North.

It's been quite a long time since I last updated!
Sorry for that, I've been trying to adjust to my new school year.
Anyway, HELLO!

This post relates to an overnight biology trip I went on, to an Outdoor Education Centre in northern Ontario. If I had to summarize the trip using two words, I would only choose the following words with their complete and whole definitions in mind: knowledge, peace.
So, why those words?
Well, firstly, peace: When you first wake up, the middle of a forest of colour and frost and bare trees, the first and probably only thing you feel is inner peace. You forget any worries you carried with you back at home. Any burden is lost when you hike up those hills--it's like the fallen leaves scour (my new favourite word!) the hurt or pain or sadness right out of you. And you are left with an unnamed lovely feeling that aches with you, stays with you. Perhaps it may be because you are leaving in a couple days, and you are faced with that fact. Perhaps, though, it may be, because you are happy. You are happy, seeing the beauty of this natural phenomena--the protists hiding the nooks and crannies of bark and rotted leaves. You are happy, in this exclusive area with people you know and love. You are happy, hearing complete and thundering silence. You are happy, staying up in a perpetual sleepover with fantastic friends. That inner peace stayed with me for the length of the trip.
The second word, knowledge, was chosen for many reasons. I learned so much about my fellow classmates, my friends. With barely any time to ourselves, we had to let down our guards.
However, in another way, I also mean the word knowledge in the context of academia. There, we had workshops in which we could experience and live out these routines of wildlife biologists firsthand. We explored the woods and measured tree heights using equipment. We 'drilled' holes into the bark using a borer. We dug up 2 m deep holes into fens. We walked on boardwalks and stared in amazement at the water seeping through rotting wood in the marshes.

Very rarely do I ever get the chance to stray from the textbook-following, worksheet-completing routines of school. I am incredibly grateful of the chance to do. To learn by making, creating, doing. Putting words into action.

I experienced and explored and played and ran.
I gained both knowledge, and with luck, a little inner peace!

Wanderlust

Suzy, that is exactly what I want.
Except, I think that if I would go anywhere by myself, I'd go to France. Italy seems like a place I would love to explore with a friend, a place where everything is meant to be shared, whether in the beautiful scenery or the amazing architecture. In France, I would attempt at my Canadian-curriculum-basic-grade-10 French and laugh at myself with the people I would be talking to. I would climb the mountains and make friends along the way. Inside Le Louvre, I would whisper little facts to the person beside me, and write little poems on looseleaf paper and leave them on the benches or beside a painting. In the Chateau de Versailles, I would take millions of pictures and sit down outside and sketch everything I see, just to absorb it all. I would take all the brochures and the maps and twirl around in the courtyard and explore all the rooms, especially the Grande Appartement du Roi, in which the rooms are named after Roman gods and goddesses. I would go to the Notre Dame Cathedral and just admire. Soak in the beauty and take in the quietness of being alone, of being in solitude, and having the luxury of being anonymous. Of writing postcards in lonely cafes and people-watching by busy fountains.
Somehow, many humans have the belief that by escaping the routine of their current everyday life, they will find some sort of fulfillment by wandering somewhere else. I think that by changing where we are, being faced with difficulties and situations of panic or getting lost or being faced with a whole new environment, we ourselves can change. While we may get lost, physically, in this chaos of finding your bearings in a city; we are found, in how we are faced with getting to know ourselves.

The Amateur Foodie!

