKIN DECADES!!!

HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO OUR DEAR MICHELE! 
I hope you have a fabulous day and a wonderful time with your family. 
Good luck with your exam tomorrow and I'll see you on Wednesday!! 

A Christmas Miracle

On a cold December day, Dawn was nice and cozy in her warm kitchen. As she chopped vegetables and prepared dinner, the cat raced around her ankles and up and down the stairs, causing a general ruckus. Thumps and thuds were heard, but Dawn thought nothing of them as her head was full of Christmas songs she hummed as she cooked. 


As her dinner was cooking Dawn remembered that it was the day she was supposed to change the water in her fish's tank. She walked down the stairs and looked at her desk where Irwin's tank usually sat. It was not there. 
Confused, she called to her housemates in the kitchen " Did I already bring the fish up?" 


Knowing less than she did, he confused housemates responded that Sharkbait (as they affectionately call him) was nowhere to be seen. 


Dawn turned to leave her room and check for her self when, on the ground, behind her trash can, she saw Irwin's tank - upside down, almost all water leaked out.


Panicked, she scooped the tank in her arms and ran to the kitchen yelling "I FOUND HIM, BUT IT'S BAD, IT'S AN EMERGENCY" 


Reaching the kitchen, she sat the tank in an upright position and reached her fingers into the slimy green rocks, uncovering Irwin's small blue body. Quickly, she poured a cup of fresh water into the tank, Irwin began to stir. Dazedly he began swimming in small circles around the tank.


Dawn and her housemates were ecstatic. HE WAS ALIVE! The small fish had been granted the Christmas Miracle of life.


Dawn cleaned his tank extra well that day, and placed Irwin under his favourite lamp. Though the lid of his tank has a small crack, he still swims happily around his plastic plant living his aquatic life to the fullest.

A bad teen novel, eh?

To start, i would like to you all to read this:

http://trousertrek.blogspot.com/2010/10/introduction.html

The very first post ever made on the Trek, a little more than a year ago.

I was lying in bed tonight, thinking about us and how awesome we are and all the stuff we've been through together. And I thought, I wonder if other people lead lives like us?

It made me think of all the bad teen novels that I've personally read (And trust me, there were manyyyy) as well as all the good teen novels that I read (also very many) and I thought about why I enjoyed those books and what made me want to keep reading books like that.

My answer was that they all lead these crazy, unbelievable fantasy lives that could never actually be feasible in "real life". But then that made me think, wait, could my life be considered by someone else "unrealistic"?

I guess that point I'm getting at, is what do you ladies think about us writing a novel about us from the start of the Trouser Trek? Not to like, publish or anything, but just for us. something that we can pull out and remember everything with years down the road when this blog may be lost or forgotten. (Granted, with the internet being the internet, its pretty hard to lose anything. lol)

Just throwing that out there :P I thought it'd be cool for us to write our own "bad teen novel". Maybe our lives are just as impossible as good ol' Bella's ;)

<3 <3 <3 Michele

Dispairing and LAWLS

Hey ladies!

The bad:

I kind of just got owned by my statistics exam. It was a huge exam! You know what I mean... Loads and loads to do and so little time to do it all. Frustrating in the extreme! The slightly validating news in the utter pit of despair that was the statistics final was that it seemed to be equally hard for everyone. The girl sitting next to me literally sobbed when they announced that there were only 10 minutes left in the exam. I held it in because I had already been watching the clock and had started to make "educated" guesses on my remaining multiple choice questions. *sighs* Time to study for my exam tomorrow! Woot!

The good:

Valerie. The girl who texted me this list after I got out of the terrible exam.

10 Reasons Why Studying Is Better Than Sex

10. You can usually find someone to do it with.

9. If you get tired, you can stop, save your place, and pick up where you left off.

8. You can finish early without feelings of guilt or shame.

7. When you open a book, you don’t have to worry about who else has opened it.

6. A little coffee and you can do it all night.

5. If you don’t finish a chapter, you won’t gain a reputation as a “book teaser”.

4. You can do it, eat and watch TV all at the same time.

3. You don’t get embarassed if your parents interrupt you in the middle.

2. You don’t have to put your beer down to do it

1. If you aren’t sure what you’re doing, you can always ask a friend for help!

...