As I promised one of my best friends, Kyleen, that I would post something soon, I decided to post about one of my burgeoning hobbies: cooking. After I decided that I would lead more of a healthy lifestyle (which didn't much change from my usual lifestyle, as we eat at home basically every day, and rarely go out for fast food), I also decided that I would help my family by preparing more for dinner, so that we could eat earlier.
In the past couple of days/weeks, I've prepared simple things such as pita bread stuffed with melted cheese and salsa (from a jar) and onions, peppers and celery (not from a jar!); fried rice with peas, carrots, corn and eggs, etc.
Today, I spotted a milk carton lookalike, and took it out of the fridge for closer inspection. It read "EGG WHITES".
As, from my time spent on websites devoted to healthy eating and healthy foods, I knew that egg whites were full of protein and were fulfilling, I raced to my computer to find some tips on how to cook egg whites.
I searched up some photos, and most of them were of beautifully cooked omelets, full of healthy and wonderful looking vegetables.
Immediately inspired, I started rummaging through my refrigerator for any vegetables. Now, for some reason, we are short on vegetables (which, I swear, is a rare occurrence!), and I only found an onion and a couple stalks of celery. That was okay. I put the egg whites back into the fridge and began chopping away at the celery and the onions. (Sorry, by the way, about the quality, all these were taken by my webcam. I can't find a camera that has charged batteries in it.)
Then, I brought out the cheese slices. (Yes, can you believe it? We used cheese slices! For you seasoned foodies out there, you must be dying of laughter. Ah well.)
I first cooked the onions and celery, put it aside, and used a paper towel to absorb what oil remained on it.
I then used the pan to cook egg whites. As it bubbled, the five-year-old in me giggled, because it looked "like it (was) aaaaaaaaaaaliiiiiiiveeeeeee!"
Since I used the entire carton, I waited until it formed a giant layer (See, I don't know the terminology. Please, stick with me here) before I added in the onions and celery. Then came the slices of cheese, divided into three parts (which was relatively easy, because, you know, they are cheese slices.). When everything seemed right, I used the wooden spatula to flip it over, to create the kind of omelet I saw in the pictures.
Unfortunately, it was a flop. No, literally. It flopped back onto the pan (luckily) and suddenly it went from a beautiful potential omelet to a scrambled egg.
I think I did something wrong. (Ya think, Jennifer? Ya think?)
Anyway, I laughed hysterically at my little scrambled mess and finished cooking it.
I eventually made this: ---------------------------->
It may not look that good, due to my shaky hands, my cardboard background (held in place by my mouth) and my webcam, but it definitely tasted PRETTY DARN GOOD, IF I MUST SAY.
I just need more, you know, help on the making-the-omelet-actually-become-an-omelet part. That's all.

VERDICT: My verdict is that I think I ended up with a bit too much flavour, because of the cheese and the salt I added to the onions and peppers before I added them into the mix. I think this kind of concoction would be better served with something a bit less flavourful, and a little more bland, like rice, or whole grain bread. I was a bit too enthusiastic to finish something that was both healthy and pretty good and created by yours truly. My dad liked it--he said that it was "neat" and "Hey! It's actually pretty good!".
My mom doesn't like cheese, but altogether she said that she enjoyed it.
I may not be a professional chef, and I am starting out now (unlike many others who started when they were, you know, eight), but that they liked it, was good enough for me. :)

Happyness.

Hm. I haven't updated in a long time. Which isn't, you know, weird or anything, because not many people read this, if any at all. But anyways.
Suzy, I completely understand what you mean, in your post named "AM I HAPPY?" Throughout these past couple of years, I have felt that way too. I was dissatisfied in some ways that I was dealing with life; yet in others, I feel so much gratitude to all the blessings that I am and have been given. I understand what you mean about not knowing what that middle-word is.

I mean, if one is not laughing, or crying, what are they feeling? What is the emotion that they are experiencing? How is it that there seems to be no real word for it? But it depends on your definition. Let's not go by dictionary definition for a second-let's go by what we think when we characterize ourselves as happy. What do we feel then?
My definition of happy, means that I am given a chance to fully appreciate life and what it has given me. It doesn't mean that I must necessarily be laughing or smiling, or outwardly showing any happiness of any kind. My definition of happy could be walking downtown, staring into tiny shops; it could be walking down an aisle looking for my favourite cereal. It could be drawing or sketching a useless, badly-done piece of art; it could be staring into the sky, simply thinking. Alone with my thoughts. Surrounded by what my life is to me. It could be writing, right now, thinking about what happiness means to me. Since that is what my definition is, that's why I choose to make a list of things that make me happy, in my head, every day.
So. I shall follow through with that. Just little things. Anything.

1. I was asked to be my boss's "personal assistant" today. While that required physically running (literally. Like, I was sweating in a completely COLD, air-conditioned office), I really enjoyed it. It gave me a chance to see what he does and what kind of things he deals with while he's about his work.
2. I talked on the phone about everything my best friend and I did and did not do, and I read my old journals and notebooks out loud to her. (:
   
3. My parents listened to my choice in restaurant, which rarely happens.
   
4. We had a delightful dinner. I ate this type of chicken cooked a certain way that I usually don't eat at other restaurants, and it was the first time I thought it tasted good.
   
5. I updated my "journal" about everything I thought about.
6. I'm writing this blog right now.
7. My brother and I skipped down the parking lot like little kids.
   
8. I sang campfire songs with my parents on the way home from dinner.
9. I worked on a couple of presents I'm intending on giving my best friends.
   
10. I laughed hysterically (no, seriously. HYSTERICALLY, I SAY.) with my brother about this stupid joke I made about the song "My Heart Will Go On" and the words "are gone" and the element of the periodic table "Argon".

In my opinion, no, it doesn't have to be an indication of joy. I don't need to be laughing or specially with friends for happiness to happen to me. It's just whatever makes me happy to be alive, or whatever I find is wonderful and sets the day apart from any other.
I don't know. I didn't much help, I know that. Hehe.
But yep.

eleven-minute poem,

this topic was chosen courtesy of Suzaaaay! (:

softly, slowly, subtly, veins and chloroplast falling apart
margin, petiole, edges and blades,
slicing through the blood-like air, dense and dark and neat and
running.
roots, tunnels to let free insecurities and tears and floodwater
trichomes to brush away, phyllosphere to house inside,
tendrils to extend and conquer and climb up these chilly wooden walls
of this chilly wooden house
where people inside are all chilly, wooden people.
they don't move, they don't cry, they don't extend;
but I need a place to move, to cry, to extend.
but I need a place to free insecurities and tears and floodwater,
so
save me a place
inside this collection of mesophyll and phloem.
save me a spot.

A little detour!

Instead of updating everyone who reads this little train trip into my mind on the psychology of language, which I will be coming back to, in my next few posts, I will talk today, about what I learned from my road trips up north as a kid.

I used to go on road trips up north a lot, and every single time we'd pass a visitor's site, we'd pile out of the car to get a glimpse of the view. Sometimes, we'd see these, and I'd always press my parents to give me a couple dollars to pop into the viewing machine to see what truly lurked in the forests, or along the horizon. They always shook their heads and said that it wasn't even worth it, that it would be better just to really see for myself why it was so special. One time, they gave me the amount of money needed to look into these, and I ran away to push the dollars into the machine. But once I looked through, it was somewhat of a disappointment. Sure, it let me get a close-up view, but I couldn't see everything. I could only see out-of-focus details, not what made up the beauty that was in front of me. So yes, seeing the big picture, seeing how everything melted fantastically in front of me, was worth so much more than just seeing the little things, than just magnifying the tiny details and getting them out of focus anyway.
What I mean to say by this, is, that sometimes we should just look up, get out from under these machines, and just look at a situation, or just look at our world around us, for ourselves. For the sake of our happiness, for the sake of stopping and smelling the roses. To just straighten up and view something for what it is, and to stop poring over the slightest detail, when perhaps it is nothing but trivial. To fully appreciate what we have, and to look at the full picture before immediately judging others or ourselves, or instantaneously feeling the need to prove and solve a problem ourselves. Maybe we just need a tiny step back... Maybe we need to stop and smell these roses.

Words.

All my life, I have been intrigued with words. They beguile me, enchant me, hypnotize me. All words derive from the same alphabet, same coding, same strokes of a pen. They express needs, wishes, desires, delight, frustration - essentially, emotion.
We are told stories every day - on the phone, perhaps about one's day; through the Internet, about one's life or idiosyncrasies; in real life, about events or ideas; on paper, through supporting arguments and theses.
We were taught, in grade school, that there are four types of sentences: to persuade one to take action, to exclaim one's thoughts, to explain one's ideas, and to ask what one wishes to know. Are these like the multiplication, division, subtraction and addition that we memorized, that build up the foundation upon which we construct our mathematical formulas and hypotheses? It is beautiful to see that whatever we have learned, we can always build upon.
It is also beautiful that through reading one's writing, I can always experience what they experience; learn what they learn; see, perhaps feel, how they feel. It is an amazing feeling to get pulled into a piece of fantastic fiction, and to worry for the protagonist's state. It is empowering to read about a journey for someone else, about said person overcoming an obstacle, because through their memoir, one can relate and make connections to oneself. It feels relieving to form one's opinion of the events stated in a news article and to perhaps sign one's name on a petition.
Perhaps that is why I will always be an advocate for education and literacy everywhere.
But enough gushing about the beauty of words; in my next post, I will talk about the psychology of language (or what I know of it.)