:P

I hope that cheered the rest of you ladies up as well. Thanks for being awesome, Valerie, and good luck with studying to everyone!

Much love,

Dina

Procrastinating...

(Yes, you're enabling me just by reading this.)

Hey ladies!

I don't want to study. I don't want to study. I don't want to study. I need to study. Gah, exams exams exams... I don't want to study. I don't want to study. OH MY GOSH I NEED TO STUDY SO BAD!!!

The above is a little sound clip of my thoughts today.

Quick story that I forgot to put in my post yesterday:

So I was at work the other day (off to a great start with this story but it gets better) when these two rather handsome guys walked in (see? It got better). They ordered three bacon cheeseburgers (which I made cause I'm a boss sandwich maker) but it seemed a little strange to me that two guys ordered three burgers together so I turned to one of the managers who had helped me make the burgers and said:

"Three burgers for two guys? That's a little odd isn't it?"

To which she replied: "Maybe they're going to share the third one?"

And then I was all: "I hope they share it Lady and the Tramp style."

And she was all: :O *giggles* So controversial...

Me: "Meh, it's Canada. We don't care."

Her: "Yeah, it's true. Our politicians have better things to spend they're money on, like government vacations..."

The End.

(I choose to believe, since I didn't see anything to contradict it, that those two guys did share that last bacon cheeseburger Lady and the Tramp style and then went home together to have steaming hot shots of expresso (and by "shots of expresso" and mean wildly passionate gay sex which is also extremely hot.)

Much love ladies,

Dina

The Holiday: Take 2

Ladies (said in a really sleazy voice for no reason),

There are two reasons why this post has "Take 2" in its title. These are:

1) I'm currently watching the movie The Holiday, which I love to pieces. It's such an enormous chick flick and also about Christmas and with my crazy exam brain I love me some squee! If you haven't seen this movie, you really should. At some points it's "I've never seen this before but even I can recite the lines" kind of cheese but it's all good cheese, I swear! The take 2 part about this is that I'm pretty sure I've done a blog about this movie before. Jude Law is all smouldering and simultaneously adorable. Kate Winslet is inspiringly fierce and funny. Jack Black is actually seriously funny isn't of frying-pan-to-the-head stupid funny. Cameron Diaz is Cameron Diaz... Ringing bells? Are they sleigh bells?

2) I found out at work today that there's a specific form that we're supposed to fill out in order to get holidays off. I thought I had handed in my request for time off a lot earlier but the manager I'd handed in to apparently forgot to tell me there was a form so JOY TO THE WORLD!! There were only spots to ask for eight days off so I will be coming home later than originally expected, if at all. Hopefully I will be coming home... Hopefully... *cries* So submitted holidays to work for the second time today - take 2.

...

In other news: Dooo do do doop beep!

Love,

Dina

Nerdfighters don't fight nerds

So last week I had the pleasure of attending my first Nerdfighter gathering! 


in case you were wondering, a nerdfighter is someone who, instead of being made of bones and muscles and blood and things, is instead made up entirely of awesome. The term was coined by John Green of the vlogbrothers. 


Anyways, we met up at the movie theatre to go see the MUPPET MOVIE! 
I knew one of the other girls going and recognized a few others by their shirts.
Giraffe Love, Pizza John and the Nerdfighteria Community. 


We chatted before the movie and everyone seemed TOTALLY AWESOME.
We went into the theatre and managed to snag a row entirely for us. There were about 10 of us sitting in a row, leaning over each other, giggling and passing candy and popcorn up and down. It was amazing to feel so at home with people I had just met. Remember I knew one girl already and had talked to most of the rest on our Local Nerdfighter FB group, so it wasn't like they were total strangers. And by the end of the movie they were friends :) 


During the previews we were all freaking out about all the cute looking movies we need to see including "Brave" which looks a lot like "how to train your dragon" which of course EVERYONE loved.