A Lament for the Winter.

these lonely streets both wistful and indulgent;
neglectful, tolerant. effervescent, rollicking.
soft whispers that resonate.
frozen to perfection: every droplet manipulated,
every shivering leaf gently placed,
every quivering tree deliberately silenced.
the muted air disorienting.

Le Chateau de Versailles.

I really want to start educating myself on things I love. I want to start developing my interests again, and to start thinking for myself. To start catching up on news again, and formulating my own opinions. I want to know more about everything, so I did a little research. Did you know that originally, Chateau de Versailles was originally a hunting lodge built by King Louis XIII of France? However, Louis XIV built the palace on this site, including the Grand Apartments of the King and Queen. Louis XV then built the Chapel and Opera.

The courts of Versailles were actually the place of ultimate political power, from 1682 to 1789. However, with the start of the French Revolution, the royal family had to go back to the capital, Paris. Originally, the names of the rooms for the Grande Appartement du Roi were based after Roman gods and goddesses as follows:
-Salon de Diane (for the goddess of the hunt)
-Salon de Mars (for the god of war)
-Salon de Mercure (god of trade, commerce and Liberal Arts)
-Salon d'Apollon (for the god of Fine Arts)
-Salon de Jupiter (god of law and order)
-Salon de Saturne (god of agriculture and harvest)
and -Salon de Venus (goddess of love and beauty)

the world is a beautiful thing--a life philosophy.

Just because I haven't posted in a long time, I'll just post a little thought of mine, about life and what I've learned about it.

the world is yours for the taking,
because we belong to the world, and the world belongs to us.
everything is a divine creation, and yet
everything was once a star.

the world is beautiful and bright and dark and hard and firm and strict and soft and pretty and dim and quiet and loud and ugly and perfect and whimsical and tacky and elegant and boasting and arrogant and contradictory and hypocritical and controversy-inducing and high and low and weird and normal and comical and sad and happy and breathtaking and painful and amazing and filthy and despicable and horrible and everything good, bad and in between.
so take it and hate it and love it and know it and ignore it and do everything you want in it
because this world is yours and mine and theirs.

it’s life, it’s everything;
it’s only life. it’s nothing.

Nostalgia, con't con't con't.

Long term memory can store large chunks of information for an extremely long duration. A long-term memory stored, has the potential to be remembered for perhaps all of one's life. Through repetition, information like telephone numbers, or your childhood home phone number, can be stored in the long-term memory.

Short-term memory uses audio to store information, as I mentioned earlier; long-term memory stores ideas and information by association/meaning. In 1966, Baddeley realized that his test subjects in general had more difficulty remembering words with similar meanings, even after they had been repeated several times.

While short-term memory is controlled by regions of the frontal and parietal lobe, long-term memory is stored with the help of the hippocampus. Without the hippocampus (I love this name), new memories cannot be stored as long-term memory, and the individual has a short attention span.

One little fact: SLEEP is important when trying to consolidate information. Numerous studies have shown that memory has a link to getting sleep between the time in which the information is absorbed, and the actual test in which the information is retracted.

nostalgia, con't con't.

Okay, so let's discuss short term memory!
We usually hear many people talk about "short term memory loss". They say, "Oh, dear, my memory's horrible. I have short term memory loss."

Short term memory allows us to remember ideas, or thoughts, for several seconds without intentional rehearsing. When at Bell Laboratories, George Miller conducted experiments, explaining that short term memory can only store 7±2 items. Did you know that humans can only remember on demand: seven digits, six letters and five words after a presentation?
Mr. Miller's belief is that the working memory can only hold 2 seconds of sound, while the memory span of youth is seven items.

However, it is believed, now, that short term memory actually holds an even lower amount of items--from 4 to 5.
It is easier, however, to increase the amount of things someone can remember, by chunking. Now, what is chunking? Chunking is when one groups individual items of information together. For example, a phone number is expected to be remembered, one usually chunks the area code, then groups the first three numbers, then the last four, or they group the number into two pieces.

Short term memory is usually dependent on what is heard, rather than what is seen. It was found that subjects found remembering letters that sounded the same, quite hard to differentiate. This suggests that the letters were first memorized through hearing rather than visualizing. However, this generalization/assumption cannot be proven.

So there you go.
A quick run-over of the Short Term Memory!

copyright

Oh, by the way, everything written is in my own words. I take credit for them.

All the pictures are not mine, I just don't know how to credit them, as I found them on Tumblr. I take no credit for the pictures unless stated.

con't.

So this is a continuation of last time's post on memories and nostalgia.
Anyway, so I'll just quickly inform you on the use and workings of our brain in order to help us process memory.
These are the three types of memory: long-term, short-term, and sensory.
Sensory memory is memorization. It is perceiving something through one of your five senses. When one is trying to memorize something that is visual, or uses taste, etc., usually the FULL memory only lasts for 200-500 milliseconds. Sensory memory was first experimented on by George Sperling, who used the "partial report paradigm", where the experimentees were given a grid of three rows of four letters. With this experiment, Sperling showed that immediate sensory memory was all 12 items, but within a couple hundred milliseconds, the memory faded away. This is possibly why when I look at a rose, when I see dust motes, I try to commit them to memory, but I cannot because it grows fainter so easy.

This shall be continued next time! :)
Thanks for reading, lovelies.

Nostalgia

At times, when I get a whiff of something, hear something familiar, taste something I remember from a certain experience, I get pulled back to the past.
Let me tell you an example.
I was just settling into bed one day, when across the hall, my mom entered the washroom. She flicked on the light/ceiling fan first, though, and I watched the light spill across the hallway.
That, for some strange reason, made me think of my hometown.
Now, this is public, and therefore I won't mention where I was born, but something just struck me then and there. It made me wish I was back in the midst of that particular big city, listening to cars and trucks rumble by as I sat on my grandfather's window seat. It made me wish that I was complaining about hot weather and dirty washrooms. It made me wish that I was up on the 27th floor of my aunt's apartment building, bathing in air conditioned air and looking down at the world below, where I couldn't hear anything because the windows were never open.
And so this is my nostalgia post.
I know every experience I get, I try to savor fully. I even try to commit it to memory. But our brains are warped and every time I try to bring up a memory, it's fuzzy. There are things that may have happened, that I forget and guess about. Maybe this happened, maybe this did. What I do know, however, are the answers I studied for my test. My test answers are quite important, because they give me that mark that I covet, but I want to remember how happy I felt at a certain occasion, the inside jokes given, the laughter I shook with.
Why is this?
This shall be continued next time.

tu es ma raison d'etre, darling.

Well, it's so simple.

Find something you love. Your passion. Your raison d'etre.
Work at the instrument until you have calluses. 'Til it hurts to play the notes because you are pressing on the areas where your fingers have bruised. 'Til your mouth is swollen and your lungs are crying for a rest.
Sketch until you have charcoal running up and down your arms. 'Til you are coughing on the smoke it releases.
Read and re-read the lines until you cannot sleep without your voice reverberating in your mind. Until you start quoting the script. Until someone asks you a question and you end up answering with a part of the dialogue.
Concentrate on a story until you realize, several hours, days later, that you haven't slept in a long time. Write 'til you get tired and sick of the story. 'Til you're purposely making the lead character die so that you'll finally be done with it.
Dance until you have cuts forming along the edges of your feet. Twirl until you're ready to throw up everything. Until you're ready to give up.
Play something that pushes your physical limits to the point where you are ready to collapse. That forces you to work with your team and build a strong defense. Until your shins are cold and muddy with sweat and your dirty tears.
And there you go.