Another preview was for "Journey 2 the Mysterious Island", the movie looks like a bit of a joke, but the preview featured this:

Causing our entire row to point at the screen and practically yell : PUPPYSIZED ELEPHANT!!
which in turn caused most of the theatre to look at us and go WTF?/shutup


ANYWAYS


The Muppet Movie was AMAZING!! I mean, I already LOVE the muppets so I had high hopes, but it was everything I wanted it to be and more. ALL of our favourite characters, some classic songs, some new songs.  Every movie stereotype ever, acknowledgement thereof, breaking the fourth wall, hilarity, heart-felt moments and TONS of celebrity appearances including a scene with Jim Parsons (best known for his role as Sheldon Cooper) that made everyone laugh. It also included Jack Black, Selena Gomez, Whoopi Goldberg, Neil Patrick Harris and more. 


We all came out of the theatre wanting to sing and dance. Being such awesome people we naturally did so. And though we had to part ways, we did so with a giant group hug and promises for more awesome gatherings in the future. 


My friends, I leave you with some inspiring words and a happy (AND VERY CATCHY) song.


Everything is great, everything is grand,
We've got the whole wide world in the palm of  our hand,
Everything is perfect, it's falling into place,
I can't seem to wipe this smile off my face,
life's a happy song when there's someone by your side to sing along. 




also this

Ugh... Not again...

Hey ladies,

Yeah, this post is about exams and how much I absolutely do NOT want to get out of bed to study for them right now.

I ask this every exam period and the fact that I've asked before is not going to stop me from asking again: Is there anyway we can skip the whole exam business and just go right on to the Christmas stuff? Cause I really like the Christmas stuff... Like, a lot... And I haven't been home (such a confusing word these days as it seems I have multiple homes) in more than three months. *huge sigh*

My procrastination efforts are definitely in full swing. Just before getting on here to write this I almost got sucked into the vortex of brain death (that is, death of significant (read:studying) brain function) that is YouTube because it's a Tuesday and everyone know that Epic Meal Time posts a new video EVERY TUESDAY (can you guess what I want for Christmas yet?) and I love bacon... Nom nom nom nom.... This week's episode was rather awesome in that it combined two things I very much love: BACON and SUSHI!

I think I'm becoming a bit of a sushi addict. I can hardly remember the time, way back three years ago, when I thought it was gross and the thought of raw fish made me shudder with disgust. Now the thought makes me shudder with the desire to nom and produce copious amounts of saliva. It's also worth noting that the student federation at my school runs a little place that sells sushi and, after having gotten my fix from they three times last week, I finally got a "frequent buyer" card yesterday so when I've nommed my way through a few more trays I'll get one free! Excitement! The sushi from the student run place is only about 10X better than the regular university stuff (which I have also been nomming in large quantities, especially before I found the student stuff) which makes me really happy because giving money to them is kind of like giving money to myself as they fund all the clubs and such and this is a lot more awesome than giving even more money to the soul sucking demon (as university students commonly call the university administration during exam time) that swallows significant amounts of my bank account for tuition already.

Dawn, you're welcome for that lovely and insatiably long run-on sentence, just like every other time I write one on this blog.

Well, I guess I'd better get on that studying stuff... Yeah...

I still really, really don't want to study.

Yours in reluctance and resignation,

Dina

Christmas?

I have been trying to ignore all the Christmas decorations going up since Halloween, but I think its time to face the facts....

December is here and CHRISTMAS IS COMIMG!!! :D And I'm now officially excited!! :P I've got the Christmas station cranked on the radio and I've been Jingling all the way across town, so I decided its time to share the Christmas spirit.

Here's a little something to help get yall in the spirit of things and momentarily forget about exams ;)



I can't wait to see you all shortly!!! :D

<3 <3 <3 Michele