What happiness.

i wonder what it'd be like.
to feel weightless for a couple seconds,
to be suspended, flying. free.
to glance at birds chirping past like, "hey, what is this big kid doing up here?"

to look out and have the time stopped for a moment for you to take in all the beauty around you. to feel the wind caressing your face.
to feel like you have every single freaking thing in the world by your fingertips,
as if all your problems are diminished and minimized--not by someone else, but by you, you who have suffered through more than you can bear.
to feel as though every thought, every action you ever did, wrong or right, is deemed little, deemed small, deemed insignificant, because you're on top of the world.
or would you feel the pull of gravity? would you feel it tugging on you, like a
dark poison, dragging you down to earth?
would the wind feel like a blanket pressed upon your face? would the sky feel gray and
blank? because up there you are so close, so close.
you can touch these strands of sky that are coming loose. and once you
pull, they furl around your neck and pull tighter. cut off your circulation.
squeeze your airway.
the seams of the clouds are ripping loose. the cumulus clouds they wrap around your head and suffocate you with mounds of cotton.

so tell me, young person, are you willing to risk it?
are you willing to have your air stolen from your lungs as you fly?
are you prepared for the sky to go colourless?
are you ready to get let down?
yes? well, then perfect, child.
you are well-prepared for the world.

say what you need to say

So, here is a little post for you, Suzy!
I volunteer at a Languages School to help them with their administrative work. Mainly it's just paperwork, but the part I love most is getting to go into different classes and just helping and talking with the kids there.
Today, I went into the grade 1-2 Mandarin room, and started talking to the kids there. I don't understand, nor do I speak that particular dialect of Chinese, so I just talked in English.
One of the kids there, a seven-year old girl, warmed up to me for the first time. She was fascinated by my necklace (a golden pendant attached to a piece of string) and proceeded to laugh at herself and her friend in the reflection. "Hey! I look heart-shaped!"
Usually she's off running with her friends, and as much as I love these kids and try so hard to encourage their creativity, I need to maintain a teacher-student relationship, not a friend-to-friend one. Therefore, the most interaction I usually get with her is: "Okay, come on. Stop running around, you're supposed to be doing your homework! Your parents enrolled you in this because they want you to learn!"
Today, for some reason, they were already settled down when I came in to help, so after she played with my necklace, I decided to sit down with her and talk to her. Rather than talking to a bunch of people at a time, my introvert personality likes getting to know each person I interact with, thoroughly; therefore, I like concentrating on one person and getting to know them better.
She and her friend were colouring in a bunch of Easter eggs on a little scrapbook. I asked them about their Easters, they bragged about their egg hunts and how many eggs they found.
I asked her whether I could help her and draw some decorative Easter eggs for her, and she nodded brightly.
I sat down to draw some Easter eggs and I found myself out of ideas. I had not decorated Easter eggs in years, and when I realized that I hadn't participated in one of my previously favourite activities, in a LONG TIME, I was startled. The seven-year old, who was now working on an art project for the class, noticed and began instructing me.
"Just do whatever you want. Imagine, think. How about a couple of stars, a couple of hearts? What about squiggles like mine here?" She flipped to a page in her scrapbook where a bunch of Easter eggs beamed brilliantly at me.

i have to do this

I see myself trying to convince myself that I should take a break. That I've been working on something too long when I haven't been.
I must push myself to work harder.

Right now, staring off into space and thinking about other things IS NOT GOING TO HELP ME.

I have to concentrate. Why do I have such little self-control? Why am I not able to regulate my behaviour? Why is it that there seem to be so few hours in a day? There aren't. I just don't use them to their full potential.
GET BACK ON TRACK, JENNIFER.

Why are you making excuses for yourself? Your excuses make no sense to anyone but you.
Everyone else is so disciplined. And you're not.

Get back on f**king track.

Stop this bullsh*t. Go.

gonna make it count

For 2011, I made a bunch of resolutions to myself. One very vital one was to stop procrastinating/concentrate on my schoolwork. It was one I kept for a pretty long time (in comparison to resolutions of years past, when I would repeat my resolutions like a mantra and end up doing the forbidden actions anyway), and also something that I just simply had to do because I couldn't afford not to. I had a wrist injury early 2011, and that meant more doctor's visits, more physiotherapy--which in turn made me a tired grumpy old lady. However, by April, these resolutions I repeated to myself when doing anything not schoolwork related, have worn off. I have to make promises to myself. To people. Other people. I can't let myself let down others, but I can certainly let down myself. So today, I promised one of my bestest friends, Suzy, something. I promised her that I would stay away from Facebook from now until all my exams are OVER, I promised her that the only time I would go on was to check my messages with my group members for projects. I promised her that I wouldn't go on Tumblr until I was done all my homework (I was reluctant on this one). I promised her that Youtube would not be a regular tab on my computer any longer. In turn, she promised me to work harder. To avoid Facebook like the flu. To stay away from Youtube unless she was done all her work. To stop baking when she was supposed to be doing schoolwork. I need to step up my game.
I need to discipline myself. But we all know how hard it is to tear ourselves away from the computer.

Childhood,.

Because I promised one of my bestest besties to post about Toy Story, I guess i'll do it today! I am a huge, huge Disney fanatic. I love the animated smiles of characters, the fluid movements by which they move, the process in which stories are drawn and put together to create a little bit of magic in our lives. The collaboration between Disney and Pixar for Toy Story 3 was one of the best I have ever seen. The people of Pixar really know how to make people cry! I rarely watch romantic comedies, and I mostly watch action or horror, but honestly, I have watched and obsessed about all Pixar movies (except for Wall-E, I still have to watch that one) and I am in love with their artwork, their storylines, and their way of making people nostalgic.
I watched Toy Story 3 in the summer of 2010 with one of my best friends, Kyleen. It cost about $16 CAD, so we were apprehensive about watching a movie in 3D. However, the price we paid for the movie was totally worth it, as was the fact that my 3D glasses were too big for my nose and kept slipping down. Toy Story 3 quickly became one of our inside jokes and a symbol for our friendship.
The morals of the story are so cheesy, but they mean something. Toy Story tells kids of the importance of friendship and of loyalty. It teaches, without preaching, that life is full of difficulties and hard decisions, and that the best decisions involve doing the right thing, not always what you think you want.
Toy Story 3 voices the imagination of my childhood years--that behind my back, my toys and furniture moved and talked in their own language, that they had emotions and feelings. I love that Pixar movies still promote playing with toys rather than with electronics.
I feel that imagination and storytelling is a huge part of childhood, and with the never-ending bombardment of media and the pressure to grow up, and quickly, children aren't getting the right education on morals and how to live and be a kid and to really treasure it. So yes, I recommend you to watch it.
I recommend you to revisit your childhood for a day. Watch Looney Tunes. Forget your worries, if only for a few hours. Make castles in sandboxes. Skip down school hallways with your friends. Reminisce about simpler times.
Explore how you felt as a kid, the ecstasy and euphoria you felt when discovering the world. Notice the veins on every leaf. Notice the small flower that's finally growing your front yard. When you return to the burdens of your adult/teenage life again, take one thing you learned from childhood with you: remember the small things that make you happy.

trait #1

Just so you wonderful lot get to know me better, (this is, if you'd like to) I'm going to post a picture that explains one trait of my personality very well.

If anything, the first thing people don't really get to know about me is that I am probably the only kid in the whole world to laugh at puns. I love lame jokes. Punny jokes get me. They hit my funny bone directly, and I'm usually the one left guffawing helplessly while everyone else looks away and pretends they don't know me. For example, my favourite joke speaks of the man and a bar.

"The man walked into a bar. Ouch."

Isn't that hilarious? When I first found this joke, I laughed at the computer until I was in tears.

"I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger-then it hit me." I chuckled there.

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." (Get it? Fruit flies? Hahahaahahah. That was meant for you and your science summative, Kyleen.)

People roll their eyes but I am constantly in awe of their wit. It's not just trashy comedy where references to the human body are made every five minutes.

They're not bawdy jokes. It's well-thought-out and intelligent. At least, to me.

It's not okay.

        You know what I hate? When people say, "That's so gay."
        Yep. Hate it. So much.

        They're using a term used to describe the sexual orientation of a person, as an insult. What kind of insult is that? What are you trying to say? 

I believe that God made us all equal. Yes, I am religious, and my interpretation of the Bible is that God loves everyone. God loves the good, the bad, the kind, the evil, the straight, the gay. God made them homosexual/bisexual, and in a predominantly-heterosexual society, what we should be doing is helping them, not condemning them. Many people may contradict that, but think about it. God made us all the way we are. He gave us free choice, He gave us a chance. These people were born this way (haha, I love the song). Who are you to judge them for it? The one time I used that phrase was when I was friends with people who easily influenced me. I felt wrong, unnatural. I felt like I was hurting people for using that word as an insult. I just can't say derogatory words that are aimed to certain group of people. Thank goodness I'm not friends with those people anymore.

                  Another thing I really hate is when people say "tolerance" when referring to sexual orientation, racism, sexism, etc.

concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

I love the city. The sprawling sky limited by the tops of buildings; the rush of the cars as they sweep by your feet; the exhilarating thrill of the streets, dotted with lights in the fall evenings; the boarded up shops and tiny boutiques where beauty can be found; they all excite me, make me happy. That being said, I live in the suburbs of a big city. After all, who else could maintain such an unhealthy love for the city and its beauty?

I love walking around dressed in all-black, smiling at strangers and spontaneously bursting into a random art gallery and thumbing through their catalogues. I love washing my fingers in those bowls of lemon-water and shovelling crepe-yumminess into my mouth. I love the bustling markets and the smell of food from the vendors ardently calling out their goods, comparing their prices to stalls behind them. I love the loneliness of the harbourfront, how artists and tourists alike sit and stare out into the water as if finding the meaning of life there. I love the subway and its echoes and how you're just surrounded with people who have their own lives, their own way of doing things. It makes me want to learn from all of them. It makes me want to sit down and interview them, talk with them about their lives, become their friends. The previous sentence makes me sound creepy.

Your songs remind me of swimming.

I find the mentality of a parkour and the physicality so beautiful. Free-runners think about movement and speed and how to get from one place to another by changing the route, making everything, every object, relative to what they're doing. They beautify their lives by considering everything as something of importance to them. They think in terms of art--what can I do better? What can I fix, what can I do to change up my life?

I find it so inspiring--the thought that goes into planning, however spontaneously; the defiance of the general public; the consideration of using everything in front of them; the knowledge that others will stare, and not being afraid of it. I find them so amazing and brave.

Parkour is something I wish to try over the summer. Oh, I have so many things I wanna try! Too little time, and not enough connections to try.
Maybe I'll go to a parkour park. Hehe, I just said parkour park.
Yes I am lame. Get used to it ;)
thanks for reading, lovelies!

Let's begin!

Hi, my name is Jennifer and I'm a little Torontonian girl. (Oh, and I'm in high school. I'm just quite short compared to my friends. I'm like five two, they're like five six, five seven. I have yet to grow.)

I don't have a use for this particular blog, unlike my friends, but I just like writing a whole lot, and I guess I'll do some of my writing here. So I guess I'll introduce myself to you (basically non-existent, I bet) readers out there!

I love many many things about life. I love living. I love experiencing and hoping and dreaming. I am an pessimistic optimist and I try so hard to be happy about life. I know the tragedy life can bring you, but there is so much sadness that it is vital to know that optimism isn't naivety. It's not pretending everything is great and beautiful and good. It's looking fear and darkness in the eye and saying, "You don't scare me. I can get over whatever is hurting me. I deserve better. I can make it through." It's saying we know that life is so incredibly sad. We know that life is anger and rage and imperfection and horrible deeds, and yet we have to note the good things. And yet there is beauty to be acknowledged. Love the little things. Live one day at a time.

I know the beautiful things that surround me and I am intrigued at everything around me. I wish life were something tangible, like jelly (ooh, I love jelly) and that I could just delve inside, step inside and let it devour me completely. I try to think about every little piece of life, not only about what touches me personally.

So yeah! I'll be posting stuff/substance/things that intrigue me, interest me, provoke me, as well as my loves and hates and dislikes and thoughts and rants and other sappy stuff!
Thanks for reading! (: